Sidetracked Charley

In college my father proposed to buy me a car upon completing my junior year on the Dean's list. He would buy the car for me but I had to afford everything else it required. I wanted a VW Beetle in butter cream yellow. I thought it was such a unique color. But I suddenly saw them everywhere. As I also begun to see all the expenses of a gift horse (well, Beetle). I was putting myself through college at the time. No student loans then. I had part time jobs on campus and close to campus. I mostly walked everywhere I needed to go. Or took the bus. Albuquerque had a good bus system.  So as the spring semester inched on I saw more and more yellow Beetles and more and more flaws to my father's generous offer. But I also began to see just how expensive putting myself through college was. How much a toll on my life the jobs took. Not to mention the studying to keep up my grades. All my friends worried about me. I was no longer fun.   I kept up my grades.  I completed my jun...

Raton Facade Last Friday a friend and I headed east to Raton, New Mexico to cast our ballots in the 2012 United States Presidential election. The two hour drive across the plains gives you a lot of time to think and talk. We did not have to think about our vote because our minds were firmly made up. But we talked about how deeply divided our country has become. This great experiment of ours is not working. Something has to change. I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln's Springfield, Illinois speech of June 18, 1858 in which he addressed the issue of slave vs. free: "A house divided divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free." It took the bloodiest war in the history of the world to resolve that issue. And the years I lived in the south made me doubt that the wounds of that war were ever going to heal. Now we are divided Red and Blue, Republican and Democrat, Christian and freedom to believe as ...