Bringing up kids in today's world

Our neighbor Lorraine Collins always has an interesting perspective on a wide range of topics. Here's another that may catch your interest -- and perhaps spur a comment or two. Her commentaries appear regularly in the Black Hills Pioneer, and she graciously allows us to share them with on-line readers here.

Two of my grandchildren go to a public elementary school in Norfolk, VA a few blocks from their home. I visited this school a couple of years ago during lunch hour when the cafeteria lunch room was a noisy chaos of energetic youngsters. What impressed me then and impresses me now is that the children paid no attention at all to race. Black children, Asian children, white children all seemed to associate with each other on some selection basis other than the color of their skin. In fact, 60% of the children in that elementary school are black, so my Swedish-English grandchildren are in the minority. They don’t seem to realize this and pay no attention at all to what color the person next to them may be.

This makes me wonder when it is that race becomes such a big deal in our relationships, and when and how we learn to mistrust, fear or hate somebody of a different race from ours. The famous song from “South Pacific” says “you have to be taught before it’s too late, before you are six or seven or eight to hate everybody your relatives hate.” Maybe that’s true but I like to think it is less true now that it was when the song was written.

Growing up in a small town in South Dakota, I lived in a monochromatic society, where almost everybody was the same color. My high school class had one Native American boy and one Japanese American girl. Otherwise we all looked the same. The biggest difference was whether a kid was a Catholic or a Protestant and I’m not sure we always knew that. Among my parents’ friends there was one Jewish couple but that’s as exotic as we got. Nevertheless, racism existed casually in our language and in some songs we sang or expressions we used, none of which I can repeat here, and we just never thought about it as being offensive.

I know only one person my age, a woman who has been my friend for over half a century, who is absolutely colorblind when it comes to race. She never seems to think in terms of what color somebody is and she was genuinely puzzled when her parents were outraged when she announced at a young age that she was in love with a black man she had met in Europe and wanted to marry him. She was banished from the family. That was at a time when interracial marriage was against the law in several states, and long before the laws that desegregated our society.

By the time I graduated from college and got to New York I had finally met a few people of other races but we all tended to move in our own orbits. It wasn’t until I visited my friend and her husband in a ghetto in Philadelphia that I was immersed in a community composed entirely of people of a different race from me. When I served as godmother to her baby boy, she, I, and the Episcopal priest were the only white people in the room. That scene was and still is impossible to imagine anywhere in South Dakota other than perhaps in some small communities on an Indian reservation.

But if we are going to prepare our children and grandchildren to live and work in a society as diverse as the one most people now live in, we should probably do our best to encourage them to experience multi-racial, multi-cultural communities. Chances are, if they leave their high plains home, they’ll be living in one.

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be contacted at collins1@rushmore.com.

Tear down this wall!

In August of 1961, I was on the campus of Midland College in Nebraska, practicing football with a contingent of recent high school graduates from across northern Nebraska. We were preparing for the Shrine Bowl football game, a pretty big deal for us – and a wonderful annual event organized by Shriners to benefit crippled children. Our practicing counted for very little, since later that week we were thoroughly trampled in Lincoln by the south squad – led by star running back Gale Sayers – 32 to 0.

At the time, I was oblivious to events on the other side of the world – events that would radically change the lives of millions of people. The so-called "cold war" had shown little evidence of abating in the early ‘60s, and on August 16th, 1961, East German leader Walter Ulbricht and his German Democratic Party (GDP) government made the cold war decidedly colder. They closed all border crossings and commerce in and out of West Berlin. Within a couple of days, they began erecting a 12-foot high concrete wall that would eventually run more than 87 miles, virtually surrounding West Berlin.

The move seemed a throwback to the late 1940s, when the communists halted all road traffic in and out of West Berlin in an effort to “starve” out the West Berliners. An enormous airlift was launched by Allied forces in January 1949, demonstrating the western commitment to preserving West Berlin, and finally convincing the East Germans and Soviets to halt their blockade.

I suspect that very few Americans thought the Berlin Wall would ever be completed – let alone survive for nearly three decades. Before the wall, there were about 1,000 people passing into West Berlin every day. The wall was a renewed effort to isolate West Berlin and stem the out-migration of citizens from East Germany.

In 1983, my son Brad and I motored across the East German corridor to visit the bustling West German enclave that was West Berlin. Our walk through Checkpoint Charlie (above photo) into East Berlin was an experience we’ll not soon forget. Stoic East German border guards took their jobs very seriously and demonstrated absolutely no sense of humor or cordiality. “Rude” would be a good description, and I suspect they were under orders to avoid being perceived as “friendly.” That simply wasn’t their job.

Fast forward six years to March of 1990 – wife Karen and I were vacationing in West Germany and drove a rental car across the same route into West Berlin. This time, however, it would be a very different experience. Just a few months earlier, the autocratic GDR regime of Erich Honecker was ousted, replaced by a group of younger East German political leaders. They decided that the Berlin Wall served no good purpose. The Russians were having problems of their own and were more inclined to abide by U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s admonishment from a few years earlier that they should “tear down” the wall.

Thousands of East Germans had attempted to escape into West Berlin over the years. Understandably, there are no definitive statistics as to how many succeeded – or lost their lives trying to escape. It’s thought that between 100-200 people died.

The Berlin Wall was still intact when Karen and I decided to hike along its route through a quiet neighborhood of West Berlin. We got a close-up view of graffiti that had been etched on the western side of the wall for decades. We saw the East German watchtowers that loomed over the no-mans-land near the wall, better known as “The Death Strip" (photo above). We also came across a few other hikers, who – like us – were collecting pieces of the wall for posterity.

Perhaps most interesting was our encounter with East German border guards – still on the job, but apparently operating under new orders: be friendly. It was a stark contrast to what Brad and I had encountered just a few years before. You can click on the photo to see a larger image.

All of these memories came flashing back today with media reports about Berlin festivities marking the 20th anniversary of the wall’s demise on November 9, 1989.

It seems we humans learn less from history than we should, so I think it’s likely that other walls will be built in other places for other purposes. And I suspect they’ll find a fate much like the Berlin Wall……a pile of rubble and a footnote in history.

Weapons of mass destruction

Our neighbor Lorraine Collins always has an interesting perspective on a wide range of topics. Here's another that should catch your interest -- and perhaps spur a comment or two. Her commentaries appear regularly in the Black Hills Pioneer, and she graciously allows us to share them with on-line readers here.

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A small item in the news caught my eye the other day. It reported that Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Mont. had “completed deactivation of 50 missile launch facilities.” Clearing 50 silos of intercontinental ballistic missiles means that the United States now has only 450 nuclear-tipped missiles in silos.

I don’t think about ICBMs much any more, and I don’t know who they’re all aimed at these days since the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union no longer exists. In fact, I’m sort of surprised that we still have 450 of them, some with multiple warheads, ready to be fired at a moment’s notice. There are still officers in underground bunkers not too far away from us, ready to push the button if they have to.

I remember the years that Minuteman missiles were being deployed around Ellsworth Air Force Base in Rapid City in the 1960s. Out on the prairie, silos were dug into ranch lands, command facilities were built here and there, and we became used to seeing USAF vehicles or helicopters on the landscape. It was not unusual to see a very long trailer, presumably carrying a Minuteman missile, escorted by armored vehicles, driving down some lonesome road. The deployment of missiles hereabouts resulted in an economic boom and I think we all appreciated that, even while pondering the seriousness of being the site of weapons that could destroy the world.

The idea of having hundreds of ICBMs in hardened silos at many sites in Montana, North and South Dakota and Wyoming was that if the Soviet Union attacked us, we could instantly attack them. This was the Cold War strategy called Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, which some thought it was.

There are no missile sites left in our neighborhood now, except for the one out by Cactus Flats, east of Rapid City. It’s a National Historic Site that displays a control center and a silo holding a disarmed Minuteman missile as a useful lesson in history.

The forces that threaten the peace and security of the United States are much different from those of 40 years ago and though we never got involved in World War III, we’ve certainly fought a lot of wars in the years since ICBMs were deployed. These weapons of mass destruction have not been of any use to us in Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

But yet we still have those 450 weapons aimed at somebody. They are just one part of our enormous military budget which is the largest in the world, larger than the military budgets of the next dozen or more major countries combined. Maybe one reason for our huge military budget is that various states have military installations or defense contractors they want to support.

For instance, our South Dakota Senators are adamant about funding the “next generation bomber” even though the Secretary of Defense says we don’t need that kind of plane any more. At more than $2 billion apiece, high tech new bombers are so expensive they use up a lot of money that could be spent on other weapons systems. So maybe Congress should rethink its approach to defense spending.

Back in the 1960’s when a Minuteman missile site north of Belle Fourche had a sort of open house for the public, I visited the underground command bunker along with my kids and mother-in-law. We went down in the elevator, passed through a huge metal door and entered the bunker where two young officers explained how they would fire any or all of the 10 nuclear weapons under their command if ordered to do so. It was impressive and terrifying. When we came back up to the twilit prairie my mother-in-law said, “Well, I wish we could spend the money on something we want.” I still feel the same way.

Lorraine Collins is a writer who lives in Spearfish. She can be contacted at collins1@rushmore.com.

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de'ja' vu

When a cousin shared this video with me, I thought it was as topical and relevant today as when it was first produced a half century ago. I wish it had focused more on the hazards of blindly following any absolute "ism," ranging from socialism and communism all the way to.....yes, capitalism. I believe our society remains among the best in the world, but it requires keeping informed and engaged in our communities.

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History Calls

Certain words or phrases have a way of collecting baggage that causes us to embrace or reject the concepts they represent. Such seems to be the case in the current din about health care reform. Good neighbor Lorraine Collins offers her views on this timely topic.

Quite a few years ago a friend told me that the last ten days of her mother’s life cost a quarter of a million dollars. She was in anguish as she told me this, not only because of the financial burden, but because the last ten days of her mother’s life were not improved by this huge expenditure. She was either unconscious or suffering during the entire time. It was cruel for everybody, and there should have been some way to prevent this from happening.

These days we know about living wills and powers of attorney for health care, and when we go to a doctor’s office or the hospital we may see pamphlets dealing with end of life issues. In fact, if we sign up with a new clinic or are admitted to the hospital we may be asked whether we have drawn up some kind of end of life document giving our preferences about how to treat us in the final extremity. This is not exactly a radical idea.

This is why I was so outraged by people who appear to object to any health care reform talking about “death panels”, trying to scare us oldsters about how the government wants to more or less send us out on ice floes into the Arctic Sea to get rid of us because we cost a lot of money.

Elderly people generally do cost a lot of money. One reason Medicare is predicted to be in financial straits is that the dread Baby Boomer generation is about to become old enough to qualify for it. So, what do you think we should do about this situation, other than having the government convene death panels deciding who gets that extra week of life and who doesn’t?

Well, health care reform might be a good idea. It may even take care of other problems, such as the millions of people with no health insurance, the millions who show up at emergency rooms to be treated by hospitals whether they ever get reimbursed or not, the millions who go bankrupt because of medical expenses. By now, if we don’t know the statistics, we must have been living in a cave next to Osama Bin Laden, who, so far as we know, has no health care insurance plan other than an AK47. The statistics tell us we have the most expensive health care in the world, but leave the largest number of citizens without health care. We are a society that relies on rummage sales and chili feeds organized by neighbors to help people pay for the cancer treatment or the operation or the rehab after a tragic accident. We are a society that says if you have a job that provides affordable health insurance, you’re lucky, and if you lose your job, well, good luck.

There are a whole lot of problems with the current way we deal, or fail to deal with health care problems in the United States, and you must have heard of some of them by now. For instance: the lack of preventative care so small problems don’t become big ones; a lack of primary care physicians who aren’t reimbursed as handsomely as specialists; paying doctors on the basis of how many procedures are done, which encourages more procedures; defensive medicine that requires more tests than necessary to protect from malpractice suits.

Health care reform in the United States is a very complicated, long overdue and extremely necessary process for us to undergo. Our nation will go broke, to heck in a hand basket without it. We don’t need scare tactics, or lies, or TV ads by those who make money in health care. We need a patriotic, compassionate and rational discussion. As Republican Senator Olympia Snow said last week, “When history calls, history calls.”

For heaven’s sake, lets answer the phone.

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Our thanks to Spearfish writer Lorraine Collins.

An American's Creed

Some folks may remember seeing this "American's Creed" in Reader's Digest in the 1950s, or reading it -- as I did -- in their local newspaper.

Chadron (Nebr) Record publisher Don Huls printed the item in almost every edition, sometimes on the front page. I suspect it was a creed to which he ardently adhered. It was originally penned by one Dean Alfange, a lawyer and educator, who also dabbled in politics. Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Alfange reportedly grew up in New York state and served in World War I. He earned his law degree at Columbia University.

The creed continues to be a point of contention between liberals and conservatives as they try to shout one another down. Its message still resonates well after more than half a century.

The $25 million jailhouse

Congressional strategies to win favor for “stimulus” monies as a way to solve our economic woes have met with mixed results. Doubtless there has been some success; otherwise, we suspect there’d be a whole lot more hoopla over the insanity of spending money that we don't have. This wrong-headed strategy arose last fall in an effort to “jump start” the economy by spending enormous amounts of money – trying to rejuvenate the stock markets and get people back to work.

Well, since the Treasury Department prints it, we’d have to concede that the money’s there. But so is the debt……and it’ll be there for generations to come.

One of the real casualties of this fiasco is common sense, which has been smothered by the availability of TARP funds. When you and I overspend the family budget and realize that we’re in a world of hurt, common sense tells us that it’s not time to go out and buy a new car. But that's the kind of logic employed by the administration and Congress.

By spreading the money around – everything from the "Clunkers" program to public works projects – Congress has deflected much of the criticism that they really deserve.

Take, for example, the $25 million grant for a jail on the Rosebud Reservation here in South Dakota. I suspect that closer scrutiny of the project would result in determining that there is questionable need for such a facility – at least, not $25 million. And already, tribal officials express concern that they may not have enough money to operate the facility!

There are real needs in our American Indian communities, but this “economic stimulus” fiasco would be easier to stomach if it were for a facility focused on education and training – one with a thoughtful road map and the funds necessary to operate it.

But both on and off the reservations, it seems easier to just take the money – pat yourself on the back for getting it – and ignoring both common sense…… and future generations. They’re the ones who’ll have to pay for it.

I used to avoid writing about the economy lest it becomes obvious that I don’t fully understand it. However, it’s become painfully clear that Congress and many government bureaucrats don’t have a clue either.

Reliable public radio...coming!

For the many of us in the northern Black Hills who are frustrated by the lack of a good signal from South Dakota Public Radio, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The 91.1 Mhz translator on Lookout Mountain along Interstate 90 in Spearfish is old and unreliable -- causing much anguish when listeners find news stories interrupted mid-stream, or their favorite musical pieces dashed by dead air.

We learn from South Dakota Public Broadcasting's Julie Andersen that a couple of significant steps have been realized toward bringing reliable public radio service to the Spearfish and northern Hills region.

Last year, SDPB applied for a federal grant from the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program in the Department of Commerce. Seeking some $462,123 for the $770,205 needed to bring "full service" to the Spearfish and Belle Fourche regions, the network has been notified that the project has been funded. Although we don't know the specific amount, this is a major step forward.

Too, the Federal Communications Commission has already issued a Construction Permit for the facility, which we first described here some time back.

SDPB is also finalizing negotiations for the location of the facility, which would be on the southwest side of Spearfish.

We'll keep you posted as we hear more.

From satellite to Internet?

Last year at about this time, we opined that the Federal Communications Commission decision to give the green light for an XM and Sirius satellite radio merger was a “Sirius” mistake.

We’ve seen nothing to change that opinion – and we’ve observed anything but the “lower prices and more choice” that Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin claimed the merger would bring. He called it a “no-brainer."

“Hair-brained” is more like it.

As I attempted yesterday to access XM on-line, which had been available in the past as a bonus to XM subscribers, I was told that it is, indeed, still available, but as a $2.99 per month add-on to the satellite fee.

Even more disappointing than the growing fees is the collective amnesia that has swept XM and Sirius officials regarding “a la carte services,” where customers would pay only for those channels they want. It’s a service that’s long overdue for both satellite radio and cable television. The technology is there, but the corporate will to offer it seems to have vanished – if it was really ever there in the first place.

Corporate desire to maximize profits is not a bad thing. The real culprits here are the mutton-headed bureaucrats at the FCC – and in Congress – who don’t seem to have a clue about how a monopoly preys on consumers, but eventually comes home to roost. We had hoped that Liberty Media's bailout of Sirius-XM last winter might provide some impetus for business practices that would revitalize satellite radio. It appears we were wrong.

Look for continuing problems in the satellite radio business.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to spend more time with a few good local broadcasters – and their advertisers.

Oh, yes, today I also test drove a couple of Internet Radios – interesting gizmos that may have a real impact on all broadcasters, but especially the Sirius-XM monopoly.

Like I said, look for more tough times for the satellite radio folks.

Have we forgotten V-J Day?

V-J Day came and went this year with little fanfare. Perhaps our expectation of finding a story about it tucked below the fold in the world news section of the newspaper – or included as a feature on the evening news – was unrealistic. Time has a way of blurring our memories, and media preoccupation with celebrities and reliving Woodstock only contributes to our collective amnesia about things that really matter.

Too, most people simply don’t remember anything about Victory over Japan Day. Either they were not yet born or too young to recall that historic day, August 14, 1945. It marked the end to one of the bloodiest wars the world has ever known. More than 405,000 Americans were killed and another 671,000 were wounded.

The country rejoiced at the ending of the war. Famed photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured a spontaneous eruption of joy when a sailor kissed a young nurse in Times Square. That famous full-page photograph, which appeared in Life magazine the following week, was the inspiration for a huge sculpture (shown here) near the USS Midway Museum in San Diego.

It’s appropriate that we pay homage to those who served in World War II.

We were particularly pleased earlier this year to learn about Honor Flight, a non-profit organization created solely to honor America’s veterans for all their sacrifices. They transport veterans to Washington, D.C. to “visit and reflect at their memorials.” We’re proud of these war veterans, and proud, too, of those who’ve led the charge to honor the veterans.

Friend and former colleague Larry Rohrer at South Dakota Public Broadcasting in Vermillion is among the South Dakotans leading this effort. We thank them all for what they do.

Started in Ohio in 2005, Honor Flight has transported more than 17,000 veterans from all over the country to Washington, D.C. to see their memorials; for 2009, Honor Flight has a lofty goal of transporting some 25,000 men and women on that pilgrimage. With more than one thousand World War II veterans dying each day, it is a priority to fly survivors of that war to the District of Columbia so they can visit the WW II Memorial. It is a fitting tribute for veterans who served their country during a very dangerous and difficult time for our country.

The World War Two Memorial was dedicated in May of 2004. We were living in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of Harrisburg. It was just three months later -- in August of 2004 -- that we had the great honor of escorting one of our heroes, Guy Davidson, and his wife Marion, down to D.C. to visit the newly-opened memorial.

Good friends Bill and Joan Smith accompanied us on the day trip, and it was a truly moving experience. How fortunate that we have a few photo memories of that special outing!

We first came to know Guy and Marion through workshops at our church in Hummelstown. A retired Pennsylvania rural mail carrier, Guy Davidson is like so many WWII veterans: he seldom ever talks about his wartime experiences as a gunner on a half-track that landed in France after D-Day. His 2nd Armored “Hell on Wheels” division eventually ended up in Berlin via the Battle of Bulge. Guy would sometimes talk about it – but only if asked. He has never considered himself a hero, just a soldier doing his job. Such was the demeanor of so many veterans who were fortunate enough to come home from World War Two.

Now well along in years and afflicted with several health issues, Guy and Marion continue to live quietly and humbly in their small neighborhood on the south edge of Hummelstown. Clearly, they are no longer able to travel, so it gives us pleasure to know that we had a small part in helping Guy visit the memorial that paid tribute to him and other of the “Greatest Generation.”

Thank you, Guy Davidson, and all your fellow veterans for your sacrifices for the United States of America.