Things I would have taught you .....

This is my annual Christmas letter to my grandson Ben:

Ben:

You may remember this as the year that Christmas was delayed.  Your Mom and Dad are sick and we are delaying our Christmas celebration with you for a few days until they are better so we don't get sick too.  You are getting to be a big boy now.  If I were allowed, these are some of the things I would have taught you this year.  I can only hope that when you are older, you will find these letters and appreciate them.

You have noticed that your Grandma, your Aunt Gwenda and I often pray over our meals.  You sometimes refuse to hold my hand as we pray.  We pray before the meal because we are thanking God for giving us the food.  Children of your age are usually taught to pray, "God is great.  God is good.  Let us thank Him for our food.  Amen."  This simple little prayer is actually very good theology.  It offers worship by acknowledging the sovereignty of God and His goodness.  And it offers gratitude to God from us for providing good things.  A lot of adults often say a lot less with a lot more words when praying over their meal. 

Your Grandma, your Aunt Gwenda and I usually pray before we go to bed.  A child of your age is usually taught to pray, "Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.  Amen."  Again, there is a lot of good theology in this simple little prayer.   We are all sometimes afraid when we lie down to sleep.  Fear of the night is part of how we are created.  Sleeping is a little bit like dying.  We are all afraid of dying.  But, the part of us that makes us what we are, the essential us, never dies.  That is your soul.  In this simple little prayer we are taught to ask God to gather that essential us, our soul, to Him in case we don't wake up.  Again, adults could do a lot worse than praying this simple child's prayer before they retire.

By this time, you should have been taught a simple song or two as well.  The most common is," Jesus loves me, this I know.  For the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to Him belong.  They are weak but he is strong.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  The Bible tells me so."  Jesus is the Son of God.  He loves children.  He once said "Let the little ones come to me."  And another time, he pronounced a terrible curse on anyone who mistreats a child.  The most important and comforting thing any person, child or adult, can ever know is that Jesus Christ the Son of God loves them.  

Another song goes like this, "Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world.  Red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in His sight.  Jesus loves the little children of the world."  Again, there is deep theology here.  God created every Human being different but we are all His creation, created in His image. 

Ben, my heart breaks that I cannot teach you these things as I was taught them by my father and mother.  When you are a child you don't realize how much those thoughts and words mean to you

when you are older and truly understand them.

Sometime this year, I will introduce you to your adopted Uncle Tom.  Tom and I are old and dear friends.  We are prayer buddies.  We pray for each other and each others families on a daily basis.  Along with me, Tom has prayed for you since you were born.  We pray for you to be strong and healthy.  We pray for you to be brave and smart, kind and wise.  We pray that you will be protected from evil both in thought and action.  And, we pray for you to grow up to be a Godly man in all of your ways.  Our prayers are a great gift Ben.  I hope one day you will appreciate them the way that I now appreciate the prayers of my family for me.

Merry Christmas.

Grandpa Bill

Quiet Little Adventures

As you get older your world gets smaller.  I have found a way to open mine up a bit again.

When I was a child, I wanted to be an amateur radio operator so bad I could taste it.  I fiddled with old radios and re-purposed them.  I once had an old RCA Brown Bakelite that could pull in stations from around the world after I jury rigged an antenna and used the tuning capacitor from another old radio to make it resonate.  I loved listening to the BBC, Radio Netherlands and Radio South Africa and dreaming about going there someday.  I would have loved to transmit and read everything I could about it.  But there was no money for fancy equipment when I was younger and later in life there was no time.

I got a limited amateur license in 2012 and didn't do much with it. In the past couple of years I began doing more.  Recently, I decided that radio was a bucket list item and if I was ever going to do it now was the time.  So, last month, I bought a modest long range radio and took the upgraded license exam to operate it last weekend. For you few who may be interested the radio is an ICOM-718.  Just a basic HF rig. 100 watts SSB, AM, RTTY and CW.  Not a lot of bells and whistles.  But, it appears to be a very solid little radio and it is easy to operate.

I am running it through a vintage MFJ-941D antenna tuner.  I bought it used and found out after the fact that some previous owner had fried some of the workings.  A bit of poking around and TLC brought it back to life and it will now get me 1.5 to 1 or better SWR on 40 through 10 meters.

The antenna itself is a 66 foot end fed long wire strung through a fork in branches of a large tree in our backyard.  End fed long wires have been popular in Europe for a long time but I got a bit of skepticism here when I talked about buying one.  So far, the arrangement has worked as well as could be expected.  This morning, I talked to the East Coast from Connecticut to Miami and around lunch time had a nice chat with a fellow located a few miles from the Canadian border in northwest Montana.  This afternoon, I even talked with the actor Alan Wolfe who was transmitting from his home in Miami.

There are a lot of old men in amateur radio.  And, they have old man conversations.  The weather, doctor's appointments, holiday plans, etc.  But, there is more than that.  Early this morning, I was welcomed like a long lost brother to the Navy Amateur Radio Club on 40 meters.  After that, I listened in for a while on a group of RV owners who keep track of each other by ham radio.  They were very professional, handling relays like pros.  This afternoon, I listened to a bunch of ex-Northrup/Grumman employees.  Their net controller was operating the station located in the National Electronics Museum in Baltimore.  He could have been next door.

I would have given anything to do this when I was a kid.  And, I'm glad to say that this is one of those childhood dreams that has come true and I am enjoying it thoroughly.

73's.  (That's ham talk for best wishes.)

      

"Throwed Rolls and Spooky Houses"

Tuesday, Oct 31, 2017, Sheila and I took a day off and went on a little adventure.  Sheila had always wanted to eat at Lambert's Restaurant near Springfield, Missouri.  We decided to drive up, have a late lunch and then spend the evening in a B&B in Carthage.  Here are some of our snapshots.

The first picture is of Sheila doing a little happy dance that she had FINALLY gotten me to take her to Lamberts.

I am obviously not as thrilled at the notion

of having a college kid throw bread at me.

















This is the B&B where we stayed in Carthage.  Beautiful old place.  A lot of period furniture.

We drove back on historic Route 66.  Sheila and I have driven the entire length of it in Oklahoma in pieces, just never in one trip. I drove the entire length of it in the 1960's.  From Tulsa to Chicago in one stint and then from California to Tulsa in another.

Every railroad town had one of these places, the infamous railroad kitty palace.  They were always across the tracks from the polite part of town.  This one happened to be right square on old Route 66.  An amazing number of them have survived as restaurants and museums. 

This is a preserved section of the old road in Southeastern Kansas.  It looked about like this in the early and mid 1950's.

Another Thanksgiving In The Hills

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone and like so many before it, Sheila and I celebrated at Jincy's Kitchen in Keys, Oklahoma, Cherokee Nation, USA.  We had a pleasant drive over and an equally pleasant twenty minutes or sitting on Jincy's front porch enjoying the bright sunshine and the clean, crisp air of the hills.

It is hard to explain to an outsider why Sheila and I keep coming back year after year, driving an hour and half into the Cookson Hills to celebrate the holiday in a tribal era general store turned movie set turned restaurant.

The food has something to do with it.  Debbie cooks in the old fashioned Okie style.  Her food tastes exactly like my mothers, my grandmothers and my other long passed family members.  Debbie does a fabulous job of preserving our Okie food heritage.

But there is more involved as well.  We say grace over the meal.  I am often called upon to do the prayer.  At Jincy's you can pray in the spirit of traditional Thanksgiving without fear of offending anyone.  Here in the hills, Okies still respect our common faith even if some don't share it.  Again, another preservation of our common heritage.

The people are polite. Traditionally, Okies are polite.  It is a custom born out of mutual respect between people who can be very tough indeed when the situation calls for it.  In the culture I grew up in, respect was a big deal.  Everyone deserved it unless they had forfeited that right and failure to give proper respect reflected poorly on the disrespectful person. 

The language spoken here is Okie.  It is a quiet southern drawl touched with a bit of Appalachia. It is soothing to the ear and sweet on the tongue.  I find myself falling back into it when I return to the hills.  You may also hear Cherokee.  At least Cherokee words and phrases.  It is not like the old days when the old timers would sit around conversing in it but the words and phrases are still floating around.

For the holiday meal at least, Jincy's is quiet.  On Saturday nights the place is filled with traditional home made music.  But, on Thanksgiving day, there are kitchen sounds and conversations but no out of control children, snarky millenials or caustic, overbearing matriarchs to keep you in a constant state of counting to ten and minding your tongue.  There are no blaring television sets or even annoying cell phones.  Jincy's is so deep in the hills that many cellphones don't even work.

Holiday meals eaten in a restaurant can be incredibly depressing but Jincy's is different.  Debbie the proprietor makes every guest feel welcome, feeds them an absolutely fabulous old fashioned meal and in the process gives them a precious, short trip back to a time and place where, while we were poor in many things, we were far, far richer in the things that mattered most.

Simple Things Done Well - Homestead Restaurant, Cushing, OK

Sometimes you need to get away if only for a couple of hours.  Sometimes you need to step back to another place in space and time if only for a while.  I did yesterday.

Sheila and I left the house around 11:30.  On the way, we listened to recordings of 1960's radio programs.  We heard an episode of "A Date With Chris," the sexy little girl voiced DJ darling of the airways on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in the mid-60's and then a recording of Pat Sajak's "Dawn Buster" program broadcast from Viet Nam in the later 60's.

We got to Cushing around 1:00 PM.  The church rush was just passing at the Homestead Restaurant located at 1001 E Main St.  They advertise "down home cooking from scratch" and deliver on their claim.  The Homestead, like Jincy's in Qualls, is one of those places where the traditional Okie/Southern cooking heritage is being kept alive and passed on to future generations.

Sheila and I both had the Sunday Special.  Three huge pieces of very good fried chicken, a dinner salad, two sides, iced tea and bread pudding.  You will not go away hungry. 

If you break down each individual dish, while they are all very good, you can get just as good without driving for an hour.  But, the whole of the meal is better than the sum of its parts.  The chicken should be ranked among the top ten in Oklahoma.  The mashed potatoes and pinto beans are outstanding, the kind your mom used to feed you for supper.  The rolls were good.  Not great like Jincy's or Shilo's but very good.  The bread pudding was a tad dry but very pleasant nevertheless, a good finish to the meal.  Only the tea was disappointing.  Instant.  But, it was also included with the meal so I can't complain too much.

But again, it is the totality of the experience at Homestead that makes it worth the drive for us.  You are going to get a darned good meal.  That meal is going to be served by adults with real smiles on their faces and real concern that you enjoy it.  I really appreciate a good waitress who knows what she is doing and does it. 

Small town waitresses are often the best in the world.  That is their job.  In small town USA they are not looked down on for it.  They are not snarky and they don't have an attitude.  They don't over serve you slavishly trying to drive up their tip but at the same time your water glass is never dry.  I have come to truly despise twenty somethings in chain restaurants who are all working on becoming a "manager" or earning a degree and never learn how to just wait a table.  Sometimes, I want to get in their face and say, "Sweetie, I could care less about your future career in whatever, you haven't got waiting table down yet and your tip is getting smaller every time you open your mouth."
 
The crowd at the Homestead will be small town Okies talking about farming, the oil patch, football, grandkids and local events.  There is something remarkably comforting about the sound of the Okie drawl talking about the unchanging events of life at the table next to you.  Sunday afternoon you will see a mixture of older couples having dinner after church and generations of families pulling together tables to share a meal.  It is reassuring to see that somewhere in the world life is going on normally.  There is also something remarkably comforting about knowing that it is highly unlikely that somebody in the room is going to stand up and start shooting over events in St. Louis, Dallas or New York City. 

Taken as a whole, the meal at Homestead is worth the drive to Cushing.  The food is good, the service is good, the crowd is good, even the drive is pleasant. There simply are no downsides.

July 4, 2017

I didn't celebrate the Fourth that much. Didn't feel well. Things to do. Had dinner with the kids and grand kids Sunday. Cooked a nice little dinner for Sheila and I on the grill last night. About the most patriotic thing I did will sound strange to some .... I bought a vet a pack of smokes.

Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in my car watching the ghetto zoo that has become the Dollar General at 21st and Sheridan. Pine and Apache has just moved south.

As I watched, I noticed two older guys who were obviously street people. They had just bought their lunch. One had a coke and some chips. The other had an energy drink and some chips. Both probably paid for with a state EBT card. One was also charging his Obama-phone on the outside outlet in front of the store.

As I continued to watch them, I noticed that one was watching the curb, picking up cigarette butts and smoking them. When he got close enough to the car, I saw that he was wearing a baseball cap from a Viet Nam era air cav unit that had a reputation for sending 18 year old kids into the jungle and sending them home either in body bags or as drug addicts and head cases.

I took a close look at the guy. He looked clean and sober. The age was right and the eyes were right. He might not have even been a vet but the eyes had the mixture of crazy, wary and weariness that made it entirely possible.

Then, I remembered what it was like when I smoked. The intense cravings. It embarrassed me to think that a former air cav trooper was now sneaking snipes from a ghetto curb. I figured that if the worst addiction he was dealing with now was tobacco ... well.

So, I bought him a pack of smokes and wished him a happy Fourth.

Memorial Day 2017

Memorial Day is national holiday in the U.S. set aside for honoring our military dead.  It is usually celebrated by placing flowers on their graves, military ceremonies at cemeteries, concerts, speeches, etc. 
In many communities, Memorial Day has been merged with the local "decoration day" in which all graves are decorated.

For a lot of people, the unknowing, the ungrateful, the uncaring and the un-American, Memorial day is simply the first big holiday of the summer season, a time to barbecue, go to the beach, get drunk, celebrate and make fools of themselves.

We decorate at the small town municipal cemetery where my father is buried.  The first thing you notice when you drive into the cemetery is the sea of American flags.  Even in a small town with a population of less than ten thousand that most people have never heard of like Sallisaw, Oklahoma, there are hundreds of flags.  Each flag marks the grave of a U.S. or Confederate military veteran.  They are placed there by the members of a private organization, the American Legion, whose membership is limited to veterans.

My father's headstone simply reads William A. Kumpe, U.S. Army, WWII.  It is no different from hundreds of others like it around the cemetery.  But, each headstone has a story.  My father's story includes North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, the low countries and Germany.   A similar military headstone is one grave down from my father's.  It reads Charley Kumpe, U.S. Army, WWII.  My uncle Charley spent his war as an MP guarding German prisoners here in the States.  He was too old to serve overseas.  There is a similar military headstone in the windswept little cemetery in Worland, Wyoming.  It reads Henry Kumpe,  U.S. Navy, WWII.  Uncle Henry made the island hopping campaigns in the Pacific as a SeaBee until he was severely wounded in a Japanese air raid.

Even in this small town in the middle of America there are veterans graves from every War from the Civil War right up to the current "war on terror."  Small town America always seems to give more than its share of its sons to the defense of the country.  That is because here in small town America people still believe in America as an idea, as a homeland to be honored and defended.  The sons and now daughters of small town America still go willingly and shed blood on foreign soil to protect the freedom of others both abroad and at home.

The last thing I did before leaving the cemetery was leave a penny on the grave of a soldier who was killed in action in Viet Nam.  I do this every year.  I walk by this fallen Viet Nam vets grave on the way to my fathers.  Leaving a coin is a silent veteran to veteran mark of respect with its own set of private rules.  It is an ancient practice that began with the Roman Legions.


I am tempted to rant and rave about self indulgent millenials, Resistance thugs and Anti-Fa terrorists destroying the nation.  I am tempted to scold a generation that neither knows nor cares what Memorial Day means and price that was paid.  But, that would do no good.  They have lost the vision of America and replaced it with hate and self loathing.  Trying to talk to them is like trying to teach a pig calculus.  You will not succeed and you will only annoy yourself and the pig in the process.  So, the only thing left to say is that this generation does not deserve the sacrifice previous generations have made for it but does indeed deserve every measure of the coming horror that they have created.

A Sad But Interesting Adventure ....

Last night, Sheila and I attended a Creek Indian Funeral Wake. One of Sheila's coworkers had passed, a gentleman of Creek and Seminole extraction. It was a truly remarkable experience.

The ceremony was scheduled in the evening in keeping with the Creek tradition of holding a wake the night before the funeral. The funeral home had warned that they could only stay two hours. Under Creek tradition the wake can go on all night with family members and friends sitting up with the body. The service began a few minutes late. Jokes about "Indian Time" aside, over the years I have learned that in Indian culture things happen when they are going to happen .... when the time is right and the right time is not dictated by the hands on a clock.

Before the service began, the obvious leader or master of ceremonies pulled several chairs out to one side at the front of the room. As they arrived, men who were obviously preachers or elders began taking those chairs. When more arrived more chairs were pulled and the master of ceremonies pointed the new man to the chair. There were six or seven elders seated in this way. This is in keeping with the Creek tradition that multiple elders attend and speak at a community member's wake.

The elders were modestly dressed, mostly bluejeans or wash pants and cotton shirts. There were no jackets and ties. One of the men, a thin, serious older gentleman in jeans, with short cropped hair, a muted cotton shirt and well cared for work oxfords reminded me a great deal of my father.  My father had only a small degree of Cherokee blood but he was raised by a half blood aunt and her full blood husband.  While this elder shared some physical resemblance to my father it was the mannerisms that made them so much alike.  It was the old Indian manner of my father's generation.  Quiet and subdued but at the same time very dignified and in a way outsiders would not completely understand quite powerful. 

The service began by the singing of hymns in the Creek language. The melodies were in a minor key with a slow heavy beat. The men sang in a strong harmony that sent chills down my spine and brought tears to my eyes. Even though the harmonies were the same, this was not the music of the stomp dance. While I couldn't understand a word of what was being sung my spirit told me that these were Christian hymns and these men were helping the family and friends pour out their grief and hope by their singing.

After several hymns were sung, the service took on a rhythm. A preacher would sing or lead another hymn, introduce himself and preach for a while. Most of the preachers/elders were Indian Baptists from the Creek Nation. As one completed his turn they would all shift up one seat toward the front of the line and when finished the one who had just spoke would take his seat at the end.

The sermons were plain. There was no complex theology here. The messages delivered were as plainspoken and honest as the modestly dressed men delivering them. Sin was denounced and salvation proclaimed. Sorrow for past sin was pronounced. Grief was acknowledged and hope offered. Love between family members and friends was encouraged. I wondered for a moment if we city folks don't need to send our preachers down into the 'Nations on internships to recover the simplicity of the gospel.

During the middle of one sermon, one of the deceased's brothers, the eldest, dressed in a traditional Indian "ribbon shirt," got up, walked to the coffin, lovingly placed his brother's glasses and spent some time there with him as the service continued around him. This is in keeping with the Creek tradition of burying the deceased with some of his personal items. Later, after the service had wound down, this same brother invited all to come and share refreshments. This was in keeping with the Creek tradition of serving a midnight supper on the night the wake.

During the service, people walked in and out. Some left after an hour or so and some arrived in the middle of the service. No disrespect was shown. It's just their way.

The gentleman who passed was a nice guy. He was about my age. He was quiet, friendly and helpful in his way. He will be missed and I thank him, not only for the times he helped me while I officed in the building where he worked, but also for the opportunity to share his wake with his family and friends and take a peek into a fascinating culture.