Random thoughts.

Once in a while, the well fills up with crap from the barnyard and I have to clean it all out to make room for the water. That was a metaphor; for those literalists among you I simply have to rid myself of the pile of random thoughts that accumulate in my head in order for me to think.


For instance: A government panel just announced that most women should delay mammograms until age 50 or later, in complete and utter opposition to modern medical practice. Countless women have intercepted breast cancers at all ages due to early detection. It appears this is the first step to government rationed care: saying really stupid things and saying it often enough at high levels so everyone will think it's true. So where is the outrage from the National Organization of Women?

Is there a mathematical correlation between facial hair, beer-drinking and camouflage-wearing?

Peyton Manning is better in commercials than professional actors. He is actually funny.

Sarah Palin comes off as a bright, strong and energetic person, well-versed in issues of the day. Understandably her opponents and the mainstream press (one and the same) have tried to make her into a shallow Barbie-doll, moved up onto the national stage only to cash in on her good looks. Tina Fey heartily enjoyed perpetuating this concept with her SNL impersonations. If the National Organization of Women purports to be a voice on behalf of women, where is their outrage at Palin's dissing?

Why is the 'delete' key so close to the 'end' key and the arrow keys? Put it up on the top row where it won't be erroneously hit. By me.


Why do airlines have dining service departments with up to fifty employees? They don't board food on any but the longest flights, mostly those going overseas. Does anyone wonder why they don't make money operating like this?


Who was the first person to realize that a rattlesnake was poisonous?


The people running our government(s) remind me--as I have said before--of the fat kid guarding the pie. Like Ronald Reagan said, don't believe anyone who says "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

The forecasters always give rain probability in percentages; shouldn't it always be 50%? Either it will rain or it won't.

When the coalition forces drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan in the months after 9-11, the Islamic government which had oppressed its own women for years was replaced by one that brought women into the present. Women could hold jobs, be seen in public, wear clothes of their choosing and attend school. The Taliban didn't even permit women to go to freakin' school, people. Again, where was the outrage from the National Organization of Women? They are too shy and retiring to comment on the abysmal treatment of their sisters in that Seventh-century land? Amazingly NOW could not bring themselves to cheer the betterment of Afghan women as a byproduct of dislocation of terrorists. I guess the Afghan women weren't clamoring for abortions?

I do not understand why I have 500 CD's and only four cases for them. Where do they go?

Ron White is a funny, funny man, but he's 50+ years old so it's time to give up pot, Ron. Stick to the scotch--it's legal and will mess you up just as bad. Of course, I'm sure you know that by now.



99% of lawyers give the other 1% a bad name. It pains me to say that because my daddy was a lawyer. I am certain however that he would be as appalled as I at the state of legal affairs in this country. Lawyers advertising like payday loan companies, lawyers proudly--with straight faces--speaking in defense of criminals who have done unspeakable things, lawyers overtly waiting for
nothing more than their opportunity to run for public office. I really wish state bar associations would police lawyers. Physicians do it.


My wife has taken to putting wallet size pictures of me under the kitchen sink. No roaches, no mice; hell, nothing can live under there now.


Cell phones are getting to be a problem on the road. The state should force women to get an endorsement for their driver licenses allowing them to talk and drive. Women, I say, beause men don't use cells on the roll so much. Women turn the key and fire up the Sanyo. Then they cruise around the parking lot at all of 2 miles per hour.


I don't know, I could be wrong, but he National Organization of Women may not actually be all that interested in the welfare of women. They selectively choose women to support: never conservatives, never women who benefit from the victories of the United States Army operating under a Republican president, never women who speak out against liberal politicians. Should they not change the name of the club to National Organization of Liberal Women? Call a spade a spade.

Everyone knows who Columbus was, but no one knows the names of the folks on the dock who were laughing at him.

Liberals are an odd bunch. They don't like to produce anything (well, poetry or water colors, maybe) but they like to run things. They don't care much to be in manufacturing, service, military or financial industries being suited only for lawyering and government work. They love to tell the rest of us how we should be. Anyone who tells them how they should be is denounced and in some countries, awarded the Order of Heavy Industry and sent to Siberia. Believe me, if it ever happens, the Black Helicopters will come from the Left.

Dave Barry says, correctly, that folks who always want to tell you about their religion almost never want you to tell them about yours.

This is a great country. Either the hand of God or an accident of birth put us all here but how lucky we are. We can bitch about the government and not fear for our freedom. We have flush toilets and air conditioning. If you want to quit your job and move to New Mexico and sit cross-legged in the sun on the desert, you can do it and no one can stop you. You do not fear anything as long as you obey most of the laws and stay out of the bad parts of town and mind your own business. Much of the world can't even comprehend any of this. We take a lot of it for granted and shouldn't because it would go away if not for some gusty folks in the armed services. So thanks, God. It's nice to be able to clean out the well.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Fading memory

Two days ago, November 15, marked fifty years had elapsed since the shotgun murders of the Herbert Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. Four gentle, decent people were killed by intruders who mistakenly believed a large amount of cash was held in a safe in their ranch home. The killings shocked all of us in Kansas from border to border and beyond, all the way to New York where they caught the attention of Truman Capote. Capote rushed to Kansas and immersed himself in the subsequent investigation later turning it and the trial into a 'nonfiction novel,' a new literary genre, hugely successful as both a book and motion picture.

I remarked on this passing of a half-century to several people and was met mostly with blank stares. Many had not heard of the murders, book or movie. Others were aware, at least in name, but had not a hint of the significance which they held, at least for me.

Even had these deaths not been immortalized in print and on film, they are still remembered in Kansas for their sheer brutality. Four people, very much without enemies and known for their kindness were killed at home by strangers for no apparent reason. Crimes like this didn't happen in Kansas, or in the United States for that matter. It forced us all into a new era, less pastoral, less friendly and less sure.

Almost everyone in the state knew someone who knew the victims; our minister was acquainted with them. Elementary school kids like me and my peers talked nervously about the news on the following Monday and even discussed it in class. Teachers and students alike all seemed to need to talk through it, as though in therapy. In El Dorado, 250 miles east of Holcomb, the local paper opined the treacherousness of the crime and interviewed citizens who had a connection to the fallen, or who just had an opinion. Doors that had gone unlocked were secured, and porch lights burned. In some ways, it happened to us, too. Kansas was a small enough place to be a village; a brotherhood. When the perpetrators were identified, everyone, everywhere purported to have seen them pass through that day. News reported the progress of the investigation daily, whipping the already frightened public into near-hysteria.

After six frantic weeks the intruders were apprehended, tried and imprisoned. Not until I was in high school, more than five years hence, were they hanged for their crime. That was in 1965; a year later Capote's In Cold Blood --after a preview in the New Yorker --became an instant best-seller. The Clutter name was known far and wide as a result. The movie followed shortly after.

A following developed as it does occasionally for notorious crimes with even greater intensity due not only to the viciousness of the acts but because they were subjects of a movie. It was filmed on site in Holcomb and Garden City, and here in Kansas City as well, where the murderers planned and embarked on the fated journey to western Kansas. If the book left a few people in the dark about what happened, the movie turned on lights for them. Both took the whole country by storm, and parts of the world too.

As anniversaries of the crime passed, the principals of the investigation were sought for interviews and the physical evidence-the spent shells, rope, crime scene photos, etc.-were in demand. The last person to see the family alive, Bob Rupp, was stoic, refusing to discuss his memories for the morbidly interested, and the surviving two older sisters of the fallen family were equally silent.

Curiosity became a sore point in Finney County as the entire community resented the exploitation of the deaths of four of their own. Many resented the portrayal of the killers in In Cold Blood as victims of life's lottery and the lack of depth given the vanquished family. When it has been noted in the press, the details of the crime and investigation are often in error and go unchallenged.

Time goes on and even fifty years distant, enthusiasts still pull up to the driveway of the old Clutter home. The current owner estimated they come twenty time a month or more. But in recent years the community seems to have come to grips with its notoriety. The two Clutter sisters have granted interviews. Bob Rupp has openly begun to talk about his painful memories on learning his then-girlfriend Nancy Clutter was shot to death in her own bed. And Holcomb itself has erected a memorial to the family, not because they died, but because they lived and in their own personal success provided much to the town, county and state.

Had Capote never written his book, had the movie not been filmed--fewer would know of the senseless brutality that occurred in 1959. But it wouldn't have made it less vicious or depraved. Those of us who remember the crime for itself and not for what Capote made it, won't forget the loss of innocence it marked. Many who knew personally knew the family are now gone. When my generation is gone and who will remember the shock and grief and fear which gripped an entire state?

There have been brutal, horrific crimes since, but America is desensitized--perhaps in part because of what occurred in Holcomb. I guess that is what discourages me when I think that few apparently know what happened that night. Under today's laws I wonder if the killers would have been caught; if caught I wonder if they would have been convicted; if convicted I wonder if they would have been hanged. Let's hope, even if the name 'Clutter' is forgotten, that we have learned something. I think it's a name people should know.

Show Me

Piedmont Depot

Once a year I go out into the hinterland and search for railway stations which have been preserved, however temporarily. Some are sadly in disrepair and others are used by their companies as storage or workshops. A few are preserved by proud communities for a variety of purposes. This year's excursion was entirely within the boundaries of Missouri, my home state since 1974.

Touring the Show-Me state this year was a tour of discovery. Not so much because of the depots I found to be in--or sometimes not in--existence, but because of the things I observed while cruising the back roads. For instance:

1. The roads in this state are either very good (M13, US 60, US 67) or very inadequate (pretty much the rest of them.) The further north you go in Missouri, the better the roads. Where I was, down south, they are up-and-down, winding and curving affairs with no shoulders and steep dropoffs. You are always at the mercy of the slowest driver who is easily identifiable, leading a string of cars at 35 m.p.h. endlessly through the forests. Some of these roads are fairly smooth. Some cry for help. None will attract tourists.

US 67 NW of Poplar Bluff

2. There is an obsession here with deer. Many in the Midwest are deer hunters; some like to think they are deer hunters -- then there are the yahoos who just like to shoot things and call it hunting. Out in the sticks it is approaching unhealthy. Convenience stores are named "Deerschnaks" or "The Buck Stops Here". There are tree stands everywhere. Every store sells something related to deer: salt licks, camo suits, guns (gun shops are everywhere), hunting licenses, trucks and trailers. Cafes advertise deer dinners. Banners proclaim churches selling box lunches for hunters who intend to disappear into the woods for a long time. Down in Texas County, Butler County, Ripley County--it's all about deer.

3. Parts of rural Missouri are pretty but the residents don't seem to know that and regard the Ozarks as their personal trash barrel. I have never seen so much litter--not in Kansas or Oklahoma, not north of I-70, not in Platte County--but it's all over in Show-Me south. This is a shame; it really detracts from the rustic, unspoiled appearance of these areas.

4. There is a fortune in beer cans in that litter. No matter the price of aluminum. It's a fortune.

5. Missourians seem to hit a lot of animals with their cars down there. An unprecedented number of possum, deer, raccoons, birds and a few unidentifiable remains--hundreds and hundreds of pounds of them--graced the roads. The one animal that seems to have learned to coexist with cars is the squirrel. I saw no squashed squirrels.

6. The best of the roads are limited to 65 m.p.h. for some reason. Decent, four-lane divided highways cry out for 70 but don't get it. It's like the state officials know they are going to under-maintain the roads; this way they don't have to go out and change the signs when the crumbling begins.

7. In Poplar Bluff, you must drive a pickup truck. It's The Law. You have two choices: gas-fired with dual tires in back, or diesel, about five feet off the ground. The truck should always have a thick coat of road dust, mud and dead bugs. No one had new cars. I don't even remember seeing a dealer.

8. Out in the country it is common to see a new, or newer, home with a nicely manicured lawn across the road from a cluster of decaying mobile homes in various states of disrepair. These trailers always have orbiting satellites of old cars, inoperable washing machines, more big dirty pickup trucks, and collapsing corrugated tin sheds. There are occasionally decent looking mobile homes with wooden steps, but it appears most are barely habitable. There is always a nice RV nearby; maybe that is where the people actually dwell.

There are some great towns and places in southeast Missouri. Piedmont is a pleasant, picturesque place on the banks of a clear Ozark creek. Ironton is another, and Mountain Grove is a clean, prosperous town. Most towns don't fare as well as these have. The streets are in poor repair, homes are unkempt and there look to be few sources of employment.

Most of the depots I sought were in decent condition; a few were gone or

couldn't be located. But I will never forget trying to find them on the back roads of

Missouri at much less than the posted speed limit of 55 m.p.h.

Along M-49 near Mill Spring