The Wrath of War

Will there be a time when WAR will be the only way America gets its economy rolling ? When that day comes, there goes the World as we know it.

I envision a black robed, bearded, old man leaning on a scythe, his free arm extended heavenward holding in his hand a bolt of lightening. He is ready to launch this bolt everywhere on our Earth.

Masses, fervently in prayer, huddled on their knees, and, in a unison voice, can be heard : " Lord, oh Lord ! Forgive the ignorant for they know not what they do ! "

A "Nuclear Winter", as it culminates all over the World, brings death of unimaginable voracity to all living organisms. Escape is a "fools gold"
when radiation invades every aspect of life and all life forms. There is no "Marshall Plan" that can alleviate the aftermath.

No ! We cannot just "forgive the innocent" for they have been entrusted by our electorate with preserving our union from outward intrusion or from internal disorder.

No longer is the work of planetary politics a game, it is to be dogged work, day in and day out, to move the country into a position that, at the end of each day, America is closer to becoming "A More perfect Union" in spite of adversities.

This, our leaders have pledged upon taking their Oath of Office. They must, at all cost, be held to their solum duty. They may not be allowed to ignore "The Grim Reaper" poised over the World to unleash his bolt of utter destruction on our World.

Ronald C. Downie

Brother Andrew Downie

My only sibling Andrew (Andy) was born in 1930 on May 30th just north of New York City in Tarrytown, as I understand. I was born on February 6, 1935 in Elmsford, New York. Andy's and my first homes were located in this area of New York because both Mom's and Dad's families immigrated from Scotland; Mom's from Dundee, Dad's from Glasgow. Mom's family settled in Bayonne, New Jersey, Dad's in New York around the area where Andy and I were born. Both families settled in ethnic conclaves of Scots though in Dad's location there was a much more concentration of Scottish than in Bayonne, NJ.

Independent of each other they both booked passage back to Scotland for a vacation sometime in the late 1920's. They met aboard ship in a storybook romance and their desires became realities when they got back home. The distance between Bayonne and Tarrytown was considerable so their courting was a long distance affair but marriage was its outcome with Andy and I coming along later. As a married couple they settled in New York State joining the other Scottish settlers living there. Football ( soccer ) was the rage for young men and Dad joined his brothers in playing for the Partick Thistle, a local club in an amateur league.

Along came a calamity, The Great Depression, and no work was to be had. Dad, a journeyman draftsman, lost his position and only found part time work in an A&P lugging baskets of fruit around until he was sidelined by a burst appendices. As he recovered all "want ads" were read and reread, over and over. Bethlehem Steel, in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, was in want of experienced draftsmen, Please Apply ! He did, got a job, and in the summer of 1934, with Mom pregnant with me, he came alone to Pottstown to work, and after a day's work, looked for a place to bring his young family here.

Like all young families around this time, especially those without family in the area, we rented and moved, rented and moved, from one school to the next. Brother Andy, we think, went to every school in the town. I lucked out because, by the time I entered school, our family was fairly stable in a house they were purchasing on Houck Road in Chester County. Andy and I went to Warwick School, a 12 grade school on Route 23, in Warwick.

Tragedy struck Andy at a young age : he went to his school buddy's farm to help mow grass and an adjoining hayfield. His friend of similar age was operating the old tractor equipped with a scissors cutting bar which reached out about eight feet. As the tractor moved forward this cutter bar out to the right would activate like a scissors during a cutting activity. Andy walked on the wrong side of the tractor to talk to his buddy and trying to retreat both feet got cut in the heels. The cuts were into the bone but thank goodness weren't high enough to sever the Achilles' tendons. Needless to say, Andy never was the fast runner he was before the accident. He and Dad had similar body frames, Dad's from a longtime running playing soccer. Andy's injury didn't keep him from joining the Navy during Korea at an age shy of twenty.

Our parents sold the house on Houck and bought one in Lower Pottsgrove on North Keim Street. When arriving there, I went to Lower Pottsgrove Elementry up on the hill on Pleasantview Road and Andy went in to Pottstown to Junior High School. We both graduated from Pottstown High School.

This is a glance at my family in the early years. Brother Andy would have been 87 today had he lived. He retired as a professor of The English Language from the New Jersey college system after teaching English for half a century. Though we were four and a half years separated in age, we both revered each other for what each of us had done with our lives. Brotherly love is a type of endearment needing little association between the individuals. It spans both time and space in a strange way. Rather than feelings it is more of a sense of being that allows substance between siblings without direct contact, it is what they call family.

Ronald C. Downie

"What goes around, comes around"

Life has ways to create parallels ; just compare me and, how at my age, I'll be treated by the number crunchers putting together this year's budget. Promises be damned ; Social Security and Medicaid, Trump promised will not be cut. His proposed budget blatantly cuts what ? You guested right, Social Security and Medicaid. Bingo !

---Those in authority decided me, this old invalid bird is expendable, so if he needlessly dies, so what ? The rich need more bobbles to show off so, give them another tax cut ! The poor super rich need more and more money to have to buy elections.

A parallel is the Borough of Pottstown : post depression, pre-WW 2, Pottstown citizen's roll was long stable. Her industry was small businesses, employment was alright, her economic muscle was flexing, she saw few green lights in sight, but she was ripe for a change.

Then something happened : the great World War 2 spun into action. War is a glutton for the implements of carnage and the infusion of federal dollars for the defense industrial complex which lusted after machines and factories that arrived like a stampede in Pottstown and were like mana from heaven during the Big War.

Then - victory - swept the World : the Greatest Generation came home, fathers, brothers, aunts and uncles, all seeking good jobs ; factories large and small stuffed within their walls employees, especially ex-GI's, since the government subsidized their wages. Pottstown's population swelled to 32,000 people. Building homes and necessary public infrastructure seemed unstoppable. The suburbs ballooned : work, wages, taxes flowed ; we were the unquenchable engine of economic muscle for the county who sought our endorsement.

Watch out, "What goes up, must come down", the terrible '70's lit on Pottstown and her surrounds like a plague. One after another company either downsized or sold out. This pulsating industrial area began flaming out, taxes to the county dried up, and the borough's population kept declining until it now is about 22,000 people. Pottstown beware, the long knives of politicians want to carve a declining town into eatable bites. Resist and persist must become a town's motto.

But, it's the way Pottstown was perceived by citizens of the county and surrounding communities which told a tail, a tail I was familiar with, a tail similar what had happened to me. When a town or a person grows old and run down after a lifetime of work both seem to be expendable. Unlike, a person who is just laid to rest, a town must continue on, must allow itself to be rebuilt, must adopt new
leaders who think revitalization. But, politics play a vital roll. Just as with people who, during their life, created jobs and hired workers, but now, are old and in firmed and now are expendable ; towns can be revitalized and returned to high income producing engines.

On this Memorial Weekend work to make "Pottstown Great Again"!

Ronald C Downie

The Posted Poet Talks

I am without a framework which specifically defines my life to date. I was fairly successful at sports but not great. Played a lot of games of different sports : captained in high school, presented the game ball for play against arch rival, played in championship games, at least twice, noted for some super drives and poorer putts. Neon light games, like darts, came my way when the legs wore out. For a time arm wrestling contested my interest. Feats of brute strength followed me during my working days.

Civic responsibilities cropped up and grabbed me for duty. Owning a business allowed me the time and opportunity to serve the community.
Board member and president of : American Businessmen Club, Building Industry Exchange, Schuylkill River Greenway Association, Carousel At Pottstown.

As well as, elected : Pottstown School Board, one four year term ; Pottstown Borough Council, two four year terms ; Pottstown Borough Authority, two four year terms, chairman four years.

Honors : Elk of the Year ; Pottstown's First Grand Marshall ; Schuylkill River Park Amphitheater, named and dedicated in my honor ;
Pottstown School District, Alumni Association, class 1953 Honoree.

I've been asked to read some of my poetry works in southeastern Pennsylvania over the last forty years. And, since now I'm essentially disabled and unable to walk without support, I've taken up blogging as this epistle demonstrates. I feel I've filled my available time with positive constructive things during my 82 years on this planet. I love to talk but I find few to talk to these days. Thanks for being attentive.

Ronald C. Downie---The Posted Poet---

"Drunkenness without wine", just let that sink in, "Drunkenness without wine". It's a very chilling vision, improbable but self fulfilling.

Looking back to the early 1930's in Germany, this concept swept throughout the rest of Europe as their citizens questioned the attitude of the German electorate who voted in Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich.

Knowledge Loosed Again

Inequity seemingly lasts forever that brings with it harsh biases which, even time, can't easily dispel. The Great Religions of this World sort of fit this description, especially, in the way proponents treat women, or artifacts, or revered sites. From the Middle East, the oil capitol of the World and the caldron of tribal beliefs steeped in antiquity, comes a plethora of religions that have demeaned females as second class citizens even to this day. 

It is inconceivable to me that in this 21st Century over one half of the World's population but 100% of the World's birth mothers do not have equal rights as do their male counterparts. Religion is a construct of males dating deeply back into the past of humans evolving on this planet. I surmise, male supremacy rose from the fact of male physical stature which acknowledged the idea of "might makes right". This maybe held true in the hunter's World but, today, does not hold water. 

Evolving at an accelerating rate humans will quickly in the scale of humanity throw off the shackles that imprisons him. Tribes need to go. Females will assert themselves. Antiquities will move into the museum to be viewed but not worshiped. The information age will mature and knowledge will become "the king of the hill" once more.

Ronald C. Downie

The Arrogance of Ignorance 

Lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc. is a broad definition of ignorance. Ignorance seems to pervade our country- big time- these days. Once, at the beginning of our country, when settlers were on the move, self preservation was the driving thrust of existence. Kill or be killed was the coin of the realm with survival knowledge and good luck, working in unison, to secure a safer future. 

But, as settlers developed communities they sought the strengths brought by immigrants from European heritages to their new homes as they grew more civilized. Knowledge through learning was a key stone of this new structure, as was, the rule of law. 

Arrogance is an offensive display of superiority or self-importance, overbearing pride. Certainly some gun slingers fit this description but, as more and more moved west, slinger's gusto was not equal to the stories told about them. 

Harbored in the ghettoes of this World at this present time, a couple decades into the 21st Century, are pockets of deeply underserved citizens who have been been left behind. They lack the mental tools to lift them away from their plight and, more and more, cause their offspring to have a similar cross to bear. Ignorance, in the 21st Century, is a plague, a self inflicted plague, as well as, a plague orchestrated by the moneyed and powerful who see the effects of poor education but yet seem to ignore its causes. 

This truly is an example of "The Arrogance of Ignorance" bright and clear. Will we ever correct the conditions bringing ignorance to too many ? But, a more insidious result is surfacing in our World. More and more a dumbed down populous is satisfied with being awash in the throws of ignorance. They, by their attitude, allow the oligarchs to pidgin hole them into servitude, and worst of all, their offspring are drug down with them. The Lord of the Castle now has a serfdom to rule over, an intergenerational serfdom. 

 First, we should aggressively ferret out those in control who, though educated, are the perpetrators of this inequity. In them lies the scourge of arrogance, of overbearing pride. Secondly, we must have pre-kindergarten through four years of college as a goal for all citizens on this planet. And, the best and brightest must be chosen by each country to lead this endeavor in their respective countries. Not a want but education is a need to stamp out ignorance. It is a battle and must be fought as it was a war. 

Ronald C. Downie