FRIENDSHIP

More than I have ever known before in my life, friends are more precious than any riches we could ever gain.

True friends are few and rare.

My father, now deceased; God bless him, got me a job working as a night janitor at the city hall building in Camden, New Jersey. People called it the milk bottle building because the odd 1930's design made it look like a gigantic milk bottle sitting in the center of Camden, just blocks away from the Camden Rutgers University campus.

Each and every summer from 8Th grade until my High School graduation, my Dad-Pop, always made sure I had a job. Well there was one partial summer I was a camp counselor for Pine Hill Boy Scout camp, but that is a whole other story unto itself.

In the summer of 1963 I was thrown in with 4 other high school guys working as janitors along side the regular city janitors who worked the night shift year round. We had a specific assignment: remove the 30 years of old was build up from all areas of the building. Years later, when I was a project manager in a city 800 miles to the south I realized that this "wax removal" project was a classic "Pork Barrel" job someone thought up to create jobs and get a kick back for the company hired to do the project. I did not care because for me it meant a steady summer of work and pay.I was saving up for college so it was a blessing for me, although at the time I was an ungrateful complainer.

I did not like the idea of having to spend all my summer nights in a big public building while all my friends were doing other "normal" teenage things with their Summer nights.

Me and the other 4 boys decided to make the best of it and have some fun in doing so.
As it turned out, there was a piano in court room #4 on the second floor just above the Mezzanine. One of my cohorts was a sophomore Italian kid, Vic, who was very good on the piano. He could play almost anything we asked. I was a tenor sax player, and I could also handle the clarinet, recorder and flute. Randy was a tough kid from Camden Catholic who was a good guitar player, and like me he was going into his junior year of high school. Then there was Benny, the black kid from the projects who went to school on the "Hill" off the Cooper River. They called it that because it looked like an old castle which sat on a bluff overlooking the Cooper river. It could be seen from the Admiral Wilson expressway which snaked along side the river. It had worse names, and the tough Italian kids called "the Castle on Nigga Hill". because it looked like an old castle and because it was almost all black kids who went there.
It was the early 60's, and to hear it told today prejudice was to be found in every aspect of society.  Not true.  Yes, I saw discrimination, but not like I see today.  The make up of the people I worked with there was about 60% white and 40% black and Hispanic.  Yet there was never any harsh words or name calling.  People had more respect for each other in those days.  In this situation, we all were equal in our work and in our socialization.  If anyone was tough on people, it was the older people who had the right, and in those days, the DUTY , to "Straighten out kids".  They did not have to be your kids.  It was just a cultural thing, and as young people we knew and respected adults.  When we were told we were messing up by an older person, we listened.  I'm not saying we liked it, but we were trained at home to "Respect our elders."  I sure wish we had more of that in today's culture.
None of us ever felt prejudice toward Benny.  He was the drummer, and he had this large Conga drum. Benny held us four white guys on the mark with his excellent rhythm and precise beat.

The cleaning crew, which now included our small band of high school boys punched in on the clock at 3pm every day. Our lockers and entrance place was just across from the police station in the basement where we saw prisoners milling about and newly arrested drunk drivers,Prostitutes, wife beaters, petty theft guys and even some gang members coming in through the door right next to where we had to punch the clock. Being a white kid from the suburbs of Somerdale, this was all new and sometimes scarey to me.  However, it was a learning experience I could never get in any college or high school.


We were an unlikely band, but after a couple of weeks of working together, instead of eating lunch in the basement where our lockers were, we took to eating in courtroom #4. where it started out with Tony playing while we ate. I suggested we all bring our instruments, and sort of became the founder of the band. Two weeks into the summer we were in Court Room # 4 every day at 6 PM, lunch time. We would eat quickly and then jam for the next 45 minutes. The sound could be heard throughout the entire building. It was mostly made of marble and granite, so the acoustics for a band were great, and it actually made us sound better than we were.

We did some standards, tried some rock pop tunes, and even did a little classic type stuff. Beetohven's 5Th in rock was popular along with . "How Gentle is the rain", by a black group based on the classical piece by Mozart, and of course Elvis's Its Now or Never [O solo Mia]a tune stolen from the classic Italian opera.

So the summer evenings of hard labor became a little more mellow with music and good companions. The other "regular" janitors loved it because they all agreed that "live" music beat listening to the radio, no matter how awful it was.

One summer night after we played our hearts out on some "Old time Standards" as we called them, we started to talk about being friends and how great it was to have friends who had a common interest like music.

Just then Vinny, and old Italian guy, of the "Regular" janitor crew stood up and gave us a big lecture on friendship.

He went right over to Vic, and put his finger in the kids face," You have no friends," he roared like a stern father rebuking his kid.

Vic was surprised, and defensive. " Hey old man, you don't know what you are talking about." Vic replied and stood up a full foot taller than he old Italian janitor.

Vinny didn't flinch one iota, and he was going o show Vic he meant business. He wagged his finger again in Vic's face. " Listen kid! I told you that you have no friends! and I mean it!"

"What?" In those days we still had respect for elders, so Vic was not happy but he did speak in a defensive but polite way to the old guy.
"You listen to me kid,"  Vinny stood firm as an old oak tree stump,'  If you have only one real friend in life
you'd be one very lucky guy."

I don't know about the others in our "Band" but it took me about 50 years - half a century- to know that Vinny was dead on in his advice.

Save our Children's Minds

Young People Are Getting Ambushed By Professors

Here is a great article by John R. Smith that appeared today in Bizpac today.

Biz Pac Review: 07-29-2013 by John R. Smith

My comment to Mr. Smith s that we have had a long history of liberal control over the youth of
America.  It all started in the 1960's when the Feds started to meddle in local school districts.
It was all done in the name of Civil Rights. 
The Civil Rights movement became the incubator and catalyst for the "Nanny State" which we have today.
It is time to put an end to it.  I recall seeing MLK speak when I was a young freshman at Temple University.

At the time, I knew MLK was a conservative minister who was also a Republican.  However, he was surrounded by many radicals like Malcom X, and Jessie Jackson.  Once he was killed they took over
the movement, and it moved from being a "Passive Resistance" movement that MLK had modeled on
Ghandi's freedom movement in India to something altogether different. Radicals like the Black Muslim's infiltrated the Civil Rights Movement.  Communists like Frank Marshall Davis, Stanley Dunham then
began to influence the youth of the movement.  Obama was one of them.  He grew up being influenced
by Communist ideology, and it shows in his speeches and actions.  He, too, uses children all the time
to show that he is ingraining his doctorine in the hearts and minds of our youth. 
We must take back our schools, and revamp the DOE, and those who set Left Wing school curriculum. We must stop rewriting  textbooks in order to pervert the real history of America. We the People Want Our American Schools Back.

Obama the Great Divider

Obama believes he can get his agenda in place by agitating groups.  He was trained in the streets of Chicago as a Community Organizer [agitator]  He worked in ACORN, a group of agitators, and he was pals with Alinsky, a  student agitator, who should be in jail for bombing Federal buildings.  Obama's methods are to be found in Alinsky's book ' 13 Rules for Radicals".  Polarization is demonstrated in rule # 13 "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”                     
Using this rule Obama will always focus on Polarization of groups over Unification.  So his best skill is deception and agitation.  When he gets people at odds with each other it allows him to sneak off into the backroom and zing us with all those Imperial President Executive Orders.  Thus while  Blacks and whites, Christians and Muslims, Dems and Reps are fighting because he has agitated them into doing so, he is off  robbing the storehouse of our Constitutional Liberties, and the Treasury.  He is the great divider and destroyer of America.  So Do not play his game. 

Obama’s Dialectic - Patriot UpdatePatriot Update

Obama’s Dialectic - Patriot UpdatePatriot Update

[click on title above  to view the article by Mr. Risselada]

Great Article by John Risselada:
In it he details Obama's role in the destruction of America, and why it is happening.
Some interesting observations include:
Moral Relativism
Happiness Hypothesis
The Hegelian Dialectic
Christianity vs Islam
The UN Small Arms Treaty
Agenda 21

I agree with much of Mr. Risselada's points.  However, I do not think it is time to
lay down and surrender.  We may be surrounded by the enemy from within, but
I'm more inclined toward the attitude of Lt.General Harry W.O. Kinnard who 
when surrounded by a superior Nazi Army during the famous Battle of the Bulge, gave this one word reply when asked to surrender: "Nuts !"
This is America. 
 I am an American.  
We do not surrender our God given rights to Tyranny.

The Truth Will Set You Free: Parental Responsibility, Not More Money, Is The Answer To The Black Education Tragedy!

The Truth Will Set You Free: Parental Responsibility, Not More Money, Is The Answer To The Black Education Tragedy!

House Faces Tough Immigration Bill Decision Today

In response to the Immigration Bill, and what the house should do with it, I wrote these comments to House Speaker John Boehner.  No telling what he'll do.  Sometimes he listens to the voter, at other times he seems to be in Obama's camp.  Either way We the People are sadly at the mercy of those who are supposed to work for us. But that is food for another article.

Dear Mr. Boehner,

Kill the Immigration Bill !!!!!

All you have to do is to ignore it and it wont come to the floor.
I know all those bright college kids on your staff are telling you that GOP needs this to get votes.

Well, this old guy is telling you they are wrong.

 The illegals are here for the Obama handouts, and they do not think the GOP will give them any, so they are not going to vote for you..

 It is really a matter of economics
.
The world now knows that Americans are Saps who will care for any lame brain that falls across our boarders.

 Legality, criminal acts: none of this counts.   It is all about Money$$

We have it and the rest of the world wants it.

By taking on 40 million people with no skills; no training; and no ability to speak our language, we will be severely and economically harmed.

Close the boarders for security reasons, and do not let it up to Obama and Big Sis Napolitano.  They want illegals.  It helps them in their quest  for Globalization.

America is the Giant in the world who's People opposes a UN Dominated  World, and the only way to remove that giant is to kill the USA economically [as they take all our guns]

SO you see it is all about $$$ and your best bet it to slide this bill to the bottom of the pile where it belongs.

Thanks,

Will Rodgers

Response to Michael Schaus's article on Racism and the Democrats

Yesterday 7/2/2013, Michael Schaus published a story on Townhall.com/finance titled:

Two Centuries of Racism - Brought to You by the Democrat Party

The full story is available on this link:

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/michaelschaus/2013/07/02/two-centuries-of-racism--brought-to-you-by-the-democrat-party-n1632012

 

Below is my comment on this article:

"We have allowed our history to be rewritten, perverted and packed with lies. The enemies of this republic have taken over our school system from K to Grad School. Therefore, it is easy to deceive people into believing the altered history of America. What the Tea Party and the Conservatives in the GOP need to do is to "go back to School". They need to take back the education system and once again make it "local". Once the Feds forced integration and busing on school districts run by the local municipalities they were more easily able to set the agenda. They not only "Integrated" they "Infiltrated" the American Education system. Private schools do not face a government dictating what they teach. Those schools like Heritage teach the truth about American History and the values of our Constitution. It is easy to manipulate people who are not educated, or those who learn only what you want them to know. Blacks should be outraged that they have been used and are still the slaves of the Democrats. Only a handful of blacks like C.L. Bryant who exposed America's modern form of black slavery in "Runaway Slave" really understand what this article is all about. It is about how millions of Blacks and white liberals have been duped and deceived and lied toby the Democrats for many years."