Democrats!!

I've spent the last couple of nights watching the Demo gathering in Denver. At times it has seemed like old home week. Last night was the stirring speech of Ted Kennedy in strong vibrant voice fresh out of the hospital. I met and shook hands with Ted in the mid 60's right after Bobby's murder in 1963. He was visiting Billings and we had a breakfast for him on the Rocky Mountain College campus. AND I had attended seminary in Massachusetts for four years 1955-1959. The Black Gov. of MA spoke tonight. Also Gov. Manchin of WV the State where I grew up and went to College spoke. In addition there was Ed Rendall, Gov. of PA. I went to Penn State for graduate study 1950-51. There was Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. I lived there from 1951-1955. And just before Hillary there was my current Gov. Brian Schweitzer of MT. Schweitzer did a great job of getting the delegats involved. I've lived in Montana now since August 1961, and know most of the State and national office holders. In fact I was at a cook-out last week with Sen. Max Baucus who is now running for his 6th term in the US Senate. He is currently Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Montana is often thought of as a Republican State, but we have a Democrat Govenor and two US Senators who are Democrats. And who could forget Mike Mansfield who was Majority Leader of the Senate for many years. I knew Mike well and once had a rather long visit with him in his Senate Office where he showed me a side room dedicated to the memory of John Kennedy.

I was pleased that David Gergan of CNN mentiion the part of Hillary's speech that I found very good. It was the comment that it was right that Bush and McCain would betogetherr next week in the Twin Cities since it is so difficut to tell them apart.

jimmy w/ his Mom

In looking through a large box of ancient pictures this week I came across this one which family will recognize as especially significant. Mom died in December 2005 and Jimmy died just a year ago this week. Betty's beautiful smile has always captured my heart. She was generally 100% positive in her outlook on life. During the two weeks she was in the hospital with leukemia we never talked about her not eventually coming home - to me. She was happy to visit with her children and most of our grandchildren who were here for Thanksgiving. I do hope you all enjoy this picture.

Auditory

A couple of weeks ago I saw an Audiologist who checked things out and determined that I could benefit with some sort of hearing aid. Today I went in and was fitted for the latest in digital devies - Opticon. They are very small and will take some getting use to. For example I was very much aware of my footsteps on the kitchen floor, and the click of these computer keys is not something I am use to. When I first got home I turned on the TV and found that I didn't need to turn the sound to 35. I could hear things perfectly well at 20. That should make things easier for the rest of the household. The man I dealt with is owner of the Billings Hearing Aid Service. He spent over an hour with me this tine checking, adjusting, and making sure that things were going to be alright. I had won a $3,000 certificate through a newspaper program for which I paid $1060. The two aids cost an additional $2200 each. I guess I had expected to pay a bit more so the $5460 total wasn't a big blow even if that would buy a lot of groceries and gasoline. Now to see if it makes some of those young fast-talking TV news people more understandable.

Betty - plural

I guess that I just have to go ahead and put this in writing. Maybe it will get it out of my head. In looking through a box of pictures this past week I have come cross the idea that I must be a "Betty" person. In grade school and early junior high I had a crush on Elizabeth Wilson. She wasn't that popuar or good looking, but I can still remember my chagrin when she answed in class pretty much like Jake in Two and a Half Men. I didn't find a picture of her but I did find pictures of BJ Jobe (Betty Jean) and Betty Mavity. Both of these I dated in College and beyond. BJ was a classmate of Betty Clarkson (my Harriet), but I didn't know that until sometime after I was married to Betty C. Betty Mavity was from Charleston, SC and was visiting her Granparents who belonged to my Church in Huntington, WV - Fifth Avenue Baptist. We dated while she was in town on occasion and when she matriculated at Denison University in Granville, Ohio she invited me to a Tri-Delta sorority dance her Freshman year. I remember hitch-hiking there and back. Of course, there was a rather long period of time through the 12th grade and beyond when the only girl I thought about was Julia (Judy) Gaines. That broke up during my brief absence in the military and her move to Washington, DC to work as a Secretary. Brother Don evenutally married Judy's sister, Garnett. So maybe I am not just a "Betty person", I'm a Harriet Elizabeth Clarkson Taylor person.

Rambling

’m going to ramble. Early this morning I got up (around 5:30) to do what old men do after a long night sleeping. I turned off the night light, and then stepped out the front door to get the morning paper. To early to stay up to read so I did my usual bit of grabbing an afghan and stretching out in the Lazy Boy lounge chair. It does cool down pretty well at night here in Montana. I laid back, pulled the cover up, and my brain began to “spin”. I began to wonder about the difference between “best” and “better”. For example: was is best that I get up when I did or was it “better”. My less that total command of the English language decided r that “better “ was the correct usage since there were only two choices. Get up oe wet the bed. About that time my right eyebrow began to itch. Descartes came to mind: I itch therefore I am. By 7:15 it is time to get up, take my 30 minute before breakfast pill and make some coffee. Now I can read the funnies and the sports page before Pete gets up. AND then eat the roll he brought me from Perkins. What a thoughtful kid. Guess I’ve somehow got to stop thinking of our offspring as “kids”. The youngest is 46 and they just go up at 2 year intervals to 58. And that sort of thing starts a whole other line of thought. At 83 I am the oldest male survivor of the A.B. Taylor family. Dad died at 59 of coronary thrombosis Uncle Claude at 61. My last memory of him was after a stroke which left him uncommunicative. Uncle Cordie in his early 40’s of TB. He had served in the military in WW I. My first military funeral at age 7. The Aunts died mostly in their mid to late 80’s and my only sister if currently 89. My older brothers died at 63, 50, and 56. I am said to be the first born of twins. Brother John still lives and appears to be in better health than I am. I honestly don’t know what brought this all up - but there you are. Another bit of Taylor history.

No Problem

Annie reporst some problem of not being able to log in to blogger.com. Obviously it hasn't happen to my account. On the other hand my Facebook account is always asking me to sign in. I do so with the wrong password, it tells me that is the wrong one and then adds the right one and signs on. Computers!!!

I did go up to Rocky after a lunch at the Church for a quick trip around the stadium to look at the various booths at Summer Fair. Not much appealed to me, and I'm still having to clean up 50 yeas of clutter. Not just Mom's. I did have a chance meeting with Lyndon Pomeroy who I have not seen for many months. He has lost a lot of weight. The next door neighbors were there this year for the first time in several years. Nancy has added a lot of color to Greg's pottery. Near the end of my sojourn I came acrosss Hal Mathew's booth. He has brought his potter to town from Missoula for the last several years. It is always good to have a chance to vist with him.

The Luncheon at Church was to say our "good-bye" to Bobby and Gloria Shaw. Bobby has been our Choir Director the past couple of years. Mary Lynn Anderson had asked me to say the blessing. One needs to be thankful not only for food, but for good music.

Pete is out so I am catching up and in the meantime doing some laundry,.

History

I've spent a major portion of this afternoon going through a file collection which contains a lot of hitory. Contracts which deal with the purchase of the current house and its upkeep. There was a number of purchase invoices of cars which we have ownned in the past. One was a Volkwagon "bus" which most of the kids will remember. With a family of 9 it sure came in handy. I remember going with Betty to a Class Reunion, but threre was a newpaper article with her picture at her 30th class reunion. That was held in 1973 a few weeks after I had come home from by-pass surgery in Denver. A Christmas letter spoke of this as my being well enough to be left in the "care of the kids". As I recall they must have done a good job. There is a group of letters of my correspondence with various Seminaries - and this before I had even finished a year of College. There is also a copy of my discharge from the Army Air Corps in Nov. 1943 - after 7 1/2 months of military training. They finally admited that I could see only with one eye. There was a pciture of the family which appeared in the Jersey City newspaper. Paul had not yet been born, but was born later in Jersey City. Of Course Peter did not arrive until we had moved to Montana. Betty only got prettier as she aged. But there was always that welcome smile. Letters from Father and brothers, and some copies of my own. My, O my. What an afternoon.

Murder???

There is a group in Montana gathering signatures to get a Constitutional Amendment on the Fall ballot to state that life begins at conception therefor abortion is murder. I guess that I can't argue against the major principle, but I have been known to argue that life begins with the first breath. Well, a couple of things have been going through my mind lately. If this law passes what happens to the lady who has an early miscarriage. Looking through some old folders this week I was reminded again of the fact that Betty had a first term miscarriage when we were in Davenport. That would be the early 1950's. As I recall most of the tissue fell into the toilet and was flushed away. Was this LIFE? And did this tissue deserve a Christian burial? A few years later she suffered the early birth of twins at about 6 months. Were we somehow subject to criminal prosecution? The twins were given a Christian burial with the Pastor of the local Congregational Church in charge. I can't help but believe that if our constitution is changed we will all be in big trouble.

Betty's absence from me in death is often on my mind. Does she miss me as I miss her? And then I think of the nunc aeternam - the eternal "nowness" of God, and it occurs to me that as far as she is concerned we are all with her in God's present. So much for now.

Ecclesiastical Conflict

So? So Obama left his Church. So what? I found that I had to do that at one time myself. I left the Highlawn Baptist Church of Huntington, WV. A Church of which my parents were charter members and in which I was baptized and grew up in. A Dhurch which contained many friends and spiritual mentors. A Church in which I had learned my Baptist freedom roots well. Unfortunately after both mother and father had died; I had graduated from high school; ,served a brief tour with the Army Air Corps (that should tell you how long ago this history was); and was very active in State Baptist Youth Fellowship work the Church hired a young man as Pastor who had lost his sense of Baptist History. He was the son of a pastor with whom I had worked one summer in Logan County coal mine communities. This guy came into the Church out of a very conservative southern Baptist seminary in Texas. He immediately got the Board of Deacons to enact some of his conservative theology and required that anyone who was active in the Church to subscribe to a creed he had written based on his fundamentalist beliefs. In the first place I could not subscribe to many of the statements contained therein, and secondly I felt that having to accept a creedal statement was outside the scope of being a Baptist. I believed that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, . . ." and that was all the "creed" I needed. BUT, after all, this was my famly's Church. The "Mother Church" was one in which my Grandfather Taylor was a patriarch. Fortunatly at this time I was graduating with a Master's degree and going to Connecticut so I was able to transfer my membership to a Church in Hartford, and then back to a more Baptist congregation when I returned to Huntington to teach at Marshall College. It did not become a University until long after I had moved on.

There are many reasons for leaving one's Church, even after a long time membership. I, for one, think that Senator Obama has done both himself and the Trinity Church a good.

Deer me!

The other afternoon (Monday) Pete and I were driving Blue Creek Road out to Mark's and Rosanna's for a Memorial Day feast. Just before we reached the turn off to the golf course I heard a sudden thump, and then Pete saying "There's a deer." I looked in the rear view mirror and there was two of them crossing the road. Apparently one of them had hit the car rather than the car hitting it. I didn't see the things at all until we had past them, and Pete says he hadn't noticed them either. Guess it will pay to be more observant on that road now. It reminds me of another piece of ancient history when I was on the road in Wyoming recruiting for the College. Late at night north of Meeteese I heard something galloping beside the car. Turned out to be a deer who apparently was avoiding me by running along side rather than crossing the road in front of me. It sure beats hitting one of the beasts. Back in 1995 when we had just bought a new Honda with less than 150 miles on it we (Betty was with me then) hit a horse which was being rustled, and had made a break for it to run back home. That was on the Northern Chyenne Indian Reservation between Lame Deer and Birney. The car sustained serious damage, but we were o.k. It was in the dead of night so we crippled into Hardin and spent the night.

Spring??

A month ago I wrote something about the furnace coming on and that Spring was delayed. Now here it is May 23d and the furnace still comes on in the evening. I turned the sprinkler system on a couple of weeks ago and with the weather pattern promising rain I turned it off Tuesday. Time to save on the water bill. According to the morning paper we have had 3.78 inches of rain this month. Last year by this date we had had only .31 inches. Most of this year's rain has come this week. When the weather guys started talkng about a Low over eastern Montana and water headed this way from the Gulf I knew we were finally going to break the drought. Up to this time they have only talked about rain from Washington/Oregon coming over the mountains. My experience indicates that that rain never makes it to the Billngs area. Seldom does it make it anywhere over the Divide. We get a "southeaster" when we get a Low Pressure and there is moisture streaming up from the Gulf. And I am grateful for this past week of rain. Even if it continues through the Memorial Day week-end.

Memory Time

I found this on another site and it looked like something I could do that might be interesting.

4 Jobs I've Held:

1. Instructor in Psychology, Marshall (then) College
2. Clinical Psychologist Iowa children’s home, Davenport
3. Pastor, Baptist Churches, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Montana
and a couple of UCC churches in Montana
4. Registrar, Dean Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT

4 Movies I've Watched Over and Over Again:

1. None, but I know all the lines in all the Becker series
2. and most of the plots in Two and a half Men
3.
4.

4 Places I've Been:

1. Puerto Rico
2. San Diego
3. Mexico
4. Montreal, Canada

4 Places I've Lived:

1. Huntington, WV
2. State College, PA
3. Woodville, MA
4. Jersey City, NJ
5. Billings, MT

4 TV Shows I Watch:

1. BOSTON LEGAL
2. Two and a half Men
3. How I Met Your Mother
4. 60 Minutes

4 Radio Shows I Listen To:
I seldom listen to the radio
4 Things I Look Forward To:

1. A Hug at Church on Sunday morning
2. Birth two Great Grand children
3. Monday evening CBS Comedies
4. One more family reunion

4 People I email regularly:

1. Brother John
2. Older Sibs
3. My children
4. A first cousin on my Mother’s side

4 People to Tag:

1. Phillipa
2. Louise
3. Aniroo
4. Paul T

Politics

Watching TV the other night the phone rang. What's new? It was a lady who wanted to do a survey. When I asked for more information none was forthcoming, but I just told her to "go ahead." It lasted a long time and was about who I intended to vote for in the coming election. Schweitzer (D) or Brown (R). I told her that Brown was a "whiner" and would never get my vote. Satisfied with the Gov. Yes! etc., etc. Finally there was the question about age range,and religion: Protestant, Catholic, Hebrew, other? When I said I was Protestant she asked if I was "a born-again, evangelical Christian". I told her that I was indeed "born-again", but it was unlikely that I could be called evangerlical in terms of how that is now interpreted.

At the end I commented again that she had not told me who was back of this survey. "We are not allowed to tell. You can usually tell by the way the questions are asked. It was so obviously Republican there was no question. Most of the questions at the end were directed against Max Baucus. I've known Max since he first ran for Senate. The picture above was taken before he gained his first term. He doesn't always vote the way I'd like, but who does. He's been good for Montana, and the Nation.

Vote! Early and often.

Mother's Day

It is good to have great thoughts of all the mothers and the surrogate mothers in this Taylor Family. There's Ann, Cec, Janet, Ronda, Louise, Karyn, Jean, Sharon, and all the nephews and cousins and their wives, etc., etc. Pete wore a shirt to Chuch this morning with his mother's picture on it. One dear friend told me later that when she saw the picture from her place in the choir that she teared up and couldn't sing the second verse of the hymn. This friend had visited Mom on Friday before her death on Saturday. As for me as I sat listening to others talk about their mothers I found my self thinking that my own mother died in my arms; and I stood at the bedside of my children's mother and watched the heart monitor as she "flat lined." Both of these women were truly loved and are greatly missed. And I am a better person because of them. I must admit, however, it is the dhildren's mother whom I miss daily and deeply.

RIP, Harriet Elizabeth.

James R.

New TV

The Pastor spoke this morning of kid dreams about driving the family car. Getting in the seat and pretending. I told him later than my family didn't own a car. I could remember brother Norman carrying me the 3-4 blocks to the streetcar to take me to the doctor's at age 5 after recovering from spinal menengitis. He commented then about how hard it is for children today to believe that his generation (50's) didn't have TV. I told him that at one point we didn't have a TV so that the kids would do their homework and read. Well, they're all grown up now and left home (o.k.! One of them has returned and is more than welcome to this "old man"). We've had a TV, but I was no longer able to read the small print. So yesterday I had a brand new 42" HDTV installed. Now to get down to the Cable people and see if I can afford to upgrade that service. Even so, it's a great picture as is. And David wanted to see a picture.

Peace to all.

And I do mean all. I've just been reminded of an officious columnist whose column I read once in a while in the Denton, TX newspaper - Ann Coulter. Thank God she isn't carried by the Billings Gazette. Yet, I'm sure she has a right to her warped opinions. David Crisp, that comment is all your fault. I truly meant to comment simply on my own current activity. I'm sitting here by the front window with an occasional look at this flower. Friends from Church gave it to me when Betty died 2 1/2 years ago, It has bloomed, I think, 3 times in that period of time. Always two pure white ovals. She would have loved it. Pete makes sure to take good care of it, and I simply prize its beauty. Thanks, Sue. Thanks, Don.

Spring has Sprung??

Here I am at the computer in my basement office and all of a sudden there is the light rumbling sound of the furnace. In one of the comic strips in todays Billings Gazette there is some argument as to the nature of global warning. Living in Montana this Spring would make one wonder just how correct Al Gore is. Of course we don't have any ice shelves breaking off. There is, however, the fact that the glaciers in Glacier Park are a lot smaller now than they were in the 1960's when I first saw them. I guess I'm glad for a cold Spring. It does delay the snow melt from the mountains so there will be wate for irrigation this Summer, and the grass is not yet ready to cut.

No News is Good News

On of my favorie bloggers is a local newpaper man. In commenting on the past week of tragedies in Billings he commented today on the belief that maybe the above title is what one might wish for. There were extensive firs in several areas of the town and local area. On young man died in an apartment comples fire - he was 21-22 years old and his name was James R. Taylor, no relation to the writer with the same moniker. A 5 year old drowned at a party with many of the fire victims. A 24 year old surgery nurse was killed in an altomobile accident when a couple of young guys ran a stop sign with their SUV and T-boed her Toyota. That was all the early part of the week. This week-end an old man died outside his house in the cold weather apparently having locked himself out; and another young person (a passanger) died following a traffic accident. No News is Good News.

Actually there was some good news. Billings had about 1 1/2 inches of wet snow Sunday afternoon with moisture badly needed. Today the sun is bright and cheereful and the ground is open to receive its drink. And I seem to be in relatively good health.

Anniversary

It was 59 years ago today that Harriet Elizabeth (Betty) and I were married. When she died in 2005 we had shared over 56 of those years in love, passion, and parenthood. Six of our seven children remain. The youngest is 46 the oldest is 58. I was 18 and in military basic training when my father died at age 59. My mother died in my arms at the age of 57. In many respects I have been most blessed, but not a day goes by that I don't miss my dearest Harriet and her eternal smile. Thank God for the record of photography.

She was "Betty" to her family and pretty much to herself. Her grandmother was Harriet. I first knew her as Harriet and that was always the name of affection. And that is the way she signed letters and cards to me.

Celebration Time

It has been quite a week. Blood was drawn on Wednesday and all measures were good or a point or two off. The next day visit with my Internist was positive as he took good time to evaluate and converse with me. No sense of urgency. Today my youngest brother Lee turns 79 and a phone call this morning at breakfast with brother John was positive. Earlier in the week I was able to have a birthday dinner with my youngest (and oldest) daughter who also shares a birthday with her Uncle Lee. She turns 56. Son Willie and his wife Karyn are celebrating thier 22nd marriage anniversary. If my dear Betty was still living, on Monday we would celebrate 59 years of wedded bliss. Well, it was mostly bliss. I think of her often and there will be yellow roses in the Sanctuary tomorrow in her memory. I will take a bud or two to the crypt to share with her. She was passionate about flowers, and roses were special.