This and That Again

Ain't human nature grand?

I just shake my head over this. There is a huge uproar across the United States and into Washington, California and certainly Arizona about this new illegal immigration bill the Governor has signed into law recently. It is interesting and dismaying to see how easily we humans can be emotionally swayed. Swayed by emotion, not with reason. Just a couple of weeks before the 2008 presidential election, Vice President Dick Cheney gave a powerful damning speech that was widely covered in the press. In effect he said that if John Kerry were elected President the radical terrorists would be on our shores within days. I know those weren't his words but it's what he said. 4% of the frightened undecided switched to President Bush in those two weeks and he won re-election.

Just days before Governor Brewer was to make her decision about whether to sign the immigration bill or not, a southern Arizona rancher was murdered. Almost everyone supporting the bill jumped on this terrible circumstance to bring justification to passing the bill. It was widely reported that footprints had been found leading back to Mexico. Everyone thought the heinous deed was committed by an illegal, probably a drug smuggler. People went up in arms and the Governor signed the bill.

Now the Pinal County Sheriff is indicating that the person suspected of the crime was probably not an illegal at all, but an American citizen. Really? An American? Too late. The wolf is loose. No one but the immediate family will remember nor care what nationality the murderer will turn out to be.

We are so easily led.

On another note, is it possible to be ready for the onset of summer? When I was growing up in the mid-west we couldn't wait for summer. Warm weather, fishing, baseball, Fourth of July, picnics, getting a tan. Now it's like waiting for hell to break loose. Thank God it's only four months. I'll do the best I can with my swimming pool and cold drinks. Okay, maybe it's not that bad. Okay, maybe I like some of it. When else am I forced to go the mountains to relax?

Here's another thing. Most know that Amanda's having a baby in September. Suddenly in my house I'm finding car seats and pack'n plays and baby stuff. "What's all this," I ask Carol. I get the look. We're being prepared. When my first kids were babies we put them in blanket lined bathtubs. Their playpens were cardboard boxes. Best invention ever, a wind up swing that put the kid to sleep in thirteen seconds flat.

In the book Tortilla Flat, John Steinbeck wrote about the Mexican woman who had several little babies to care for. She was very poor and lived in a shack with a dirt floor. She would cook her frijoles and then toss them on the floor and the fat little naked babies would crawl around and stuff the beans in their eager mouths. One day the local Doctor came to visit and was aghast at this dreadful state of affairs. He insisted she cover the floor and insisted she bath the children regularly and feed them from a table with clean utensils. Within days all the little babies fell ill. The wise woman went back to her dirt floor and tossing her frijoles and the babies went back to stuffing the beans in their eager mouths. And they all became healthy and fat again.

My friend Charlie and I have talked about the wild and unfettered things we did as growing boys and neither can remember anyone dying from it.