The frigid night air cut through the Lieutenant’s army issue coat as he stopped in the knee deep snow to survey the perimeter. A heavy snow continued to fall on this Christmas Eve 1944, but it was not a silent night. The flashes of artillery lit the sky and generated a rumble like distant thunder as the young officer finished his tour of the unit’s outposts. He was an officer in Company B, 87th Chemical Mortar Battalion, the men who fired the big 4.2 mortars which were so critical to the effort of the infantry to advance. They were someplace in Belgium, he really had no clue where, and for the first time in a while the battalion was together again. All four companies had been brought in to help stop the German breakthrough. They didn’t know it, but the 87th was about to be thrown right into the heart of the Battle of the Bulge.
As the Lieutenant finished his rounds he wearily dragged himself into the monastery where the command had taken refuge for the night. The warmth that enveloped him as he entered the large community room was certainly welcomed. He glanced around and saw his comrades sprawled in every available space. They were bedraggled and exhausted after 201 days of almost continuous combat, and by the looks on their faces you could tell that it was only going to get worse. Despite the thickness of the monastery walls, a new sound intruded, the quick crack of tank gunfire.
Everyone knew what that meant, American tankers were making a last ditch stand against the German armored column in the area. They were outnumbered and outgunned and their Sherman tanks stood no chance against the awesome German Tiger tanks, but they fought anyway. When the battle ended, and it would before dawn, then the 87th became part of the last American line of defense. The war hung in the balance, and so did the lives of everyone in the ancient house of God.
The Lieutenant found a place to sit against one wall and sank down in exhaustion, gratefully accepting the wine, bread and cheese being offered by the monks. In the corner of the room, a soldier fiddled with the dial of a radio, finally picking up the armed forces station. Christmas carols filled the room, but only added to the loneliness. Then as, the sound of the tank battle increased in intensity, a new song started on the radio, Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas."
For the Lieutenant the song immediately invoked memories of the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas on the farm in Mason City, Iowa and of how far away he was from those he loved. He could not help himself, the tears began to flow and embarrassed, he glanced around the room to see if anyone had noticed. His eyes fell first on the Company Commander, Captain J.J. Marshall, one of the toughest men the Lieutenant had ever known. The Captain sat ramrod straight, unashamed, as tears streamed down his stubbly cheeks. It was universal that night, strong men, the bravest of the brave, cried over a Christmas carol, and over the homes many would never see again.
As dawn broke the next morning, Christmas Day, the battalion was again split up with Company B assigned to take up mortar positions in support of what was left of the 289th infantry, 75th Division, and defend a Belgium village called Sadzot, a key location in the thin American defense line. For three days they fired their mortars in support of the hastily assembled defense units, and then disaster struck. Early in the predawn hours of Dec. 28th enemy elements of the 12 SS Panzer Division, the infamous Hitler Jugend, broke through the infantry lines and overran the mortar position.
They hastily assembled all of the men they could, and the mortarmen fought a delaying action, fighting hand to hand and house to house against overwhelming numbers. As the fighting retreat continued, they men of company B were joined by remaining elements of the 509th Parachute Battalion which had formed a new defensive position north of the village. There they held until reinforced and then joined a counterattack which retook the village, and recaptured six of their nine mortars and most of their vehicles.
It was later learned that this makeshift force of Americans had successfully stopped a major attack by German troops designed to capture a major highway intersection which would have broken the American line. No one has ever been able to tell me how they won. History recorded it as a classic situation where the attacking enemy held all of the advantages, yet was stopped by the cold determination of a hand full of defenders on the verge of physical and mental collapse. Somehow, they emerged victorious, with Company B reporting almost half of its men killed, wounded or missing.
For his actions during the defense of Sadzot the Lieutenant and the other men of the company received both the French and Belgium Croix de Guerre medals. I know the story of that lonely Christmas Eve and the ensuing days from my Father’s diary. He was the young Lieutenant, Roy E. Connelly, Co. B. 87th Chemical Mortar Battalion. He would read that story to us on Christmas Eve every year until his death in 1987, and then I took over the job with my children.
He never read it without crying over the friends he lost during that Christmas season of 1944, and to this day, I can not read it or even write about it without the same reaction. What was done during that six day period by the men of Co. B and the other companies of the 87th, who also held the line, surpasses the ability of most of us to comprehend. They fought for each other, and they fought for us. We must never forget.
Many are discussing Albert Pujols and his $254 million agreement to play baseball for the Los Angeles (Anaheim) Angels. Pujols' contract, “is the second-highest in baseball history.” The amount seems mind-boggling. Some have said: “No man is worth $254 million dollars.”
Here’s some perspective:
Albert Pujols’ new contract value equals $254 million in exchange for 10 years of work ($25.4 million per year).
According to recent data, the average income of an Anaheim resident equals $47.1 thousand per year.
By comparison, the average annual salary of an Anaheim resident is approximately 1/539th the amount offered to Pujols.
Some have reacted to this reality with shock and anger. Some have said: “It’s just not fair.”
Let’s investigate further:
..............1,000 = One Thousand
.......1,000,000 = One Million
1,000,000,000 = One Billion
In 2011, the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg was estimated at $17.5 billion. Who is Mark Zuckerberg?
In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory. In 7 years, the project earned him $17.5 billion ($2.5 billion per year).
Pujol’s annual salary is approximately 1/100th that of Zuckerberg’s.
Is Pujols shocked and angered by Zuckerberg’s earnings?
He could be. After all, it doesn’t seem fair that Pujols has to run, sweat, leap, and dive – dodging major league fast balls and line drives in the scorching heat of summer to earn a living. Zuckerberg doesn’t have to do anything like that.
Thinking further, one may realize that the game of baseball requires Pujols to risk his very life and limb in order to perform at the highest level on the field. And after that, there is the matter of travel. With a 162-game schedule, the professional baseball player is constantly on the move. Travel is dangerous and can be a strain on the family unit. In the age of the Internet, Zuckerberg can do his work from the comfort of his home, or just about anywhere else he chooses to be.
In addition, above and beyond the physical requirements and hazards, Pujols is subject to an extreme expectation to perform, both on and off the field. As a baseball celebrity, society holds Pujols to the highest standard as a role model and performer. This comes with great responsibility. The news media and baseball fanatics constantly watch and scrutinize every move he makes. They apply constant pressure and demand perfection. Zuckerberg, on the other hand, doesn’t have to parade himself before millions of screaming fanatics every year.
After investigating all these factors, it seems that Pujols has to work much harder to scrape out a mere 1% of Zuckerberg’s earnings. And Zuckerberg has a lot of company at the top. There are at least 1,200 people on the earth who are known to have wealth in excess of $1 billion.
By similar measure as the average resident of Anaheim, Pujols could choose to burn himself up with anger over his comparatively pitiful situation. But that wouldn’t make much sense, would it?
The truth is, It doesn’t make a lot of sense to be angry at the good fortune of another.
In fact, The Holy Bible instructs us NOT to walk in envy, (see Romans 13:13). We are warned that envy is “rottenness to the bones,” (see Proverbs 14:30).
According to Jesus, the two greatest commandments in God’s Law are:
1) “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.”
2) “Love thy neighbor as thy self.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
When we choose to follow God’s commandments, we allow ourselves to be filled with God’s love. And God’s love is a love that does not envy, (see 1 Corinthians 13:4).
So, on the matter of Pujols and Zuckerberg, it is best to be thankful. We can be thankful that God has provided us “one nation under God.” A nation where the common man can achieve worldly success, out of which can come great good for the Kingdom of God (on earth as it is in Heaven). We can be thankful that we are free in this nation to discuss this matter. We have far too much to be thankful for in order to list all things here.
For us, as spiritual beings, we must continue to grow through ceaseless prayer (here’s a link that can help explain what that means). We need NOT to allow ourselves to get caught up in the amounts of baseball contracts and worldly comparisons that flare up envy and strife. We need to realize that we are already rich through Jesus - far beyond our own understanding.
Brothers and sisters, on this and every day, work to walk in the truth. Jesus is our only hope. He loves us more than we can imagine. Pray, listen, and obey, (see 1 Thessalonians 5:15-22, and James 1:22-25).
Blessings are upon you and yours in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
As most Americans stand around waiting for the U.S. economy to return to "normal", there is a never ending parade of jobs, businesses and wealth heading out of the United States. The jobs and businesses that are leaving are gone for good and will not be coming back. This is causing unemployment to soar and government debt to skyrocket but our politicians are doing nothing about it. Instead, politicians from both parties keep insisting that they will solve all of our problems if we will just give them our votes. Meanwhile, American families continue to fill up their shopping carts with cheap plastic crap made on the other side of the world. Globalism is slowly destroying the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen and most Americans don't even realize it. Today, the U.S. government has surrendered massive amounts of economic sovereignty to global organizations such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. The United States has also entered into a whole host of very damaging "free trade agreements" such as NAFTA that are costing our economy huge numbers of jobs. Our politicians always promised us that globalism would bring us to a new level of prosperity, but instead that "giant sucking sound" that you hear is the sound of the U.S. economy being hollowed out.
Our politicians and the talking heads in the mainstream media always seem to be puzzled as to why there seems to be such a lack of jobs in this country.
The U.S. seems to be shocked that its economy isn't creating many jobs, and each monthly report on the unemployment rate and the number of new jobs somehow stimulates more handwringing. I'm not an economist, labor or otherwise, but simple observation suggests one significant contributor to the nation's job crisis -- for a long time, maybe even decades, we have been waging war on jobs and those who hold them.
That is exactly what the policies of the U.S. government have been doing for decades - they have been waging war on jobs.
Both political parties have been eagerly pushing us into a globalized economy. Both political parties have told us not to worry as thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and trillions of dollars have left the country.
Well, so much damage has been done by this point that more Americans than ever are starting to wake up and realize that maybe globalism is not such a great thing after all.
Here is how globalism has destroyed our jobs, our businesses and our national wealth in 10 easy steps....
#1 Globalism has merged the U.S. economy with economies that allow slave labor wages.
The "minimum wage" became a whole lot less meaningful once we merged our economy with the economies of nations where it is legal to pay workers 50 cents an hour.
American workers have enjoyed all of the cheap products that have come flooding into our shores, but our politicians never told them that globalism would also mean that they would soon be directly competing for jobs with workers on the other side of the globe that are willing to work for 5 or 10 percent as much.
One big, global labor pool means that the standard of living of the hundreds of millions of workers on the other side of the world will come up slightly while the standard of living of American workers will come crashing down at a blinding pace.
Advocates of globalism never can seem to explain how U.S. workers are supposed to compete with teenage workers in Vietnam that often work seven days a week for as little as 6 cents an hour making promotional toys for big corporations.
#2 U.S. companies make bigger profits by sending jobs overseas.
If U.S. corporations can find a place where they can legally pay workers slave labor wages, what do you think they are going to do?
Corporations have a "duty to maximize shareholder wealth" and U.S. government policies actually have the effect of encouraging the offshoring of jobs.
This is even happening in industries that are on the cutting edge of new technology.
Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, says that our advanced technology companies are creating far more jobs overseas than they are in the United States....
Some 250,000 Foxconn employees in southern China produce Apple's products. Apple, meanwhile, has about 25,000 employees in the U.S. That means for every Apple worker in the U.S. there are 10 people in China working on iMacs, iPods, and iPhones. The same roughly 10-to-1 relationship holds for Dell, disk-drive maker Seagate Technology (STX), and other U.S. tech companies.
#3 Globalism has allowed foreign countries to dominate a whole host of industries that used to be dominated by the United States.
U.S. companies are having an incredibly difficult time competing against the low labor costs and the much less stringent business regulations found on the other side of the globe.
In May, the United States spent 50 billion dollars more on goods and services from the rest of the globe than they spent on goods and services from us.
This happens month after month after month.
Every month we get tens of billions of dollars poorer and the rest of the world gets tens of billions of dollars richer.
We are getting clobbered even in industries that we invented.
Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.
In 2010, South Korea exported 12 times as many automobiles, trucks and parts to us as we exported to them.
How did this happen?
Well, there are a lot of reasons, but one big reason is that the business environment in the United States has become incredibly toxic. Businesses in this country face a nightmarish web of rules and regulations and that is a big reason why so many businesses are choosing to leave this country.
In a recent article for Forbes, John Mariotti made a list of just a few of the bureaucracies that U.S. businesses must contend with on a daily basis....
Medicare & Medicaid
Social Security
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
SEC–Securities & Exchange Commission
FASB–Federal Accounting Standards Board
GAAP–Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
IRS–Internal Revenue Service
FTC–Federal Trade Commission
FDA–Food & Drug Administration
FAA–Federal Aviation Administration
FCC–Federal Communications Commission
EPA–Environmental Protection Agency
EEOC–Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
FLSA–Fair Labor Standards Act
NLRB–National Labor Relations Board
Labor Management Relations Act (The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947)
#4 Jobs and manufacturing infrastructure are being lost at an astounding pace and they are not going to come back.
Jobs and manufacturing facilities are leaving this country at a blinding pace. Nothing is being done to stop this from happening. These jobs are not coming back and they are not being replaced.
Just consider the following statistics....
*The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
*Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
*The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobsper month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
*Since 2001, over 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed down.
So what are all of those workers doing today?
There are sitting at home trying to figure out what has happened to the once happy lives that they enjoyed.
Today, there are 6.3 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than 6 months. That number has risen by more than 3.5 million in just the past two years.
Right now, it takes the average unemployed worker almost 40 weeks to find a new job. There are not nearly enough jobs for everyone and the competition for the few job openings that are available is brutal.
Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
We have millions upon millions of very hard working Americans that are sitting around hoping that someone will give them a job.
But labor costs about 10 percent as much on the other side of the world so that is where all the jobs are going.
#5 Workers without good jobs can't buy houses or cars.
A huge factor in the housing crash has been the lack of good jobs. There are now approximately 10 percent fewer middle class jobs than there were a decade ago.
As competition for jobs increases, wages are being depressed because employers know that they have all the power.
So working class American families are being squeezed like never before.
Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975. A nice home is becoming out of reach for a lot of Americans.
Meanwhile, the cost of food and the cost of gas continue to rise.
One recent survey found that 9 out of 10 U.S. workers do not expect their wages to keep up with soaring food prices and soaring gas prices over the next 12 months.
#6 If American workers don't have jobs they aren't paying taxes.
Most Americans have no idea how much our trade deficit contributes to our government debt problems.
When Americans are not working, they are not paying taxes to support our federal, state and local governments.
In the years since 1975, the United States had run a total trade deficit of 7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.
That is money that could have gone to U.S. workers and U.S. businesses. That is money that taxes could have been paid on.
Instead, our workers are sitting at home and our federal, state and local governments are starving for cash.
#7 Instead of receiving taxes, the government must pay out money to our unemployed workers instead.
We are going to support our unemployed workers one way or another. Either we are going to give them good jobs or we are going to give them welfare payments.
During the recent economic downturn, millions of American workers have been receiving unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks. It has become soul-crushingly difficult to find a job in America today, and we have developed a whole new class of people that have become totally dependent on the government because they simply cannot find work.
Everywhere you look, government anti-poverty programs are exploding in size.
As 2007 began, there were 26 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 44 million Americans on food stamps, which is a new all-time record.
#8 As jobs and businesses leave our shores, many of our once great manufacturing cities have been transformed into hellholes.
In a recent article entitled "American Hellholes", I talked about the economic decay that we are seeing all over the United States....
All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands. All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the "rust belt" and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes. In many U.S. cities, the "real" rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment that you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities. If you live in one of those American hellholes you know what I am talking about. Sadly, it is not just a few cities that are becoming hellholes. This is happening in the east, in the west, in the north and in the south. America is literally being transformed right in front of our eyes.
#9 The United States ends up borrowing back most of the money that it sends overseas every single month.
Every month tens of billions of dollars of our national wealth gets transferred to foreign countries. In order to make ends meet, our federal, state and local governments end up borrowing gigantic amounts of money from the countries that we have sent our wealth to.
So now we have a national debt that is well over 14 trillion dollars and we owe massive amounts of money to countries like China and Saudi Arabia.
But when we borrow money from other countries that makes us even poorer in the long run. Debt is never the answer to anything.
#10 Foreign countries are using up some of the wealth that we send them every month to buy up our infrastructure.
State and local governments across the country that are drowning in debt and that are desperate for cash are increasingly turning to the "privatization" of public assets as the solution to their problems. Pieces of infrastructure that taxpayers have already paid for such as highways, water treatment plants, libraries, parking meters, airports and power plants are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Most of the time what happens is that the state or local government receives a huge lump sum of cash up front for a long-term lease (usually 75 years or longer) and the foreign investors come in and soak as much revenue out of the piece of infrastructure that they possibly can. The losers in these deals are almost always the taxpayers. Pieces of America are literally being auctioned off just to help state and local governments minimize their debt problems for a year or two, but the consequences of these deals will be felt for decades.
Sadly, neither political party seems concerned about the effects of globalism at all.
In fact, both parties continue to push for even more globalism.
But large numbers of ordinary Americans are waking up.
According to a recent Washington Post poll, only 36 percent of Americans consider "the increasing interconnection of the global economy" to be a positive thing. Back in 2001, 60 percent of Americans believed that the globalization of the economy was a positive thing.
So maybe there is a glimmer of hope.
But until fundamental changes are actually made, globalism will continue to destroy our jobs, our businesses and our national wealth.
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This video represents a crossroads in the history of America. Nineteen years later, it appears, we are well past the point of no return. The globalists have sucked the life out of this once great nation. The Department of Free appears just about ready to close up shop.
“The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”
Globalism in the United States has reached a point in which the government is actually raiding local businesses who choose to keep jobs in the country.
If it had been presented this way, I don't believe any of us would have done it!!!!
POSITION OFFERED:
Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma, Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop
JOB DESCRIPTION:
Long term, team players needed, for challenging, permanent work in an often chaotic environment.
Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities!
Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
The rest of your life.
Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5.
Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.
Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf.
Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers.
Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects.
Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.
Must be a willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next.
Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices.
Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.
Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.
POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION:
None.
Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE:
None required unfortunately.
On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.
WAGES AND COMPENSATION:
Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses.
A balloon payment is due when each child turns 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent.
When you die, you give them whatever is left.
The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.
BENEFITS:
While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth, unconditional love, and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right.
Forward this on to all the PARENTS you know, in appreciation for everything they do on a daily basis, letting them know they are appreciated for the fabulous job they do... or forward with love to anyone thinking of applying for the job.
In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized to her and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. The former generation did not care enough to save our environment."
She was right, that generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
Back then, they returned their milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the shop. The shop sent them back to the factory to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. They were recycled.
But they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's day.
In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.
But she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day.
Back then, they washed the baby's nappies because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in a 220 volt energy gobbling machine - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that old lady is right; they didn't have the green thing back in her day.
Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of a cricket pitch. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. They didn't have air conditioning or electric stoves with self cleaning ovens. They didn't have battery operated toys, computers, or telephones.
Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn fuel just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They used hand operated clippers to trim the shrubs. They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; they didn't have the green thing back then.
They drank from a glass filled from the tap when they were thirsty instead of using a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But they didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people walked or took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then?
This story is from my friend, Dave Hollenbeck, a retired CHP officer and is used with his permission:
One of the earliest lessons that my father taught me on how to live was one morning on the dairy near Glendale. In Arizona, if you grow anything from the soil, you do it with water from reservoirs above Phoenix on the Salt River. By a series of earth rows, you channel the water to spread over the land and irrigate your crop. The water came to you in ditches, and was directed out on to the land.
These ditches were about three feet deep.
We had a pair of Collie dogs. The female had given birth to puppies about a week before. Mother Collie was out near the ditch, leading her brood in single file. I found it great sport to pick up a puppy, throw it in the water, watch it disappear, then reappear and swim out. I had tossed in the fourth puppy, when I felt a force on the collar of my shirt, lifting me up, and then releasing me into the ditch. I went under the water, was thoroughly convinced that I was going to drown, came up, and stood on the bottom so that my head and shoulders were out of the water. My father was there, leaning on his shovel. He looked at me with no emotion on his face and asked, “How does it feel when it happens to you?”
I found that question is one a person should ask themselves frequently.
