Ever since I returned home from Germany in 1972, I have been trying to make contact with one of my old companions, Christian D Roode from South Africa. I have inquired about him with every missionary returning from there; I have Googled his name; I have posted queries on the Internet - everything I could think of. All to no avail.
Saturday, July 25th, 2009, I got a phone message from someone I have never met, telling me of Br. Roode's whereabouts. This young man had been looking at the South Germany/Austria website (don't know why) and saw that I was looking for Christian D. Roode. He phoned to tell me Br. Roode lives in Las Vegas and he gave me his phone number and address. So last night, almost 38 years after I last spoke with him, I called him. He was so surprised! It was so nice to hear my old friend's voice again. He has lived in the US for years, teaching music to elementary school children. They must have a lot of fun in his class - he is a hoot!
What an enjoyable evening. I will have to look him up next time I am in Las Vegas.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Hiatt Reunion
I think the picture says it all. The annual Rudge and Ruth Hiatt reunion is a kid's paradise where children can play with lots of other children and eat Red Vines all day. Seriously, what a blessing it is in our lives to be part of this wonderful family. This family has been a source of strength to us and our posterity, and we hope we have been a source of strength in their lives, too. This year was harder than usual because so many of our grandkids had been, or were, very sick.
It is always a bit of a challenge, finding sleeping places for 162 people (and growing), but the effort is well worth it. There is no one in that vast crowd that does not love and support every other person in the family - even those that are not blood related. Often our Japanese friend Shinji shows up because we all love him, too. We miss everyone who doesn't come. The Hiatt's have built a family that hangs together because we want to, and that strength comes from a temple going posterity. Mom and Dad aren't able physically anymore, but their posterity keeps going.
The high point of the reunion for me is always the Sunday family meeting. This year was special because I got to participate in giving my father-in-law a blessing after his difficult week. When the meeting was over, Emily told me that Jackson had never seen anyone get a blessing, and he wanted to know if it would be OK for him to get a blessing, too (he had been sick most of the week). I was so pleased to know that Jackson would seek out a priesthood blessing. We went upstairs in the cabin where John and I gave Jackson a blessing. We then gave Emily a blessing too, after her very difficult weeks of sick kids. When we went downstairs, we found out that Lydia had come down with what was going around, so Brad and I gave her a blessing. She recovered almost immediately. Having the opportunity to use the priesthood to bless four beloved members of my family in one morning makes this a reunion I will long remember.
Thank you, Mom and Dad Hiatt, for raising such a special family!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Writing English Real Good
Here is George Orwell's list of rules for good writing:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
- George Orwell, On Politics and the English Language
Here is my list of rules for good writing:
Verbs HAS to proper go with its subjects.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
Don’t use no double negatives, not never.
And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
It is wrong to ever split infinitives.
Avoid clichés like the plague.
Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
Be more or less specific.
Never use a big word where a diminutive word will suffice.
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
- George Orwell, On Politics and the English Language
Here is my list of rules for good writing:
Verbs HAS to proper go with its subjects.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
Don’t use no double negatives, not never.
And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
It is wrong to ever split infinitives.
Avoid clichés like the plague.
Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
Be more or less specific.
Never use a big word where a diminutive word will suffice.
Monday, July 6, 2009
My Buddy and Me
Well, the six weeks that Emily and Geoff were here flew by. So many of the things we wanted to do and planned to do just couldn't materialize. Geoff was so busy working, putting in long days at Walgreen's pharmacy, Jan worked long days at the hospital, I worked long days at Town Hall, and between us all, the time for things like camping and hiking disappeared.
I did get to spend some fun times with Jackson, as I wrote about earlier. I know he can hardly wait till his Daddy is through with school so they can do fun things together. Here are some pictures - I will post more later.
Jackson learns how to rope a calf from Rex Lamoreaux
Jackson gets his first experience on horseback
Jackson learns how to shoot a .22 caliber rifle
Jan and the kids enjoy Shush Beto (Big Bear) Lake
A couple of cute kids at the Family Reunion
Everyone has fun at the Annual Brooksby Children & Descendents Exceptional Family Gathering at the Hiatt's In June (The ABCDEFGHIJ)
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Politicians
A few of my favorite quotes about politicians. Gotta love 'em!
What I say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
– Abraham Lincoln
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation.
– James Freeman Clarke
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
– George Bernard Shaw
Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?
– H.L. Mencken
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
– Adlai Stevenson
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
– Robert Louis Stevenson
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
– Ambrose Bierce
Did you ever notice when someone you know is nominated for high office how you’re torn between local pride and fear for the country?
The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does.
– Maurice Barres
The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now.
– Ronald Reagan
Political bedfellows share not only the same bed, but the same bunk.
Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.
– Charles de Gaulle
Whenever the nation (USA) is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy.
– Ann Coulter
If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing.
– Woodrow Wilson
When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘guilty’.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
– Bob Edwards
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
– Groucho Marx
A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.
– Leo Rosten
A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.
– Robert Frost
I have never believed in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
There is no nation so poor that it cannot afford free speech, but there are few elites which will put up with the bother of it.
– Daniel P. Moynihan
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
– Milton Friedman
I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
– H. L. Mencken
Democrats raise taxes. It's their way of paying for programs that buy votes from people who don't pay high taxes.
– Pete Waldmeir
It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
– Samuel Adams
No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
– Mark Twain
If liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.
– Burt Prelusky
When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful . . . [But] when he spends someone else's money on someone else, he doesn't care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that's government for you.
– Milton Friedman
When politicians rush to fix things, it's a sure sign that either the intended patient is dead or fully healed.
– Tony Snow
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
– Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
– George Bernard Shaw
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
– G. Gordon Liddy
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
– Douglas Casey
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
– P.J. O'Rourke
The most important political office is that of private citizen.
– Louis Brandeis
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
– P.J. O'Rourke
The best politics is right action.
– Mohandas K. Gandhi
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
– Pericles
What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
– Edward Langley
We’d all like to vote for the best man but he’s never a candidate.
– Kin Hummbard
Washington is a Hollywood for ugly people. Hollywood is a Washington for the simple-minded.
– Senator John McCain
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
– P.J. O'Rourke
When government officials talk about ‘creating jobs,’ they usually mean creating government jobs.
– Alan Reynolds
If pro is the opposite of con, then progress must be the opposite of Congress.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
– Plato
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
– Gore Vidal
Private passions grow tired and wear themselves out; political passions, never.
– Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine
What you guys want, I'm for.
– Dan Quayle
It takes a lot more integrity, character, and courage to be a conservative than it does to be a liberal. That’s because at its most basic level, liberalism is nothing more than childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues.
– John Hawkins
When I have to choose between voting for the people or the special interests, I always stick with the special interests. They remember. The people forget.
– Henry Fountain Ashurst, U.S. Senator from Arizona
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
– Clarence Darrow
You can say ‘tough’ all you want and still be a wimp. Or a politician.
– Thomas Sowell
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.
– P. J. O'Rourke
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
– Plato
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.
– Thomas Jefferson
You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along.
– Aristophanes
There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They’re the kind of people who’d stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Repub-licans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn’t bother to stop because they’d want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club.
– Dave Barry
It is useless to hold a person to anything he says when he’s in love, drunk or running for office.
– Shirley McLaine
No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.
– George Bernard Shaw
When one of our people gets elected, sooner or later he [or she] stops being one of our people.
– Stan Evans
A thief is more moral than a congressman; when a thief steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him.
– Walter Williams
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
– Mark Twain
America is a nation without a distinct criminal class...with the possible exception of Congress.
– Mark Twain
The Founding Fathers did not foresee a permanent political class, out of touch with the people and in touch only with their careers and self-interests.
– Cal Thomas
Sometimes, a man must rise above principle.
– Senator Everett Dirkson
If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.
– John le Carre
[The Motto of the Democratic Party] We don't know where to stand or what we stand for, and in fact we're not good at standing for anything anyway, but at least we know we can't stand Republicans.
– Peggy Noonan
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
– Francis Bacon
There is nothing in life so pathetic as a former president.
– John Quincy Adams
The Democratic definition of bi-partisan is: “Do what we want.”
– Rich Galen
Western do-gooders may occasionally swing by some Third World basket-case and condescend to the natives, but for the most part the multiculti set have no wish to live anywhere but an advanced Western democracy. It’s a quintessential piece of leftie humbug. They may think globally, but they don’t act on it.
– Mark Steyn
Politics is not about facts. It is about what politicians can get people to believe.
– Thomas Sowell
In order to become the master, the politician poses as a servant.
– Charles DeGaulle
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
– Otto von Bismarck
In politics, there are few skills more richly rewarded than the ability to misstate issues in a way that will sound plausible and attractive.
– Thomas Sowell
Scratch a liberal and you will uncover a bigot.
– Thomas Sowell
To anger a Conservative, tell him lies. To anger a Liberal, tell him the truth.
– Kent Brooksby
The height of statesmanship is to come home with a dam, even if you have nowhere to put it.
– Will Rogers
In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a “clarification,” when people react adversely to what was plainly said.
– Thomas Sowell
Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.
– Walter Williams
During a campaign, the air is full of speeches and vice versa.
– Henry Adams
Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of his last word.
– William F. Buckley
If this [the U.S. Senate] is the world’s greatest deliberative body, I’d hate to see the world’s worst.
– Senator Barry Goldwater
Beware politicians who peddle fables that cast themselves as the heroes.
– The Wall Street Journal
Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.
– Benjamin Franklin
In politics, power trumps knowledge.
– Thomas Sowell
Kent’s list of Qualifications for the Presidency:
1. No lawyers
2. No Ivy League University grads
3. No Senators
4. No one who believes in “taxing the rich”
5. No one whose paycheck has ever had the words “US Treasury” printed on it
6. No one who believes “the country needs my leadership”
7. In short – no one who wants the job
What I say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
– Abraham Lincoln
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation.
– James Freeman Clarke
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
– George Bernard Shaw
Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?
– H.L. Mencken
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
– Adlai Stevenson
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
– Robert Louis Stevenson
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
– Ambrose Bierce
Did you ever notice when someone you know is nominated for high office how you’re torn between local pride and fear for the country?
The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does.
– Maurice Barres
The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now.
– Ronald Reagan
Political bedfellows share not only the same bed, but the same bunk.
Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.
– Charles de Gaulle
Whenever the nation (USA) is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy.
– Ann Coulter
If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing.
– Woodrow Wilson
When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘guilty’.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
– Bob Edwards
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
– Groucho Marx
A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.
– Leo Rosten
A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.
– Robert Frost
I have never believed in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
There is no nation so poor that it cannot afford free speech, but there are few elites which will put up with the bother of it.
– Daniel P. Moynihan
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
– Milton Friedman
I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
– H. L. Mencken
Democrats raise taxes. It's their way of paying for programs that buy votes from people who don't pay high taxes.
– Pete Waldmeir
It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
– Samuel Adams
No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
– Mark Twain
If liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.
– Burt Prelusky
When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful . . . [But] when he spends someone else's money on someone else, he doesn't care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that's government for you.
– Milton Friedman
When politicians rush to fix things, it's a sure sign that either the intended patient is dead or fully healed.
– Tony Snow
An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
– Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
– George Bernard Shaw
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
– G. Gordon Liddy
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
– Douglas Casey
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
– P.J. O'Rourke
The most important political office is that of private citizen.
– Louis Brandeis
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.
– P.J. O'Rourke
The best politics is right action.
– Mohandas K. Gandhi
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.
– Pericles
What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
– Edward Langley
We’d all like to vote for the best man but he’s never a candidate.
– Kin Hummbard
Washington is a Hollywood for ugly people. Hollywood is a Washington for the simple-minded.
– Senator John McCain
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
– P.J. O'Rourke
When government officials talk about ‘creating jobs,’ they usually mean creating government jobs.
– Alan Reynolds
If pro is the opposite of con, then progress must be the opposite of Congress.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
– Plato
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
– Gore Vidal
Private passions grow tired and wear themselves out; political passions, never.
– Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine
What you guys want, I'm for.
– Dan Quayle
It takes a lot more integrity, character, and courage to be a conservative than it does to be a liberal. That’s because at its most basic level, liberalism is nothing more than childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues.
– John Hawkins
When I have to choose between voting for the people or the special interests, I always stick with the special interests. They remember. The people forget.
– Henry Fountain Ashurst, U.S. Senator from Arizona
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
– Clarence Darrow
You can say ‘tough’ all you want and still be a wimp. Or a politician.
– Thomas Sowell
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.
– P. J. O'Rourke
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
– Plato
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.
– Thomas Jefferson
You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along.
– Aristophanes
There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
– Alexis de Tocqueville
The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They’re the kind of people who’d stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Repub-licans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn’t bother to stop because they’d want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club.
– Dave Barry
It is useless to hold a person to anything he says when he’s in love, drunk or running for office.
– Shirley McLaine
No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.
– George Bernard Shaw
When one of our people gets elected, sooner or later he [or she] stops being one of our people.
– Stan Evans
A thief is more moral than a congressman; when a thief steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him.
– Walter Williams
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
– Mark Twain
America is a nation without a distinct criminal class...with the possible exception of Congress.
– Mark Twain
The Founding Fathers did not foresee a permanent political class, out of touch with the people and in touch only with their careers and self-interests.
– Cal Thomas
Sometimes, a man must rise above principle.
– Senator Everett Dirkson
If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.
– John le Carre
[The Motto of the Democratic Party] We don't know where to stand or what we stand for, and in fact we're not good at standing for anything anyway, but at least we know we can't stand Republicans.
– Peggy Noonan
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
– Francis Bacon
There is nothing in life so pathetic as a former president.
– John Quincy Adams
The Democratic definition of bi-partisan is: “Do what we want.”
– Rich Galen
Western do-gooders may occasionally swing by some Third World basket-case and condescend to the natives, but for the most part the multiculti set have no wish to live anywhere but an advanced Western democracy. It’s a quintessential piece of leftie humbug. They may think globally, but they don’t act on it.
– Mark Steyn
Politics is not about facts. It is about what politicians can get people to believe.
– Thomas Sowell
In order to become the master, the politician poses as a servant.
– Charles DeGaulle
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
– Otto von Bismarck
In politics, there are few skills more richly rewarded than the ability to misstate issues in a way that will sound plausible and attractive.
– Thomas Sowell
Scratch a liberal and you will uncover a bigot.
– Thomas Sowell
To anger a Conservative, tell him lies. To anger a Liberal, tell him the truth.
– Kent Brooksby
The height of statesmanship is to come home with a dam, even if you have nowhere to put it.
– Will Rogers
In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a “clarification,” when people react adversely to what was plainly said.
– Thomas Sowell
Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.
– Walter Williams
During a campaign, the air is full of speeches and vice versa.
– Henry Adams
Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of his last word.
– William F. Buckley
If this [the U.S. Senate] is the world’s greatest deliberative body, I’d hate to see the world’s worst.
– Senator Barry Goldwater
Beware politicians who peddle fables that cast themselves as the heroes.
– The Wall Street Journal
Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.
– Benjamin Franklin
In politics, power trumps knowledge.
– Thomas Sowell
Kent’s list of Qualifications for the Presidency:
1. No lawyers
2. No Ivy League University grads
3. No Senators
4. No one who believes in “taxing the rich”
5. No one whose paycheck has ever had the words “US Treasury” printed on it
6. No one who believes “the country needs my leadership”
7. In short – no one who wants the job
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