Uncle Jack

My uncle Jack Burres was probably one of my first heroes and in my mind is still held in that esteem even at my later time in life.  The funny thing is he is still alive at this time but we do not touch base any too often.  Probably what has prompted this writing today is a recording project I am undertaking to combat my inclination to procrastinate.  Some twenty years or so ago Jack put his early memories into a collection of cowboy poems, Reata Buckeros, which I intend to record vocally  for him and his remaining family.

Jack was born to my grandparents as one half of a set of twins, his sister Louise shared his spot in the line-up behind Lewis, Chester (my dad), and Loretta, and was followed by Kenneth, and Jay.  The common practice in those days was for families to lend their children to relatives and neighbors as a means of labor and as training for the child.  This is a practice that is probably frowned on by our politically correct society today, but as in Jacks case it made him into the hero my memory cherishes today.  Jack and his younger brother Kenny spent time under the tutelage of a turn of the century cattleman John Shelton Burres whose name uncle Jack was given at birth.  Shelt, as he was called, was a true pioneer type cattleman.  Shelt ran his cattle on a rough and rugged portion of the John Day river,  in Eastern Oregon, and it was this part of growing up that made Uncle Jack into who he was.  This time is the time that Jack was always able to recall vividly. He could paint historical pictures with the stories and tales that almost made imagination seem real. These were the stories told in his cowboy collection.  If I get time and inclination I will re-write and include this in my writings. Jack had this collection published and is sold with all proceeds being donated to the Veterans of Foreign Wars from WWII who have had to fight to get their medical conditions cared for by the VA. 

Jack and his brothers Kenny and Jay had joined in the fight, against the German onslaught in Europe, as sailors in the United States Navy.  I never got much of a story from Kenny about his service time,  Jay from what I heard was kind of wild one spending a lot of brig time, but Jacks was a different story altogether.  Jacks time in the service put him in the position of mechanic on the large diesel engines that powered the ships on which he served.  He never really talked a lot about the war, that I heard anyway, but over time I learned that he had three ships blown out from under him.  During one of these Jack was blown into the air over a hundred feet and came down landing on his head.  As his shipmates were leaving the ship he was passed by as being dead until someone noticed he was still alive.  That occurrence put a steel plate in Jacks head.  In later years that brought another battle to Jacks life which was enjoined by his son Jimmy against the VA to receive the benefits he should have received for this injury.  He and Jimmy prevailed in this fight and they continue to fight for others who faced similar situations.  This War occurred prior to my ability to understand but, as in all things, history is necessary for perspective.

I really knew very little about my uncle Jack until he started working for us on our ranch and even now my early focus was on what he did more than who he really was.  Physically he was bigger than life to me and certainly compared to his siblings he was the cream of the crop.  He had a great sense of humor and, as I said earlier, he had a knack for story telling that excited the imagination.  I was probably around eight or nine years old when he started working steady with dad.  We had moved from a farm that dad was renting, something in the order of sharecropping, to an adjacent place called the Couture ranch and Jack moved into the place we moved from.   The two ranches were adjacent and so it was natural for the brothers to work them together and did so for the next fifteen years or so.  Without really understanding everything that was going on I in effect had two great men as my teachers.  It wasn’t until just recently that I understood that Jack was more than just someone I admired and wanted to be like, he was in fact a second father to me.  Jack was there for me to emulate until we sold out and moved to Canada in my early twenties.  It wasn’t that he out shined or replaced dad it was more like a different perspective on life and doing.  Dad did everything Jack did but dad was dad and Jack was a hero.

Our life was that of most eastern Oregon ranchers, a mix of farming and raising cattle.  Our ranch was fifteen miles from the nearest little town and sixty from a city of any size.  There was a necessity of self efficiency that required the ability to repair our equipment with whatever was closest at hand as it took time and money for part replacement.  Throughout the years I watched Jack answer situation after situation with a determination and can do attitude that showed me things don’t always have to be perfect in order to work and that just about anything can be fixed.  Jack taught me how to weld and use acetylene and many times I watched him take mangled and broken to make useable and functional parts so we could continue our tasks.  He taught me there are solutions if you look for them, He helped me to understand how things work together.  That was mostly learning from what he had learned as a machinist in the Navy mixed with what he had learned from his dad and his uncle.  You survive by proceeding.  The cowboy part I learned from both dad and Jack and I have ridden many miles up and down many canyons with them both.  Dad was probably a far better cattleman than Jack and a better rider.  I think Jack had probably gotten his fill of being a cowboy when he worked for uncle Shelt, and after reading Jacks collection of stories I can understand why.  There were a couple of things that Jack did, on the cowboy side of things, better than anyone I have ever known.  He had an uncanny way of understanding the sneaky and contrary side of the cattle we were working and was usually able to get himself and his horse where he had to be.  The main thing though was Jacks ability to train horses.  Today we are aware of guys like the horse whisperer but that was not common knowledge when I was growing up.  The first horse I saw Jack take from raw to useful was my own horse little Joe.  Most all of the horses I had been in contact with prior to that time were already saddle and rein broke so I didn’t have any idea of what made them that way, now I know.  Jack removed the element of fear from Joe by using hobbles on him then rubbing and petting him from top to bottom, showing Joe that we meant no harm and by the end of that process we could do anything around that horse without spooking him and that included being able to walk back and forth under him.  This got Joe used to people and used to his saddle but his training didn’t stop there he still had to learn to take directions.  There are a lot of different ways to teach a horse to do what you want him to do, some hard handed and some gentle.  Jack seemed to be quite a bit toward the gentle side.  Just as he eliminated fear in the horse by creating trust his guidance was easy and painless.  Instead of starting Joe out with a steel bit in his mouth, a quirt to his rump and spurs in his side Jack used softer methods.  Joe was trained to rein with a hackamore and this was pressure enough for him to take directions without making fearful.  All in all I think Jack taught me with the same degree of gentleness and all the while I never knew that was happening.  It just did. 

Don’t misunderstand me, Jack was not perfect he had a horrific temper and out of him could spill a lot of language that I really didn’t need to learn, but for the most part what he taught was good.  I have been fortunate in life by having not just one but two great father figures, my own dad and one of my first heroes, Uncle Jack.

Ring Taw, a marble game

RING TAW (aka RINGER, RINGO ) - A one foot ring is drawn inside of a ten foot ring. Each player puts in a number of 5/8" marbles so that there is about a dozen marbles in the smaller ring. At the National Marble Tournament, thirteen marbles supplied by the organizers are arranged in a cross at the center of the ring and there is no one foot ring. Shooting order is determined by 'lagging', shooting to see who can get closest to a designated line. The first player, starting outside the ten foot circle, attempts to thumb his or her 'taw' (a 3/4" shooting marble) to knock a target marble out of the large ring while keeping the taw inside the ring. If he or she succeeds, he or she shoots again from where the taw stopped. 'Sticking' or shooting seven consecutive marbles out of the ring and winning the game without giving an opponent a turn is usually good for two days of playground bragging rights. If the player fails to knock a target marble out of the ring, or his or her taw leaves the ring, his or her turn is over and next player takes his or her turn.
At the National Marble Tournament, if your taw is in the ring at the end of your turn, you must remove it. In informal games, if your taw is in the ring, it becomes a legitimate target and any player who hits it out collects a forfeit from you. Players should agree in advance whether to use this rule. Play alternates until one player has knocked a majority of the marbles out of the ring. The process of picking the best possible position for starting is referred to as 'taking rounders'.

Games of Marbles..Rolley, Ringer

Rolley, what?
What’s rolley hole? Most people are familiar with ringer, which pits one player against another in a marbles ring. Rolley hole is a team sport played on a rectangular, groomed dirt marble yard, 40 feet long by 20 feet wide, with three marble-size holes positioned along a center line about eight feet apart. Incorporating elements of golf, pool and croquet, it combines strategy and dead-on aim as one two-person team competes against another. The object is for each team to move the marbles around the field, hitting three holes in succession, repeated three times. Knocking an opponent’s marble away from a hole is part of the strategy, and spanning – moving a marble the length of your hand – is permitted. To stop a marble short, players put English (backspin) on it.
Origins of the game point to immigrants from the British Isles. Or perhaps it’s even more indigenous as the Cherokee of North Carolina today play a game similar to rolley hole. Although played on a much grander scale with a 200-foot-long course and billiard balls in lieu of marbles, the rules and strategies are closely linked. A developing body of lore regarding the roots of the game adds to the mystery and speculation. For example, oral history of the Tennessee game predates the Civil War, and large round game stones have been found throughout the state at 1,000-year-old burial sites.

ABORTION?

Today it has really struck me as to just how many in our country view abortion as a freedom. It is viewed as a right of womanhood to disallow the birth of a child. Yet the majority of Americans abhor the deaths of humans in any other form. I wondered how my grandchildren and their children would internalize this subject. I decided to incorporate my thoughts on the subject into a book that I am writing, a sort of letter to my children called “Don’t Lose My Marbles”.
This subject encompasses all varieties of underlying beliefs and feelings, as well as creating new moral and ethical dilemmas for our society and as individuals. Abortion has given rise to both political and religious groups on both sides of the issue. Here are my thoughts and my beliefs on the subject and they are directed, as I mentioned, to my family. If any of the rest of my extended family, “mankind” wishes to think along my path you are welcome. If not, at least keep an open mind.
In 1973 our Supreme Court legalized the practice of abortion based on the plaintiff’s plea to abort her unborn child due to her perceived inability to provide for that child. The other portion of the decision came as part and parcel of her acquisition of an illegal abortion which in general has been proven to be quite unsafe for the mother of the aborted child. The argument used by her attorneys was that a woman’s right to privacy includes the right for her to choose to bear a child to birth or not. McCorvey wrote that she had "wanted to terminate my pregnancy because of the economic hardship which my pregnancy entailed, and because of the social stigma attached to the bearing of illegitimate children in our society." Since she could not afford to travel to another state for a legal abortion, she said: "I fear that my very life would be endangered if I submitted to an abortion which I could afford."This subject has been hashed over and rehashed millions of times, and that is not an exaggeration. I can’t really imagine that it has not been mulled over by at least half of those who have chosen to terminate their pregnancy. The basic questions are simple, it is the definitions that come into play and increase the complexity.
Our society has increasingly become “me “orientated over the last century and our ethical moral sensitivities have adjusted accordingly. This is not unusual and is something that has occurred many times over the course of history. Our society is no different. The question will eventually boil down to who and what comprises human decency towards another human, and at what point does the human animal come into being. Humans as societies have, for the most part, stood against the unjustified taking of another human life. The terms of justification for that action have fluctuated during the course of history but have generally tended toward the restrictions of such justification, i.e. the elimination of death penalties as a form of penalty for certain acts. The political and societal position against nation’s acts of war against each other is another example. It seems that our position regarding abortion has taken a turn against the trending tendency of protecting life. The subject also encroaches into areas of education, legality, personal choices, physical and mental health as well as what is passed on to our children.
I have many good friends and acquaintances with all facets of agreement and disagreement of how to deal with this subject. It is one of the most critical underlying subjects facing our society today. I don’t see that changing soon. Our current political and law making factions tend to go with the easy choice of agreeing with those that can make noise and against those who are unable to speak because of their lack of formation inside the womb of their mothers. Abortion is a subject we each need to make a choice on as individuals; a choice that defines us as a person and jointly as a society. There is no other subject since the inception of time that is more critical to our species with the possible exception of war as a method of total extinction. There has never been, in the course of humanity, any scourge or war inflicting the number of casualties equal to that caused by abortion. That some may be justified to insure the safety and life of the mother is a given, but allowed as a matter just for choice is morally corrupt. I don’t state that as a Christian, I state that as a human being.
Our nation today is more polarized on more subjects than at any time I can remember in my life. I have tried to understand both those I agree with and those I don’t. I have to admit failure in many instances. I do not understand how someone can disagree with violence to protect the life of their neighbor if force equals force. I do not understand how any faction of a society can stand against their nation’s history, and I certainly can’t understand the taking of an innocent life as justified because of inconvenience.
I do understand that abortions have been taking place for most of our history, and that most of those prior to the twentieth century were extremely dangerous to the childbearing mothers. Something had to change in that regard. There is no way the numbers involved prior to “RvW” were anywhere in proximity to the numbers that have occurred since.
We as a society have taken a role and position of total permissiveness sexually and that has driven the numbers of abortions to the high numbers we now see. This permissiveness is exacerbated in our educational system by trying to treat the symptom of pregnancy as a matter of prevention rather than a matter of responsibility that should be part of parenting. As those children move into young adulthood choosing sex as a recreational activity because they have the ability and the right to do whatever is also than a matter of responsibility that should have been taught them by their parents as a part of parenting responsibilities. Our children need to be taught that it is not ok to do everything and that the things they do have consequences. If you have sex when you can’t afford to give up your life for your children’s food, clothing and lodging, don’t have sex. It’s not ok just because you can take time off school to have an abortion and no one will be the wiser. At some point in time the reality of your action will come back to slap your psyche. The taking of your child’s life will be a hurt that bandages can’t cure for you. If you decide to keep the child your young life will never be the same. The loss of freedom that having a child while you are a child is monumental and no matter how much you love your new baby, resentment is right around some dirty diaper or some missed dance or party. Having a child is a responsibility that makes having sex a responsibility. Having sex just this one time, with or without protection, is like eating one piece of candy it’s not going to happen that way. We could eliminate a good portion of unnecessary abortions by the reinstatement teaching responsibility to both parents and children. The fact that our society accepts termination of life as an alternative form of contraception is a terminal sickness that should not be condoned by any of us. If you have a unwanted child inside your body give it to someone who cares. Adoptions are a much better solution and it gives your child a chance at greatness and the new parents an opportunity for unimaginable love.
There was a time in my life when I was not in solid belief regarding God and His Son Jesus Christ and during this lapse I considered the abortion of one of my children. It was a decision based on not wanting to ruin a relationship with another of my children by having to share love with two rather than one. I am happy to say that the birth came to fruition, and because of that the world is a richer place. I also found out that love is an unlimited, boundless blessing from an all understanding God.

About believe or not.

IS THERE, OR ISN’T THERE A GOD.
Historically man has always put someone or something in that position: in order to put reason to that which he does not understand, or to gain power and influence. The reality of Gods existence has been a debatable subject, an existence which can neither be confirmed nor denied through empirical scientific evidence. This has been a contentious debate and often times a bloody one due to the power factor and mans interpretation of Gods favor. Mans self-created gods have included all component s of nature and it anomalies, rulers, and gifted individuals. Lately man himself has been included in the list of that type of god. The gods of nature have been scientifically proven to be results rather than causal factors in our world, although exhibiting power, uncontrollable by man in many cases, they do not have the ability to create out of nothing, or to reason.
Those who contend there is no God are able to stand on the current “fact” that Gods existence cannot be supported by scientific means, therefore there is no God. I put the word fact in “ “ because that which is unproven is not fact but is only theory. If one is to use theory as a basis for guiding himself through life, with a god, without a god, or with God, one does so merely on the basis of faith, self gratification or personal experience. God’s place in one’s life is a very personal and individual experience and the paths to accepting His (masc. in historical use only) existence can be quite unique. My own personal position regarding Gods existence is based on personal experiences which have in turn created faith.

God is our provider

I have decided that my writing lyrics, poetry and essays are an intrinsic definition of who I am today as well as a picture of my past. The main purpose of the marble project is and has been that my progeny might be able to see the effects of my actions and thoughts, both good and bad. I will continue to post my writings on http://www.ronslyrics.homestead.com/ in the hope of gaining some sort of income to help sustain Catherine and I during this later portion of our lives. My life choices in conjunction with the normal course of non controllable life occurrence has led to a poverty level of life at this particular time. I might note however that God has seen our plight and has nudged others to help sustain us. I have found that having a strong faith in the Christian belief that the Father is our source of sustenance has great credence.
I seem to have gone in a circle in my life, one of trusting that my parents would provide food, lodging and just about everything else I would ever need; then that good fortune would always give me the means to attain whatever goods and service my life would require; from there to believing that I could talk others into almost anything, and because of that ability to sell, I would always have employment; from all this I moved into the realm of belief that my thoughts could create the abundance that my life required; and finally that IF I could work hard enough and smart enough that success would be mine. All of these have an element of truth to them but none are stand alone answers, at least not for me. In my life I have been blessed with so many talents that knowing direction has been a maze of uncompleted direction. It's almost as if God has been telling me "Ron no matter how great you think you are mentally and creatively you will need to come to ME first and until you learn about Me (God the Father) your fruits will be failure and frustration.
Prior to losing my design business, my home, most all of my worldly possessions I continued to TRY to bail us out of what was our inevitable financial failure. In the last struggles I attempted to do it all by myself, with Catherine's help, by working 12 to 14 hours a day at designing, stock market analysis, day trading, and a start up restaurant. Trusting in God to the point that "our daily bread" was still a product of what I did. My current belief is that God is the provider and we do with his providence.

BITS OF WISDOM from others

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED: 1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.. 2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person. 4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food..6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair..7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time. 8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk. 9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandma's lap.

Just relaxing in the tub is a favorite contemplation method for me, and today was no exception. Thoughts about exercise, it's benefits, and my lack of, made me think, if I only would create a habit of exercising all would be well. That led to other musings about habits, obsessions, and addictions, needless to say, the habit of not exercising prevailed.

Life is a field that needs tending

Life is a field
It seems that Sundays always bring short bursts of insight. It wasn’t always the case but insights are more frequent as one confronts physical mortality through aging. My own insights seem to be prompted by the catalyst of someone else’s ponderings. In my case it is frequently the homily at mass or something heard via television. Yesterday the prompter was a homily about the creeping insidiousness of little missteps. In the New Testament Jesus warns us about the relationships of anger, hatred and murder; sexual imagination to adultery and coveting. The progression is undeniable. We all have the human proclivity to mull and grow small thoughts into consuming thought patterns and eventually into some form of action. This is quite similar to another simple teaching that tells us the power of faith as small as a mustard seed. Wrong thought, as small as a mustard seed, can become giant in our lives.
Life is like a field a farmer leases. We are given the freedom to plant and nourish whatever we wish. Eventually we will see the results of whatever seeds we have decided to give the most care and nourishment too. Each seed of thought produces its own particular fruit and it makes sense to be diligent in our choices. The New Testament gives us so many teachings of Christ which warn us of the pitfalls and advise us of best direction. His parables intertwine giving us a guide for creating crops that nourish our lives and our souls.
When I was growing up in Eastern Oregon the farmland we made our living on was very fragile. There was very little water, used up soil and we had to fight to create a living in this part of the country. We learned how to increase the nutrients in the soil, how to conserve moisture and how to stagger the use of the land giving time to build its strength. We took care in protecting the seed that we planted into this unwilling land by treating it to prevent sickness of the crop it was to produce. The most ardent of all labors that went into prize of a decent crop was that of eliminating the weeds. Christ also gave us the parable of the farmer whose fields were reduced to worthless value by thorns and weeds. Our field of life is the same. If we allow ourselves to be assaulted by seeds of thought which are harmful in our lives we stand to lose.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments we have been given a training manual for creating a fruitful life, all we have to do is pay attention. The Ten Commandments give us a basic straight forward directive regarding things that are vital to life as a society and as an individual. There has yet to be a better set of guide posts put in front of us. The temptations to circumvent or to ignore these commandments are stepping stones to disaster. We can see this in our own lives, in our neighbors and in our countries. From my own view I see the Old Testament as a book of warnings and examples of just how important it is to stay away from certain tendencies of the human condition. In the beginning Genesis starts with warnings about disobedience, the dangers of our inquisitive nature, anger and jealousy as seeds culminating in the act of murder. Most of the Old Testament is involved with showing us what happens when we shove aside the directions supplied to us in order to satisfy our basest noxious thoughts and actions. The New Testament takes an entirely different approach in using the example of Christ’s life, teachings and actions to show us a more positive approach to nourish our lives. Christ’s teachings give us direction on things to do, more so than the things to avoid.
Looking back on my own field of life it’s pretty evident which thoughts I nourished to create action and culminated in results that could have been predicted. Hindsight is always so much more prudent than prediction.

Me and God part One

Today in church it occurred to me that my relationship with God has been a long enduring search for understanding. There have been times in my life that I had no idea who or what he was yet feared the fact that He was going to burn my soul in Hell for eternity. There were times I didn’t believe in Him at all; times He was in everything, every molecule, and He was merely the energy that held the universe together; Times the possibility that our universe and all things were no more than a test tube experiment, or that we were one small cell in some giant body. Where I am today after all these years is back to where I could have been when I started trying to choose my life. I am still trying to understand something I believe in, I believe because of observation, study, and most recently because of a simple statement I heard someone else say, “I know there is a God because every day the sun comes up and every day the sun sets, because the tide of the oceans always come in and the go out.” I thought at the time that this was a simplistic poor example because everybody knows those things occur because of the natural order of the universe, the sun the moon etc.. The more I considered how this person could have picked many more astute reasons for belief in God the more I understood the reasons for my own belief. Not only the reasons but the how of that belief. The simple and the complex could not be one and the same as a result of random spontaneous action. There has to be a intellect of high ability to create such a model. The description of this intellect for most of us is God.
Faith is a slow creeping fact of life. We rely on it for a portion of our beliefs in all things that we don’t really understand, and God is at the top of those things. For a time in my life faith in God was absent in my life, partially out of choice and partially because those who were teaching me about God proved they were mere people the same as the rest of us. They all had warts of some kind, personas that were not true to that which they were attempting to push into the heads of their students.
I was raised Catholic. At the time I was growing up the Church was quite different than that of today. I was raised on a ranch near a small town in Eastern Oregon. My religious training for the first few years consisted of two weeks of summer schooling with the visiting nuns. What I learned was that I enjoyed meeting all the new kids from the surrounding towns and farms, and I liked the music, and the nuns and the parish priest were very special human beings far unlike the rest of us. I also found out that if I didn’t confess my sins and faults to the priest. and promise that I would never again be bad again, it was a trip to Hell for me. This is where and how I learned God was one to fear and it was virtually impossible to please Him all the time. My faith at this time in my life was that The Fire was basically inevitable.
As I prepared to become a high school freshman in my little town my dad had an entirely different thing in mind for me. His idea was that I would come to no good in my little comfortable high school so a nice Catholic boarding school some four hundred miles away would be just the ticket. Needless to say this was a shock to my system, which would be even worse than being a country boy who knew no more about city life than the small amount of time spent at school in his little home town. Larger shocks were in the making.
On my way to the school, the first time I had ever been on a four lane highway, little did I know that it would be one of many firsts. I envisioned the school as a kind of religious training camp with the students all packing the catechism books and bibles around, and groups of holy, holy priests to show us the things we needed to learn to be better people. My first eye opening experience occurred about three hours after my parents had introduced me to the principle, got me settled in with the dorm rector, and left me there.
For a country boy, in my little town, I had kept myself up quite well with fads of the time. I sported what was then called a Princeton haircut which was basically a crew cut on top with long sides combed to the back into a ducktail. I had also picked up the habit of smoking cigarettes ( that is another marble of life in and of itself). These two little tidbits were catamount to my first what the heck. As I was enjoying my first cigarette in the smoking area I was confronted by a guy about twice my size who grabbed me by the shoulder and informed me that I was in an upper classman area and my presence there would never happen again. He also informed me that only punks wore DA’s (referring to the back of my hair as a ducks ass). Needless to say my idea, regarding the bible packing student body, quickly evaporated into an awareness that little hundred and fifteen pound new comers were in a place of danger. The second situation informed my mind that priests were not just Gods men but they were capable of just as many faults as anybody else. Maybe even worse, because of their position as proposed holy stand ins for Christ. To this day I still have a strong and dangerous reaction to bullies and people who misuse position. It was at this school that my loss of faith began its trek.

When I woke up this morning my head was filled up and roaring down the road. It’s spring 2010 and I’m staring at things personally I would have never thought possible when I was in my 20’s. I’m seeing things coming to fruition, in my society and country, which I have feared. Seeing them as probabilities since my 40’s and did nothing but grumble and complain (two very ugly marbles). In keeping with my analogy of marbles, there are a multitude of marbles involved, in both my personal bag and that of my country, that have brought myself and country to their respective situations. The marbles involved in both are: Love, Ethics, Morality, Honesty, Commitment, Trust and most of all Prayer. There may be some more but if I think of them I’ll add them to the mix as we go.
Much as our bodies are made up of cells and the health of our body is determined by the health of the individual cells as they combine together. The health of a society is made up and determined by the health, actions and perceptions of the people in the society as a group. If the marbles of Love, Ethics, Morality, Honesty, Commitment, Trust are not polished and cared for bad things can happen. Most generally these marbles become cracked, tarnished and chipped away because we continue to go through time on a series of slippery slopes, thinking “just this once won’t hurt or matter in the overall theme of things”. Wrrrrooooong! Just as the body can become increasingly ill through lack of proper nourishment, ingestion of wrong foods and putting it in position to accept illness from other people, our society or Nation can react and become ill for the same reasons. Fortunately, or not depending on what you believe, when we don’t know how to fix our circumstance we can use the bigger marble (PRAYER) to Hope things can be repaired. The more Faith and Intensity of the faith, the more likely you are to attain results and answers.
Personally: It’s much easier for me to look back in the face of time to see what happened to my marbles and why things are, and to some extent the what and why of today. With the passage of time, to help clarify the importance of decisions made and the ripple effect of acting out those decisions, we can learn. If it’s too late in the game to really affect our own circumstance we can perhaps help someone else. If I have a huge regret in this life it is not doing something about all the other things I wish I had done differently.
To find one’s self in the last few years of life without the means to care for the physical needs of myself and my wife is a devastating situation to say the least. Lacking the health of body I would like to have, in order to put up the good fight to fix things, is equally frustrating. Believe me when I say, even if I were someone who did not believe in God, I would be praying.
There have been so many junctions, in my seven decades; I might have taken different turns for better results. The beauty of retrospect is that we can only surmise what the outcome may have been. That view is only helpful if a similar situation occurs again in our life. The fact is that when we make a choice to act, it is the best we can do at that particular time. If we knew better we would do better. Most of our decisions are based on what we really believe to be true not on what we think might be true. Occasionally we act on false thinking, hoping for results that will work out.
We can’t and don’t always act on fact as we know it, sometimes when we act on what we think maybe possible, great things can happen. If mankind didn’t have the ability to use his imagination there are a lot of good things the world would never have known. That is a fact that keeps adding to our pile of mistakes as well as our heap of rewards. I believe God made us in his image and to this day we as human beings try to create new things. I believe that God must be a curious God, even though I was taught that He was omniscient. I believe that, at times, when He looks upon mankind he has to say,”Self what was I thinking”. The fact that He gave man a free will can be viewed as a blessing or as a curse, but that’s how he made us. Free will was a gift allowing us all the ability to be surprised by the outcome of our choices.
My results have been very mixed throughout my life. Retrospectively, I have found that the worst were caused by selfishness and a desire for immediate gratification, two more damaging marble wreckers. These two wreckers have led to circumstance that have cursed and blessed at the same time. These traits are very difficult to overcome if they are not acknowledged and one should use them as a filter in making decisions. The blessings from them are quite accidental and occasional while the curse of them is general and without fail will occur in some form or another. The curse of these bad guys, in my life, took the forms of hurting people I love or loved, the loss of relationships with friends and family, the loss of self respect and the respect of others. They have caused me to lie, cheat, and steal in one form or another and to move away from being who I wanted to be as a person. These traits are erosive to one’s life course and should be watched for with absolute diligence. Vice’s very seldom are solitary in one’s life. We make the mistake of thinking a little mis-deed won’t hurt anything or anyone, but they do and almost always lead to forcing one bad choice after another in terms of good ethics and standards. The correction of these situations are most generally going to cause you a lot of pain, and that is inevitable when you finally see the folly of your actions. In my life I have lost contact and relationship with family, children primarily, whom I still love but don’t have the energy to reach out to. I am, I guess relying on the hope that the truths kept hidden will be shown to all in the afterlife, another one of those belief structure deals base in faith and hope.

We learn from our Heroes

We all have heroes in our lives, some good some not so good. I was lucky growing up, our extended family gave me all sorts of opportunities to put me in awe of my uncles and cousins. All of my uncles became part of my life after the old age of five. The war had used them during the first few years of my life. Dad was part of a seven sibling family, himself four brothers and two sisters. Dad was the second of the seven. Lou was the oldest of the brothers and I really never got to know him until later in life, but that's part of another turning point in my life.

Action creates Reaction in a ripple effect. In that respect when we choose to act to solve a problem we have to be aware of consequences of the ripple. If it causes an effect we find undesirable, we need to look for a different Action for our solution.

FEAR

Fear: Fear is only helpful in the case of immediate danger to your own or another’s existence. Reaction to fear is a retardant to accurate perception of events and choice of action as it causes “flight, fight, or freeze

EXPECTATIONS

Expectations: Plan to your best ability, Pray about all major decisions, Act diligently and in a timely manner, If it doesn’t turn out the way you want, don’t do it the same way again, Don’t expect life to be fair. Be Thankful regardless you may not be able to see what is really the best answer for all.

Proverbs and good sense

The main source of good sense marbles is the book of Proverbs but there are always a few little marbles that get misplaced in everyday life. Generally they are the ones that don’t reflect the best light or prettiest colors and are what we call mistakes. Some of our most important lessons come from the mistakes and failures made during our game of marbles, but these are the ones that do not get passed down from generation to generation. We all need mistakes, to learn how to overcome adversity and to recover from the wrong turns we are capable making during our lives.

POEM wed Mar 17, 2010

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

HOW FAR WE HAVE COME,
IN SO SHORT A TIME.
AWAY FROM THE REPUBLICI ONCE CALLED MINE.
AWAY FROM THE VALUES WE ONCE HELD DEAR,
MOVING TOWARD A PLACE
COMMON SENSE SHOULD FEAR.

PROCRASTINATION and my Blog to My son Tod

Being a procrastinator has its advantages, and in this particular case it gave me time to think. This little endeavor of explaining a simple child’s game could be used in more than one way. I could just explain the game as played during my childhood but the phrase “He’s lost his marbles” kept haunting me. How many use-full (more or less) bits of information have been lost over the centuries in passing teachings from life experience and parents onto our progeny. If we were to look at these things as something to collect and pass on rather than just using and discarding, we might save our family some time and trouble.
The main source of good sense marbles is the book of Proverbs but there are always a few little marbles that get misplaced in everyday life. Generally they are the ones that don’t reflect the best light or prettiest colors and are what we call mistakes. Some of our most important lessons come from the mistakes and failures made during our game of marbles, but these are the ones that do not get passed down from generation to generation. We all need mistakes, to learn how to overcome adversity and to recover from the wrong turns we are capable making during our lives. Passing our marbles on to our children is and should be an obligation of parenting, but in our current society that’s not always possible, due to instability of relationships and divorce, one of my murky colored marbles. Hopefully I can be as forthright as possible but I must admit that some of my most dingy and icky colored marbles may become lost forever and good riddance to them.

About Me

Ron Burres
I am a child of the 1940s' and growing up I was taught the importance of: God, Honesty, Integrity, Responsibility, The balance of cause and effect. I eventually came to believe that: Competition creates achievement, Success is a product of smart thinking and hard work. Innovation and creativity are products of individual freedom. We all have the right to believe and practice our religion or not. Each person is unique in talent, ability and in contribution to society. In the freedom to express myself, and the right of my neighbor to do the same. A country and society divided against itself will eventually crumble and fall into weakness. Common sense is the best aid in decision making, and that without it most plans are destined to fail. True education promotes the discovery of truth. Indoctrination promotes actions based upon unsustainable falsehoods. That it makes more sense to believe in God, eternity, grace and forgiveness than in the nothingness of atheism because of possible resulting outcomes.

Toss and Capture

The game of marbles...Toss and Capture
Toss and CaptureI still remember my introduction to the game. I had to be a very young boy just starting my schooling. We lived about 15 miles outside the town on a farm that dad was managing. I had just started the first grade and the only school was in town. My grandparents had moved into an apartment about three blocks from the grade school and that was where I would wait for mom and dad. I’m quite sure the game Grandpa (my dads dad Agustus Burres) taught me was a defense to pass the time with an over active six year old. Pass the time it did we would play that game as often and for as long as it took for mom and dad to come in from their work on the farm to pick me up. The game of toss and capture that Grandpa taught me was a simple. . He would set the game up by covering the sofa with a nice soft Pendleton wool blanket so we wouldn’t lose our marbles behind the cushions and then the game would begin. One marble would be placed towards the front edge and in the center of the sofa, standing back about five or six feet (this increased as I grew), we would draw marbles out of a big gallon jar and take turns tossing at the marble in the center. The one who finally hit the center marble got to keep the collection of marbles that were missed shots. We repeated this process until all of our spare time was used up. The one that amassed the largest collection by the end of the play period was winner for that day. All the marbles were returned to the jar ready for the next day’s challenge.