Aunt Sue's Obituary

Requiem for Rich

In 1950 my Dad contracted to have a new house built at 1171 Dover Avenue in Akron. We moved there with my new baby brother John; I vaguely remember the open fields across the street. In 1952 the lot directly across from us sprouted a new house, and I met the boy who moved in there -- Richard Robart Wimer.

Rich and I became good friends. We walked to and from Schumacher School together most days. Because of Rich, I remember the elections of 1952. Rich was rooting for Stevenson, but I liked Ike. We stopped by the voting booths that used to sit near the water towers (those are long gone, even!!) and warmed ourselves next to the coal-fired heaters inside.

Summers often found us "camping out". Rich had an old army surplus wall tent that we would set up in the lot (we called it "the field") next to his house, and we would tell scary stories until we fell asleep. We occasionally rode our bikes on distant adventures, riding to Fairlawn to "Wolf Cave" in what is now the Frank Boulevard Park, or to go swimming at White Pond.

Summers also brought out all the other kids who had nothing to do. Rich and I and a few other kids on our street formed the Dover Gang. We had occasional "wars" with the Winton Gang and the Hardesty Gang, in which "wars" we lined up and threw green apples at each other. That is where I learned the magic of the applestick, which could extend my throwing range significantly.

One summer the Dover Gang joined forces with the Winton Gang and the Hardesty Gang to do battle with the Hartford gang. Somebody in the Hardesty Gang had a contraption they called a "nail machine gun" which was spring powered and would shoot nails. It was mounted on a small platform in a tree on a vacant corner lot. Since I was the smallest kid on the block, I was chosen to climb the tree and guard the gun while the others went off to hunt for the Hartford gang.

While they were gone, the lady in the house diagonally across the intersection called the police. When the cruiser arrived, I slithered down the tree and ran around the block to find the guys but they had completely disappeared. Later Rich told me that they had found the Hartford Gang and went somewhere to play baseball.

The summer between second and third grade I found a new friend -- a girl who lived a block away on Hardesty. The details of that summer are a bit fuzzy, since I was mostly into cowboys and Indians, and hunting frogs and crayfish in Mud Run where it used to run through the woods at the northeast and northwest corners of Diagonal and Hawkins. She had a girlfriend she would bring to my back yard, and they wanted to play house and telegraph. When she told us that she was moving to Toledo, I was relieved.

Too soon. As we walked to school on what was to be her last day in Akron, she announced that she wanted to kiss me good-bye. I tried to run, but Rich grabbed me -- he was a lot bigger than I was -- and held me down while she kissed me. I sat there and cried, madder about the betrayal than the kiss. Rich thought it was funny.

That was our relationship. Like brothers, mad at each other one day, and eager to share adventures the next. Then, in 1959, the Wimer family moved to Copley. Dad and Mom took us to their new house that fall, and Rich introduced me to Mike and Andy Wineberg. In a few months, our new house was under construction right across the street from the Wimer's house, and I started 9th grade at Copley in 1960. Dad had to drive me to and from school for a few weeks until we were able to move in.

Rich and Mike built a small plywood "cabin" about a hundred feet from the Barberton Reservoir, and it was frequently used by all of us for sleep-outs and as a base for overnight fishing trips or skinny-dipping parties. It was heated in winter with an old army surplus woodstove, and there were bunks built against the walls. The door had a padlock, and the window was a chunk of hinged plywood.

Rich graduated from high school in 1964 and I followed the next year. He was drafted and was sent to Viet Nam. While there, he wrote me a letter describing his work as a boat driver on the Mekong River. He also was awarded the Soldier's Medal, but he never spoke of it, and I would love to be able to find the citation.

We drifted apart. When we lived in Edmonton, Rich stopped by on his way up the Alaska Highway. He had had a breakdown, and we were able to locate a car dealership that could handle the warranty work that was needed. After we moved back here, Rich and I occasionally crossed paths, but we never really spent any significant amount of time together.

On Labor Day, Rich and his wife went camping. He was not feeling well. Things got worse, and when he got home on Wednesday, he was admitted to the hospital. Exploratory surgery was done on Thursday; the doctors found that his appendix had burst and peritonitis had destroyed him. Rich never woke up; the ventilator was disconnected last Friday morning. He will be buried tomorrow.

Farewell, old friend.

T'mater Juice

Ya puts the seeds in the ground, ya transplants 'em, ya waters and weeds 'em, and God makes little green t'maters that grow up to be big red t'maters. Then ya mooshes 'em an' strains 'em an' biles 'em an' cans 'em. M-m-m-m-good!


Work to be done tomorrow.

Book-Burners R Us

I'm going to go ahead and say it. Based on the commentary that I have been picking up regarding the proposed burning of a Koran by a preacher in Florida on September 11, the United States has lost the War on Terror. Because Mohammedans around the world are violently protesting that man's actions, condemnation by governments, religious leaders, ordinary citizens, and even the commander of U. S. forces in Afghanistan, due to fear of Mohammedan retaliation, has fallen on that man's head.

Without a doubt, his proposed action is designed to spit in the eye of any practicing Mohammedan. This post is probably similarly offensive; those who follow Mohammed's teachings dislike being called Mohammedans because, they reason, they are not really following Mohammed. If that confuses you, think how they must feel. But, I digress. A follower of Jesus might offend someone by virtue of doing what Jesus taught, but will not perform an action solely for the purpose of creating an offense. The preacher in Florida is being perverse.

That said, I can start unknotting my shorts.

As a Christian, I find no problem with disposing of a Bible by burning it. It is the respectful way of disposing of copies which have become unusable through wear or other damage. I understand that burning is also considered to be the proper way to respectfully dispose of worn out copies of the Torah. Burning certainly beats dumping them in the trash to be buried in a landfill.

There is another consideration, though. The Bible that I read is printed on paper. The words are visible through the medium of the ink. What I consider as the Word of God, however, transcends ink and paper and abides forever. If all the Bibles in the world were burned, I believe that God's Word would still live in His people through the agency of His Spirit. I feel embarrassed for someone whose god is so small that his words must be so jealously guarded because they might be lost if all paper copies were burned.

As an American, I find no problem with disposing of a United States flag by burning it. By law, that is the respectful way to dispose of worn out flags. I sneer (not very Christlike, but I am human) at those who so disrespectfully fly the flag in inclement weather, at night without spotlighting, from the antenna of their pickup truck, or wear it as an article of decoration. I am struck by the imbecility of those who do such things and who then rage at someone who burns a flag in protest of something or other.

The flag of the United States is the symbol of our nation; the banner of our Constitution. It has been shot to pieces on the battlefield, but the Constitution that it represents has lived on. If all the U. S. flags in the world were to be destroyed, the Constitution would live on as long as the citizens of our nation were willing to preserve it at the costs of their lives, fortunes, and honor. If the will to preserve the Constitution should die, the flag would be meaningless.

And another thing. There are a whole lot of people out there uttering nonsense about bookburning somehow being an act of repression. If I took a book from you and burned it, that might be repressive. However, if I burn my own copy of a book, how is that repressive? I am simply exercising my right to dispose of my own property. If the preacher in Florida were to take copies of the Koran from someone else and burn them, I would be first in line to tell him to end his thievery. If he goes to the store and buys a Koran and burns it, what business is that of mine or anyone else?

Let me ask another question you may never have considered. What is the respectful way to dispose of a copy of the Koran? If I have a copy I want to get rid of, and do not want what I consider to be perverted teachings to be spread about, do I throw it in the dumpster, bury it in my garden, use it instead of a Sears catalog -- or do I treat it with the same respect as a Bible or a U. S. flag, and burn it?

So the bottom line is this : what price freedom? To all the officials in our government who are more concerned with world opinion than with the right of an American to dispose of his own property, I say, shame on you. To all the generals who have forgotten that they swore to uphold the right of citizens to exercise freedom of expression, even at the cost of their lives -- and nobody forced them to take that oath -- I say, shame on you. To all those who writhe in terror at what Mohammedans might do as a result of this man's burning of his copy of the book Mohammed wrote, I say, shame on you.

You have forgotten what America is all about.

Wanted : A Wise Electorate

Once upon a time there was a nation that was founded on the concept that the citizens of that country would choose people to represent them in a Congress which would meet periodically to deliberate laws pertaining to the common good of the inhabitants of the several states which formed that nation. It was a unique concept -- "We the People" would be the government; the representatives would simply find ways to avoid conflicts between the independent States that comprised the nation.

The gentlemen who cobbled that system of government together came out of a background wherein the rulers had favored one ideology over another. Those gentlemen had a common concept that there was a God who ruled in the affairs of men, but had disagreements as to the technical details as to how that was accomplished. They realized, from their own history, that any group which attained complete freedom would be tyrannical toward any other group. Thus, they agreed to limit their own freedoms in order to share common liberties.

With the passage of time, the thrill of being free diminished. "We the People" became somewhat lazy, allowing the representatives to act as independent agents on their own behalf. Additionally, there was the growth in the population of immigrant groups jealous of their own beliefs and customs, and unwilling to limit their Old World identity. Finally, there was a smug self-righteousness that expressed itself in the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny"; a doctrine rooted in the belief that ultimately the entire world must share the same type of government which "We the People" possessed, even as that form of government became warped by it own evolution.

The federalism that drove the westward expansion of the country through the use of military power also led, in the War Between the States, to the destruction of the concept of the people of each independent State ruling over its own affairs. That same self-righteous federalism then reached out beyond the continental shores to entangle "We the People" in the Spanish-American War, two World Wars, the Korean and Viet Nam Wars, and currently the Southern Asian Wars (Iraq and Afghanistan). "We the People" have forgotten that in order to be maximally free, we must limit our own freedom, and in doing so, must avoid trying to remake other nations in our own image.

If "We the People" are to regain maximal freedom, we must restore the concept that in order to be free we must subject ourselves to the basic rules of our Constitution. The wise gentlemen who drew up that document were students of human nature, well acquainted with the perverseness which dictates that individuals have the greatest freedom within small groups. To limit the possible tyranny of the Federal government, they ordered that the independent States, through appointing Senators concerned only with the interests of their own State legislatures, should have a form of veto power over the popular democracy of the Congress; the 17th Amendment needs to be repealed to restore the rights of the states to protect their own interests.

Those wise gentlemen believed that the Congressional representatives should represent only their local constituents and decreed that the "Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand"; the unconstitutional Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 must be repealed to restore the power of representative government.

Both cures will be difficult to effect. Both will require amending the Constitution. Both will be opposed by interest groups which politically and/or financially benefit from the deviations which have taken away the power of "We the People". Both are vital changes, and without them, the Union will either dissolve into open civil war, or will descend into tyranny unimagined by those gentlemen who so bravely risked their new-found freedoms in the Great Experiment.