Really, Thanksgiving? I don't think so!

Perhaps, Thanksgiving isn't quite the word for it. Maybe it should be something more along the lines of Forgive Us day. Every year we engage in this farce called Thanksgiving. We pretend that all was well at the Plymouth Colony. We extend our hand in friendship and thanks for the food and gifts we were given. The country pretends we are little innocent pilgrims who the local tribes took pity on and bestowed us with these gifts to help preserve us.

I have a better idea. Let's change Thanksgiving day to forgiveness day! On this day every year, each person in this country should seek out and find a Native American and beg forgiveness for the atrocities we committed against them. Let's ask forgiveness for the smallpox blankets we gave them, wiping out whole tribes. Let's ask forgiveness for slaughtering them, ruining and poisoning the land we stole from them. Let's ask forgiveness for cramming them into tiny areas of land to live in desperate poverty, ripping their language and traditions from them. Why don't we ask them to forgive us for the lies and trickery we subjected them to in every treaty we ever entered into with them.

Are you pissed off yet? You probably are at what you perceive as the undeserved chastising stated above but if you think I'm wrong let's look at this another way.

Next year Muslim radicals come to our north east coast. Let's just say for the sake of realism that they possess greater numbers and far superior weapons than our own. Things we have never conceived of. They come here to seek a new life where they can have their freedom of religion. After all that is what truly brought the pilgrims to these shores.

When they first arrive we try to befriend them these new people in our country that we really know nothing about. We help them as they struggle to survive the first few years. They secretly however believe us to be a stupid heathen people all the while accepting our charity. Realizing they need our land and that as an inferior race they need to rid themselves of us they unleash one of the chemical and biological weapons within their arsenal. Let's choose smallpox since this is not so far off the mark of what they would really have.

Now they have already been vaccinated knowing they may have to use these weapons against the peoples in this new land they have moved too. Within months our entire country is hit with smallpox. Millions die, the economy falls apart, farmers are all but wiped out and our food supplies start to dwindle. In the meantime, more and more Muslim radicals arrive. Taking over huge sections of the country in the wake of our societies breakdown. We mount attack after attack desperately trying to gain control of our country back. We move our people farther and farther away from them in an effort to protect those that cannot protect themselves. Some battles are won and some are lost but the battles themselves take a huge toll on our numbers as they have far superior weaponry to us.

As the years pass we begin to try negotiating with them. They sign agreements with us saying they will not come any further than these areas but more radicals arrive everyday. Soon they are crowding and out of room. They begin to push us off the land they had agreed we could keep. When we mount new attacks they unleash anthrax and wipe out millions more. This behavior continues until we are tiny fractioned groups. They break us down completely from what we once were as a people. Divide us and heard us into areas that they don't want. We are free only in those boundaries, are rationed our food, clothes and other essentials as they see fit. Our children are taken away to be brainwashed and taught their language and their beliefs.

So you get the picture.....

The radical muslims now declare a holiday for the day they first landed. Every year on that date they have huge celebrations and great feasts. People travel from miles around to participate and share in the victory they achieved. So I ask you, would you celebrate this holiday and give thanks for what was done to our great society? Or would you be disgusted by the fact that they would celebrate a day that had all but destroyed us as a nation and a people.

So then maybe it's time, maybe it's not such a reach to realize Thanksgiving day should really be made Forgiveness Day. A day when we celebrate the peoples and heritages that we all but wiped out.

In Honor of Halloween!

In honor of Halloween, we need a little ghost story I think. What better ghost story than one that you are actually experiencing. We have recently moved into a house we purchased in foreclosure. There are few details I am able to find about the house before we acquired it. So background history is a little difficult to come up with. However, the fact is something has happened here that definitely left an impression.

Our first night in this house left little doubt in our minds that we are not the only occupants. There is nothing like having someone or something staring at you in bed from your hallway. Every hair on your body stands on end. Our hallway seems to be a key place for our guest or guests. Even the bathroom there will make you come out of your skin. Especially, when you look over to the door and find yourself staring at a black dog guarding it. We, however, don't have a black dog.

Creepy, well not as creepy as waking up in the middle of the night to find a black shadow standing over your bed. We have started closing the hallway door at night but they seem to think that is not a deterrent to just coming right on in. Although, it does seem to help that whole being "watched" feeling. Waking almost every night between 11:30 and 12:00 gets old but you just deal with it.

One afternoon while washing the dishes I had the distinct impression my husband had quietly come into the kitchen to give me a kiss. So I turned to plant one on him as he ran his hand across my lower back. Imagine my surprise when I turned to find no one there.

You walk through the house minding your own business putting away laundry and boom. As you come by the bedroom closet you get the dog laying there. Or is he there at all? Nope not our dog, she is sleeping in the living room. New people come into the house and the electricity in the hallway energizes again, as if they bring some threat with them.

The adventures have quieted as we have continued living here. We have learned the bedroom door has to be shut to have a peaceful nights sleep. You learn to ignore things moving in the corner of your eye. You learn to ignore your hair standing on end when you walk through different spots in the house. Or that incredibly cold spot building at your back as you fold laundry. That special feeling of being watched just becomes second nature and soon you dismiss it also.

So with my true ghost story I wish you all a ghostly Halloween!

The Modern Day Ghost Town

Out here in the west, when someone mentions the words "ghost town", we all envision the typical stereo types. This usually falls into one of two categories. There is the revived ghost town. You all know them and many of you have visited one. The names instantly spring to mind, Virginia City NV, Bodie CA, Deadwood SD, Cripple Creek Co. They cater to the curious tourist and the people who long to experience what the old west was truly like.

Then there are the true "ghost towns". The cliche' picture we all envision. The lonely wind blowing tumbleweeds down a long abandoned street. A street lined with old clapboard buildings. Buildings now rotting in decay for want of the loving care a human presence once brought them. A nail here, some paint there, a door adjusted on it's hinges. Or the towns that are even farther beyond that. An empty landscape, dotted with the occasional crumbling foundation of old rocks or cement. A pile of weathered boards, laying in a stack too precise to be anything but the remains of an old shack or house that finally gave in to time and collapsed. Almost as if it knew, no one would ever come again to repair the damage time has done. These are the pictures we all have when those two little words are mentioned together.

Now enters a new category of ghost town. One that has only come on the scene very recently. This is no ordinary ghost town. As a matter of fact, none of us would have ever categorized this scene as anything but normal suburban America. "Where is this ghost town?" It is everywhere you go in this nation. Subdivisions everywhere, many still partially finished. Some very much completed, with children riding bicycles and playing ball in the street. The smells of barbeque's cooking something delicious, suburbia at it's best. Then you notice it - one, two, no three houses randomly scattered on the street, empty. Some show the signs of having been lived in, curtains still partially hanging in the windows, some with boards covering entry points but all of them empty.

The partially built ghost towns are the worst of the lot. At first all seems well and then as you continue on it strikes you. Of 20 or so completed houses only 2 have families in them. Skeletons of half completed structures lay on the outskirts waiting for someone to want or need them, so they too can be completed. Alas, even the people that want them cannot afford them and many who convinced themselves they could afford them are now faced with the reality that they couldn't. They too will contribute to the death of this little community by having to leave behind what only a short time ago had brought them so much joy, a home.

To be continued.....

So is this our legacy….

Or will the buyers once again flock to own these houses. Will some miracle suddenly happen that will allow people to buy again? Do all of these developers know something that the rest of us are in the dark about? Just as every action brings an opposite and equal reaction, it seems the boom has gone bust.

This scene has played out in a dozen ways throughout or great nations’ history. We have endured unspeakable hardships to prosper and succeed. Multitudes have rushed to pan, prospect and mine any and every mineral of value. Many lost everything and gained nothing. Our ancestors traveled in little more than wooden crates to grab land in the great westward push. They gave up and or lost everything just for land. So here we are repeating our history, trying to grab land. This time though, as I suspect happened in times past, it has not turned out with the proverbial story book ending.

Even if the government stepped in, it is far too late for many people. It would take years to undo the damage just a few short months made on their credit. Let alone those that have actually had to walk away or the ones who clung to the hope that something would happen and they and the house they loved would be saved. Reality though shines through all those illusions when you find your home that you loved so dearly has gone to sale in foreclosure. One more investor gains from the heartbreaking tragedy of another’s loss.

The economy is strong they say. The housing market will come back. Yes, it will come back. Once again it will become a healthy housing market. The coming market will bare none of the earmarks of the buying frenzy we once experienced. It will resemble the housing market many of us grew up with; a slow but steady group of buyers who have skimped and saved. Who have that precious 20% down with a perfect credit score.

Once again I am left with the thought – is this to be our Legacy? Can all of these housing developments possibly sell all of these houses that are even now sitting and rotting, and why? Why do they keep building more and more? Will our children someday stand on empty streets of cracked pavement and wonder the questions we wonder about when visiting a ghost town? Or will they be new questions? Questions that resonate with the folly off our own ambitions. Why did they build all these houses when there was no one to buy them?

Perhaps they will buy them. Long after the developer has gone bankrupt and the houses have sat rotting, longing for an owner to love and care for them. The price might be a pittance compared with the cost of a house 10 or 20 years from now. The sheetrock, carpet doors and windows could be replaced. A new roof could be added easily enough. So therein may lay the answer. Perhaps, the modern day ghost town may not be a ghost town forever.