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# 301
"My Writings So Far"
I went back the other day and read some of the 217 columns that I have written for The Kokomo Tribune and I found that I have given the world a look at my inner self and I was pleased that I was able to do so. I wrote what I feel about Angels, and that I believe that they exist and that they are all around. I also wrote that there are some special angels. One type is children. I believe that all children are born as angels and one look at a sleeping child should tell you why. They have the peace and love that only comes from a place that has seen the light. The second special angels that I believe in, are the ones that are walking amongst us every day, doing the things that only they can do. I guess the ones I notice more are the nurses who take care of the sick while trying to go on with their own lives. Some others are those who always have time to help someone and do things for them.They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that if you look hard enough, you will find that there is some beauty to everything. One of the most beautiful sights that I have ever seen, has to be ,when the morning starts turning from dark to light. It doesn't happen too fast, so you have time to see in slow motion, all the changes. The different colors, that come forth to you ,are just wonderful. The sun, that starts peeking over the horizon, just makes you want to see more, and you start really watching, as the light starts getting brighter.
I also wrote about the singing mouse here in this city at one time, who was on the Edward R. Morrow show on CBS radio which was heard nationwide. The singing mouse was the property of Mr. Glen Rextrew, who lived up in the north end of town. A reporter at the Tribune, George Welden, did a story on this mouse. At first Welden thought it was a joke, so when he got a call from Glen that he had a singing mouse in his house, he decided to check with the readers on how to catch the mouse. Glen and his wife were in the living room when they heard the same singing sound that they have heard for several days and when they went into the kitchen, they heard a sound coming from the clothes basket. As Glen uncovered the basket, a mouse jumped out and ran away. So now the Rextrews knew that they had two singing mice in their house. After a few days went by, Welden recieved a call from Glen Rextrew that the mouse had been caught and if he wanted to hear him sing. Over the phone, he heard the chirping of this mouse , and it sounded like a bird. WIOU was contacted and they made an attempt to record the voice of the singing mouse. When they went to the Rextrew home, nothing happened. The mouse would make no noise. So Glen said that they would cover the cage where the mouse was in and after some 15 minutes, they uncovered it and sure enough this mouse whose name was Mickey started his pretty chirping and it sounded like a canary. That same day Mickey was heard over WIOU, and then on the Edward R. Morrow show. That story of Mickey stayed on the tongues of many for several weeks.
I have written about life in the days of old and the comparison of it to today’s life.I have written about many of the people back in the days of old that made an impression on me. I wrote about the Steel mill and my work at Sears. But mostly my favorite topic is about my dad and mom who gave of their lives so that fourteen children might have a better life one day. I wrote about losing a young daughter to cancer and how it affected me and Ramona. Also stories about all the chores that we had to do in the days of old as part of the life growing up in the thirties and forties. I wrote about those friends I had who will always be a constant in my life and of theirs too. I have expressed my hope for the world and of this city that I proudly call home. I have given the reader enough knowledge about me that if I ran for office, there would be enough information about me that I wouldn’t need someone else to tell me what to say. My words follow me as I am greeted by all those friendly people who tell me they like my latest column.
I have enjoyed my opportunity to write for this newspaper and one day I hope that my column might go the syndicated route letting the world read the words of an old man who loves life as it was and as it is today. My thanks go out to this newspaper and to you who read it. You, the readers, are the ones who encourage me to write my columns. Thank you for that.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day
#302
"Great people I knew"
Going back into the days of old, I remember many people here in this great city who made an impact onto others in the way that they lived and how much Kokomo meant to them. As a young man of about twelve I met a man known as “Circus John”, who’s real name was John Wesley Byers. I remember him as a gentleman yet a firm disciplinarian, in that if he told you to do something you better get off your backside and do it. Old Circ could take young kids and mold them into nice respectful young men, who respected authority, and also the feelings of others. Circ was a coach who knew his game and he also had a pitch that could send you to the dugout real quick. I think he taught that pitch to one man and he wasn’t about to give out the secret. Old Circ could go up to any business man and before leaving have a donation to his ball team so that they could continue to play and entertain the crowd. I never read about Circus John, I knew him as a kid and what I learned from just standing there listening was more than I could ever get from some of today’s sports figures. A lot of great people here in Kokomo learned a lot from that man and they did good in their line of work in later years.Another man that I knew was a policeman here in Kokomo, and that was Henry Wagoner, who walked his beat and people in the neighborhood respected him because he respected them. He had a fellow policeman buddy named Nick, who was like Henry but maybe a little more strict with those in the neighborhood. Both were fine gentlemen who were a credit to the police force. Now when I was in Central Junior High , I met about the most friendly man in the world named Don Trobaugh, who had the insurance office just north of the school, and he made sure that we knew just what time it was so we would not be late to school. I saw Don many times since then and he still was the same kind man that he was years before. Don sure was proud of all of his family and he told you so right away. I met John Beamer once and he too was a great person. He was our representative in our government and he served us well. Another man who served our city well was Raymond Gilbert who was Mayor of Kokomo. He was a quite man but he also was one to get the ball rolling if something needed to be done. Mayor John Miller was the same way, in that he did his job right from the start.
And of course who can forget more of the men who served our city while protecting it as police officers here in Kokomo. Harold Braden, Mr Berryman, Sarge Hurley, and Harold Scott as well as Tex Scott and Tom Leap? I didn’t read up on these people, I knew them personally .These were all a great part of this city and they all made some sort of dent in my memory of the days of old, because they were a part of my life. When you are young, you sort of try to find out as much about someone that you can. I could go on telling you about what it was to me to have known these fine men but you probably already have that knowledge that it was very beneficial to me.
Even, people like our grocery store owners who were Mr Winborn, Mr. Whitacre, Mr. French, Mr. Frank Neal, Jesse Weaver, and Ben Martin, all play a tune on this young man‘s memories . A young man growing up in my time had a lot of good people to look up to, and they all made the life of this young man a joyful one. And that is important to our youth in that they need that extra person to look up to who is willing to help get a youngster on the right path. Many times a child will have that one person he or she can talk to and feel confortable in doing so. The type of people in the days of old were good common people who remembered what it was like when they were young and they learned from it. Many in today’s world are too busy to sit down with their own children and learn from them. You would be surprised how much that child could teach you about what he or she is going through. I only wished that I had spent more time with my children but my working hours kept that from happening. So to end this week’s column, I want to tell you this. Get on that child’s wagon for a while and let them take you on a ride in their world. You will be happy for doing it and that child will be happier showing his or her side of life. Love begins at home.
303
Do Vote
It is that time once again, when we go to the polls and we elect those people to their spots in our government ,so that they can serve us in the city, state and federal governments. We try to vote with our desire to have those people to be ready to take on the world in order that we can get the most out of a little . What we don't realize or maybe we don't want to realize is the fact that regardless of all the promises that our elected officials make while he or she were out for our vote, most of the time things remain as they were for most of that time that the elected one serves. You can't turn things over and get results in just a short time. You have to mplement the matter into the system and then watch it take a back seat until ready to go into the system as time and money allows it to. In other words all those promises that our people running for office make will ,not be looked at until the time when we are ready once again to go to the voters booth to either re-elect the person serving or to elect a new person to take the reins and take us on another two or four year trot around the block ending where we started from. That my friends is a fact.We cannot expect someone to enter into a position of serving us without realizing that things do not change overnight. And we have to realize that most of those who run for office do so as an application for employment and not really to be a servant of the people. Believe it or not my friends, there are and always have been people in all the fields of our government, that have never done a actual day's work in any other field of employment. They sort of grow into the field of government
because a parent or grandparent was in the world of politics. In other words, they were born into the field of politics. The word politics is not a word that I like to use much except to say something about those who do not know of any other field to get into. I am not political.I like to think that my vote for someone is my confidence in that person to try and work for the better of the people he or she represents. And if you remember what happened in the spring of this year, you know that my vote and yours too are very important. We as the public think that the right person will be elected and as such we don't get out for those few minutes to cast our vote, and that isn't really a good way to think. If you as a potential voter decides not to vote, then you as the person to reap the benefits have no call in your opposition to what the representatives votes on. In other words, if you don't vote, you can't holler.
Most want to let others do the voting instead of doing it themselves, and then expect things to fall their way. It just doesn't work that way my friends because the number of votes determines the winner of the election. It only takes a few minutes to jump into the car, head out to the polling place, and cast your ballot. If you don't, it takes two or four years to suffer for it. You and I can make that difference in who we have to serve us.
Now to get to the political side of the elections, we as the people who will be represented have the right to expect our servants to be for the city or state and not that of the party. Too many times we see positions in our government given to those who stick together and run their office as a party office instead of one that represents the people. Once the election is over, that person who won the election is now a representative of you and me and not that of the party. Now I am not down on the parties , but they as a party need to keep their noses out of the running of our government. Sorry if I am stepping on some toes but that is the reason that I will never be able to hold an office . I would be a representative of the people and not of a party. .My only advice to you is to get out and vote for the person who will represent you and me and not a group. Find out where and then exercise your right to vote. Remember that you can make an difference in who will be your elected official. Holler if you hear me. Until later when I see you at the polls.
304
"A visit back home again"
Well, one of my readers asked me for some more stories about Mom and Dad and what it was like to live so far back in the days of old. He said that he received inspiration just from reading my column and he also said that it seems like you don’t hear about the old days from the parents and then they want to change the subject when you ask about it. My goodness, how can anyone want to forget where they came from, and not want to hear questions from a child who wants to know what it was like? Boy, I just love to talk about those days when friends were there for you, and parents had control of the children and the home. And of course you know what my favorite topic is and that is my mother and father and my brothers and sisters. How can anyone know where they are going if they don’t know where they came from? In those days when this old man was a child, my mother and father were the heads of the house and they didn’t let you forget it. And they wanted to know where you were going or where you had been. They had chores for each of us to do and there wasn’t any talking back to them. They expected you to keep clean at all times possible, and they made sure that your playtime did not start until your homework was finished. You were to do anything that you could to help each other but you better not brag or holler about it.A typical day started out with one of us brothers coming down stairs early and getting the cook stove fire ready to use. And then you stocked the heating stove with just enough coal to keep it warm so that all the rest could dress into our school clothes and then you would see the pretty lady we called Mom getting her biscuits ready to bake and there would be a skillet loaded down with bacon, and then eggs would be fried in the bacon grease. Coffee would be boiling with that A&P Eight-O-Clock coffee in the pot of water with a few eggshells in the bottom. Then Dad would come down and he would start the gravy making. The men in our family were the gravy makers and no one would deny that. After breakfast, Mom would start the dishes in a sink of hot water that had been heated on the cook stove. Then she would rush us off to school with a hug and a kiss and that would make the whole day bearable for anything that might come up. As you left the house you could see that she knew that we loved her very much. We came home for lunch each day and she never failed to have food made unless she was having another baby. Babies back then were mostly born at home and most women were up and at it, getting caught up in her chores of being the lady of the house. This was a typical day if Dad was working the afternoon shift at the mill. When we came home after school was out for the day, he would of already left for work and we wouldn’t see him until the next morning. And that brings me to why sometimes the child doesn’t get to discuss things with the parent . In most households today both the parents are working to make ends meet and thus there really isn’t much time to spend with the child. In my day, the father worked to bring home the bacon, and the mother stayed at home keeping house and watching over the child. We saw dad in the mornings when he worked the evening shift, in the evening when he worked the day shift, and in the evening for a while when he work the midnight shift. So you can see that time spent with the child had to be a priority because of the availability of time of the father. That is ok in our case because dad did what he could, and mom was there to talk to whenever needed.
Mom not only was the keeper of the house, she was the center of entertainment on those days when it was too bad to be outside. She liked to play the piano. Sometimes singing along with some of us. She liked to tell her stories of how she lived back when, and she sure did love to hug us. That woman had so much love in her heart for everyone, and she had lots of friends. Dad was just the opposite in that the time he was at home he was sort of tired and he needed rest, so we let him do that. There were times when he was rested enough to play catch with us and he would build us some scooters to ride in the neighborhood. He could fix our bikes and he would listen to the ballgames and the fights with us. Dad and Mom were the links to our world from the past, and that is where this old man gets his thoughts. The memories are there just waiting to be pulled to the present time.
Ray “Uncle Ray“ Day
305
Election over."
Now that the voters in both parties have spoken, it is time to produce results that will be favorable to all and not to just a few. Now is the time to put party affiliation aside and go to work for your real bosses, the American people. Now is the time when party lines go back in the back room for four more years. The people that you and I elected to office are our voices and thus they should go about their business representing you and I. It doesn’t matter what party you ran on, you are ours, the American taxpayers, and you better get on the bus, grab the closest seat to the front and to the side, and watch where you are going. Don’t look back to see if there are those who want to reap the profits of you winning that election. Once again, you are representing me and all the rest of the American taxpayers. That is the only way to look at it. Party loyalty should take a back seat to everything else.I would like to see some changes in our election procedure. You can’t run for another office except the one you are doing now. The incumbent stays on his elected position and lets the record speak for him. If you want to run for a different elected position, you have to finish the one you are on now. In other words, the taxpayer gets what is due them and that is for you, their elected representative, to do your job as promised. If you are running for the same position you are on now, then you let your record do your talking. That way you are doing what we elected you for, and that is to give your full attention to the tasks at hand. If someone wants to run for an office, and they don’t serve at the time, then that person is the one who must inform the taxpayers of his qualifications, and he or she must foot most of the bill for trying to get that position. Our government floats too much of the cost to elect a person, who is not known to the country, and one who might be sweeping things under the rug so to speak. You know what the incumbent can or will do, and we don’t need the smear campaigns to downgrade him or her to that level of humanity.
We have been witness to our people who are in office not being there in an election year, and thus they are not representing the voters who put them there. The money spent on campaigns is outrageous and the time spent wooing you and I should be spent representing the people who put them there. And the so-called debates that we witness on television, make our candidates look sort of bad. They are organized so that they know what questions will be asked and by whom. And the polls taken toward the end of the campaigns are only a small representation and they are to sway you and I in our thinking on who would be better in office. It is time that we, the American public, gets a fair shake in the election process. We don’t need to be lied to or even to have our votes questioned.
This year we have sat back and let our candidates smear each other, by letting the committees do the talking instead of the candidates themselves. I would like to see the time when we , the voters, have enough knowledge about the people running for election, that we don’t need someone else speaking for them. Our state governor’s race started out great with both men doing their own talking and no smears. Then their committees started opening their mouths and started the smearing enough that both men looked bad. Both are good men who just wanted to be elected to that position because they think they can do the job. In our presidential race, we watched as smears started real early with the speech writers actually putting words in the mouths of the men running. Why not just let the performance of doing their jobs do the speaking for them? For several months you campaign as a party member, and if elected, then you do your job as a representative of the voters. Simple as that. We don’t need the others to do our talking for us. I know that if I was to run for office and get elected, it would be because the voter knows what I am made of and they trust me to represent them. It is time that we ,the American voter, gets true representation from those people we elect to office. If you voted then you should expect results. If you didn’t vote, then go sit in a corner with your gripes. For those who are in office now, do your job and be our representative. For those who aspire to run for office start letting us know about you before you run. We should get what we pay for. Now you won’t hear anything more from me about this election.
Ray “Uncle Ray” Day
#306
Unbelievably, there was a time when television was a great way of spending a day with the family. However, as time has passed, many shows have profanity, nudity, suggestive subjects and some of the most terrible music {if they can call it that}. I remember when Ed Sullivan was the show that brought to the viewer some of the finest acts you could sit down and watch. That show had class. Garry Moore was another great show with Garry having Durwood Kirby and Carol Burnette as part of his show. Garry was a big part of many stars getting their foot in the door. Before Garry had his own show, he was pushed by Jimmy Durante who could sing some beautiful songs. Jimmy was known to many as the “Snooze” because of that wonderful honker he had. Jimmy said that he was blessed by the greatest of them all, and you take what is given to you. Jimmy would open his radio or TV show with “Hello Mrs. Callabash, where ever you are” ,and close that show with “Goodnight Mrs. Callabash, wherever you are“. Jimmy was a born comedian and he put on a show to please his fans. And Garry always had his bow tie and his crew haircut. Many cartoons have been drawn of these two men. Garry started out being a comedian using his real name, which was Thomas Garrison Morfit, but because his last name was hard to pronounce, he started later being known as Garry Moore. Also, that is where Alan Funt started with his “Candid Camera Show” which was fun to watch. Clean Television, Anyone?
Arthur Godfrey was another great family oriented show on television, with Frank Parker, Tony Marvin, Pat Boone, Marion Marlowe, Janette Davis, Julius Larosa, LuAnn Sims, Frank Parker, Haleloke, Carmel Quinn, and the orchestra was led by Archie Bleyer. Arthur always tried to bring on new talent to the American public. And did he have fun giving us the best of the best. Tony could sing a song like no other with his base tones. Frank would have you singing along with him.
How about the Real McCoys with Walter Breenan? That was a good family show too. Remember Ted Lewis and his band, which would start out with his catch phrase, “Is everybody happy?” Remember Ward Bond in Wagon Train? Clint Eastwood played Rowdy, and he went on to star as the tough guy in films. I think the best show on Wagon Train was when Lou Costello played a serious part, as a dying man. Ken Curtis was on the show sometimes and he later went to play Festus on Gunsmoke, which was another great show and that is where Dennis Weaver and Bert Reynolds got their start. James Arness was the good Marshall. How about Bonanza with Lorne Greene, Little Joe, and Hoss? The early shows had Parnell Roberts as Adam, but he left after several episodes. Lorne Greene was Ben, Michael Landon was Little Joe, and Dan Blocker was Hoss. The cook was called Hop Sing.
All of these shows were ones that the family could all sit and watch together. There was no suggestions of sex, no bad language, and many of these stars were great role models to follow. It just isn’t that way now, and even the sport stars are leaving a bad taste in our mouths with all their antics involving guns, and other bad behavior.
So to put it all in perspective, television isn’t worth the high money the cable companies are charging us, and according to a lot of my friends, they are ready to pull the plug on cable. When will we see good programs back on television? Probaly never, which is a good way of doing something else for entertainment. How about you out there? Wouldn’t you like to see clean programs on TV so that the whole family could enjoy it? I guess the attitudes have change for the worst, or it that people just don’t care enough to speak up. Oh well, that gives me more time to write my columns, and rest my eyes. And it sure would be nice to see our sports cleaned up too.
Ray “Uncle Ray” Day
#307
"Taking The Heat."
The past warm and hot summer we had, brings back some thoughts out how it was in my childhood days. Really back then the heat never bothered me like it does now. We would be out as much as we could, letting the hot sun first sunburn us and later turning into a bronzed tan. If it was light out we were out if we had our chores finished and our homework done. Those things were always #1 in the minds of our parents as homework prepared you for life when we grew up and the chores was to prepare us in a strict discipline way to make us a better person, and also to teach us that nothing comes free as if you want something you need to earn it. As I stated the heat didn’t bother us in a way that we skipped doing what was expected of us. Now when you are inside and you are trying to sleep and the heat just doesn’t cool off much, then it was a pain in the neck. We had fans, both the hand kinds and the electric ones, but they really didn’t do much good. Today we need the central air on both in the house and also in the car if we go anywhere. Those times have changed as we grow older and our bodies just can’t tolerate the harsh heat anymore.Which reminds me of the steel mill and how hot it was around the furnaces and in the pit areas. The heat would burn the hair in your nose and there were some jobs where the worker had to wear wooden shoes because it was so hot. Sometimes the wooden shoes would catch fire and you had to change them. Many times we wore asbestos gloves so the we could handle the hot slag that came off the steel. Everything was hot in the mill. In the winters, I remember many times we would watch the red hot bars run through the machines in the hot mill and the outside of the mills had ice while the bars were red hot. Many times the man who was piling the sheets on the finish mills burned up on the front and froze on the back. The same thing in the soaking pits where the ingots were reheated as there was ice on the outside and hot inside. Fans were everywhere in the mill during the summers and coats and long underwear was the necessity things in the winters. To say that heat and cold were part of working at the mill , it was the only game in town for most of us. You took the hand dealt to you and you did your thing.
Getting back to the weather situation, it was nothing for us to tread snow up past our boots walking to school 13 blocks away. And rain didn’t stop the class from going on either. Back in the days of old, weather played very little in the operation of the schools for us, and most of us made the trip twice each day because we came home to eat our lunch which was cooked by that wonderful lady we call Mom. Man, I can still taste the beans and cornbread along with fried potatoes and a lot of times we went ahead and ate the onions too because we didn’t worry about a little bad breath in those days. Mom was a great cook, and she was also our buddy when it came time to talk about the things going on at school or working with us on our homework. To call her precious would be the word I would use. And as I have stated many times, Mom could get you down and tell some of the best stories about how it was in her day as a child. The neighborhood kids were always asking her questions just to keep her talking. And when it was time for them to go home, she would watch from the doorway until they went in their doors. I guess I could talk about Mom for a long time but I will save some for later.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day
308
"PLEASE DON'T TAKE DRUGS" "OUR DRUG PROBLEM"
"WHAT WE NEED TO DO ABOUT IT"
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We here in this world have a big problem with drugs, and our young children. The future of our eager kids is being ruined by the easy access of drugs. If we as a human race don't do something now to fight the problem, we will see our children take on a fight that they can't win. We need to make it harder for the supplier to infiltrate the schools, and we need to do a little more educating about the dangers of drugs, both in the home and the schools.
If we as parents do not have the authority to do what we have to ,in order to know what our children are doing, without the fear of a child being able to turn in a parent, anytime he wants to, then we can't really do much. If the schools and the teachers, are bound by that same fear, then they can't do much.
We as parents, and the teachers, have out hands tied down by silly laws that lessened the authority powers, we need to fight the drug problem. Whenever a child can call the police and have a parent arrested, just because he or she doesn't want to follow the rules, then that law is helping the man on the street that is ruining our young children.
We need to give back the authority powers back to the parents and to the school, so that we can fight the people who live off the drugs that our children are taking.
My one hope in doing this page, is to let you know that you are ruining your life, using drugs. If you are a child reading this, take it from a old man, who has seen what drugs has done to people he knows. If you are a parent, teach your child that drugs can only lead to a terrible end of life. Life is very valuable, and only you can save it.
"USING DRUGS WILL DESTROY YOUR LIFE"
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We can only do so much, to give our children the opportunity, to excell in the land of the free. They as young children must accept the responsibility also of growing both in size and mind. We as parents and teachers can only do as much as they will let us.The world will continue to grow with the drug problem until the young person finally decides for himself that he and only he can stop the use of drugs.We learn by our mistakes, sometimes too late. We need more awareness programs that will help the youngster decide that drugs will take you down to the lowest depths, into the deepest hole , that is going to be very hard to climb out of.
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This is my opinion, and I hope that it is yours too.RAY DAY
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#309
I write this little story, so that those who never worked in a steel mill would know that the work was dirty but was fullfilling too. This is about a steel mill which was one of the best in the world until it went belly-up, because of one hippy who milked it dry. "The Rise & Fall Of A Giant"
Once upon a time, here in the city of Kokomo, there came into being ,a company destined to be the backbone of the city, and to be the main source of income for the families who lived here. The name of that business was Kokomo Steel & Wire. Now this happened way before my time, and my fathers, but it played a big part in the survival of the Day family, and many more families, who without it, probaly would of moved elsewhere. That company was a family type of business, run by men who could be trusted ,and they wanted to be a part of the growing up of the city of Kokomo. Eventually the company changed names, but the trust and respect was still there. "Continental Steel Corporation" was born and in 1934, my dad started there, after working at Globe American, and other places.So the steel mill , also known by some of the older folk ,as the rod mill, was the source of income for our family, and we ate good, because Dad would work all the overtime , to stay ahead in case someone got sick ,or money was needed for an emergency. The wages were low, but back in those days, things were low in cost, and if you couldn't pay a bill, your word was good for it. And of course, most families of any size would plant gardens, and have chickens for the meat and the eggs.
Well, back to the steel mill, as I was saying , since the mill was good to us, I decided to go to work there, for the summer, and attend IU in the fall of 1955. That summer, I found out how hard it was to work in a mill ,and I also found out how hard my father had worked to raise us. So I put off going to IU for awhile, and did some college work on the side, as I made Continental Steel my first steady work place. To say that working at the mill was easy ,was to say that lifting the world onto my shoulders was easy. I found out that dirt and sweat went together with strength and togetherness. I found out that one man can not get the job done alone. It was the work of all to make a team, that worked together, to get the job done.
When you start working at the mill, you are assigned to the extra board, and you would wait for them to send you to a department to work at a specific job. Sometimes this will turn into a steady job in that area, if you show that you wanted to work. Many times if you didn't get sent out by the extra board manager, you had to come back on another turn, to see if there was work then.
If a furnace was down for repairs, and at that time there were five furnaces, many were sent to the Yard Department, to work on the repair. This was a time when many would get all the overtime wanted. It was a very hot job, and many times you had to go down into the soot tunnels to clean them out. Soot tunnels were small shafts under the checker chambers, and they caught all the soot and slag that would fall through the checker brick. These tunnels were about waist high to a short person, and you had to get down on your knees and using a short handeled shovel, dig the debris out, put it in a bucket and it was passed down to the other men, who proceded to send it up above by using a pulley, to another worker who then dumped it into a wheelbarrow ,and hauled it off to a pit area. This was a very hard job to do ,as there were about ten tunnels, each about fifty feet long, in each furnace. Sometimes ,it was so hot down there ,that you had to wear wooded shoes, and masks on your face, just so the heat would not burn your face and nose. Needless to say that there were many, who after doing this once, decided to find work elsewhere. It took someone who wasn't afraid of work and sweat, to survive in that mill.
Another place, that would be repaired, was the slag pockets, where the impurities from the melting down of all the materials needed to make steel , would run off from the pan above, into the pockets. Many times when you started to work in this spot, the pockets would be cherry red, and the only way to break lose the large hunk of slag, was to first break it loose from the sides by using an air hammer. You would work as long as you could, and then let another worker take his turn. The heat from this job ,would burn the inside of your nose, and you could feel the burning through your clothes. So even though it was a hot job, you wore as much clothing as possible. Think about it; if you put on thick clothing to keep the cold out, then you do the same to keep the hot burning air out.
Before the furnaces could be relined with new furnace brick, the pan which was where the scrap was melted, had to be cleaned out ,and this was another of those jobs that was not only very dirty, but also very hot. Many men quit the mill ,before going to that repair job a second time. Once again ,the workere took turns using an air hammer, that usually was heavier than the worker, and working together, got the furnace ready for the brick gang , who then would reline the pan, the checker chambers, and the slag pockets. It took a big effort on all the workers ,to get this repair done as soon as possible ,so that the furnace could start making steel again. Needless to say, the overtime spent by the company ,was money well spent. As long as a furnace was down, no money was made by the company ,and by the men who ran that furnace. I averaged at least three overtme shifts a week, and I could of had more.
So just on furnace repair alone, the teamwork of all was a major factor, in getting a job done as soon as possible . This was the same in each department you worked in. No matter where you were sent, you had to hold up your end of the job, or it didn't get done in time. Time was an important part in the making of steel, and also the different by-products. Steel was poured into ingots which then were reduced into billets or bars. The billets would then be reduced into rods, which then was reduced into wire, part of which was turned into nails. Some of the wire was made into fence. Continental fence and nails were the best, and were sent all over the country. The name of Continental was respected, because the buyer knew that he was getting a great product. The bars that were made went to the sheet mill, and they were turned into sheets, which in turn were turned into roofing stock as well as calvert stock. The sheets were of the best and were wanted by companies all over the country, because they knew that if it was made by Continental Steel, it had to be good. The work of a great bunch of workers, sold the product. The name of the company meant that you were getting a product that you could trust. Needless to say, you would believe that as long as there were men and women out there that was not afraid to get dirty, Continental Steel would live forever.
During the thirty-one years that I spent at the mill, I worked at the repair of the furnaces, in the sheet mill, in the technical and clerical positions, and sixteen years as a supervisor. I have never regreted taking a job there, because of the family type of co-workers, and the family type of top management. That is until a hippe-type of man started buying enough stock, to eventually take control of the operation, and slowly but surely,milk it dry. This man was buying stock on the exchange, and noboby knew who he was ,until he had enough power to take over. He came in one day, and we took him on a tour of the mill, which eventually started going down hill. This man knew nothing about steel-making, and he wanted something to milk ,so that the cement company he owned could survive, using the mill as a source of income. When that was done ,then there was no need to keep the mill as that source, so then it was time to do the milking of the mill as well as the pension plan. He did a great job of that , and he lives somewhere down in Florida, reaping the profits from his venture in our city. The twelve million that he swindled from the pension plan ,is being reaped by his wife and his father, who held on to everything, while he spent his repentance in a six month stay at a country club type of penal system.
It is odd that we and the heads of the city government let this happen. We sit back ,and say that it can't happen to us, but it can. Don't be mislead by thinking that you are secure. Anytime that big companies merge, you will see some downsizing, and that will be where there is less profit and higher overhead. It doesn't matter if is going to hurt the people involved, as long as the work is done as cheaply and in less time, so as to increase the profit. That is big business, and the name of the game is money. The more they make, the bigger it gets.
So now we see the mill being taken down after all these years, and we wonder why it was not done earlier. The answer to that ,is that as long as there is money to be drained from the mill, it won't happen. For the last eight years, we have listen to the polution group, telling us that the mill was contaminated, and that homes around the area were contaminated with lead. There was no basis for that claim, except for lead found in small quantities, in the yards of the homes close by. Some had none, and others had a lot. No one thought of the fact ,that up until fifteen or so years ago, they painted their houses with paint that had a lead base. After several of these paint jobs, there would be lead in the soil of those homes. It didn't come from the mill, it came from the people who kept their homes up with paint that had a lead base. That is fact where the polution group's is just an suspicion.
"The three paragraphs above in yellow were ones that were left out of my article in the Tribune due to sensure. They said there was no room for it and so it had to be trimmed. Yet there was a picture at the bottom of my article that had no bearing on anything in that issue of the paper. Was it right for them to leave out the actual core of the article?"
Now ,as we see the mill's siding being taken down, they are wrapping it up ,so that the dust won't get blown around. They say that there is no market for the scrap, that will come from the demolition, but I bet that they will find someone who will pay a pretty penney for it, and use it without fear that it is, or is said to be contaminated. I have to defend myself ,and all the other people who spent the better portion of their lives working in that mill, in saying that we ,as workers, and as taxpayers, along with all the other taxpayers in this great city, have been mislead by a group, that goes around and lays claims of contamination, anytime a company has closed down. In other words, they create jobs for themselves. Wouldn't it be great, if you could create a new job, anytime you wanted to?
The question here is, if the mill had not closed, would this group had found problems? I say no, because as long as we were working, they had no basis. Here in 1999, if the mill was still running ,would there had been more workers and neighbors worried about the possible contamination? I say no, because there would not be any basis to go by. Wouldn't it be nice if you were part of a group that looks for ways to create jobs? You never would be out of work, because fear tells us that they could be right, or could they just be trying to pull the wool over our eyes?
Look at the deaths of the Continental workers in the past 13 years. Just about all of them have been from natural causes ,except for the sixteen or more that took their own lives, because they couldn't cope with the loss of their jobs. The ones who had cancer ,were ones who smoked a lot ,and the ones who had liver problems were ones that drank a lot. The idea of contamination in that steel mill ,is about as far-fetched as anyone can concieve. The thirty-one years that I spent there, were ones of about as much dirt and dust, that anyone could breathe and it didn't affect me. So the biggest question of all is; have we been taken down the roads blindfoaded, while being told we are not moving? Think about that and then you ask some questions.
As of now, I will be glad to see the mill gone, because it is an eyesore. I only hope that I am still here, to help erect a memorial to the twenty-five hundred or more of those workers and supervisors, who were there before the fall of this giant. Until then, I hope to get back to writing about the old days, when trust and respect were part of your bringing up. So I say, that I hope that you , the reader, enjoys my articles that come "straight from the heart". See you next time with some more enjoyable writing.
Ray"Uncle Ray" Day- 1616 Primrose Court- Kokomo, Ind 46901
#310
"MY FAITH, HOPE,and PRAYER" " MY PAGE FOR GOD"
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I am a man going on to sixty years of age , and I guess that I have seen many things in my life , that solifies my faith in God. I have been through many trials in life that without my faith,I would not of survived. Ever since I was old enough to understand, my mother and dad told me that whenever I wanted to , I could ask God for help, and he would be there.I was taught that god never leaves you, and that if you keep him in your heart, you can do anything. No mountain is too high to climb. No river is too deep to swim. Anything is possible.
My first miracle in life was my birth. Think about it. A woman can carry a youngster in her belly for about nine months, and then give birth to a new life. A husband and wife can together, produce a life. Only with God's help is this possible. Oh was I a lucky person to be given the breath of life? There is no luck to it; It is God's intention to keep the world going with this gift.
My second miracle came to me at about the age of eleven years of age. I had a large wart on my chin, for many years, and it bothered me a lot. A friend of my mother came to us one day, and said she knew of a man who was the seventh son of a seventh son, and he was a healer. but she said that you really had to believe in God to have him come to you. I found out later that he would assist anyone who needed him. My mother contacted him, and he came to our house one day. He asked my mother and me if we believed in God, and we said yes. He then asked me personally if I believed enough to let him help me through God. I said yes. He then prayed, and then he placed his hand on my chin, and said a prayer. He then cupped his fingers together, and circled them around the wart. He did this several times, and then stopped. He told me that in a few days, I would put my hand to my chin, and the wart would be gone. He then left, not asking for anything. To this day I will never forget this man. We only knew him as Grandpa Holland. He was a colored man, and he must of been at least eighty years of age. I remember one day in the fifth grade, I was sitting there, and I put my hand on my chin, and it was gone. I know it was there that morning. I looked around and never saw it anywhere.. Who could not believe after this? To this day I will remember that part of my life.
My next two miracles are the births of my two daughtors, Deborah and Patricia. God has blessed me and Ramona with two new lifes for us to love and take care of. The birth of a child is one of the greatest miracles in life.
In 1974, I was in the hospital for some tests and my kidney started acting up. My belly started expanding , and I couldn't pass my water. They told me that the gas was forming from the kidney problem and that my kidney had shut down. The gas was going around my lungs and heart, and that if they didn't operate right away, I would die. By the time that they got me to surgery, I was in pretty bad shape. While I was being wheeled down to the operating room, I recited the one prayer that has always been my passage to God. The Lords Prayer. I trully believed that God was with me that day and always. I lived though that miracle, and I believe that God wasn't ready for me to go home, and that he still had work for me here on earth. Oh yes, I believe in miracles.
When our daughtor Patricia, came down with cancer, we didn't lose our faith. Our faith got us through one of the roughest times , we have had in this life. Through the five months that Patricia had left on this earth, we went through days of sadness, and days of hope. God had sent this little girl to us thirty-four years ago, and now he was calling her home.{ a short story of Patricia is on another page in the homepage.} Patricia and I would sit on her bed, each morning that I had stayed overnight, and watch the darkness change to light. She knew that even though the night was very dark, that the day would start with beautiful colors, and then be bright. Life is like that too. No matter how dark that it gets, it will get brighter. God took her home on Dec.14,1994, and we know where she is. My belief in God got me through.
I have had many personal thoughts shared with my Lord, and I have witnessed the beauty that he sends to us each day. Even the dark of night can be a sight to behold, because then you can watch the stars in the sky, and behold the patterns, that he made for it. In the early morning hours, take time to witness the change from dark to light, and see the many colors, that he uses to bring forth a new day.
I will write more at a later time. Thanks for reading this and read the story about Patricia.
I have never tried to pass judgement on anyone, and I don't want judgement passed on me. Only GOD has that right.
Ray Day
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#311
"LIFE AS I SEE IT"
"THE PAST,PRESENT,AND THE FUTURE"
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Life in the past was pretty well fun to deal with. You didn't have to make decisions, that would determine your future. Those decisions were made for you in those early years, by the people who were suppose to. Your parents had an duty to raise you in a way, so that when it was time to leave the nest, and go out on your own, you were ready. They gave you guidance, mixed with love, and they gave you chores to do so that you were part of the family who works together.
I remember my younger days, when I would go to school, come home for lunch, go back to school, and then when I returned home, it was time to go out and cut wood, load up some coal, bring it into the porch area, and then do whatever homework there was. Then we would go out to play until mom would call us for supper.
Mom was always there for us when we needed her. She kept us fed , made sure that our clothes were cleaned, and she knew where we were all the time. She was a beatiful woman, who dedicated her life to her husband and children. She is with God now, and we miss her so much.
Dad was always working in the steel mill, trying to make enough to feed us and clothe us. I never once heard him gripe about how hard he worked, or how tired he was. We knew that he was tired and we tried to do what we could to help him. he never said much, but you knew that if you needed him, he was right there for you. He is with God, and we miss him too.
Mom and Dad had 14 children. and it was evenly devided with seven boys and seven girls. I am the oldest one living, although I was the eight child brought into this world. We as a family were tought to respect everyone, to obey rules, and to always be there for each other. I feel that our parents did a pretty good job of raising us. They prepared us for the outside world, to be able to live on without them.
I am now going onto 60 years of age, and not a day goes by that I don't cherish the life I had as a child. We had it rough then, but we didn't know it because our parents were the ones who made the sacrafice. They did without so that we could have it all. God Bless Mom And DAD for that.
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These are my thoughts as I see things in this world as they are today, compared to what they were, and how they could be.
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#312
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GOOD OLD MEMORIES
Memories from yesterday,thoughts about today,and what the future holds for us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Many of us want to go back to the old days, and enjoy the memories that were so dear to us when we were young, and had the guidance of our parents, who would make the right decisions for us. But as we grow up, sometimes we feel that they don't know what they are talking about, and thus we rebel, and go against the wishes of those who brought us into this world. But as we mature into the same people they were and we have to set down the guidlines for our children, we find that they really were very smart, and only wanted to do what was best for us.
I know that I question the rules several times and I wanted to rebel, but when you grow up in a family as big as ours, you learn real soon that everyone suffers when you disobey. We didn't go against the rules set down, because we knew that if we worked together as a family, the rewards were very good. In the old days, you had cetain chores to do, as well as going to school and making good grades. I always had to cut the wood, and get in the coal for the heating stove each day after school, and then do my homework, before going out to play
Our playing time consisted of playing baseball, basketball, and climbing trees to get at the apples and cherries. We had several fruit trees in the yard that mom used to make jelly with, and you left those alone.
We also had a chicken coop, and they were for eggs and food when needed. I never liked chicken, so the rest of the family was glad to eat my share.
We also had a garden that needed to be maintained, That was a lot of work but when you set at the dinner table and ate the food from the garden, you were glad you did your part in it's harvest. The corn, greenbeans, carrots, cabbage, and onoins, kept us fed in a time of war and poverty. I'm not saying we were hungry, but in those days and in a family of sixteen, you had to do what you could to stay alive.
We didn't have two people in the family working on the outside. Dad worked in the steel mill, and Mom worked at home taking care of the whole family. As I look back I see that they did a great job of raising us, and they gave of themselves in order to take care of us. Mom worked all day long and you never heard her say she was tired, but we knew she was. So we had to do learn how to take care of ourselves, so that she could rest once in a while. To this day each of us that are still alive, can stand on our own two feet, and do whatever we set our minds to do. Thanks to mom for that.Dad worked many hours in the mill and we knew that when he came home , he was tired and we tried to help him out as we could. The role of a good father is to work to supply his family with a home ,food ,and clothing. He did a great job of that, and we are very proud of our parents to this day. They are with God now, and we miss them very much
I eventually went into the mill, and spent thirty-one years there until it went down. I saw why dad was tired when he came home. I worked alongside of my dad at the mill and even had him working for me when I got into supervision. That was an experience, but dad was a pro, and he and I worked together real well. I was proud of him, and I knew that he was proud of me too.
I now work for Sears as a salesman in the Power Tools area, and I meet a lot of my old friends who I grew up with, and we talk about the old days , and we compare today with yesterday. We have it good now, but because of our memories, we know where we came from. It is great to have friends that you can rely on to make it through life, and I am fortunate to have many.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day
This are my views, not to offend anyone,but to give you peace and hope.
#313
"Two Ladies"
I was told the other day from one of my readers that they would like to read more about the good old days and life as it was in that time. This young fellow who came from a large family, who didn't have a lot of money but enough to get him through college because they saved for it. He told me that his dad worked hard at two jobs and many times the family didn't see dad for several days because he was resting as soon as he got home and was gone when they woke up. sounds a lot like my family. This young fellow told me that they always had food on the table and clothes on thier backs. They were never cold as mom and dad made sure that there was heat in the house. He told me that his brothers and sisters took part time jobs in order to have a little extra spending money. He said that when he reads about how it was in my time , he knows that what I write is the truth because he has been there and done that. He told me that many of his friends have read my column and have gone to thier parents to ask them if what I write about is what they went through in thier growing up years. Most of all, he treasures the time that he can spend with his parents because he knows that one day they will be gone and then only memories will take thier place. I talked to this fellow for about twenty minutes, but I feel like I have known him for a long time. Thank goodness there are still some young children out there who care enough to ask about what it was like to live and survive from the thirties up to now. And to know that some of the youngsters of today, still have some degree of respect for the older generation, I feel that just maybe looking ahead isn't such a scary thing to do.Now I am going to tell you about a lady that comes from the good old days. An angel was sent by GOD to Harold and Sarah Mckee on February 10, 1939, here in Kokomo Indiana. They named her Ramona, and they raised her to the best of thier ability into a young lady of seventeen years of age. That is where I came into her life and we have been together ever since. We were married in 1957, and we were blessed with two wonderful daughters. We were also blessed with two grandchildren. Ramona lived in the hard times when she was young and now she still puts up with this old man after all these many years. I feel that through this column, I must and I will say to my lovely lady on this day , February 10th 2002," HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAMONA". You deserve it after spending all this time with a cranky old man.
Now I am going to tell you about another young lady, of nineteen, who on March 1st, 1991, disappeared after leaving her home, in her 1980 blue Chevrolet Citation. The car was found the next day and she was reported missing by her husband that same day. Officers conducted a search in the reservoir and the area around it, but to no avail. Many volunteers came out to help search for her but came up empty-handed. A reward of $5000.00 was offered by her parents Hugh and Betty Dalton to anyone, who could supply information to the whereabouts of thier daughter. Since no body was found, there was hope that she was still alive somewhere. Julie Johnson was her name and she was 5 foot- 2 inches tall, weighed 118 lbs and had brown hair and blue eyes. There was an elert sent out seeking the public's help in finding this young lady. To this day, eleven years later, we still don't know where she is. Some fear that she is dead, others feel that maybe somewhere she could be alive. Julie was a mother of four children who she loved very much, and friends and family said that she would of never left them voluntarily. Our law enforcement agencies have never closed the books on this file because they believe that one day, someone will come forward with the answer needed to finally place a closure in the minds of all who loved her.
Ever since she first was missing, The Crisis Center has asked for leads, or any information about one of thier most loved fellow workers. They have never given up hope in finding out what happened to thier close friend. Her brother Desi along with the workers at the Crisis Center, and friends have staged a candlelight vigil and prayer at Julie's former workplace at the Crisis Center at 309 East Deffenbaugh Street in Kokomo. Richard Chamness who was a good friend of Julie's at the vigil in March of 2000, said; "As long as I have a breath in my body, we will continue this vigil every year until this case is solved.
So I am asking all of you that reads my column to attend this vigil and prayer in honor of Julie Johnson. There has been a tree planted and a memorial made in her memory but the people who really loved this lady need closures in thier hearts and minds as to what happened to her. This writer lost a daughter to cancer but I was able to say goodbye. Those who knew and loved Julie need to be able to say goodbye. Take a little time out of your busy day and try to attend the prayer and candlelight vigil for Julie Johnson at The Crisis Center on March 1st at eleven-thirty am just before noon, and bring a friend. GOD knows what happened and he will someday judge someone. We need to know now and we need someone to come forth with the answer to a mystery that will never close until it is solved.
As a father, I feel for the family of Julie. I have met her brother and her parents . They loved Julie very much and they need to know what happened to her. If there is anyone out there who knows or knows someone who knows what happened, let the proper people know so that we can finally put a wrap on this case. You don't have to give your name, and to help bring an end to the case, you will release all the tension that you have had since this happened. The Great Father will mark it in the book that you helped end this mystery, and you will be forever happy that you came forth with the information. Uncle Ray is asking that you release the burdom of secrecy and let the whole world know that this mystery is finally closed. May you be blessed in your help to bring closure to this wonderful family. Thanks for inviting me into your home this Sunday morning and be sure to remember that the vigil will be on March 1st at eleven-thirty am, just before noon at the Crisis Center at 309 East Deffenbaugh Street here in Kokomo. GOD be with you as you travel the road, and may you be truly happy as you go through life knowing that you helped someone.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day
#314
Uptown Kokomo.
As time goes by, and things change, we sort of live in a fixed pattern of life as we were trained as children to live by. And there are times when a person fines out that time has passed him by without allowing him or her to adjust to the new situations. Most of the time, that is our fault because we didn't want to change. Some times it is because we haven't looked out to see what is changing and why it is changing. Things do change with time and so do most of us. But as I write this week's column, I think back to last week when I discovered that the ribbon on my old Smith-Carona typewriter needed changing. My gosh, I don't think it had been changed once since we got it for the two daughters back in the sixties, and it still was working ok to use. Trying to find a ribbon with both red and black is sort of an impossible task, but after going to some of the new stores and having no luck, I decided to call one of the old mainstays here in Kokomo, Beckleys, and I found on the other end of the phone, one nice lady who told me she could order it and have it for me the next morning. I was amazed to hear this because normally having to order something takes a few days to get here, and this fine lady said that she would have it tomorrow for me to pick up.So the next morning, I drove uptown to Beckleys , parked right in front of the store, went in and said who I was, and this fine lady went right over to get the ribbon and took care of me right away. While I was there, I told her that the last time that I had been in this building was when it was the K&S Department Store. And it brought back a lot of old memories of my young life when the people of that time were able to come downtown or uptown, depending on where you were coming from, and be able to go to The K&S, Woolworths, Kresges, Hooks, Bostons, McClellands, Rapps, Kambers, and many other great stores to buy whatever you needed and to walk through those stores and meet some of the greatest people around, who's main goal was to make you happy with their wares. Such was a time that still stands in my mind as the greatest period in our city of Kokomo, Indiana.
Just about all of the old places are gone now , and so are the ones who ran them and were there to assist you. But there are still some old places that this old man visited, such as Victory Bike Shop, which had one of the nice people running it by the name of Charles Sullivan. who probaly is still there. Up north there is The Walt Moss Barber Shop, and probaly Walt is still there standing behind the first chair taking care of his customers, just as he did with me from 1953 to the year of 2000. I don't need any haircut anymore, as The Great Father has finally let my head go the almost perfect path to be shown to all the world to see. Most people call it bald, I just call it perfect. Just to the north of the barber shop, there is Jamies, who used to be across the street on the northeast corner, and he is still there to serve you. The old Tribune Building is still there about a block to the east and across to the south is the Kokomo Public Library. There are still a lot more old places still around here in Kokomo, and the one that stands out in my mind as one where if you can't find something anywhere else, you could find it there at Handy Handy Hardware. Mr McCarter ran that place for a long time and I think his children are taking care of it now. That is a place as you walk into the door, you are amazed as to how much can be put in a place and still be very visable to the customer. And the expertise that the people there have for their product is amazing too. As soon as you walk into the door, you feel like they already know what you need. They really are great people who as members of the Kokomo community, have been there up on Kingston Corner for a long time.
Such is the way that I remember how we as customers, were recieved by the people who through the years have taken care of us. Many have closed down and have retired, but there are still many who through the years have maintained their business here in Kokomo through their offspring to take care of the old customers as well as all the new ones too. I could go all day with my thoughts of how it was back in the old days , but I have to realize that times do change and some things are no more, but I bet if you really look hard enough, you will find one of those old stores still doing business and there to take care of you just as they did in those days gone by.
In this age of throw away goods, I think back in time when something you went out to buy had to be good enough to last for a long time. You saved up to buy what you wanted and you didn't want to have to wait until you had enough saved for another. You took pride in shopping around and making sure that the item you wanted was of good quality and a reasonable price. In today's market, it is to go ahead and buy and if it don't last, then we will buy a new one. Are we a wasteful society or is it that the money comes easier now? I would say that the reason that people buy now is more for intertainment and conveinence than for need. Whether we need it or not, we still buy and then let it sit there in the corner until company comes so that you can brag about it. Now, that is not to say that all people are like that. There are many out there who are getting by by the skin of their teeth. Many only are able to enjoy today's luxuries, if they are given to them as gifts or if they are able to buy them at flea circuses or wholesale markets. Every little penny means a lot to them and a little help from someone is deeply appreciated, even though it is not asked for.
If you know someone who is having a hard time making it in this world, you should try and make things better for them by donating some of those things that you will never use or need. Clean out that freezer once in a while and give the food to someone who really needs it. That is what it is all about, helping others in need. It is getting that time of the year when our thoughts seem to be about getting something for Christmas, but what about giving something for that family that can really use it. Our city and county has always been in a giving mood during this part of the year and I hope that this year will bring hope to those who need food , warmth, and housing. and to sign off for this week, I am going to ask you to take time tonight to say a little prayer for Uncle Ray, because I sure can use it. Because of you, I am able to maintain my goal of trying to bring some old memories to you through this column. I hope that you enjoy them, May GOD BLESS ALL. My email address is uncleray64@writeme.com
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day-
#315
Taking a vacation.
Well folks, this old man decided with the advice of the doctors to take a week off from work and rest. It seems that the old body with the weak legs has gotten to the place where it is telling me to slow down and give it some rest. So this past week, I took the time off and I told everyone that I was going to take a break from my everyday life and just rest.Now if you read that first paragraph right, you read that word rest several times. Folks, there is no such thing as rest in my book, unless it is tied in bed and someone else doing everything for you. My first day off, I decided to go out and do all the chores in the garden, the yard, and in the workshop. Well, that took more than that day and since I had started it, I had to finish it. That is my bad point, in that I don't really know when to stop and rest. Oh, there is that word again. Well, I finished up getting all the garden planted, I finished up the yard work, and I cleaned up my little workshop. That was a job, because it really had not been cleaned since the end of winter.
So now, it was time to sit back and rest. Or at least, that was the reason to take some time off. It seems that when I went into the computer room to sit back and just surf the internet and rest, I took a good look at the room and I thought that just maybe this room needed a little fixing up too. So, instead of getting that rest that this old body needed, I started moving things around, in order to get everything in it's proper place, and that looked pretty good. But then I had a great idea. I should move the computer to another wall so that it would fall in place with all the other things. Well, in order to do this, I had to really give it a lot of thought so that when I was finished, it would look ok.
Well, after a few cups of coffee, I started out on my quest to move the monitor, the tower and the printer with the scanner somewhere where it would be out of the way until the computer table was moved, and I could put everything back on it. Then a wild idea came to me, that if I just unhooked everything from the power source, I could leave everything on the table and just move the whole thing to the other wall. That ,my friends, was a bad idea on my part and I don't think I will ever do that again. Folks, have you ever tried to move something several hundred pounds in weight ? The only way it can be done by one person is to just move it a little at a time on one end and then a little on the other end. You keep this up until it is where you want it. But it wasn't to be that easy. It seems that when I started moving it, I placed a lot of stress on one of the legs, and it started to bend outward. It was lucky that I saw this soon enough so that I could try to fix it. So I proped it on another table that just fitted under it and I went to find some brace pieces to fix it with.
Now remember, that I had decided to leave everything on that table while moving it. Everything could fall and this old man would be out of a lot of money to replace it. Well, I was very lucky to get it fixed before it fell and so it was time to get on with the job of doing something that I should of never started to do. Remember what I took this week off to do. It was to rest. But I got stress instead. I finally was able to get everything moved and it looked great. Then I remembered that I still needed to hook everything up to the power source, and that my friends, was where I really got stressed out. All the wires and hookups were tangled up and I really did not know just where they went. So it was time to read my books and do it right. After about an hour of trial and error , I was able to say that everything was ready to go. Now I was finally going to get some rest.
The next day, I told Ramona that everything was done and that I was now going to just sit back and take life easy, and enjoy my time off, which now had dwindled down to four days left, before it was time to go back to work. Little did I know that those days had some jobs waiting on it too. I put out some border flowers, and planted some flowers in the flowerboxes, and then I went to the cemetary to place hanging baskets on the graves of our loved ones and to plant some flowers in front of our daughters marker. Then I tried to clean up some around the "Patricia Ann Garden Of Love", which is there in memory of our daughter and all the other people who had cancer and have passed on. Folks, I must take this time to ask you to just go and take a look at this memorial and then to give to the cancer society, so that they might find an answer to finding a cure for cancer. They need your help so that just maybe in yours and my lifetime, we will end the taking of our loved ones to that disease.
Well, the week is over, and I am back at work, and for some funny reason, I am still tired. My legs hurt, and my back hurts and I am ready for another week of rest. But right now, I need to get on with my life and do my job, which is rewarding in itself, because I get to meet a lot of new customers, as well as see all the old ones too. I guess that work is not really that bad because it keeps you active and busy and you really don't have time to think about all the aches and pain associated with growing old. Remember where you heard this because it will be and probaly is the truth of life. If you let a brain be inactive for too long, it soon will dry up and be of no good to you. If you let your body be inactive for too long, it too with be of no use to you except to let you know that it hurts .
And so to end this little visit with you this week, let me leave you with this thought. Whether you are working or resting, you need to stay active, whether it is reading, working at some hobby , or just visiting with your family and friends. Take a little time to rest and then get back to doing what you call restfull. Just don't take a week of vacation to rest up, because you won't rest. And I want to thank you for inviting me in to visit with you, because writing this column is all the rest that I need. May The Great Father bless all of you.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day
#316
"The value of life"
In our life,there is a beginning and there is an ending. The beginning of life starts with a very small being ,deep in the warmth of a mothers body, protected by the mother ,until that time when the baby is due to enter the outside of a mothers womb, and destined to be cared for and protected by the mother and father. That is the beginning of life, as you and I know it to be. That is the starting point of a quest to be whatever you want to be, as to goals set down by the parents and followed by you ,until that time in your life when you say thanks to Mom and Dad for bringing you up right, so that you might be the starting point of someone else' life. It is a circle of events that go on and on until that time when the family tradition stops ,due to no children being born to the last one on the list. Is life over as to your family tradition or is there a way to carry it on with an adoption.?
There are those out there who are very content with not being parents either by choice, or because of not being fertile. There is no sin in that ,because we know that GOD works in ways that we don't understand, nor do we question HIM.
In the case of a couple wanting children and not being able to do so, I really think that they should look into trying to adopt a child ,so that child would have the opportunity to be loved in a family way, and have a chance at life as it should be. Of course, I want to make it clear that the couple wanting to adopt a child, should be able to supply that child not only with love ,but also the warmth and protection of that couple as to the goals that they would like for their new member of the family. If you can't give that child everything he or she needs to grow into a person who can make it in this world, then just maybe you need to back off until you can. The only difference between a child born to a couple and one that is adopted, is the nine months in that womans body. The love for either child should be the same, whether it happens or it is chosen.Coming from a large family, as I and my brothers and sisters are from, we knew the love from our mother and father. We recieved the warmth and the protection from our mother and father. Although we were not rich, we never went hungry, we were never too cold, and we never feared anyone, because we knew that our parents would protect us. We had a great life and as we went off to start our own families, we had the foundation to build upon, because of the way we were trained as children. There wasn't any spoiled children in our family ,because our parents did not spare the rod. We knew that there was a right way to do things and a wrong way of doing things, and you only made the mistake of the wrong way once. Were we abused ? Not on your life, because our learning of the right way was done with love ,and Mom told me once that everytime she took a switch to us, it hurt her more than it did us. Mom said that she thought that she and Dad did a good job of raising all their children and she was proud of all of us.
Sometimes ,we really don't understand our parents while we are young but as you get older the parents seem to be smarter, and you start understanding what they really wanted for their children. And as they get up there in years, you grow a lot closer to them, because you realize that one day they will be called HOME with the thanks from The Great Father with HIS praise of "WELL DONE". So you value those moments when you can ,with each of them when no one else is around and it is just you and them. So now I am going to dig deep into my heart and tell you a little story about each of them when it was just me there with them.
There was a time when for the first time ever ,my Dad had to have surgery and so was taken to the hospital. I went there one day before he was to have some tests before surgery, and while Mom and I were sitting there talking to him, Dad motioned to me to come up alongside his bed and he slipped a piece of paper in my hand and then motioned me to sit back down. Knowing how my Dad was, I decided to wait until I got outside to look at that paper. I figured that if he wanted Mom to know what was on that paper, he would of told her. All the time that we were there, I felt my Mother's eyes on me and I knew she wanted to know what was on that piece of paper. So when we went out to get on the elevator, she asked me to show her what he had written. I took the note and opened it and read it and then gave it to Mom to read. It said in these words;" Ray, they are going to put me to sleep tomorrow , so don't worry about being here with me." Mom read the note and looked at me and said;" You know what he is trying to say, don't you?". I told her that I did and that he was telling me in his own way that he wanted me there with him. That is the love of a parent to one of their children.
I remember about two years after Dad has gone HOME, Mom took sick and was placed in the hospital. she eventually went into a thirty day coma, and we , her sons and daughters, spent most of that time out there waiting for her to get better, and things sort of looked pretty bad and we knew that we could lose her, but she came out of it and she came home to live with us, with the sisters and brothers coming over to help us take care of her. One evening ,with the snow backside deep to a tall indian, she started to get worse and with the help of the city plow we took her back to the hospital. Before we called for help, I went in to her room and told her that she needed more help than what we could give her. She looked me right in the eyes and said; Ray, I want to thank all of you for giving me a chance to live with someone before GOD called me HOME. Mom didn't come home with us any more because she went HOME to be with Dad and GOD.
I think sometimes, how hard it must be to live with someone for all those years only to have to spend two more years alone. No one should ever have to be without someone to live with in their own home. It must of very painfull for Mom to be alone any one of those days after Dad passed away. It must of been very hard to say goodbye to anyone who had come to visit, and then had to leave.It must have been a very lonely time in my mothers life after my dad passed on. We ,as children never really give it any thought, that the older folks would miss us, but they do and they need companionship. No one will ever replace that love that went on for all those years but they still need someone to love them.
Parents are the backbone of our very existence, because they were the ones who did without so that we could have those things we needed. We don't just put them by the wayside, and let them rot away. We go see them and we call them while they are still with us, and we tell them thanks for doing all the things for us. We let the grandchildren see pictures of their grandparents, and we tell them stories about those great people that I and my brothers and sisters called "Mom And Dad" How are your parents doing and have you told them that you love them? Have you checked on them and ask what they need? Do you go out and get them a gift once in a while.? They did all that for you. Think about that until next week when we will sit down with the newspaper over a hot cup of coffee or tea, and ask yourself if you have given just a small portion of what they gave to you back to them. I hope that this column is reaching your heart because it comes straight from my heart. You can e-mail me at uncleray64@writeme.com with any comments.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day
#317
Has violence taken over?
My thoughts these days relate to the sadness that is going across this great world that The Creator gave us to live in peace and harmony, during our short stay. Each day, as I read the news or as I watch the television, I am saddened by the violence that is spreading from city to city. And I wonder just how far is it going to go before it is stopped? Is there an answer out there that we are not paying attention to? Are we doing the best we can to slow this problem or to stop it in it's tracks?
I sit and I listen to the many people out there that are supposed to have the knowledge and the skills to stop the problem and all I hear is a simple excuse that it either is a bullying problem in the schools, or it is a teacher stepping out of bounds with a student, or it is the undue force by our officers who are using it without just cause. None of these answers, which are being given by those who get paid good money to feed us these excuses, will get to first base with this old man. I have been in this world for three score and four years and I have seen and heard it all. It is time that we stop paying these so-called experts the good money and start using good common sense to deal with these problems.There have been bullies since the days of Jesus, and we have found the answers to bring them down. Take the bully and put him away for awhile and he might slowly turn into someone who can be a friend. Give the teacher in the schools more authority to deal with the problems, by taking off the chains that hold him back, and then back him up, and things can only be for the better. Stop getting on the backs of the officers out there that are doing thier jobs of protecting you, by taking off the streets those people who are breaking the law. Start backing up your police and give them praise instead of trying to run them down. And start doing what we should of been doing since the late sixties. You ask what is he talking about? Well here it is in a nutshell, and remember that this is my opinion and not that of anyone else including any of those groups out there that are waiting to pounce on us as soon as we are down. I get really mad when I think how we have just sat back and allowed the violence to begin and escalate.
How many times have you turned on the television and the first thing you hear is profanity? How many times have you turned it on to suddenly be looking at a scene of nudity? How many times have you just set there and watched the show without turning to another channel ? How many times have you allowed your youngsters to stay in the room and be witness to what is being shown on the screen? You don't have to answer, because it has happened several times and we just turn our heads instead of doing something about it. How about all the violence on the screen that those youngsters see every day and it gets planted in their minds as just being a fact of life ? . Wrong ,my friends, because that seed has been planted, and one day the seed will sprout into what we are seeing in the schools today. Another thing to look at is the type of music that these youngsters are listening to, while they have those muffs on their ears. Have you ever just listen to some of those songs that keep repeating the same line over and over again? While we are hearing that one line , they, with thier ear muffs, are listening to a whole new line of hipnotic messages that are slowing seeping into the brains of these fine youngsters who one day will use what they heard, to do violence such as what we are seeing now, in the shootings at school. It doesn't take anyone with any common sense to realize that we need to do something now.
Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am not a radical person. I try to disect a problem to see all the factors that it is made up of. So while we know that it has to stop, we let the problem alone with the idea that it will work itself out. Wrong again my friends, because we have a war out there that needs to be brought to an abrupt end. We need to find that one answer to this problem and we need to delete it from it's very existant. Do we allow it to continue until the courts do something about it, or do we start doing it on our own? Those kids out there are our survival, because soon they will be the leaders in our nation, and we need to send them a message that we need them and that we want them to clean up thier acts now before it is too late.
As you read this article, you probaby get the impression that Uncle Ray doesn't like the young people because he is getting old, and they are staying young. Wrong again my friends, because Uncle Ray loves everyone and especially the yougsters , and I want to see them excell in life instead of throwing it away. That is why I stress the fact that I grew up in a time when nothing came easy and respect, honesty, loyalty, and love of your fellow man, was just part of life as I knew it. If I, as a writer of this column , am able to turn one life around through my writings, then I have reached my goal. If I am able to also get the generations of life to remember how it was in thier lives, so that they can use it as a means to make this world a better one, then I am happy with that. If I have ever written or said anything that has caused someone to be hurt, then I am sorry about that. Someone once said that to be able to please everyone is probaly impossible, but you do what you can and you go along with life. To live life without trying to make it better would be a waste, but to live life in it's fullest would be the best.
Until the next time when you invite me into your home by opening up this paper, I bid you God Bless. and I hope that I have made your day.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day
318
"81-Year-Old Twins Are Longtime Volunteers"\
By Tribune Staff Writer "JOHN DEMPSEY"
Walking through We Care Park with Jack and Jim Dillon, they seem as excited as the young children whose paths they cross. The octogenarian twins — “We’re 81, won’t be 82 until May 25,” Jim notes, are just older kids who have been coming out the last 13 years to help Mike and Ralph Wyant prepare the park for the holiday season.
“We started out the last week of August and worked until they turned the lights on,” Jack said. “It takes 12 to 14 weeks to do. We have a lot of guys who help out here.” “We’ll get started about 9 a.m.,” Jim said, “and quit about 3:30 each day. We have a good time. It’s just like being part of a big family out here.”
Not only does We Care Park benefit from their volunteer efforts, Mike Wyant said, but the Dillons do as well. “Here they are, getting to be almost 82, and still doing what they can to help the community,” he said. “They just love to get out and help us. “We really appreciate their help, and it’s better than them sitting at home in their rocking chairs.” Work at the park continues daily while it’s open. As they walked through the park, they made note of lights that would need to be fixed or replaced the following day. “We help out all of the time,” Jim said. “We don’t climb a ladder anymore.” “Nope, they don’t want us to climb the ladder,” Jack added. “But, we’ll cut the wire to put around the candy canes and help string the lights together that go [along the street] and hand them up to the guys in the bucket,” Jim finished. “I used to go up on the ladders, though.”
Children are the reason the Dillons have been spending nearly five months a year helping out at the park. “We have a lot of fun getting it ready for the kids,” Jim said. They watch the children entering Wyant’s garage, where cookies, hot chocolate, candy canes and a toy await. “For some kids, that will be the only toy they get for Christmas,” Jack said of the stuffed animals and dolls placed in the rotating Christmas tree. “Watching the kids is a joy,” Jim explained. “There are some people we gave toys to 10 years ago. Now they’re back as grownups, telling their children about it and bringing their kids here.”
The brothers — nearly impossible to tell apart even now — are lifelong residents of Kokomo. Jim is retired from Delco while Jack retired from Chrysler. “We’ve lived here all of our lives, except when we went into the service during World War II,” Jim said. “We went in at the same time and served with the Army Air Corps in the Philippines in the same unit,” Jack added.
Jack met Ralph Wyant at a Kokomo High School basketball game. “We go to all of Kokomo’s games,” Jack said. Through Ralph, they met Mike, and “we just started to come out and help,” Jim said. Now, Jack and Ralph make trips looking for lights. “We go all over, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, or wherever there is a place to buy lights. We use a lot of lights,” he said before laughing heartily. So, besides watching the children, what’s their favorite part of We Care Park? “The Ferris wheel,” Jim admits. “That’s really nice.” Jack likes “all of it,” before singling out the trains.
Jack and Bill Gibbons at Ivy Tech Community College restored the 105-year-old sleigh that sits in the shelter for family pictures. “It had been pulled apart and I was just going to pitch it,” Wyant said. “I took it, bought about $300 in wood and Bill and I worked and rebuilt it completely,” Jack said.
Mike Wyant is thrilled to have the twins helping out. “These two gentlemen, I think it’s great that at their age, they can come out and help the community and help us out,” he said. The Dillons enjoy the people they work with at the park and respect Mike Wyant.
#319
"VOTE WITH SENSE"
I have been asked about what I think about the upcoming election and I will put my two cents in even though politics and religion are two things that I feel has to be the other person's right to decide which road to follow. The primary was over two months ago and the ones that have won nomination from thier party need to really sit back and look at what has gone on in those seats that they already occupy or want to win in the fall elections. I could pull out my little notebook and see who has been representing you and me in those positions, but if you have been watching the papers and the television, you can see for yourself that changes need to take place , and the sooner the better. We have those want-to-be's who have been representing us by sitting on thier backsides and letting the special interest groups dictate how they need to vote. We have those who don't show up to vote, because they have something better to do with our time. We have those who want to increase thier pay for doing nothing. And here in Indiana, we have a deficit warning for next year even though there was a lot more money in the pot to spend for things we hoosiers need and deserve. Was there a large hole in the bottom of our surplus bucket? So let's take a trip down reason alley and observe what has been done with our reserves. First off, how many times have you and I heard from our representatives? Sure they use our money to send junk mail asking for us to fill out, which turns up in file 13 as soon as they get it back. Then think about how many of those representatives are sitting on committees researching for information that doesn't pertain to the people they are supposed to represent. And what about those who want pay raises at the same time that we are told that the well is going dry. Something smells real bad here? I know that I will be getting some flak about what I am saying but these words are not only mine but the questions of others. It is my belief that it is time for them to get the job done or get off the pot. You will ask what do I care about how the state spends our money, and I will tell you that someone needs to care. Recently there was a large increase in our state budget approved by the very people who are representing you and I. That tells me that there will be more money left after the vitals are taken care of and we will have a balance for someone to come up with a way of using it. We do not need to put more money in the pot. We need to make sure that those who want to be our voice in the state and federal government, use thier minds instead of our pocketbook. At one time it was my desire to be one of those voices but my health and the wear and tear on my family will not allow my dream to come true. But that will not stop me from being a thorn in the side of those who are only in it to further thier dream of moving up the ladder of politics.
I am an American, and I believe in the two party system, but I also am very critical of the way that those who we have elected, have gone from representing us to that of backing special interest groups. Now there are some groups that need to be heard and some sort of action given that will be for the best of all, but don't use my time and my money to condone those who are there to profit from it. Now I need to tell you that this is my opinion and not that of any person who doesn't feel the same way. America is the greatest country in the world and is a country that the other parts of the world need and just maybe that is the problem. Maybe if we tell them to stand thier own two feet and make thier country free as our fore-fathers did here, we might be able to stand along side instead of in front. There is too much of a chance of being shot in the back. Talk with you next week.
E-mail me at arermdrd@netusa1.netRay "Uncle Ray" Day-
#320
"And THEY were watching."
There was a gathering in HEAVEN the other night, and as the night progressed, the gathering increased. They were there to witness another gathering down here on earth, and as they watched, they smiled and they praised GOD for helping both groups to gather. The occasion was The Day Reunion on earth and the ones in HEAVEN were the ones who raised those Days while they were still down here on earth. The names don't really matter because we are all GOD's children both here and in HEAVEN.
As the evening got under way, we remembered those who have gone HOME, and we talked about old times, when we were children and we still had our mothers and our fathers by our sides. The things that can be brought up at one of these reunions is priceless. Pictures that many had never seen before, and the bonding of those who might of had some problems between them, were patched up with love for each other. The words of each head of the families, as they intrduced thier family with pride, were words of praise and love for thier offspring. No one or no thing can top that.As they entered the building, the ones who were watching in HEAVEN, would call out to the others that there are our children coming in now. They would say that they are very proud that the children they raised turned out to be great parents themselves.. As this old man and my wife Ramona came in, I heard Mom and Day say, there they are. And as the rest of Mom and Dad's children came in , they nudged each other and they looked at each other and said to each other, "job well done, honey" And as the children of Mom and Dad's children came in , there were more nudges to the others sitting there in the clouds, and words of praise for thier grandchildren.
And as the evening went on, in came our aunts and some of thier children, and Mom and Dad hollered to Uncle Harry, Uncle Jesse and Aunt Goldy, Uncle Joe, , Uncle Junior and Aunt Liz, Grandmother Day and Grandmother Babcock, and to Ernie, Bob, Hallie, Marvin, Patricia Ann, and all the others that have gone HOME, to come over and sit with them and watch the gathering of the angels that were given to them by The Great Father to raise.
There was enough food to feed an army there and if you have ever been at a Day's home, you know that they like to eat. And as the night went on, it was very hard to hear that old man standing up there tring to tell about next years reunion and why we want to increase the number attending. Talking is one thing that the Days want to do when they get together, and they will talk a little louder in order to be heard. And those in HEAVEN were able to hear each and everyone and they were proud of what they heard. They in HEAVEN didn't get to taste the food, but they remembered what it tasted like, because they were the ones who taught thier children how to cook.
All in all, it was a great gathering of the Day clan, and although many were not able to attend, we hope that they will make plans next year just before Labor Day, to come in and join all of us in a gathering of love and memories of each other and of those who have gone HOME. That will also increase the gathering of our loved ones in HEAVEN, who will sit there in the clouds and praise each other for raising a great bunch of kids.
I leave you this week with another thought, and that is if there is anyone out there that you haven't seen in many years, invite them in to a reunion of your clan. Too many times our lives are filled to the top with all the things needed to be done and we don't take time to relive those memories of our childhood. Set out one day in your life each year and have a gathering of love and of praise for those who have gone HOME. You will find your life enriched for it. And for those who didn't make it this year to the Day Reunion, we hope that you will set aside that day to come and visit with us and to enjoy the coming together of the children of the Day families.
And to those in HEAVEN who sat and watched us , I say, "We love you and we miss you, and someday we will be sitting there with you watching the gathering of the Day Reunion. Thanks for raising us with respect, and for love of our fellow man".
One more thought before we part , and then I will get off my soapbox , at least for a week. I am truly happy with all the comments from those who read my column. A man who I had never met before came to the store to check out some tools. While we talked about what he needed and what he wanted to do with them, I felt sort of like I had met him before. He was very attentative to each word I spoke and he asked me what my full name was. I told him that it was Day, but most people knew me as Uncle Ray. His eyes lit up and he shouted out that he thought that I was the same man who writes this column. He said that just the way I talked made him think that the two were one and the same. He said that he reads my column each week and that he could tell that the way I talk about tools reminded him of how I talk about life. That is why I write this column because it reaches people who only know me from my writing. I try to do my job with honesty and respect for the customer, and I write straight from the heart. Both go together with love for my fellow man and woman. To be honest with someone and to respect thier wishes is to be a common bond with them. To help them along the way in any way possible is to share in the love of The Great Father.
This is Uncle Ray signing off for this week, and if The Great Father should call me HOME before we visit again, may the time spent between us be a memory of love.
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day-
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#321
"Where Did We Go Wrong?"
As we grow older, we see many changes that affect all of us, and many times we look the other way instead of saying enough.
As we near the new century, I look back at things that have come about, and I look to why it happened. In the old days, we had discipline, and respect for our elders. Families were very close back then, and they stuck together. When we played games, everyone played, that wanted to. When we ate, everyone was at the table, waiting for that taste of good home-cooked food, that only Mom could make. After our chores and homework was done, it was family time in front of the radio, where we would listen, and "watch" those great shows, like "Fibber Mcgee & Molly " , "The Lone Ranger", Amos & Andy", "The Great Gildersleve","Lum & Abner", The Green Hornet", "The Shadow", and many more that we looked forward to "seeing" on the radio. Back then, since you listened to the shows, you sort of made a visual picture of what was going on. Since you were raised with good thoughts in your mind, the" picture" from the radio was one , that had a good moral outcome.
Now, as we watch shows on the tube, we don't have to bring up any pictures as they are right there in front of you. There are shows on television, that would shame the worst of people. They show it all, and that is one of the problems that we are faced with, while trying to bring up our children. You don't have to teach sex to them, because they can get the whole story from the tube. As parents, we've let it happen, and it will be hard to get it stopped. How can we as a parent , keep the filth out of our children's hands and minds. That is a question that only you as a parent can answer.They took prayer out of the schools, and the discipline out of the home, just because someone thought that their rights were being taken away. What about the rights of all the others.? The ones that want prayer in the school and discipline in the home are the ones that had their rights taken away. When you are told how to believe, and how you can discipline your children, you are the ones that lost a God-given right. It is really bad when you can smack a child because he doesn't do as he is told, and be arrested for it.. I do know that there are cases where the child is beaten, and that is wrong. Discipline should only be as a way to teach respect and responsibility. Most parents are good to their children and they know that their children love them. But the small number of complaints by some kids who can't be trained, are sent to the police, who have to do their job, and that makes it hard for parents and school-teachers to do their job. We, as the parent let this happen, until it was too late to stop it. We can stop it by going back to old way of doing the training of our children , so that they can carry it on with their children. All I can say to those youngsters out there is that it doesn't get any easier. To teach respect, you have to be respected. To teach responsibility, you have to be responsible.
I am very happy that I came from the days ,when respect and responsibility were taught in the home. And I am very proud to say that instead of abuse, we had discipline. Maybe it hurt a little back then, but you can see that it did me a lot of good. And my parents were taught the same way by their parents, only they came from a much tougher time, when nothing came easy, and anything you worked for went toward your living expenses. There was no extra in the old days as far as money was concerned, but there was always a lot more love to go around, and families were a group of one. And the neighbors were part of your family. They were always looking out for you too, and they helped keep you out of trouble. They say that you can never go back, but I say that if you want, you can always go back to the memory bank, and remember when it was cool, to sit on the front or back porch and just spend time with your family and friends. A man's word was as good as the man himself. Oh, I miss those days, when honor and responsibility was part of growing up, and when respect for your fellow man was part of it too.
In these days, we see homes broken up because of failures to keep jobs, or to a sickness of a family member with no way to pay for their recovery. We see women who go through the change of life and men who either drink or lose their jobs, and they wind up in the mental hospitals, where many times they are hit with "suggestions "of abuse as a child, or "control" by their mates. Enough suggestions about this and the patient finally believes it themselves. I don't mean to put down that part of the profession, because there are a lot of patients that need help, and they get it from those people who are trained right for that job. But you can tell someone that they are sick enough times, and they will believe it.
We see people on disibility , and they are out playing ball, or working at jobs where money is always cash, so that they won't lose the money that they shouldn't be getting anyway. There are those out there that collect money as a surviving parent, that is supposed to go toward the child's welfare, but instead it is used as an extra source of money that they can blow away. What kind of a parent can a man be that will not use that money for the welfare of the child? How can any man live with himself, knowing that what he does with the money is wrong? How can the kids gain respect for a parent that has no respect for himself? Oh yes, there are some parents out there that need to be held accountable for their actions. Most of the time, the officials that should be watching for this type of child abuse, are looking the other way. Maybe the Social Security System needs to check a little closer with the people that are abusing the system.
And take the so-called psychics on television, who pull you into their fold with the answers that you want to hear. They are some of the best con-men around. Tell a fool what he wants to hear and he will ask for more. Tell a person who is not loved ,the things that he or she wants to hear and they will buy some more of your time. It all goes down to one thing. Make a suggestion enough times, and the person who needs help, will finally believe it. Your best con-men are these people who pray on other people who need some help. Enough said on that subject.
And one other thing that really burns me up are the so-called polls, that they take at election time. Do they really believe that we think that those polls are correct. They actually are the attempts by groups who want to sway your vote to their side. Many people are influenced by those polls. Many voters will look at a poll, and then vote for the man who is supposed to be ahead. My gosh, we haven't even voted and they are telling us who the winner will be. I say that they should make polls, a violation of the voting system. Let us hear from the horse's mouth what he is going to do for us, and then let us make up our own mind who to vote for. How many times has a good choice to run our country, dropped out because he was low man on the polls? How many great men and women have gone by the wayside because they just did not have the backing needed to go against the big money groups? I will tell you one thing ,and that is that I vote the way I want to, and not because they say that my choice can not win.
I really have to say that my feelings toward this DNA testing is for the birds. They use the DNA in order to convict someone charged with a crime. The theory is that the DNA of a person is confined to him or a very few. They contend that it is a very true way of connecting someone to a death or another crime. How can anyone in their right mind, say that all of us have a certain DNA, when the only way that it could be true, would be to test every single one of us, and have it on record? I hope that never happens. If a person is guilty, then prove it to the rest of us, but don't use something that really is only a theory.
What I am trying to say is that most of the things that we have to live with is because we let a very few run our lives with their polls, their suggestions, and some laws that were put on the books to benifit a few.
One thing for sure, and that is if I lived in many other countries, I wouldn't be able to say the things that have been said in this article. Probaly I would of been beheaded or put away in prison, where nobody would ever find me. That is what is right with the good old USA, and this is one proud American, who wants only the best for all of us.
Uncle Ray sometimes gets on the soapbox and blows off too much, but it seems like the readers enjoy it, so I will continue to bring you my thoughts of today, mixed with my memories of yesterday, so that just maybe we can see what the future holds for us. Once in awhile, I will give my thoughts on what is wrong with what is going on today, and how I think it should be corrected. Just remember that they are my thoughts, and they are not designed to sway your thoughts. If you do like my articles, you can pick them up on my web page at, www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/2161/ and you can e-mail me at uncleray@writeme.com So until the next time, when I once again bring you my thoughts and memories, "from the heart" , I bid you "God Bless".
Ray "Uncle Ray" Day-
#323
The Hours Of The Day.
You know, it seems sometimes, that time is standing still waiting for just the right spot to pass another day. The day drags on and it seems like nightfall will never get here. And then there are times when there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get things completed, and so you have to play catch-up on the next day.As a child my father told me that time really goes too fast for him and this youngster was wondering what this man was talking about. It seems to me that time sometimes went too slow. As I grew up and got a little wiser, I found out that my father was really a very smart man, who knew what he was talking about. And now as I go about my daily routine of caring for my wife who has been ill for over two years, {God Bless Her Heart}, and also trying to do the things around the house that the head of the household is responsible for getting done, I wonder just how did that lovable lady of mine get her work done taking care of 3 children and doing child care too. She had to be busy the entire 16 hours {if she got 8 hours sleep}, doing what a mother had to do with cooking, washing clothes, cleaning house, and spending a little time with the kids each evening. This was on top of doing for this man of her life all the things that a wonderful wife does for her husband. So now the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, in that this old man has taken over those things she did so easily {so it seemed}. And I don’t have the kids to take care of. So unless someone is playing with my mind, I think that someone somewhere is stealing some of my hours of the day, because I barely get caught up. It seems like something is going to go wrong at the wrong time and I have to decide which I am going to do first.
I remember Dad working his swing shift at the mill and there were times when it seemed like he wasn’t around for us to play with or to talk with. Mom was the one who had to step into Dad’s shoes and play the father once in a while. When Dad was working the day turn, we saw him every evening, and he was there to make sure that we were good boys or girls or it didn’t take long for him to go get a switch and use it. That was his job, to do whatever it took to teach us respect and family togetherness. He got the point across real fast and we stayed good for the longest of time. When he was on the afternoon turn, we saw him in the morning and he made sure that we were fed well, because he was the one who would make the gravy each morning, while Mom would make her great biscuits to go with that gravy. When we left for school, we didn’t see him again until the next morning. When he worked the midnight turn, we just barely seen him before we left for school, and maybe a few hours that evening. It took a good man to work the swing shifts at the mill and still find time to spend a little time with his family.
Now Mom was a different story as she was there just like any good mother would be with her children for as many hours a day as needed, making sure that her children were warm, well fed, entertained, bathed, and whatever else was needed to be done by the great lady we call Mom. This was the way it was for a family back in the days of old, as all the time that was needed was given to the welfare of a family loved by that twosome we call Mom & Dad.
As time went by and we grew up, we knew that we were given the best possible care by those who loved us from the day we were born to that time when the life of one would cease to be. Mom & Dad had to endure the loss of several children before they were called Home by God. We were left with the rest of our lives to live on until the time when we too would take that trip Home. But we were prepared by our parents for that time when they would be gone and we would use the training that they gave us to make our lives easier to live. We can keep house, we can cook, we can wash the clothes and iron them, and we can set down the rules of family respect with our children. God sent us to two people, one man and one woman, to nurture us, train us, and love us. Our parents, {bless their hearts} did what they had to do to prepare us, and I can tell you right now that they did their job well. Everyday for me it is “Parent’s Day”, and I love them very much.
Ray “Uncle Ray” Day
324
Our City Of Kokomo
One of my readers asked me to give a better view of what a city should be and how it should be run by those elected to serve us. So here you go with my opinion only. People should be proud of our city and they should be happy with the way it is ran by our elected officials. We can’t have a system where you have one boss running the show. A city government is elected by the voters and put in office to serve the best interests of all the people and not just a few. Also a city government should not have money ties to a big city elsewhere. A city government should represent the taxpayers of the city and use it’s power to work with all concerned so that the flow of knowledge about what is going on would be known to all of that body and not just a select few. Also a city government should be run just like a family should be run. The city government should never be a business which can go broke and lose everything. It has always been this writers thought and belief that you take care of your own before you think about giving your resources to other factions. If you need advice on how to run this city, you should ask from within and not go to consultants from somewhere else who just happen to be friends or business associates who are waiting for a favor for contributions made.Why is it that those who are running our city government think that we right here in Kokomo don’t know enough about this city to be able to help run it? We don’t need outside assistance from the city about 45 miles south of us. Take a look at what their city bosses are doing with all the rebuilding and just take a guess who will in the end pay for it. Think about those people who live there but work here and what are they going to do when they lose their jobs. There will be a lot of bankruptcy filings and there will be a lot of losses with many having to give up their homes and move elsewhere. Those that will be left will encounter a blow when tax times comes around.
It is great that those residents were able to live a rich life and have all the things they desired but many times an open door will close on you and lock you out. I hope that won’t happen to them as they are riding on a train full of happiness on a track that could all of a sudden end. Such is the way of a city that wants to run as a business with designs of greatness and growth. Kokomo is not that type of city and I hope it never will be.
This city and county is full of a lot of good men and women who are proud to be part of it, but they should have the say-so in our growth and our maintenance. We are family and our city and county should be run as that family with caution being given to those projects we don’t need and really don’t want. We need to work on a budget that will keep us in the black and never venture into the red. We need to use the brains of our citizens when we want to do something big and the first thing we need to do is to make sure that the budget as it is will take care of it. We should never step outside our budget, just because another city has done it. We need to take hold of the way that our city is run and make those who are our designated representatives accountable for every dollar spent. We need to let everyone of our elected officials know that you need to pass through us to do those extra types of spending, because this is our city and it should be run with caution and with the boundaries of a budget that stays strong.
To be stable is what our city needs to be. To remain a force within the state to bring in more business in order to have jobs, we need to let all know that we invite them in but they will pay their way. Jobs are very important to all of us but we don’t need to close our eyes to what might happen several years down the road. Many times even families get the itch to spurge and wind up in dept for things that they really don’t use any more. It is a shame that we allow this to happen because it opens the door to problems in later years. You really have to be firm in your way of running a city just like you would in running your family. If you don’t need it, you don’t buy. Don’t try to keep up with the Jones. Use common sense in everything you do. In the long run, you profit from it. In the short run, you might not notice the problem until it is too late. Those are my thoughts on how to run our city. You take it from here.
Ray “ Uncle Ray” Day
325
We Let It Happen!!
I want to thank the readers, who let me know that they like my column. As long as I know you are out there waiting for the next one, I will continue to write another one. I enjoy writing about the old days, and once in awhile about what is going on in the present. Everything that we have today, is a result of what we had to work hard for in the past. In the old days, we had discipline, and respect for our elders. Families were very close back then. When we played games, everyone played, that wanted to. When we ate, everyone sat at the table, waiting for that taste of good home-cooked food . After our chores and homework was done, it was family time in front of the radio, where we would listen to lot of great shows. Back then, since you listened to the shows, you sort of made a visual picture of what was going on. Since you were raised with good thoughts in your mind, the" picture" from the radio was one that had a good moral outcome.Today, we don't have to bring up any pictures as they are right there in front of you. They show it all. You don't have to teach sex to them, because they can get the whole story from the tube. As parents, we've let it happen, and it will be hard to get it stopped. How can we as a parent, keep the filth out of our children's hands and minds? That is a question that only you as a parent can answer.
Gone are prayers in the schools, and the discipline in the home, just because someone thought that their rights were being taken away. Whose rights were violated? The ones that want prayer in the school and discipline in the home are the ones that had their rights taken away. When you are told how to believe, and how you can discipline your children, you are the ones that lost a God-given right. It is really bad when you can discipline a child and be arrested for it. I do know that there are cases where the child is beaten, and that is wrong. Discipline should only be as a way to teach respect and responsibility. Most parents are good to their children and they know that their children love them. But the small numbers of complaints by some kids, who can't be trained, are sent to the police, who have to do their job, and that makes it hard for parents and school-teachers to do their job. We, as the parent, let this happen, but we can stop it by going back to the old way of doing the training of our children, so that they can carry it on with their children. All I can say to those youngsters out there is that it doesn't get any easier. To teach respect, you have to be respected. To teach responsibility, you have to be responsible.
In my day, respect and responsibility were taught in the home. And I am very proud to say that instead of abuse, we had discipline. Maybe it hurt a little back then, but you can see that it did me a lot of good. And my parents were taught the same way by their parents, only they came from a much tougher time, when nothing came easy, and anything you worked for went toward your living expenses. There was no extra in the old days as far as money was concerned, but there was always a lot more love to go around, and families were a group of one. And the neighbors were part of your family. They were always looking out for you too, and they helped keep you out of trouble. They say that you can never go back, but I say that if you want, you can always go back to the memory bank, and remember when it was cool, to sit on the front or back porch and just spend time with your family and friends. To be able to relate it to you is wonderful. It was a great era.
Ray “Uncle Ray” Day