Dan Harrell’s Weblog

Ok, I admit it, that next to my intense hatred of shoveling snow all winter, I really hate mosquitoes. I toy with the idea of letting everything that lives, live. Spiders, snakes, skunks, the neighbor’s dog, and even Japanese Beetles but I draw the line with those little pests that sneak around and find that little patch of exposed skin and then, well you know the rest.

We have a surplus of rain this year and now with the warm weather, and all the water that’s been standing, we have mosquitoes in droves. They start in the morning and never quit. So taking Strider the wonder dog out is a chore I try to have my wife take care of, while I stay in the house in the AC.

Since she’s off at one of her “parties” again, I think Longaberger this time, I have no one to foist this off on, so I decide a little protection is in order. I pull on a pair of sweat pants over my shorts; then I put on a White Sox World Championship cap and then my green rain jacket, the one with the hood.

I have no idea what the neighbors must have thought, but here I am schlepping along with my hands in the coat pockets clutching the hood over my hat and waiting for the dog to do SOMETHING. LIKE NOW!!

She checks out every blade of grass with no thought of doing anything of substance. Soon we are back in the house, me writing on the blog, her staring out the front window, waiting for Deb to come home and take her out.

And so my evening goes. What a wonderful life.

It’s a crazy world out there.

Have you every seen such fixation on petty faults and the microscopic inspection of every utterance and syllable spoken by not only the candidate and anyone around him. If you are an Obama supporter do you really can about Jessie Jackson’s comment about Obama’s black nuts? I mean, for that matter, you can go to a web site and buy Obama’s black nuts and black balls. And the tee shirt too! How hysterical is that? Do we care about Bernie Mac either? Just how relevant would these guys be if they weren’t black? I don’t believe that Jessie Jackson is relevant in any fashion, function or setting. The sun has set on his importance in any matter.

The democrats seem to have this ability to self destruct. But of course, without the media, how would we know? The fossil running for the Republicans should not be elected but should be bronzed.

I can say without equivocation that the last time the election actually had anything to do with the politicians representing the people who elected them was perhaps when Reagan was elected.

Where are the term limits for every elected official and the limit on the time before an election that money can be raised and spent on electioneering? Let’s have just one political party and elect the best man. No posturing about platforms or focus groups, just the best man elected out of a pre-determined number.

I have given up on my hope that true election reforms would be enacted and that the majority of people would control the policies and programs of those elected to serve them. Where is the “good” example in any of this? Shouting each other down, talking over the other person. If you want a sample you only need to watch any of the Sunday morning political shows on TV.

So I’m about to put the newspaper on vacation and stop watching the news or listing to it on the morning radio until next February. I’ve got my candidate picked out and unless he dies or in caught in a dress in a gay relationship, I’m going to vote for him. And I might still ignore everything except the death thing.

What about you?

I recall my grandparents talking about the great depression. It wasn’t as if they suffered, as so many did. Gramps always had a good job and was able to put food on the table. But it was the sight of so many others that suffered the loss of homes and dignity that shaped their values forever.

My grandfather also remembered the First World War as did my grandmother, probably because her step father served in France and was blessed to return safe and sound. The war to end all war it was called. Those that came home from that first global conflict were profoundly affected by the taste and sights of war.

My Dad was in the Marines for a time in World War Two, the last Great War they called it. He was discharged for medical reasons and didn’t go overseas. My parents remember all too well the rationing and sacrifices, but seldom spoke of it to us. Blackouts were mandatory for security in every town. Shortages were common for even basic foods like sugar and meat. Women painted black lines on the back of their legs to make it look like they were wearing stockings because silk was an Asian commodity and there was a war on. The man who stood up for my parents in 1940 was killed by a land mine just after the war ended on some lonely Pacific island. Mac was Dad’s best friend.

I know my parents and grandparents had dreams they put on hold during the wars. Their dreams were nothing like ours today. They didn’t obsess over health or stuff. They were happy at times with new tires for the car and being able to get meat once in a while during the hardship forties. They valued family and gathered as a family at every opportunity.

For my generation, I imagine some dreams died on November 22, 1963, on that grassy hillock in Dallas or maybe it was on September 11, 2001 in New York when thousands died in a very public way.

The recent floods and tornadoes had a calamitous effect on the hopes and dreams of thousands in Iowa and Wisconsin. Some folks will never recover from the shock of losing everything.

I wonder sometimes if my mom and dad ever had dreams about the simple stuff of life. The dreams of typical teenagers or young adults? I remember finding a diary my mom had when she was in her teens. It told about how in love she was with a boy named Chick. How many boys or for that matter girls named Chick do you know today? So I imagine they all went through times when they dreamed of life and love, happiness and family. Were their dreams unrealistic too? I know the backbone of their lives were their friends and being together.

There is a time in everyone’s life when you stop putting your dreams on hold or pushing them to the future and realize that some dreams are just not going to happen. That head slapping moments comes at different times in each life. Part of this realization comes when we finally decide that the hopes and dreams of our parents for us do not require our blind faith and robot like completion for our happiness to follow.

For instance, I dreamed of owning a motor home and traveling the country in retirement. I could buy a dozen right now for a song, but I doubt I could afford the gasoline to go very far for very long. I had a lot of dreams so far in my live. Some came true and some didn’t, and as it’s often said, be careful of what you wish for, it may come true.

I dreamed about being a husband and a father. I dreamed about a career with a title and an office. I had aspirations of being a priest at one time, yes, yes, before the husband and father thing. That’s one that probably falls into the column of dreamed but by the grace of God, didn’t happen.

Lately I’m starting to realize the difference between dreams and having vision. Let me explain. I dreamed about being married, but never was able to visualize it outside of the context of my parents and grandparents examples of marriage. Not really the best examples for me, as it turned out. I tried three times to make marriage work and but for the patience and dedication of my now wife, Deb, I’m not sure where I’d be today. My point is that another facet of life is looking down the road and seeing where you want to be in five years or so and then looking at how real those expectations are for you based on how well you do “life” now. Andy Stanley, a terrific pastor at North Point in Georgia, has a podcast download titled “Discovering God’s Will” that in my mind presents a good blue print for vision.

The premise is that God has given us guardrails in our life by his moral will (Thou shall and Thou shall not), providential will (God sending Jesus to us) and placing wise people in our life, that can counsel us. I won’t attempt to go into detail here as the podcast, in four parts, is well worth the time you spend listening to it, but at the end it speaks about a vision for your life.

Most of us become paralyzed by our decisions. Should we do this or that, go here or there, marry or not, and if we are honest, a lot of even small decisions do not work out as we intend, or very well for us. So what about the premise of visualizing your life as God, our maker, would see it for you?

Whatever your age or station in life, wouldn’t it be great to have the utmost confidence that your vision in life for your finances, relationships with family and friends, career, where you live and how you play, has a good chance of coming true. As Pastor Stanley says, to the extent your vision matches God’s plans for you, your options will become fewer and the decisions easier. If you and God decide on a plan, everything that supports it is a go; anything else is a no go.

The closer you are to living a life in the moral fabric that God’s desires for us, then the easier it may be for you to come up with that vision. I was surprised to hear most men of God admit that they have never heard the actual voice of God. Rather, it is clarity of vision and a certainty that our individual vision mirrors God’s will for our lives that produces calm acceptance and expectation of success. Think of God nudging us along with his word and with his love and grace.

I would suggest that dreams need not die, but need to be held up to the absolute certainty that God has a plan for us and the closer we come to matching that plan the sooner our dreams will become our vision.

Meanwhile, there are all those things that we dreamed but didn’t pan out. The Detroit Tigers winning the 2006 World Series. Finding out what happened to Janet Shell or Roger Johnson. Owning a Corvette. Looking a lot more like Robert Redford. Being not only smart but wise. 

And some dreams still on the list. Being a better father and grandfather. Being a better husband. Making a difference. Seeing Paris and Rome. Visiting Russia. Becoming a better friend and brother.

My hopes and dreams don’t seem too ambitious but they live in my heart.

For I am mindful of the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. You call upon me and come and pray to me, and I heed you. You seek Me and find Me: Now you seek Me with all your heart and I am at hand for you, says the Lord…
       - Jeremiah 29:11-14a; Matthew 7:7

God Bless.

Gas prices reach new highs in America. Home foreclosures at a new high. American Auto manufacturers in trouble because they don’t make the vehicles people want to buy. Steelworkers lose their pensions. Boat and RV dealers and manufacturers seeing a slump in sales. Hillary assures America that she supports Obama and that her criticisms were just words in the heat of battle.

You probably are asking how a comment about Hillary and Barack relates to the economy. My premise is that wanting it all has as much to do about economics as it does about politics.

It’s no secret that America has become a nation of consumers. We don’t fix much, and what still may work and have some value is replaced because it’s obsolete (in our minds). Now I think it’s great that Apple is bringing a new 3G phone to the market for $300, but how foolish would you feel if you had paid $700 or ever $600 for the old model that is now about as useful as a boat anchor? Remember that 1.7 million of those phones were sold. That’s a cool billion dollars spent for stuff that now has all the cache of bib overalls.

Another example of our out of control consumerism is the mortgage mess. Pair up people who want a life style with a churning mortgage loan market and add it to the greed of lending institutions for a bigger bottom line and you have disaster. I’ve seen some truly beautiful homes on the shores of Lake Michigan, but in my wildest imagination I never conceived of buying one.

Now I’m no stranger to techno lust. I’ve had my share of computers, pda devices, portable DVD viewers, walkmans, portable CD players and I have a two storage containers full of cords and what not, separated from the original devise and no earthly good, but I’ve got them anyway. I need an exit strategy for retirement and downsizing and perhaps at 63 I’m a tad late in visiting that subject.

It’s become so obvious that most of what we hear or read is designed to shape our opinions without offering a balanced analysis of the issues. Mark my words. In the general election we will see very little difference in the candidates approach to the issues, because after exhaustive surveys by both the Democrats and the Republicans, the issues are well known. Politicians will try to frame the issues differently, but what really shapes the election is how many southern red necks will vote for Obama. That is, unless Barack or Methuselah McCain make a major blunder like the sniper attack comment by Hillary. There will be a lot of election year talk and bills floated in Congress designed to garner votes for the incumbents, but nothing of substance will occur, just a lot of feel good rhetoric.

Why is it that we became a nation that is obsessed with our desires, whether it is the oval office or the IPhone? We will do almost anything to get what we want. We’ve put all civility and manners behind us in the political arena, pouncing on any remark, any minutia to gain advantage. We’ve mortgaged our future to have the latest and greatest toys and a showplace to exhibit them to a world that could care less about us.

John Ortberg put it so well when he talked about the game of life. When we die everything we own goes back in the box, like a game of monopoly. All the money, houses, cars and stuff becomes dust, just like us. Oh, I grant you that the kids and relatives may sort through the detritus and save some keepsakes, but most of the stuff that was dear to us in life will end up at the dump.

So, what is important? Is it stuff or people? Is it being a caring person, willing to accept people for who they are and where they are, including those miscreants called family? At my age you may think it’s easy to be philosophical about all of this, because I am sliding down the back side of life. But nothing I can say will truly describe my feelings about the wasted years worshiping the image of gold, 90 feet high and 9 feet wide, that another Daniel refused to bow to.

Frustration in life comes when we can’t control the little things that cause us stress. Until we realize, acknowledge and most importantly accept our lack of control, we will continue to value stuff more than people and have a full but empty life. Count on it.

We were required to read 1984 in high school. I didn’t care for it, and the analogy of big brother seemed far away in 1962. Of course, things have changed.

So it was with some surprise that after my last post I received a response from the Select Comfort Bed customer service department. Ian apologized for any problems with the bed and asked for additional information, which I supplied. It seems that the fix would require adding a foam pad to the bed below the air chambers to stabilize the level of the bed.

So with much joy I sent the required information and shortly received the foam panels. Deb and I disassembled the bed to the point where we could install the panels and then put everything back together per the instructions Deb and saved from our original purchase. Did I mention that Deb never throws anything away? But that’s a story for another time.

After putting the required amount of air in the chambers the bed was level and comfortable for both of us. So we decided that the fix works and we can eliminate one more thing off the list of aggravations everyone experiences in life. Well, not so fast.

Now two or three weeks into this I’m back to the same problem as before with my side sinking slowly. I’ve adjusted the air pressure to no avail. The underpinnings seem to be fine with slats hold the base level. The instructions were followed to a “T” (Deb was involved, need I say more).

I can’t wait for the next e mail from Ian. I’m reminded of Paul Newman’s line to Robert Redford. “Who are those guys”?

Pet Blogs, and why would anyone ever want to read about a pet. Well, according to what I read just now, thousands of people not only take the time to read about pets in blogs but thousands more write about their dogs, cats, horses and birds.

I have a pet dog. She is a cocker spaniel misnamed Strider, by a boy too young to know yet the subtle but critical difference between squatting and lifting a leg to pee.

Strider is a bundle of contradictions rolled up in an enigma. She can be sleeping on my lap and come instantly awake, leaping through the air with a bellow and growl in an instant. Because she extends her “territory” from our house and yard to an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, she barks a lot. Any one walking on the street be it man or beast, causes a fit of barking and growling until the threat moves on to another state. Her contradiction is a wagging tail and a fierce growl, never really knowing for sure if she wants to play with you or have you for dinner. Squirrels and chipmunks drive her crazy as do rabbits that hop through the fence, all of who she spies from her perch by the sliding glass door in the family room. When she goes outside she pauses at each hole in the ground to see if her arch enemies might be hiding there, just out of reach.

The winter brings a new set of challenges. She tries to sniff the trail of her fantasy playmates, but gets a snoot full of snow instead. For her, the snow can be too deep to squat properly, since like a stubby swimmer with too much water under her, her legs fail to reach solid ground, causing the snow to support her tummy and her legs to churn without traction.

When she first arrived I had hope that she and Gabby, our cat in residence, would co exist in detente and share the house. Soon I learned that Strider had driven Gabby to the basement. Lest you worry that Gabby has transmogrified into a mole, like those poor unfortunates in Verne’s Time Machine, she has free run of the house all night and during any work day, while Strider is in a crate in the office, peacefully sleeping away the day and resting her vocal cords.

I’d had pets before and for many years BS (Before Strider) I had struggled with dyspepsia, overcome by pet stories and people, supposedly adults, treating their pets like children. “Does Muffy want some cooked chicken?” “Is Muffy warm enough?” I mentally ridiculed these people as those substituting pets for children and lavishing attention and affection on dumb animals. Critters, I was sure, that were incapable of returning love or even understanding the concept. What a waste to time and energy.

Then I read a quote, I think by Mark Twain that said something to the effect that if dogs don’t go to heaven, when he died he wanted to go where they go. Hmmm, is there something to that or not?

For all her excess barking Strider has one or two qualities that amaze me. I can be gone for hours, days or a week, or as long as it takes to go put the garbage in the can, and I am welcomed back like a war hero home from the front. Tail wagging and excitement that exceeds all understanding. She gazes at me as I speak as if she thinks “Wow, he is just brilliant”.

Unconditional love seems the unique province between man and dog. Cats are haughty, and fish are impossible to train on a leash. Horses can’t sit on my lap and so it goes. Dogs as everyone knows, wipe the slate clean every night and wake up as if the new day was the first with you. What joy they show when you take time to be with them.

So let this be my confession that I have joined those “pet lovers” who make a fool of themselves over their pets. Semper Growl!

Bedtime Stories

I’ve had it with my bed. It’s a sleep number job I’ve had for about five years. The cost figured per year has to be phenomenal, since it cost new something like three grand or so, and it needed special sheets. I figured it must be a great bed if it needs special sheets. Right?

Now my wife, the saint that she is, only rolled her eyes once or twice when she heard the price. OMG, three grand? In fact I just went to the web site and our bed would cost $3,700 today. They suck you in at the store by having you lay (lie?lay?) on various beds and after all of five minutes, ask you how you feel. I say, give me eight hours and I can tell you how I feel. So we move from bed to bed and finally end up with the most expensive bed and some extra stuff. My usual routine, of course.

We buzzed through the 30 day trial period without a pause and settled in for years of enjoyment. How cool to adjust the sleep number all the time and go from lying on something that sags like a sponge to something that feels like sleeping on rocks.

Then, about three years ago the bed started to list to one side. No, not my side, but where my wife sleeps. It wasn’t anything we could really see, but as time went by, the list became more pronounced. Think of sleeping on a teeter totter. In the up position. Anyway, I finally called the store or factory and said I needed new parts. We had moved a mattress and box springs into the bed frame and discovered that some of the plastic parts were broken. PLASTIC??? THREE GRAND??? OMG!

I figured that if the bed was anything like a car, the parts would be far more expensive when added together than the total cost to buy the bed.

I was surprised when Tipsy, or Tootsie, told me that there was a factory recall and the broken parts would be replaced free of charge. Outstanding! Then I thought, “we had broken parts”? Who knew?

Soon, two enormous boxes arrived. My wife, knowing me as she does, decided to have Sebastian, our German exchange student, help her with putting it together. Deb and I together doing something never works out well. I expect her to read my mind, and she tries, but says all she sees is a blank page.

So within a matter of days, we were back into our luxury bed, ready for some rest.

At some point, maybe last May, Deb needed to be in a different bedroom, so into the brass bedroom she went, taking Strider the wonder dog with her and leaving me with Gabby, the cat. I’m thinking, at the time, that being alone isn’t too bad and I don’t have to worry about anything keeping me awake or waking me at night. I can snore or watch TV or anything. Especially anything.

The problem is that at some point the bed started to sag in the middle. Pretty soon it was like sleeping in a hole. Deb joined me a couple of times and we would start on the edges and end up facing each other in the hole, with our noses pressed together.

We took the bed apart, but everything seemed to be in place and sound. So what to do? I hate to admit I made a bad decision that cost real money. Again.

Somehow I need to come up with an excuse to get a new bed that doesn’t involve admitting to a bad financial decision by me. Maybe I can quote some scientific article that says that air chambers in beds cause tooth decay, or mange or something like that. Let me have your thoughts on that, will you?

Dan

The Chicago Tribune newspaper is my morning companion. Along with a cup of coffee, I start with the sports section to see which local team is self destructing and move then to the comics and the weather. I save the front section and the business section for the train ride home.

Item. “Board Member is out as Obama delegate”. Linda Sliwinski was cited for violating a village ordinance after a neighbor called police to complain about her use of the work “monkeys” in admonishing two boys who were climbing a tree. Monkeys climb in trees, don’t they? Discuss. When I was little my father would use the word monkey to describe me, but there were other colorful adjectives attached. What have we come to that we have an ordinance covering the use of the word monkey.

Item. “Women with sword wounded by cops”. This happened about six miles from where I live. It seems a 54-year-old woman was shot in the collar bone and butt when she allegedly attempted to attack police officers with a 3-foot-sword. Taking a knife, even a big one, to a gun fight is never a good idea. Discuss.

What happened to personal grace? I’m wondering why someone would call the police and then incredibly, the police would issue a ticket for someone calling boys climbing a tree a monkey. Being insulted when I was young came with the territory. We had nicknames. Shorty, butch, stinky, slats, pinhead (my grandmothers favorite for me) and they were used interchangeably with Mick, Dago, Kraut,Wop, and Kike. Girls had cooties too, but somehow both the boys and girls survived and grew into mature adults. When is the last time you heard someone called a Mick? I ask you, is this something we should be concerned with? Is it on the same plane as a level orange terror alert?

I remember hearing the story of Job for the first time. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Personal accountability is available to everyone but is rarely practiced. And yet they continue to fill every law school class. It’s the one area of our economy that seems to be recession proof.

That leads me to the current mess in the economy and the political arena.

The problem with the economy is greed. Not corporate greed, but a dark insidious greed practiced by the person you see in the mirror every day. We have, as a country, moved to where Carl Icahn can break up a company like Motorola because he wants to make money from the transaction, not because it will benefit the workers or even the shareholders. We’ve decided two incomes, a summer place on the lake, a bigger car, personal watercraft, designer clothes and a stupendous retirement income are more important than how we acquire them. What happened to ethics? When seven of ten people in the world will go to bed hungry tonight, something is wrong with us.

When people decide, based on their experience, that Christians are not authentic and are hypocrites, they describe a malaise that affects everyone. When is the last time you had a meaningful conversation with anyone. Most people would admit they don’t  even have a best friend, so who would you choose as a conversation partner? A monkey?

Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton are terrific people. They are electable, as they have shown, and full of charisma. Obama is my choice for the nomination, but I have to wonder how effective he can be in Washington, the land of living fossils. I remember another good guy, Jimmy Carter, who came to Washington full of promise as an outsider and a principled man. The power structure, the living fossils, ran him out of town in one term. Most of the time he seemed to be led by others rather than being a leader. Can anyone be effective as president and also be electable? The presidential race features three senators. Something is wrong with this picture. And I predict that whoever is elected will become as vilified as George Bush after a suitable honeymoon.

So this is where the lie begins. It begins with me. I’ll continue to believe that people will take responsibility for their actions  and that companies like Kmart and Motorola, and so many others,  will realize that people are their most important resource and embrace them. I’ll try to believe, against all proof to the contrary, that politicians will realize that they represent those who vote for them, not their self interest, and act accordingly.  

Just call me Mick.

Hello everyone,

Kathi, my eldest daughter, called just now to tell me her step father, Danny, passed away today. He was the Danny we mentioned in several of the blog entries. He was in his 50’s, and was married over 25 years to Marge. He developed cancer several months ago and battled it bravely until it took his life today. Danny had been close to Kathi and her sister Kris for all these years, bringing a calm humor to most situations. He was very special to his grandchildren too.

Our sympathy to Marge and certainly our prayers, but I know, as do all of you, that now his suffering is over, and he has entered the loving embrace of our Heavenly Father in a place where sorrow and hurt doesn’t exist.

Please continue to pray for Marge, Kathi and Kris and they come to grips with losing their father and husband.

Deb went to the surgeon yesterday. Everything looks good on both sides and she will see Dr. C. in three months.

We have transitioned to the survivor mode. Treatment is over and now we start to monitor for developments. Every hour, day, week and month that goes by increases the chance that Deb will survive to live to a ripe older age.

Please take the time to pray for all those with cancer. Those without faces to us, but very vivid to their care givers, parents, brothers, sisters and children who live in the constant fear that their loved one will become a statistic on the negative side of life’s ledger, as Danny did today.

There is an empty chair at the table, the phone rings, and for a moment you think he will answer for you, but no, he’s not there anymore. The dog is sad too; you can see it in her posture. She mopes around and looks for him. She watches the door, waiting for the sound of the garage door, the sound of the key in the lock, and his smile. You wake up and for a moment you forget, but then the empty bed reminds you, he’s not there. So you try to go on, planning dinners and vacations for one. You read a good story in a magazine and start to tell him about it, but suddenly remember he isn’t there. Still. Times goes on but so does the hurt and the loneliness. A reminder every day, sometimes every hour, that your life has changed, been ripped to shreds and put back together with so many pieces missing or in the wrong spot by someone with an absurd sense of humor.Time goes on and dulls the pain, but you start to dread every holiday. His birthday, your anniversary, and the date he died, bring a renewal of the pain, not just on that day, but for days and weeks before and after. Staying in your pajamas until noon. Why bother dressing? For whom shall you dress? Cereal for dinner. Why cook? The overwhelming sense of fatigue and hopelessness. Every day. Will this never end?

And then the sun comes out. You wake one morning and life feels different. Sure there are lots of reminders, but somehow they seem less pointed then before. You decide to re-engage with your friends and family. Perhaps a trip or joining a seniors group, taking a class.

It won’t happen overnight, but it will get better. Count on it.

Why can’t we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn’t work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos. ~Charles M. Schulz

Indeed!

Dan

My cousin Jerry is a direct guy. Recently he asked my brother Dennis where his group of nut cases met each week, to decide which idiot e mails they were going to next pass around the internet. What set Jerry off was the one about not buying any gas from Citgo because Cesar Chevez is a bad hombre and we’re going to put him out of business. Now I agree the El Presidente needs to be taken behind the woodshed and taught some manners, but boycotting Citgo will only put financial pressure on station operators who, like all of us, have too little money and too much month to spend it in.  Lots of people pass along stories like this, without giving the content a second thought. Stories about little girls dying after being yelled at by her father for wasting expensive wrapping paper. Where the punch line follows when the little girl, who presents a mental image of Shirley Temple, tells her day that the box is full of kisses for him.  There are the stories that end with an admonition to pass it along to ten thousand people within 10 seconds for good luck or your dog will die a horrible death.  Personal correspondence used to have great meaning. Before using your Mont Blanc fountain pen to write to someone, you thought about what you were going to say and then either used a written outline or carefully composed one mentally. You would choose certain words for their meaning and style. Penmanship was important and so was spelling. One would hardly just start writing without a plan any more than you would first think about using a parachute after jumping from the plane.  So what’s happened to all the baby boomers that were trained by the Penguins at Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt Catholic School in the Palmer method? Where has all the knowledge gained from years of spelling tests and tracing letters gone? And most importantly, why would people, most of whom have an IQ over 60, send such drivel to so many people in their address book without a second thought. No reason in their minds to check to see if the premise of the note is valid or even interesting, just pass it along I guess, and see what happens. And certainly there is no reason to remove the six pages of prior recipients, just hit forward and spew trash into everyone’s mailbox.  There are lots of good reasons to use the internet. Certainly the ease of communication over great distances instantly is a great benefit.  So my question is why would someone affix their name to something of such poor quality and then be known by what then pass along to their friends. I can’t imagine why.