Mother Bird

“Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.”- Stephen Covey

I live out in the country and there is on old, rocky road on my place that goes over to a barn. I don’t use the barn for much besides storage. So grass and weeds are starting to take over the road. But it is still there with an assortment of colorful small rocks and stones between the ruts.

A while back I was hauling some more really valuable keepsakes (junk) to the barn in my pickup. In the middle of the road I saw a Killdeer. It’s a bird. They do better around water, but for some reason you will see them in strange places in these parts. In Texas we call them Kill-dees. They are not the smartest birds and must have a fear of heights, since they nest on the ground and lay their eggs where snakes and other critters can eat them; assuming some old codger in a pickup truck doesn’t run over them first.

This bird was bowed up with her wings fanned out, so I figured she must have eggs on the ground. I pulled off the road and stopped beside her nest which was really nothing other than a pile of rocks. Her eggs were huddled up in those rocks. I guess she thought they were camouflaged and looked like rocks. Not really. I drove on up to the barn and when I came back she was still there.

For the next couple of weeks I found myself looking for reasons to go over to the barn. I also have some bees nearby and that was another excuse for more frequent trips I suppose. But I was really just curious about this little momma bird and her eggs. I didn’t see how they would ever survive. It was a ready meal for a snake or a skunk and I figured she could not fight them all off 24-7. But, to my surprise she hung in there. I thought those eggs might survive and hatch. Perhaps God had ordained we should have some more not too bright little “Kill-dees” who would grow up to lay eggs in the middle of the road.

I went over there yesterday on foot and there she was standing guard. But the eggs were gone. Maybe they hatched. Maybe not. She was running around in circles but moved away as I got closer. I saw no signs that the eggs had hatched or had ever been there for that matter. I reckoned that some other creature had finally caught her napping or briefly away from the eggs. The eggs were gone and Mother Bird was totally lost and confused by the tragic turn of events.

I usually don’t get sentimental about wildlife. It’s eat or be eaten and the strong and smart survive. Kill-dee eggs are just another link in the food-chain. But, I had taken an interest in this little bird and her eggs. I genuinely felt sorry for her. I went back later before sundown and she was still there, trying to find her eggs or waiting for whatever took them to bring them back. I wonder how long she will fret over those lost eggs. At what point will she forget or just give up and move on. Or will she remain lost and confused hopping around in circles.

I suppose this little mother bird could represent many things in our world. Some of them are too controversial and divisive. So I will not even go there other than to predict that we humans are likely to remain lost and confused, hopping around in circles….and laying our eggs in the middle of the road until our time is up.

The Freedom They Long For

I’ve written previously about my ancestors. The old family stories were accurate only going back a few generations. Beyond that it was stories that sounded good, but were mostly untrue.

Several years ago I took a very basic DNA test and was surprised to find that one of those stories that had been told as fact turned out to be fiction. The Clicks came to Texas from Eastern Tennessee and always claimed Cherokee blood. Many of them had dark complexions and the high cheek bones one might associate with Indian heritage. That was not the case.

I had traced my Click (Gluck) ancestry back to the Rhineland region of Germany. But that basic DNA test reported that I was only 10% Western European. The bulk of my DNA was linked to Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. I had more Iberian (Spanish) than Western European (German or French).

Recently, I decided to spend the money for a more in depth DNA analysis and the results were startlingly different. I still had all that was reported in the basic test, but to lesser degrees. The report showed portions of Toscani Italian (11%) and Asian Indian (6%) DNA. Moreover, German ancestry was specifically identified at over 50%. And, the report said I was also 15% French. The Anglo-Scots-Irish was still there but not nearly as much. And the Iberian was about the same (10%). The report noted that German DNA is the most widespread in Western Europe, even into the British Isles. So perhaps some of my English and Scots-Irish ancestors had some German blood or just married Germans when they got to America. Who knows? (I will find out though).

At any rate, the larger percentage of German ancestry made sense. So I went back again for a closer look at the Glucks. The earliest known relative had been living in Southern France before returning to Germany in the 1600’s. Most likely fleeing religious persecution from Catholic France. However, the persecution continued for those German Protestants living in the Rhine Valley of Southwestern Germany, also referred to as the Palatine region. So in the 1700’s there began a mass migration of Palatine Germans to the British Colonies in the Americas.

With the support of Queen Anne and the leadership of William Penn, thousands of Palatine Germans migrated to America. It was a brutal trip. By boat up the Rhine River to Rotterdam. A ship to England and then on to Philadelphia. They settled in Pennsylvania in such numbers that at one point over half of the population was German. The promise of religious freedom and the opportunity to own land compelled them to leave everything behind and face the risks of death, disease, poverty and failure. The potential rewards were simply too great to ignore.

My ancestors arrived in Philadelphia on the migrant ship Lydia in October 1749. Until recently, I thought it was just Ludwig Heinrich Gluck. But further research revealed that he came with his parents. He was still a boy. Johann Conrad and Susanna Gluck, his parents along with his older sister Maria and younger brother Johannes Marx had made (and survived) the journey. Ludwig changed his name later to Lewis Henry Click and moved to East Tennessee to become one of Tennessee’s Founding Families. His parents, Johann and Susanna are buried back in Pennsylvania in the Gluck Farm Cemetery.

In researching the Palatine German migration, I found a pamphlet that had been written by a German immigrant as both a guide and a warning to those still in Germany considering immigrating to America. Mostly it was a discouraging report outlining all of the terrible things one faced on the journey and the hardships that awaited those who survived. But the author of the pamphlet, identified only as “L.M.”, also had these words for those who might come to America:

“Whoever does not come here at all, but remains at home he is the wisest, yet this land is, when one studies it earnestly, a door opened of old to those who suffer for their conscience' sake, to find the freedom they long for. Whoever comes here with this motive will still find what he is seeking. But all other purposes will fail or be difficult to attain, for our motto here, too, is "Labor is Prayer" or "In the sweat of thy forehead shalt thou eat thy bread".

Our current immigration system is a mess. We certainly need people who come for the right reasons and are willing to work. I think most of them do. Those of us who are here need to find better ways to help them find "the freedom they long for" while still protecting our nation. It's been done before and can be done again.

Rattlers, Ropes and Rumbles

“Only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – FDR


From the Dallas Morning News:

A man and a woman found themselves up a tree in a South Texas park in an attempt to get away from what they thought was a feral hog.
A police officer at Government Canyon State Natural Area, about 20 miles northwest of downtown San Antonio, was notified shortly before midnight June 21 after a woman called 911.
She said a growling feral hog was following her and that she had taken refuge in a tree, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
The woman used her cellphone to send the officer her location, and when he hiked there he found her and a man in a tree. The woman warned the officer that the hog was nearby.


One of my favorite movies is Fandango. It was made back in ’85 and was one of Kevin Costner’s first starring roles. It was set in Texas, 1971…if you’re from Texas and from that era…you’ll love the movie. It has become a cult classic for guys like me. But the rest of the world just doesn’t get it. At one point in the movie, the guys are sleeping on the ground out where the movie Giant was filmed. Nothing is still standing there but the old staged front of the Benedict mansion. In the morning just before dawn, one of the guys wakes up screaming, “Snake, Snake…”.

He tells his buddies that a snake has crawled up his pants leg during the night. He claims it’s a rattler. About that time, a harmless lizard sticks it’s head out of his pants and then runs off. The others start teasing the guy who was so scared and he replies, “Well it felt like a snake…” Kevin Costner’s character replies with a thick Texas twang ”No, it was a RAT-LUR…”

When I was a little boy I used to spend summers down on my grandparents farm. It wasn’t too far from the Brazos River and this was back before they built the dam that created Lake Granbury. My uncle would take me fishing and camping down on the river. I was allowed to wonder around, often by myself, in places that if a little boy were allowed to do go these days the uncle would be arrested. But those were different times. They warned you about venomous snakes and river currents and poison oak. It was your job to pay attention and be careful. I think it’s called teaching responsibility. But I digress.

One time I had been down below camp fishing from the bank. A long draught had finally broken and the river was running high and fast. A couple of days before, a young woman had drowned back up the river and her body had not been recovered. Given the way the river winds and bends we were probably 50 miles from where she drowned. But my uncle had great fun telling me to keep an eye out for a floating body. That the woman who drowned was probably “all swole up by now and might float a long way with the river runnin' like this.”

It was the duty of older male relatives in my family to tease and torment the younger ones. It was all about toughening you up and preparing you to face the shit-show of life that awaited. These older males had lived through the depression, the dust bowl, WW2 and a long, brutal drought. They weren’t inclined to worry about your feelings other than to diminish them as much as possible. I think it made me a better man in some ways and a much worse man in others. So I’m not suggesting that it is the right way to treat young boys, but in small doses it might not be a bad thing.

After several hours of bad fishing and intense surveillance, I’d already mistaken several logs and other debris for the dead woman’s floating body. Every time something grabbed my line, usually a turtle or some underwater limb, I just knew I was going to pull up an arm or a leg. So by the time I headed back to camp around sundown, I am pretty spooked by the whole river experience. I had been using minnows for bait and had the minnow bucket in one hand and my rod and reel over my shoulder with the other one. It was a Norman Rockwell image. All I needed was a spotted pup trotting along side. The minnow bucket had a rope on it that was about 8 ft long. Somehow that rope ended up on the ground trailing behind me. It’s getting dark and I’m walking through the woods by myself. My head is on a swivel. I am watching out for everything. Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My.

And then I catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. There is a snake right behind me. I drop the minnow bucket and the rod and reel. I am certain that I set the land speed record for 11 year old fat white boys that day. I get back to camp and my uncle is genuinely concerned when he sees me out of breath and white as a sheet. I tell him about the snake and just dropping everything and running. He says let’s take a look. By now it’s getting pretty dark, so he grabs the lantern and we head back down the trail. He sees my rod and reel and then the bucket and then the rope. And then he starts laughing and says, “Aw you were just attacked by a rope snake. Good thing you ran off”. Haw, Haw, Haw. For the next few years, the “rope snake” incident was brought up at every family gathering. The rope got shorter and my fear was elevated with each telling. No I did not pee in my pants.

However, I did gain something from that embarrassing moment and the teasing that followed. To this day, I don’t overreact to things that might, or might not, be dangerous. It taught me a lesson about misplaced fear and anxiety. A rope is just a rope. (And, oh by the way, they found that poor woman’s body less than 100 yards from where she went under.)

So what about the couple we left up the tree in South Texas. After the officer coaxes them down out of the tree, they hear the sound they thought was the wild hog. Then they hear it again. The officer says that’s just cars going over a rumble strip on a nearby road. Just a harmless rumble strip. No wild hog. No RAT-LUR. Nothing to fear.

American Pride

The headline read:

IN U.S. RECORD- LOW 47% EXTREMELY PROUD TO BE AMERICANS.

The article (https://news.gallup.com/poll/236420/record-low-extremely-proud-americans.aspx) goes on to report that 72% of Republicans are “extremely” proud to be Americans while on 42% of Independents and 32% of Democrats responded as being “extremely” proud. The article notes that this is biggest gap between Republicans and Democrats since Gallup began the poll back in 2001. Older white males are more likely to be “extremely proud” of America than women, younger folks, people of color and those with higher education. Raise your hand if this surprises you.

The article includes a link to the details of the survey. Being naturally curious and chronically skeptical of the way survey results are often reported, I decided to check it out. As it turns out the question is as follows:
How proud are you to be an American -- extremely proud, very proud, moderately proud, only a little proud, or not at all proud?

Being an Independent count me as one of those NOT responding as being “EXTREMELY” proud of America. I am definitely VERY proud of America. But, I am a realist and America isn’t perfect. If the question were asked, how would you rank America to all other nations on planet earth, I would definitely say WE’RE NUMBER ONE. There is no greater nation and never has been , in my opinion. But ask me the question, the way it is asked, and I’m going to respond VERY vs EXTREMELY most of the time.

25% reported being VERY proud. Combine with the 47% who are EXTREMELY proud and we have 72% of American’s who are at least very or extremely proud of America. That number peaked at 92% in September 2002, one year after 911. The high marks for EXTREME pride were 2002, 2003, 2004 at 69%, 70% and 69%. After No WMDs and Katrina, the number started dropping. The Trump years have been the lowest at 52%, 51% and now 47%. The number of VERY proud Americans (like me) has been pretty steady since 2006 staying in the 24-26% range, with a bump up to 27-28-29% in 2013, 2015, 2016. (No results were shown for 2014 which I find interesting).

When the first survey was taken in Jan 2001 (pre-911 and in the aftermath of hanging chads and all of that), 87% of respondents were Extremely or Very Proud of America. That we are now down to 72% is indeed cause for concern. If the survey results are truly representative of us, then almost 50 Million Americans are no longer proud of their country. (I don’t count “moderately” proud…that’s just lame).

We are at one of those historical tipping points. Whichever way things go in the 2020s, we are likely to remain a very divided nation for decades. Trump may now be the poster boy for a U.S. divided, but he’s not the real issue. We are divided on fundamental issues: abortion, immigration, climate change, energy, international policies, healthcare, education, religion, taxes, race, gender, sexuality, the size and scope of government, drugs, crime and punishment. Not just a little divided, but in many cases uncompromisingly divided. Our system may be one of checks and balances, but it requires people of good will and some degree of shared values in order to function. On July 4, 2019, I regret to report that very little of either are to be found.

Stop Limiting My Potential

From BBC news-
"A ban on adverts featuring "harmful gender stereotypes" or those which are likely to cause "serious or widespread offence" has come into force.
The ban covers scenarios such as a man with his feet up while a woman cleans, or a woman failing to park a car.

The UK's advertising watchdog introduced the ban because it found some portrayals could play a part in "limiting people's potential".

“Our evidence shows how harmful gender stereotypes in ads can contribute to inequality in society, with costs for all of us. Put simply, we found that some portrayals in ads can, over time, play a part in limiting people’s potential,” says Guy Parker, chief executive of the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)."


At the risk of being stereotyped as an older, white, conservative male this seems to me to be just one more crazy attempt by progressives to brute force the round peg of equality into the square hole of reality.

People are different, genders are different. Why people are who they are is complicated and we still don’t fully understand it. But the scientific evidence for real differences between the sexes is undeniable. Gender matters. And there is substantial evidence that other factors matter, they matter a lot. Personality type matters. Where you grow up matters? Race matters. Money matters. Health matters. Education matters. Your decisions and the decisions of others matter. The weather matters. IQ matters. Physical appearance matters. Age matters. Like it or not, fair or not…differences matter.

To be clear, I am all for equal opportunity for everyone. But equal outcomes are not possible. Over the past 100 years most of the modern, industrialized world has made tremendous progress toward creating equal opportunity for all. Yet, we still see unequal outcomes among people of different genders, races, places of origin, etc.

Some of this will take time to work through. Ever since we started walking upright, discovered fire and began telling our stories on cave walls, human civilization hasn’t been all that big on equal opportunity. Rulers and subjects have been the norm. The fortunate few selected by the gods to run things. On the timeline of human history we are still new at this equal opportunity idea. We are very much a work in process. And, going forward things will get incrementally better for more people. But not for all and never the same for all. This is a hard pill to swallow for social scientists. So they spend their time and someone else’s grant money doing studies that show where and how society does these awful things to perpetuate inequality.

As I grow older, I resent the assumptions that many people have about aging and ability. I am still in good shape, the mind is sharp and I’m not all that different than I was 20 years ago. But, the reality is that I am different. My hearing isn’t as good as it used to be. I’m not as strong and don’t recover from a hard workout or heavy physical labor the way I used to. I tend to be more forgetful. I have to pee more frequently. I watch Blue Bloods and most of the music I listen to is from the last century. So I fit a lot of older adult stereotypes.

But I don’t want to watch catheter commercials. I don’t need a reverse mortgage. I’m not moving to an “active senior” community. I don’t much like seeing older people portrayed in movies and television as incompetent, sad and helpless.

All of this stereotyping could be limiting my potential. But, it’s not. If anything, it motivates me to keep going as well as I can for as long as I can. While I am not the man I used to be, in many ways that’s a good thing. I’m kinder and gentler and don’t take life as seriously. I have gained the perspective that comes with age. That is a difference and an advantage that I gladly embrace.

My potential is limited by many things. Now, most of all, by time. I don’t need a well-meaning social scientist to ban advertisements that I don’t like or want to watch. But, if they could come up with a Time Machine that actually worked, I’d take a spin.


"It would be interesting to find out what goes on in that moment when someone looks at you and draws all sorts of conclusions.”
― Malcolm Gladwell

What Was, What Is and What Will Be

If you want to know how someone is likely to vote ask them how they feel about the Past, the Present and the Future. If they are honest with their answers, you can predict with a fair degree of accuracy how they are likely to vote. There will always be special circumstances that override attitudes toward past, present and future. Race and gender perhaps being the most likely to override all other voter attitudes, opinions and interests.

But for the most part, how people vote depends on how they feel about the Past, the Present and the Future. Those who think the Past was better will pretty much tend toward voting conservatively; including those within a left-leaning party such as the Democrats. Those Democrats who like the “old Democratic Party” will tend toward someone more conservative or as they prefer to call in, centrist. (Joe Biden’s current status is a prime example). But clearly, most of the “past was better” crowd is going to vote Republican, even if it means voting for Trump again.

Those with a positive view about the Present are definitely more inclined to vote for the incumbent. But then it gets interesting. When it comes to those having a negative view of the Present, they tend to fall into two camps. One camp thinks The Present would be better IF it were more like the Past. The other has a Future vision of a new and improved way of life that will be much better than the Present. Those unhappy with the Present and looking for a return to the Past will tend toward conservatism and vote Republican. (This was a key factor in Trump’s win). The other unhappy camp is all about fixing those things that are broken and have been broken for a long-time and are likely to get worse if we don’t change and become more “progressive”.

And then lastly, how one feels about the Future will tend to impact ones vote. In 2008, even people who thought America was or had been a great place for them and their families, were scared and confused. The Future did not look all that great and a lot people went with Hope and Change because they didn’t know what else to do. So even people who pretty much wanted their good old familiar, reliable country back voted for a guy who had a much more progressive agenda which, under normal circumstances, would have made them very uncomfortable.

The problem Republicans are facing in 2020 is that a growing number of voters under the age of 35 have not lived in an America that made them long for the good old days. And a good number of them aren’t doing all that great in the here and now either. These folks will be inclined to vote Democrat (or not at all.) Some might even go for a far-left third party candidate if such an option were available. Most all of the “identity” politics crowd will vote Democrat because the Democrats have done a great job of appealing to that audience. They started doing it in 60’s, eventually forming the Rainbow coalition and other groups of progressive activists. It probably cost them a lot of elections over the past 40 years, but now it’s ready to bear fruit. Older white, males who pretty much loved the America they grew up in, are a dying breed…literally.

Increasingly we are now told that the Past was only great for certain people. The Present works great for The One Percent, but everyone else is worse off and losing ground. The Future looks like melting ice caps and rising sea levels, a bad moon rising. All of this resonates with millions of people in this country. So does the narrative shape the people or do the people shape the narrative? Or is it a bit of both? And “What Will Be” ultimately comes down to one question….who actually shows up and votes.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Protect This House and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

“The truth will set you free, but not until it is finished with you”- David Foster Wallace

Three years ago, Art Briles was removed from his position as head football coach of the Baylor University Bears. From a lawsuit filed on behalf of 17 women, it is alleged that over a period of five years 19 of Briles’ players committed sexual and/or physical assaults. The victims claim that Briles and his staff knew about most, if not all, of these attacks and did nothing. Took no action to report these complaints to the police or the university authorities and, for the most part, worked to protect the players and the program.

This whole terrible event is now back on the front page because Art Briles just got hired to coach a football team here in Texas. A nice Sunday drive to the southeast of where I live is the hometown of Don Meredith, Mount Vernon. Dandy Don the almost great and much beloved QB of the early days Dallas Cowboys; and the good ol’ boy star of Monday Night Football back when Monday Night Football was a thing. The fine folks of Mount Vernon and Franklin County, Texas are now the talk of the football world. A handful of their fellow citizens decided that Art Briles would be the right man to lead their Mount Vernon Tigers to football glory. They spoke to several of his references, most notably Grant Teaff, Baylor coaching legend and former head of the American Football Coaches Association. Grant Teaff is a devout Christian and a man of impeccable character. If he endorses someone, it’s like gold in the state of Texas. And he gave Briles his golden thumbs up.

Much has been written about the Baylor/Briles mess. Regardless of who knew what, when did they know and what did they do or not do about it; the big question is WHY? Why do people and institutions allow bad things, or even alleged bad things, to go on without being addressed and resolved, one way or the other?

What is behind the bad judgment and poor decision-making that goes on to create outcomes like the Baylor mess, or the Penn State/Paterno/Sandusky thing, or going to war over non-existent WMDs, or Watergate, or the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal…or, or, or….?

The core issue is one of morality. Either their moral compass is broken or they simply rationalize their decision to fit the situation. In most cases, including the ones mentioned above, people made decisions which they thought were “right”. So how does one see “right” in something that is so “wrong”. Or at least wrong when viewed objectively in the clear light that tends to shine after the damage has been done.

When ones first priority is “Protecting This House”, or position, or company, or reputation, or fortune…or anything we place great value upon…we simply lie to ourselves and then to others. We cast doubt on the “wrong” that has been done or will be done. Maybe it’s not that bad or it didn’t happen at all or nothing will happen. Maybe what we are doing is for the greater good and what has happened or will happen to innocent people is just collateral damage. Or maybe they aren’t all that innocent in the first place. Maybe we are doing what we really believe to be the right thing, but we take the easy way out and make up stories that sound better (if they actually turn out to be true…WMDs were there…yes they really were…no matter what the facts are.)

In the end, the truth and doing the right thing may get you nailed to a cross. But the truth and the doing the wrong thing leaves you hanging up there….or seeking redemption too late in a place like Mount Vernon.