Dateline, Arizona, July 29. State officials are appealing a ruling by a Clinton-appointed federal judge that limits Arizona law enforcement’s ability to carry out the new immigration law. Basically, they can’t arrest day laborers for illegally soliciting work in this country or ask law-breakers to prove they belong here.
Let me for one moment straddle the fence on this one. I believe it is a state’s right to protect its own border. If Arizonans feel that illegal immigrants are a strain on their economy, a burden on law enforcement and degrading to their community, then they have a democratic right to keep the illegals out. On the other hand, I don’t believe this is anyone else’s fight. If you’re not a resident, full- or part-time, of the State of Arizona, what do you care about illegal immigrants?
I live in the State of Indiana. I don’t see a flood of illegal Mexicans flooding into my state because of lax border patrols in Arizona. This issue doesn’t really affect me directly. But you wouldn’t know that to hear some of my neighbors explain it. They believe the immigration problem is systemic. What happens in Arizona affects the rest of us in some negative way, whether it’s higher health care, higher taxes, crime, etc…or so they say.
What would they have said 100-200 years ago when the flood of European immigrants was taking this country by storm?
Lest we forget, this land isn’t really “our land,” after all.
After murderous raids on the Native Americans, stealing their land and reaping the harvest, our immigrant ancestors engaged in a bloody, civil uprising against their British masters, so they wouldn’t have to share the spoils with their forbearers. Interesting. This was followed by a bloody, civil war also fueled by greed and self-serving interests. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
Now these newcomers want to come in and encroach upon our stolen property and our blood-stained wealth. HOW DARE THEY!
Let us remember that we were all once immigrants to this great land, some by legal means and others not. Either way, we inherited a land that wasn’t legally ours to begin with. Keep this in mind while you glare down your nose from atop your high horse at all those “illegals.”
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Pancakes & Smoky Links
There was a Sunday morning tradition at Grandma Wright’s house. After attending worship service at the Methodist Church on West Emmerson, she would make a stack of pancakes on the stovetop griddle and boil Smoky Links in water (or “boral” them, as she would say in her southern Indiana twang). That is a fond childhood memory for me, and I don’t recall one Sunday that she didn’t keep up this tradition.
Alice Kathryn Dunning, my maternal grandmother, was my dearest grandparent. She was born on the farm in Francisco, Indiana, in July 1920. She came from humble beginnings, helping to raise chickens and her siblings on her father’s farm on Wheeling Road. The sixth of nine children born to David and Ruth (McEllhiney) Dunning, she was only 17 when her mother left home. Taking on more responsibility at the farm, Kate learned to be self-sufficient and hard-working. These are traits that I remember well.
Grandma met a World War II Veteran and jeweler around that same time. Kathryn Larson and Robert Edgar Wright married October 1962 and within a year-and-a-half had a son, Gregory. He is the one pictured holding me as an infant.
Grandma Wright, as I always knew her, held a job at Hurst Corporation and made a decent living. Grandpa’s jewelry business was located on Main Street in Vincennes, and between the two of them, they made a very good living. Their house was situated atop the hill in Tower Heights just two doors south of Gibson General Hospital, where I was born in ’68. I can remember many summers and holidays at Grandma’s house on Third Avenue. When I was an adolescent, my parents would let me spend a week at her house. Those are some of my fondest childhood memories. Having an uncle around, just four years my senior, ensured that I would have plenty to do while I was there, whether playing his drums, taping his album collection, playing ball in the backyard or riding his moped all over Princeton’s north side.
While at Grandma’s house, I also enjoyed running errands with her—out to Grandpa Dunning’s farm to pick vegetables, down to the Red & White or 3-D on Broadway, over to the veterinarian to meet Aunt Elsie for lunch or to the beauty parlor for her bi-monthly hair appointment. A rather funny memory is Grandma’s rain bonnet. She would protect her hairdo from the elements with a plastic rain bonnet; you know the kind only grandmother’s wear in public. Well, she would fuss over me getting wet and insisted that I wear one, as well. I always refused, but the mental image still gives me a chuckle.
Grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer after my family had moved hundreds of miles away to Florida. I didn’t get to see much of her after 1986, much to my disappointment. I was living in Tallahassee when she finally died in February 1990. That is one of the saddest days that I can remember. I was able to return for her funeral at Colvin and her burial with family at Fairview Cemetery, near Francisco. My Uncle David, her oldest son, now lives across the street from where she rests.
Grandma was such a great cook and I recall the many pies, cobblers, cookies, biscuits and pieces of fried chicken she would lovingly make…but my favorite meal was Sunday breakfast. As I sat at the kitchen table this morning, enjoying hot pancakes smothered in peanut butter and syrup (a family tradition) and Smoky Links, I remembered Grandma Wright. The smell, the taste, the week of the year, all brought back vivid memories.
She would have turned 90 on Tuesday. And though she died much too soon, I have many reminders of her, not the least of which is my daughter who bears her name and nearly shares the same birthday, just two days shy. I really do miss Grandma Wright, may she rest in peace.
Alice Kathryn Dunning, my maternal grandmother, was my dearest grandparent. She was born on the farm in Francisco, Indiana, in July 1920. She came from humble beginnings, helping to raise chickens and her siblings on her father’s farm on Wheeling Road. The sixth of nine children born to David and Ruth (McEllhiney) Dunning, she was only 17 when her mother left home. Taking on more responsibility at the farm, Kate learned to be self-sufficient and hard-working. These are traits that I remember well.
Grandma met a World War II Veteran and jeweler around that same time. Kathryn Larson and Robert Edgar Wright married October 1962 and within a year-and-a-half had a son, Gregory. He is the one pictured holding me as an infant.Grandma Wright, as I always knew her, held a job at Hurst Corporation and made a decent living. Grandpa’s jewelry business was located on Main Street in Vincennes, and between the two of them, they made a very good living. Their house was situated atop the hill in Tower Heights just two doors south of Gibson General Hospital, where I was born in ’68. I can remember many summers and holidays at Grandma’s house on Third Avenue. When I was an adolescent, my parents would let me spend a week at her house. Those are some of my fondest childhood memories. Having an uncle around, just four years my senior, ensured that I would have plenty to do while I was there, whether playing his drums, taping his album collection, playing ball in the backyard or riding his moped all over Princeton’s north side.
While at Grandma’s house, I also enjoyed running errands with her—out to Grandpa Dunning’s farm to pick vegetables, down to the Red & White or 3-D on Broadway, over to the veterinarian to meet Aunt Elsie for lunch or to the beauty parlor for her bi-monthly hair appointment. A rather funny memory is Grandma’s rain bonnet. She would protect her hairdo from the elements with a plastic rain bonnet; you know the kind only grandmother’s wear in public. Well, she would fuss over me getting wet and insisted that I wear one, as well. I always refused, but the mental image still gives me a chuckle.
Grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer after my family had moved hundreds of miles away to Florida. I didn’t get to see much of her after 1986, much to my disappointment. I was living in Tallahassee when she finally died in February 1990. That is one of the saddest days that I can remember. I was able to return for her funeral at Colvin and her burial with family at Fairview Cemetery, near Francisco. My Uncle David, her oldest son, now lives across the street from where she rests.
Grandma was such a great cook and I recall the many pies, cobblers, cookies, biscuits and pieces of fried chicken she would lovingly make…but my favorite meal was Sunday breakfast. As I sat at the kitchen table this morning, enjoying hot pancakes smothered in peanut butter and syrup (a family tradition) and Smoky Links, I remembered Grandma Wright. The smell, the taste, the week of the year, all brought back vivid memories.
She would have turned 90 on Tuesday. And though she died much too soon, I have many reminders of her, not the least of which is my daughter who bears her name and nearly shares the same birthday, just two days shy. I really do miss Grandma Wright, may she rest in peace.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Indiana's Love Affair with the Tomato
I'm no fan of the tomato. Never have been one to take a bite out of the "love apple" or cut thick, hearty slices for a dagwood sandwich. Even chunky salsa used to make turn up my nose with a quick, "No thanks."
Only in recent years have I acquired a taste for homemade salsa, or been able to stomach the squishy guts of a raw tomato atop my hamburger. Still, tomatoes were always there...always staring at me from the kitchen table or grandmother's garden. Heck, even today I have several friends in the city who are growing plump, juicy tomatoes in their backyard gardens!
I was raised upon the foundational belief that nowhere is there to be found a better, juicier, sweeter tomato than in southwestern Indiana, home to generations of my horticulture-loving family. Yes, the sandy deposits of the Wabash and White rivers help to grow the best tomatoes in these continental United States...or so I've been brainwash...er...told.
Well, now I can better understand the root of this Hoosier love affair. Just look what I found in an old New York publication called "The Cultivator, Vol. IV" page 303:
Only in recent years have I acquired a taste for homemade salsa, or been able to stomach the squishy guts of a raw tomato atop my hamburger. Still, tomatoes were always there...always staring at me from the kitchen table or grandmother's garden. Heck, even today I have several friends in the city who are growing plump, juicy tomatoes in their backyard gardens!
I was raised upon the foundational belief that nowhere is there to be found a better, juicier, sweeter tomato than in southwestern Indiana, home to generations of my horticulture-loving family. Yes, the sandy deposits of the Wabash and White rivers help to grow the best tomatoes in these continental United States...or so I've been brainwash...er...told.
Well, now I can better understand the root of this Hoosier love affair. Just look what I found in an old New York publication called "The Cultivator, Vol. IV" page 303:
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