The Three Legged Stool
The young of our generation need, desperately need, all three legs of life's proverbial stool. They have their physical presence embodied in youthful statures that forms one leg of the stool. That's the easy one, stemming from the union of a male and a female that has happened for millions of years, the striking of the flints of flesh creating the spark to fire a breath of life.
One third of the legs of the three legged stool is set,
it's the other two legs that I'd like to think about, I'd like to write about, I'd like you to read about.
I suggest the other two legs are life factors of each individual's personality that makes them particular to themselves as they maneuver through life. They are aptitude and attitude.
Aptitude is the inherent ability of an individual to perform at a level commensurate with their physical makeup. Their ability, their capability, their instinct, their power has an individual's imprint on society that I call another one of the legs of the stool.
Attitude, though, is a mental state. It is the third leg completing the integrity of our stool involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways. It, too, defines an individual by that person's brain waves. Attitude seems to be, not only the crucial third leg, but also the glue that holds a stool together.
I contend most of our youth have the physique complete with a goodly amount of aptitude which bolsters them as individuals as they grow into adulthood. They grow along with their ability and power to physically improve at all visuals of their lives.
This is certainly meaningful but woefully inadequate to enter into a competitive society with all its varied
innuendoes.
Attitude becomes paramount to our youth's survival. It is the the educated youngster with an expanding mind who can weigh alternatives to the rigid norms which stagnates our adult society. We find in our youths, as in all advanced generations, the hope inherent in a future worthy to pass on to our descendants.
These descendants will honor this generation for constructing stools that, not only withstand the riggers of time, but become the standards for future societies.
Body, mind, and spirit is the bulwark of some institutes. I am encouraging stature, aptitude, and attitude to be our pillars, or if you will, our legs of the proverbial stool. Upright and solid, the tripods are to hold up a universe.
Ronald C. Downie
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
A Birthday Wish
A Birthday Wish
Little else do I have aptitude to do but to shuffle words together and come up with their meaning really representing my heartfelt thoughts. Birthday verse fits this definition.
This birthday poem is something special. Written for Connie my wife of nearly 49 years at her new age of 73 years while living in our home on Evans Street for nearly 39 years. Time does march on into the ages.
To Connie My Wife
The clock, on the mantel is ready
To receive all three hands pointing
Up, converging on the hour of twelve.
The sun, at its low point in the sky,
Is poised to begin its accent again,
Longing for spring, seeking summer.
The clock, makes its cycle twice each day;
The sun, does its thing needing only once.
But, you and I, ours is made in a life time.
Both of us, we are of a similar earthy substance,
The combination of both time and sun energy,
Joined these many years, like a clock at noon.
The sun, has an additional duty to perform
While sweeping throughout the vast universe,
It draws the Earth to orbit it in one single year.
We mark the passage of a year by birthdays,
As your's today, the twenty third of December.
You have made another orbit, the clock tics on.
Ticking, as it does, recording the inevitable passing
Of all cycles, not cognizant of spring nor summer,
But, in spite of time, we deal in a love for each other.
Love may not surface in traditional ways enough
To stop clocks or alter our own universe's actions.
Instead, being unsaid, does not mean it is dead.
I love you more each day knowing there is a limit
To our time together. Hopefully the seasons are
Limitless, clocks march on, and our love is eternal.
With All My Love,
Your Husband, Ron
Little else do I have aptitude to do but to shuffle words together and come up with their meaning really representing my heartfelt thoughts. Birthday verse fits this definition.
This birthday poem is something special. Written for Connie my wife of nearly 49 years at her new age of 73 years while living in our home on Evans Street for nearly 39 years. Time does march on into the ages.
To Connie My Wife
The clock, on the mantel is ready
To receive all three hands pointing
Up, converging on the hour of twelve.
The sun, at its low point in the sky,
Is poised to begin its accent again,
Longing for spring, seeking summer.
The clock, makes its cycle twice each day;
The sun, does its thing needing only once.
But, you and I, ours is made in a life time.
Both of us, we are of a similar earthy substance,
The combination of both time and sun energy,
Joined these many years, like a clock at noon.
The sun, has an additional duty to perform
While sweeping throughout the vast universe,
It draws the Earth to orbit it in one single year.
We mark the passage of a year by birthdays,
As your's today, the twenty third of December.
You have made another orbit, the clock tics on.
Ticking, as it does, recording the inevitable passing
Of all cycles, not cognizant of spring nor summer,
But, in spite of time, we deal in a love for each other.
Love may not surface in traditional ways enough
To stop clocks or alter our own universe's actions.
Instead, being unsaid, does not mean it is dead.
I love you more each day knowing there is a limit
To our time together. Hopefully the seasons are
Limitless, clocks march on, and our love is eternal.
With All My Love,
Your Husband, Ron
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Too Early,Old - Too Late,Smart
"Too Early, Old - Too Late, Smart"
Go anywhere out in the farm country,
Talk to any native sod busters, you'd
Hear them, back in the era of my youth,
Speaking Pennsylvania Dutch like this.
Language of simple souls was so darn
Descriptive, modern speaking, so drab.
So drab, we have reverted to texting
Rather than talking on the telephone.
As a society, we've already lost
The art of letter writing to the phone.
Now, a hand held device can do both,
Along with taking photos and paging.
No going back cause the genie's out !
Having popped right out of the bottle,
His etherial vapors in gypsy spirits
Join those of all our past ancestors.
To have known another time, to assure
Myself there is more than only today ;
On the shoulders of our predecessors
We stand peering beyond comfortable.
We must harvest the eatables that grow
In gardens we plant, cultivate, and weed.
Like the Dutch speak : quant, impressive,
Colloquial - yes, we will harvest this - also.
Ronald C. Downie
Go anywhere out in the farm country,
Talk to any native sod busters, you'd
Hear them, back in the era of my youth,
Speaking Pennsylvania Dutch like this.
Language of simple souls was so darn
Descriptive, modern speaking, so drab.
So drab, we have reverted to texting
Rather than talking on the telephone.
As a society, we've already lost
The art of letter writing to the phone.
Now, a hand held device can do both,
Along with taking photos and paging.
No going back cause the genie's out !
Having popped right out of the bottle,
His etherial vapors in gypsy spirits
Join those of all our past ancestors.
To have known another time, to assure
Myself there is more than only today ;
On the shoulders of our predecessors
We stand peering beyond comfortable.
We must harvest the eatables that grow
In gardens we plant, cultivate, and weed.
Like the Dutch speak : quant, impressive,
Colloquial - yes, we will harvest this - also.
Ronald C. Downie
Friday, December 21, 2012
The Crime Of Property Taxation
The Crime of Property Taxation
A leader, from its inception as an original member of The Thirteen Colonies, Pennsylvania, with its abundance of swift moving streams, coal, iron ore, timber, and industrious immigrants, led the early Colonies in industry and manufacturing. The value of her real estate rose proportionate to her industrious muscle and raw material opportunities.
In the mid Twentieth Century, post WW2, Pottstown reached its pinnacle in industrial production and commercial activity. Along with numerous heavy and light industries we were the regional hub for professional businesses, banking, and service related companies. Both laborers and their managers lived within the Boro limits as our population topped thirty thousand citizens. Property values reflected the upward vitality of the Town's strength.
Then came the crash when three quarters of Pottstown's industry began their exodus along with their payrolls, not only of the workers but also the wages of the managers, and, adding insult to injury, houses came on sale at a lower than ever value in a race to the bottom price we find now. Professionals also moved out of town as everyone became more mobile in the age of the automobile. During this fifty year decline the population dropped by ten thousand and even as the cost of living rose each year property values declined or remained flat.
The only constant during this time was the cost of education which went up each year and property taxes to fund the increases went up also. No matter how much you squeeze an orange you get only so much juice from it. As a stabilizing force in most small towns, seniors, many of them on fixed incomes, must reduce their daily living costs in order to pay the rising costs of property taxes if they decide to stay in their homes. When forced from their homes the character of that neighborhood changes many times to the negative eroding the tax base further.
It seems a consensus in public thinking that an educated citizenry is an imperative to having a strong healthy country. An after thought in an agricultural society, education became more and more important as we moved into and out of the industrial revolution and we are now in the information age where education is a must.
Today, just as important : as highways, as bridges, as water ways and ports, as trains and air lines, is education which needs to be funded accordingly. To function in the 21st Century and beyond we can't rely on outmoded methods to raise money for schools. Anchored to the land, anchored to a community both life styles of agriculture and industry adapted to property taxes supplying funds to educate her young. Now in the information age where everyone is mobile and everyone needs more education the means to pay for it is vastly inadequate.
Education is the bridge to the future and as all bridges serve all travelers an educated American serves all countrymen. Bridges are high cost structures, education costs a lot too and as bridges need to be paid for out of a general fund so must we pay for education in the same way.
Taxing property, once acceptable when agriculture and industry ruled the economy, no longer serves a proper role in the 21st Century. Building the universal bridge through education needs us to develop a non property universal method to pay for it.
Ronald C. Downie
A leader, from its inception as an original member of The Thirteen Colonies, Pennsylvania, with its abundance of swift moving streams, coal, iron ore, timber, and industrious immigrants, led the early Colonies in industry and manufacturing. The value of her real estate rose proportionate to her industrious muscle and raw material opportunities.
In the mid Twentieth Century, post WW2, Pottstown reached its pinnacle in industrial production and commercial activity. Along with numerous heavy and light industries we were the regional hub for professional businesses, banking, and service related companies. Both laborers and their managers lived within the Boro limits as our population topped thirty thousand citizens. Property values reflected the upward vitality of the Town's strength.
Then came the crash when three quarters of Pottstown's industry began their exodus along with their payrolls, not only of the workers but also the wages of the managers, and, adding insult to injury, houses came on sale at a lower than ever value in a race to the bottom price we find now. Professionals also moved out of town as everyone became more mobile in the age of the automobile. During this fifty year decline the population dropped by ten thousand and even as the cost of living rose each year property values declined or remained flat.
The only constant during this time was the cost of education which went up each year and property taxes to fund the increases went up also. No matter how much you squeeze an orange you get only so much juice from it. As a stabilizing force in most small towns, seniors, many of them on fixed incomes, must reduce their daily living costs in order to pay the rising costs of property taxes if they decide to stay in their homes. When forced from their homes the character of that neighborhood changes many times to the negative eroding the tax base further.
It seems a consensus in public thinking that an educated citizenry is an imperative to having a strong healthy country. An after thought in an agricultural society, education became more and more important as we moved into and out of the industrial revolution and we are now in the information age where education is a must.
Today, just as important : as highways, as bridges, as water ways and ports, as trains and air lines, is education which needs to be funded accordingly. To function in the 21st Century and beyond we can't rely on outmoded methods to raise money for schools. Anchored to the land, anchored to a community both life styles of agriculture and industry adapted to property taxes supplying funds to educate her young. Now in the information age where everyone is mobile and everyone needs more education the means to pay for it is vastly inadequate.
Education is the bridge to the future and as all bridges serve all travelers an educated American serves all countrymen. Bridges are high cost structures, education costs a lot too and as bridges need to be paid for out of a general fund so must we pay for education in the same way.
Taxing property, once acceptable when agriculture and industry ruled the economy, no longer serves a proper role in the 21st Century. Building the universal bridge through education needs us to develop a non property universal method to pay for it.
Ronald C. Downie
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Why
Why
Caught again ! No ! Not with my pants down, but without a camera ( seems, if my wife and I own a camera, it's either lost or not working ). Today, you're just a minor league player without pictures to show what you've been doing, so I took to putting words together to create mental pictures which must substitute for camera shots since no click, no picture.
Take, for instance, veal. Back fifty/ sixty years ago after see a documentary about the wholesale slaughter of very young calves for their succulent meat, I swore off eating anything veal. No more veal. The images of those wobbly legged young calves herded through a narrow, tight chute only to be hit between their ears with a heavy hammer killing them could not escape my mind.
Then, the horror which scunners me even to this day, as the image appears in my mind's eyes just as I begin to close them, of men battering to death helpless young seals on windswept Arctic beaches. Killed and skinned for their soft, supple, fur hide so some affluent young matron could promenade in the latest style.
A chill runs up my spine each time I catch a view of industrial style feed lots for Christmas turkeys or wire pens for chickens. Packed tightly, hardly able to turn around, force fed both feed and fluid their only possible salvation are the sharpened knives which ultimately kills them. It's a huge quota needing to be filled and an unsuspecting public or an unconcerned public makes these enormous demands without the big picture in mind.
I am a hypocrite, also, along with most people in this over analyzed World. I am aware of things I've vowed I would not do, but with the passage of time and a weak internal fortitude, I've broken my vows. Yes, I've eaten veal since my awakening. I am not proud. And yes, I've had both turkey and chicken from the supermarket over the years, again, I'm not proud.
Today, I'm trying to put closure to the tragedy which occurred Friday in Newtown, Conn.. How can I erase the image of twenty vibrant, young, elementary children and six professional adults being slaughtered by a deranged twenty year old discharging an untold amount of bullets into their midst. I have a few years left to live, I think, but what time I have left will be spent trying to answer maybe the unanswerable question. WHY ?
Ronald C. Downie
Caught again ! No ! Not with my pants down, but without a camera ( seems, if my wife and I own a camera, it's either lost or not working ). Today, you're just a minor league player without pictures to show what you've been doing, so I took to putting words together to create mental pictures which must substitute for camera shots since no click, no picture.
Take, for instance, veal. Back fifty/ sixty years ago after see a documentary about the wholesale slaughter of very young calves for their succulent meat, I swore off eating anything veal. No more veal. The images of those wobbly legged young calves herded through a narrow, tight chute only to be hit between their ears with a heavy hammer killing them could not escape my mind.
Then, the horror which scunners me even to this day, as the image appears in my mind's eyes just as I begin to close them, of men battering to death helpless young seals on windswept Arctic beaches. Killed and skinned for their soft, supple, fur hide so some affluent young matron could promenade in the latest style.
A chill runs up my spine each time I catch a view of industrial style feed lots for Christmas turkeys or wire pens for chickens. Packed tightly, hardly able to turn around, force fed both feed and fluid their only possible salvation are the sharpened knives which ultimately kills them. It's a huge quota needing to be filled and an unsuspecting public or an unconcerned public makes these enormous demands without the big picture in mind.
I am a hypocrite, also, along with most people in this over analyzed World. I am aware of things I've vowed I would not do, but with the passage of time and a weak internal fortitude, I've broken my vows. Yes, I've eaten veal since my awakening. I am not proud. And yes, I've had both turkey and chicken from the supermarket over the years, again, I'm not proud.
Today, I'm trying to put closure to the tragedy which occurred Friday in Newtown, Conn.. How can I erase the image of twenty vibrant, young, elementary children and six professional adults being slaughtered by a deranged twenty year old discharging an untold amount of bullets into their midst. I have a few years left to live, I think, but what time I have left will be spent trying to answer maybe the unanswerable question. WHY ?
Ronald C. Downie
Monday, December 17, 2012
Gold Verses Guns
Gold Verses Guns
If our Country, by the half way mark of the 20th Century, would give up owning and trading in gold after lovingly fondling it's sheen since the beginning of recorded time; isn't it conceivable, that Americans could do something similar at this time and give up owning assault weapons ?
In the 1930's, during my adolescence, Gran'Pa Downie my father's father often argued with Dad about the advocacy of owning gold coins. Both Dad and Gran'Pa immigrated to America from Scotland during the first quarter of the 20th Century. They gathered all the funds they had in the World to exit Scotland and come to "the land of milk and honey" to find fortune through challenging work and frugal living. Depression was already at work in the British Isles long before it began debilitating the wheels of industry here. They mentally and especially physically chose The United States Of America to immigrate to, to give their allegiance to, to pledge this nation as their own. Surely they dreamed of the highlands of ancestry, of the ballads of Robert Burns and others, of tartans and stories of the clans. They both never were able to get over rolling their RR's and took with them to their grave this vestige of the Old Country.
Even though Dad and Gran'Pa both were true blooded Scotsmen, one would think in a true Scottish way, they would have squirreled gold coins into hiding, but not to be. The Great Depression was a universal equalizer, everyone was broke, just securing the very basic needs for the the family was a gigantic task. Dad brought his young family to Pottstown in 1935 where he gained work at Bethlehem Steel as a draftsman. Years later he brought his mother and father to Pottstown and helped them along with their neighbors to completely hand build a house they occupied until their deaths.
Some of the most stimulating discussions occurred when Dad and his father talked (or maybe I should call it argued) over the present day's goings on. The issue of gold which was federally settled years earlier was one item cursory discussed still. Guns, during this time, were a non issue since the Second World War had just come to an end and the returning soldiers were sick and tired of guns, ammunition, and militarism. I'm sure, if the present state of gun mayhem had occurred during my elder's time, no stone would be left unturned during their discussions about gun use carnage. All practical, as well as, philosophical avenues of debate would flow from these two men who thoroughly analyzed and emphatically
pressed their points of emphasis.
This present gun debacle would have gained their unified displeasure. They each knew right from wrong though came at their conclusions from different generations, sort of like me and my grandchildren. Sadly they lost their way from underage and lack of life experience. These same deficiencies seem to happen in every generation, even yours.
Ronald C. Downie
If our Country, by the half way mark of the 20th Century, would give up owning and trading in gold after lovingly fondling it's sheen since the beginning of recorded time; isn't it conceivable, that Americans could do something similar at this time and give up owning assault weapons ?
In the 1930's, during my adolescence, Gran'Pa Downie my father's father often argued with Dad about the advocacy of owning gold coins. Both Dad and Gran'Pa immigrated to America from Scotland during the first quarter of the 20th Century. They gathered all the funds they had in the World to exit Scotland and come to "the land of milk and honey" to find fortune through challenging work and frugal living. Depression was already at work in the British Isles long before it began debilitating the wheels of industry here. They mentally and especially physically chose The United States Of America to immigrate to, to give their allegiance to, to pledge this nation as their own. Surely they dreamed of the highlands of ancestry, of the ballads of Robert Burns and others, of tartans and stories of the clans. They both never were able to get over rolling their RR's and took with them to their grave this vestige of the Old Country.
Even though Dad and Gran'Pa both were true blooded Scotsmen, one would think in a true Scottish way, they would have squirreled gold coins into hiding, but not to be. The Great Depression was a universal equalizer, everyone was broke, just securing the very basic needs for the the family was a gigantic task. Dad brought his young family to Pottstown in 1935 where he gained work at Bethlehem Steel as a draftsman. Years later he brought his mother and father to Pottstown and helped them along with their neighbors to completely hand build a house they occupied until their deaths.
Some of the most stimulating discussions occurred when Dad and his father talked (or maybe I should call it argued) over the present day's goings on. The issue of gold which was federally settled years earlier was one item cursory discussed still. Guns, during this time, were a non issue since the Second World War had just come to an end and the returning soldiers were sick and tired of guns, ammunition, and militarism. I'm sure, if the present state of gun mayhem had occurred during my elder's time, no stone would be left unturned during their discussions about gun use carnage. All practical, as well as, philosophical avenues of debate would flow from these two men who thoroughly analyzed and emphatically
pressed their points of emphasis.
This present gun debacle would have gained their unified displeasure. They each knew right from wrong though came at their conclusions from different generations, sort of like me and my grandchildren. Sadly they lost their way from underage and lack of life experience. These same deficiencies seem to happen in every generation, even yours.
Ronald C. Downie
Sunday, December 16, 2012
A John Berger Sentence
A John Berger Sentence
John Berger, the noted English artist and art critic, who turned to published writing and later became a prominent philosophical writer, surveyed the world around him and wrote this rather long frightening sentence :
"Everywhere these days more and more people knock their heads against the fact that the future of our planet and what it will offer or deny to it's inhabitants, is being decided by boards of men who control more money then all the governments in the world, who never stand for election, and sole criterion for every decision they take is whether or not it increases or is prone to increase PROFIT." (John Berger)
In Berger's mind, I believe he thinks, profit must be an endpoint these men on boards base their personal
understanding of the most important element in their lives. Not children, or wife, or immediate / extended family, or music, or profession; but, the almighty lust after profit, gaining more and more for the sake of more and more. Profit, in their minds, must be like the Holy Grail of their living, gotten in spite of all odds, not even death would get in the way since off shore accounts last forever, the names listed are secret.
This is a world wide phenomena far beyond our shores where money, profits, have become the God head for those who have plenty but seek more. Their's is one a demential living devoid of rounded depth which limits interaction with people other than those of similar intentions. The disease of lust for profits is insidious while acting in concert with selfish characters
whose personalities parallel their own. They beget one another. They are, in the end, devoid of character.
The fear they illicit is that they have little or no real empathy for the ordinary citizen going about their daily business believing in a dignity of the human condition. They substitute their personal lust for more riches, therefore power, rather than having a universal love for all of mankind.
Ronald C. Downie
John Berger, the noted English artist and art critic, who turned to published writing and later became a prominent philosophical writer, surveyed the world around him and wrote this rather long frightening sentence :
"Everywhere these days more and more people knock their heads against the fact that the future of our planet and what it will offer or deny to it's inhabitants, is being decided by boards of men who control more money then all the governments in the world, who never stand for election, and sole criterion for every decision they take is whether or not it increases or is prone to increase PROFIT." (John Berger)
In Berger's mind, I believe he thinks, profit must be an endpoint these men on boards base their personal
understanding of the most important element in their lives. Not children, or wife, or immediate / extended family, or music, or profession; but, the almighty lust after profit, gaining more and more for the sake of more and more. Profit, in their minds, must be like the Holy Grail of their living, gotten in spite of all odds, not even death would get in the way since off shore accounts last forever, the names listed are secret.
This is a world wide phenomena far beyond our shores where money, profits, have become the God head for those who have plenty but seek more. Their's is one a demential living devoid of rounded depth which limits interaction with people other than those of similar intentions. The disease of lust for profits is insidious while acting in concert with selfish characters
whose personalities parallel their own. They beget one another. They are, in the end, devoid of character.
The fear they illicit is that they have little or no real empathy for the ordinary citizen going about their daily business believing in a dignity of the human condition. They substitute their personal lust for more riches, therefore power, rather than having a universal love for all of mankind.
Ronald C. Downie
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