Boys Town Nebraska plus Hart

Well today is the highlights of my Marine Reunion in Omaha Nebraska. First and foremost I was touched by Father Flanigan's founding and still operating city of Boys Town Nebraska.....Gosh what a place and they took the time to welcome the Marines of 3002 as we entered the History building there. It is a great place open to girls now too by the way. I was impressed by the layout of the city. The homes the kids stay in along a tree lined street there are large homes on each side...Well kept with the host couples name on a plague in front of the house...A host couple can have their own children also but they then take care of maybe 6 to 8 of these at risk children helping them recover and return to their original inviroment if it is safe for them to do so. Average stay at Boys town now is 18 months they told us. Focus has changed from homeless boys to problem boys and girls that need structure in thier lifes to help them catch on to what they are missing..A nice high school and grade school on campus there..About 1200 acres in the Middle of Omaha now but not part of...They are their own city with fire and police the whole 9 yards.

We were fortunate to eat lunch with the priest that heads up boys town now and also 8 boys and a girl who were then sworn in as boys towns newest citizens. They all were asked to give their names and the 3 things they like about boys town so far. Also the 3 goals they have for their stay there at boys town...then the priest ask each what has been the worst thing to happen to them since arriving in the last week or two...Lots of answers but one small boy said missing his family...A good sign I think and probably his goal will be to get help and then return there someday. I think I will become a Boys Town supporter in days ahead. One of my fellow Marines from Boot Camp Wayne Hart told me as we were arriving for our tour that he has supported boys town all his life...

I want to tell you a little more about this fine young man now as I have posted his picture to the right. He is a grand story teller...I find myself totally captured by his tales of the Marine Corps, wild experiences while on liberty from the Marines or just "Wayne's life" in general...He is a great story teller that you just can not tune out...If Wayne is speaking most folks are listening..I know I am I find myself even if he is not talking to me listening to these tales...Hell he may rival Garrison Keiler in my book, I get lost when both start a story.

One more thing about Wayne Hart...About our second or third week at Marine Recruit Depot San Diego I think the Drill Instructor Sgt. Thurmond as we were preparing for bed time asked if we had any singers in this pathetic bunch of beady eyed misfits?

Well Hart of Lanesboro Iowa, raised his hand and said, "Yes Sir, I can sing"...Thurmond then said well get your sorry ass up here Hart...So Wayne clad in his skivvy drawers (boxer undies) and shower shoes as was the rest of us there standing in formation. He said what can you sing Hart? Wayne said I like to sing "Courtin in the Rain" Sir....

Well after that at least a half dozen times or more on Sunday evening he would call him out..He would say "old man Wayne Hart, get up here and sing us that stupid song again"...Hart would do it, with all his heart...he knew it so well and we all kind of enjoyed it..with no radio's TV's or candy bars or ice cream or nothing, hey Hart was our "headliner", he was our concert so better than nothing we listened to all the corny verses of that song....When we held our 50th reunion in San Diego in 2006 he agreed to sing it to us one more time..But he said Jack I have forgotten the words...Marines love challenges even Marine wifes guess it kinda rubs off...anyway Lois Paulson's daughter found it on ebay in an old country antique magazine...cost us and arm and a leg but the objective was taken, we had our song and we had our singer....he did it again for us Friday night at the 52nd and I for one am looking forward to hearing it "one more time in 2010" when we gather again in Washington DC...over and out for now, I gotta mow my lawn, oh and one more minor point. Today I am 69 years and 12 months old..on this day in 1938 a golden child was born to Lawrence and Lena Lahrman, one they actually planned I always say, the first seven of course were accidents...But any way I hope you get my drift here next year I will be 69 and 24 months...

Manilla Iowa and Here is the Beef

IN 1956 when I enlisted I landed in a Platoon that of the 75 members 52 were from Iowa...6 were from Manilla, and one of those was my buddy Roger Conrad and his buddy Dale who once let my wife and I park our RV in his driveway...Roger was a member of the famous 5th Marines...bad ass Marine Regiment that can when given the word, go in and break things and kill people...Anyway Roger the retired Post Master of sleepy Manilla drinks coffee with these farmers in the bowling alley right there in Downtown Manilla. I met all of these guys, would be proud to call all of them my freinds...Farmers for the most part, smart farmers, hillside farmers, and I think hard working and successful...I love the farmland topography of western Iowa...Eastern Iowa starts out flat like Illinois but quickly starts to "roll" and after Des Moines not only rolls but terraces and contour most likely no till farmers are needed...No wonder the yields are high with slopes like that, there has to be extra acres of ground compared to flat lands...you flatten this state out and it would bleed over into South Dakota, Nebraska and maybe Minnesota...so with rich deep soils like that,we look with envy at the yeilds reported there each year....Yes I think I have figured it out there has to be 1.2 acres in almost every acre of Iowa farm land.

All kiding aside, I have been to Manilla now twice and I do like this little town, nothing much going on except people keeping their town clean, minding their own business and playing golf, and drinking coffee, and one other thing raising big watermelons....Last time there I picked a 38 pound melon in the Conrad garden on the west side of town...As soon as I snapped it off the vine, Roger said, "that sucker had better be ripe as Joleen has been eyeing that one all summer"....Lucky for me it was and we all had a slice...But this year probably upon Joleens orders we circled the garden in Rogers car...I noticed the door locks going down as we approached the garden...we did not even slow up much we circled the garden and he said there is my melons, we were going pretty fast but I think I may have spotted a half dozen nice ones sticking out above the vines...It would have been nice to thump a couple but I guess we were in a hurry to get back to the house and get me checked into my room in the Conrad Hilton/Manilla....

OK second pic down is of one pen of many of Dan's beef cattle...Raised on waste products of ethanol production....The more I think about this the more confident I become in the "long haul" of our nations ethanol initiative that we have launched...

Back home in Indiana from my Marine reunion in Omaha/Council Bluffs area...Lost 9 bucks in the new horseshoe casino there in Council Bluffs Iowa...Figured out the second day, by staying away and doing other things like lying in the bath tub warm pool, I was able to keep my losses very low....and exercising my mending knee and not my arm on those machines...Crops are good all the way from my farm to western Iowa and back, but for the first time since I farmed my lawn never browned one time..The year could not have been more perfect even recieving over an inch while I was gone....I think West Central Indiana is without a doubt the garden spot of the nation in 2008....Never have been able to say it before, and maybe never again so maybe I will be heard to say it a time or two before this year passes us by....Some of Indiana has been blessed this year...We have a license plate you know that boldly states "IN GOD WE TRUST", maybe well just maybe the ACLU does not really appreciate our license plates nor our good crops that the GOD they seem to want to disprove has blessed us with...But this farmer does......

Talkin Energy

In Omaha Nebraska for a Marine Reunion but need to visit our nations energy needs today and hold the Semper Fi's for later maybe...On the way from home I did not get far north and I came to the new wind turbines around Fowler and Earl Park...I was struck by how MAJESTIC they look or at least I think so...Maybe because I am excited about these huge turbines and what they will do for our nation...I agree with Mr. Pickens we need them bad have for years. Did not see any in Illinois the route I took but a few are showing up also in Iowa...Matter of fact the ridge in western Iowa is where they are really popping up it is the continental divide where it is high enought that the water flows to the east or it and to the west of it..So being a high ridge you just know the winds will blow and make us some much needed energy...
Good deal Lucile, bring it on, anything to stop the burning of crude oil to generate electricity...well ok not stop it but lower it a tremendous amount...I called the Tipmont manager Mr. Ritchie a couple years ago and told him I would like to look into wind turbines for my farm and he quickly told me that they would not be buying energy from me...That they were under contract to purchase from a supplier and was not interested...Attitudes like this are changing even a little for Mr. Ritchie but he is still not there...But attitudes do need to change and will we will all see to that...

The top pick is Dan the cattle rancher I met in Manilla Iowa coffee shop and will write about Manilla more later but he interested me a lot when he told me that he was feeding a lot of cattle and feed them cheap with products from the ethanol plant in Denison Iowa. Roger Conrad the owner of the Conrad Hilton I stayed in there in sleepy Manilla Iowa well we followed Dan out to the cattle feed lots and watch them weigh and sort the cattle for an hour maybe...But what really interested me is the by products of our ethanol industry being desired and used up to the benefit of farmers and in turn to the nation...I see now that ethanol production will still produce a lot of diary and beef production..And so a benefit of ethanol usage could in turn be cheap feed and then also cheap beef and diary for the nation...the corn in other words that goes to ethanol just does not drop off the face of the earth...It is utilized and that is all good ...So that is it for now I have to rush but energy for our nation other than making the arabs rich is being addressed it is happening and I say "good on us"....

Off to visit Father Flanigans Boys (and girls) town here today maybe a blog subject some day the list is getting long...Good gosh the boys in the coffed shop, the Marines of 3002 a lot of people are waiting to be famous...be patient out there..ha

Marine Week and Carp

Hard to mix Marines an Carp. But it can be done, will show you how, and we will just get the carp out of the way first. This blog is about hero's and even Carp can be hero's if they are eating the algae and moss in my pond. The third picture down shows my release of 5 new pretty large grass carp into my pond last tuesday. I quit using chemicals on my pond about 4 years back...By hook or by crook I want to make my pond a beautiful place but not with chemicals...These guys can do it if I can keep the cranes from eating them...It was not an hour after I added my new hero's to the pond and there was a huge crane probably capable of swollowing them standing at the entrance to my dock...I lost my head and aimed my 12 guage at him and let go with a load of double 00 buckshot...he flew away but my garden hose coiled on the dock behind him did not...it became a fountain with water spraying into the air...I had plugged it with 4 nice holes and some other of the shot was buried into the poles on the dock...that is one lucky crane...he has not been back...he knows Jack likes his pond and likes his hero's....

Second picture down is two other even more important hero's...Randy and Patty Kington enjoying the visit to Battle Ground Indiana where the battle of Tippecanoe took place...Where Gen Harrison with 913 men camped on the "high ground" one night in 1811, not far from the Indian village that ran for two miles along the bluff over looking the wabash river..The rest is history visit the battle field for the rest of that story....

More important to me was Randy and Patty's visit to the Battle Ground Methodist church last night where Randy gave his testimony about his life...a wonderful life that he has had since becoming a Marine, taking a paralizing bullet in Viet Nam and then meeting an angel who became his life's love....he wrote a book titled "What a Life"...you can buy a copy right here on this blog off to the right side here...It is a book you can not lay down that takes you from Morristown Tenn. to a rice paddy in Nam where Randy took a bullet...very rivoting story the first 9 or so chapters..then the last couple I think may be the best love story I ever read...
We had fun there last night with that church and my friends, Pastor Brian and Carla White and grandson "little Zack"....Then Randy was hungry so we took care of that at Arni's a Lafayette favorite meeting spot now for maybe 52 years I think....

The top picture to the right is Randy setting where I wanted him setting 6 months ago when I first heard him speak in Naples Florida. He is setting in front of my home church at Dayton Indiana...He delivered, as he always does, a wonderful account of how God has watched over and blessed him for 42 years now...Lots of people heard Randy yesterday and lots more will tonight when he has his final appearance at my church...It has been great, everything I had hoped it to be...I was able to be with Randy and Patty in Pastor John's office for prayer before the services. I was able to push my freind Randy into the sanctuary and leave him there on the side lines near the pulput until he would be introduced to deliver his message of hope....Then I was able to set by sweet pea and listen again as new, the story that Randy tells...And then I was able to help Randy to the rear of the church to sign the many books that people purchased and watch him converse with them and autograph his good book...We have one more shot at this tonight at 6:30 we will do it all again one last time...What a Life......

Then Tuesday morning my freinds head back to Tennessee..and I head to Omaha Nebraska for a reunion of my boot camp platoon..Platoon 3002(the honor platoon by the way) of three platoon that graduated as U.S. Marines in August of 1956...sweet pea being in her terrible two's could not have cared less, but to us it was a big deal..we were finally Marines...close to 30 of the 75 that did it so good will be there...I can not wait to look them in the eye and say and mean it, "I remember you"..."I marched behind you", "remember when the D. I. 's set us up at the barber shop"????

By the way, you can become a part of that platoon, live that story with us by reading my blog account from February about becoming a Marine right here on this blog site...

Any way you get the idea, this has already been a wonderful week fulfilling a dream I had in Florida that by hook or by crook I had to have the Kingtons come to Dayton Indiana...It has happened or will have after tonight, and now on to Omaha where I may have time to do a blog post or two...No guarantees, as the "saltiest of sea tales will fly", when these 30 Marines get together but I will try....if I have the time..

Semper Fi...

Purple Martins never even said "Goodbye".

There GONE!...it happens this way every year...I so enjoy watching them arrive each year just after Easter time...They make their nest in the bird houses I provide and they soar and catch bugs all summer long..Especially mosquitoes which kind of makes them my little winged hero's.....They catch a tremendous amount of bugs eating some, kind of like my blueberry picking experinces and then also feeding thier kids in the nest all the bugs they can eat....The little ones grow fast and soon you see the parents aunt's and uncle's the whole clan hovering around the nest, "marking time we marines call it", going no where, but flapping thier wings in still flight...they are churping away and calling to the "teen agers" in the nest to come out and learn to fly like the grown ups....That last about 3 or 4 days and soon they are all in flight and we have lots of martins soaring and eating bugs...Then, as each year, as happened on August 10th this year, Jill's birthday, they dissapeared, they are gone. The houses stand there empty again. and the Martins are on their way to South America...A long journey, I hope they all make it there and find thier way's back next spring, when we will do it all again....

My family will meet Randy and Patty a "MARINES MARINE"

On July 30th blog below I wrote about the guest speaker at our church this coming Sunday, a Marine I became acquainted with in Florida last winter. Well this Sunday is the big day for this planned event...My church will be blessed when this man shares with them about his life. He is the author of a good "Nam", book titled "What A Life" about his Veit Nam experinces his preparation training in the Marine Corps and his meeting and Marriage of an angel named Patty....

I hope my children and grand children will also be present to hear him speak that day. Randy told me in March after agreeing to come to Indiana that he would like to meet my family the evening before maybe a saturday night...So I said well thank you Randy and to put a little icing on that cake well I may just invite a few Marines to meet you also....A term I like to use for special people like Randy Kington is that he is a "Marine's Marine. I have only met a few in my time. The first was a Master Sargeant Saul C. Goldman who's charm and good looks swept myself and 4 others in my class of only 10 boys in my senior class to enlist in and try our hand at becoming a Marine. After him everyone's Marine Marines are their drill instructors assigned the task of snapping us out of our "cheap civilian shit" and molding us into and earning the title of U. S. Marine....That is no easy task believe me and the first hate and then love relationship that each recruit goes through in the process does bring one to fully respect and follow anywhere, the men that were pretty darn tough in the beginning, but then in the end at graduation time just fellow Marines. After that I am not sure how many I know of at least one other and that is of a Captain of Marines that is the very last picture below and to the right all the way down that showed my wife Linda so much respect and caring and thus I guess to me also when we visited the dedication ceremony of the new Marine Corps Musuem in Washington DC....I know not his name he was from South Dakota and had served several tours of duty in Alfganistan and Iraq, but I admired his spirit of service and care given to my wheel chaired wife on that day for at least an hour that he would not have had to do...He also was a Marines Marine...And now comes Randy Kington of whom I have heard speak about his tour of duty in Veit Nam and how life had so challenged him and how he has accomplished much...He is my latest Marine's Marine.... The picture to the right shows my family pulling as many blue gills out of the pond as can be done before Saturday night when a few good men and my family meet Randy and Patty Kington.

The Baptism Service Yesterday

Each year at this pond our church comes and we have a Baptism Service and we eat a picnic lunch and kids swim and Parents watch and visit and we all eat Culvers ice cream. It is always a good day and one that we look forward to in August each year.

Yesterday was no exception as 27 children and adults about an equal number of each answered the call to be baptized. Lots of differing beliefs in this world as to why and how to baptize people. I identify with the thinking of baptizing people not to save them in any way but to allow them to have an outward expression of something that they did inwardly in their heart at a previous time in their lives...In other words Baptism does not win one any degree of heavenly achievement. It is not essential to be baptized at all...We do it only willingly, because we are Christians and want to submit and outwardly show our fellow believers that of which we have done in our hearts previously...That we Trust Jesus as our Salvation and our Savior. Trust that his work on the cross and our embrassing it, and truly believing in its value, will be our ticket to heaven, by grace not of anything we do, but only of faith in Him will we attain heaven...All else we do Baptism, Church attendance and support of God's churches and mission works, we do in gratitude not as a means of earning our salvation. That is why we hold these Baptisms each year to allow another crop, and there have been many maybe 10 or 12 of and usually 25 to 35 in number, to step forward and follow the biblical teachings on Baptism. An outward sign for others to see, that we have in our hearts trusted that Jesus did it all and now we follow in gratitude and service all the days of our lives.

Pictures at the right say it all. Each is asked to state their name and if they have this day trusted Jesus as their savior....Those answers being yes, Pastor Walls then baptises them with our instrument group providing appropriate music as they walk back into the shoreline. Huge crowd yesterday, beautiful day, good food even Buddy, Sweet peas doggy who welcomed every car load of people was then rewarded with his very own bowl of delicious Culvers ice cream...He chose not to eat it all as he knew the blogger would post this and buddy does watch his weight...

For three years I have tried to start "yellow" lillies in my pond...The afternoon before the baptism the first one appeared. I named it after the sweet lady who shared the excitement...So check out the Susan Lilly nice pale yellow with bright yellow middle.

Always wonder what God really thinks about our efforts to worship HIM and show our appreciation for our even existance? I look for signs sometimes and not saying they are signs maybe coincidences who knows. But I know this we worked to clear the floating moss from the pond Saturday. Saturday evening we noticed some floating moss beginning to appear again and said, hey we tried we will just live with what we have...Sunday the pond was near Crystal clear with no sign of floating moss...Today floating moss everywhere again in front of the beach and further out where the baptisms took place...Maybe who knows....have a good day....