Resurrected Memories

 

 

Random Thoughts on Easter

by Wendel Potter

There is a weird irony about Easter.

Easter Sunday is one of the most devoutly observed high holy days in the history of organized religion. It is a solemn celebration of the glorious return from the dead of Jesus, who has been proclaimed as the one, true King of the Jews.
 
And how do Christians honor the greatest Jew of all time? We serve ham. 

We lay out an elaborate feast and if Jesus was to join us, he couldn't eat the meat.
 
I like Easter. When I was very small, Easter meant getting up early and searching for my Easter basket that had been filled with chocolate eggs and jelly beans and then skillfully hidden by my parents, under the pretense that the Easter Bunny had stopped by.

When I became old enough to go to church and began hearing the true Easter story, I just figured that the reason Jesus got up and out of the tomb early in the morning was so he could go hunting for his Easter basket.

Easter was always more than just a religious observance, though. It fired the starting gun for the spring/summer fashion season.

When I was growing up, everyone trotted out their best "Sunday go to meeting" finery on Easter. The church service, admit it or not, was nearly as much a festival of big fancy hats and a parade of new bright dresses as it was a worship session.

That was the women. Where men were concerned, Easter meant it was time to put away the dingy charcoal gray suit and sport a new blazer and lighter colored slacks.

Then, when the early 1970s rolled around, leisure suits made their grand entrance, along with spiffy white dress shoes. "White bucks" they called them in the 1950s when Pat Boone made them his trademark all year round. Mercifully, their rebirth re-died after a few years, along with the leisure suit.  And there has been no resurrection since.

But the crown jewel in the Easter basket is the Resurrection story. While the colored eggs, a mythical bunny (I'm pretty sure I saw him sneaking out of my neighbor's house last night....he wasn't home, but she was), marshmallow chicks and white bucks have figured heavily into the holiday over the years, the biblical account of a man rising from the dead 2,000 years ago remains the bottom line for celebrating Easter Sunday.

I've been pondering the Resurrection of Jesus. If you read the New Testament's four gospels closely, you'll notice they each tell an Easter Sunday story all a bit differently, one from the other. 

The conflicts are slight:Who saw Jesus first? How many women went to the tomb? What time of morning was it? How many angels appeared at the tomb? What exactly did the women go to the tomb for? Were the women wearing their new spring hats?

Some historians say that the Gospel of Mark originally had no resurrection story, abruptly ending after the crucifixion, and that the final chapters were added by a different writer.

The apostle Thomas got the worst rap. We've all come to know him traditionally as Doubting Thomas, because he insisted he would not believe in the risen Lord until he had seen him and touched his wounds.

But no one else appeared to believe, either, until they themselves had seen Jesus. None of them really seemed to think he was coming back. As a matter of fact, in one gospel, Jesus chides all eleven, not just Thomas, for their lack of belief.

Of course, Thomas was disdained for other reasons. He was the only apostle to wear white bucks and a leisure tunic before Passover.

Now what if there had been no Resurrection story in any of the gospels? I'm not suggesting that there was no Resurrection, just wondering how we would react if Jesus had not bothered to appear in risen splendor to anyone?

Would any of his followers have still concluded that he had risen? Would we today just naturally assume that Jesus had come out of the tomb and ascended into heaven, even though no one could lay claim to having seen him?

He said during his life that he would rise again on the third day. For a true believer, shouldn't that have been enough? He said, "Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe."

The Easter story is one of the greatest stories ever told. But how great would our faith be if that story had not been told? If we still believed, it would be great indeed.

Just food for thought. Now pass the ham.


Copyright 2013 by Wendel Potter

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UP IN SMOKE

Houston, we've got a problem...and a pope

by Wendel Potter
reporting live from the Vatican
March 13, 2013


The voting process to elect a pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church turned to tragedy this morning for the sequestered conclave of cardinals who had just completed a third round of balloting.

It is a tradition of the church that, after the ballots have been counted, they are burned in a stove. When the faithful watching the chimney in St. Peter's square see dark smoke rise through the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, they know that a pope has not yet been selected. White smoke means that a new pope has been elected and a formal announcement is imminent.

Today, as the ballots burned, no smoke of any color was seen. Italian fire marshals later determined that an obstruction in the flue prevented the smoke from venting, resulting in carbon monoxide poisoning that left 114 of the conclave's 115 cardinals dead.

Only one cardinal survived the mass tragedy, which means that he will be named Pope by default. I caught up with him at the emergency center of Gemelli hospital where he was treated and released.

His name is Cardinal Guido Sarducci, known better to American television audiences as Father Guido Sarducci, the priest who regularly appeared in the 1970's on the NBC-TV hit series, "Saturday Night Live".

Cardinal Sarducci looked pale and shaken as he stood in the hospital's rear parking lot, leaning against an ambulance and smoking his trademark cigarette.

"Cardinal Sarducci, can you tell me what happened on this tragic morning in the Vatican?"

"Well, we had been sequestered since yesterday, shut off from the outside world. They even installed electronic jamming devices in the floor so nobody could call out on their cell phones and leak any information to the media.

"It was driving me crazy. I mean, I have been the Vatican's gossip columnist for a number of years and calling in a hot story is part of my life. The other cardinals had their own issues as well. Some of them needed to call their bookies, others their lawyers. For whatever reason, I don't know.

"We decided enough is enough, let's get the show on the road and get us a pope before lunch."

"So you cast your third round of ballots first thing this morning," I said.

"First we celebrated the Mass. "

"Then you got on with the voting."

"No. Then we had coffee and doughnuts."

"Then you voted."

"We kicked a few names around, then narrowed it down to three candidates."

"How did you decide who were the best candidates for the papacy?"

"We do it this way." Cardinal Sarducci pointed a dancing finger back and forth. 'Mother-Mary-told me-to-pick-the-very-best-one'."

"That's a rather unorthodox method. So you narrow it down to three cardinals who hope to become the next pope."

"Popefuls, we like to call them. Yes, then we cast our ballots and the contestant with the 2/3 majority of the votes wins the beanie and the big ring."

"So this morning you voted. Then the ballots were put into the stove and burned. Then what happened that led to this awful event leaving 114 cardinals dead?"

"While the ballots were burning in the stove, I began to feel a little light-headed, so I asked if I could step outside for some air. Nobody answered, so I figured it was okay. I went outdoors, got some air, had a cigarette. It was only when I returned that I noticed something might be wrong."

"What did you find when you returned to the conclave?"

"All of my colleagues were stretched out on the floor, face down. I felt terrible. I immediately thought I was late for worship service.

"Eventually, I realized that the cardinals were dead."

"So you called the police or the paramedics or what did you do?"

"I called no one. Remember, we were forbidden to use our cell phones. Anyway, I began feeling sick again, so I went back outside and alerted one of the Swiss guardsmen by throwing up on his shoes."

"And he called for help?"

"Later on. He's not allowed to move until after the changing of the guard."

"I understand that the authorities think the stove's flue was obstructed."

"Yes. It seems a large white dove with a golden halo had built a nest over the smoke stack."

"With the other cardinals dead, this means that you will become the next pope. How do you feel about that?"

"I like the Popemobile. I can't wait to get it out on the road and see what she'll do."

"What name will you choose. Will you be John Paul III?"

"No. No more John Paul. I'm going with Pope George Ringo."

"My condolences on the loss of your colleagues and best of luck in your papacy."

"Bless you."

There we have it. A new pope. Pope George Ringo I. And the Holy Father told me his first order of business is to return to "Saturday Night Live" where he will ceremoniously rip up a picture of Sinead O'Connor.

---

Copyright Wendel Potter

Unfair...unbalanced...inaccurate

Rit Dye and the Wearin' of the Green

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Our youngest son was born on March 17, 1987.  Our baby has grown up. I don't know where the time has gone.

I remember it was raining that morning when we checked into the hospital at seven o'clock. It poured most of the day. But by 4:30 that afternoon it was raining God's good graces. We had a baby boy.

Our intention was to name him Zachary James. When we laid eyes on him, however, he just didn't look like a Zachary at all.

Since it was St. Patrick's Day, we changed course and went for the Irish. Ryan was a name my wife was fond of, and I recalled that my Grandpa Mullen's mother's name had been Mary Ryan. It seemed like a logical choice.

For Ryan's middle name, our doctor humbly suggested Patrick -- it was his middle name -- and of course, it fit the Irish holiday theme. So Ryan Patrick it was.

St. Patrick's Day conjures up a lot of great memories for this dyed-in-the-wool Irish Catholic. Although, dyed-in-the-kettle might be more accurate.

When I was a first-grader in Catholic school back in the predominantly Irish town of Emmetsburg, Iowa, I had the distinction of being chosen to play the lead in our parish's annual St. Patrick's Day pageant. I was to portray an Irish country lad named Paddy Padraic.

I'm not sure if Sister Mary Ann Dolores picked me for the role because of my acting ability (my resume was blank up to that point -- I was only 7 years old); or perhaps it had something to do with my flute playing.

Let me explain that one. Every one in our class that year had bought little flutes fashioned with an aluminum tube and plastic bell and mouthpiece. They were called flagolets, as in "fladge-o-lets."

Lack of musical talent aside, I was probably in trouble right from the beginning because I mispronounced "flagolets." The day the flagolets arrived, we all excitedly began trying to play them. I said to the nun, "Sister, listen to our flatulence!'

One of the songs in the accompanying songbook was called "The Wearin' of the Green," so Sister chose that one for the pageant because the lyrics spoke of an Irishman named Paddy, so it fit nicely with the script. Some of the children were picked to play the song on their flagolets, others were picked to sing in the chorus. I was given an acting role. Hmmm.

In keeping with the St. Patrick's Day theme, Sister wanted me to wear a green shirt. She sent a note home to my mother.

Now Mom wasn't the type to run right out and buy her son a brand new shirt in March. Mom bought our clothes once a year, in August, when the stores offered back-to-school specials.

So she went through the shirts in my closet and came across a long-sleeved dress shirt that was pink (I believe it was a hand-me-down, probably from my sister). Then she went to the store and bought a package of green Rit dye. (Apparently they were running a March special on Rit dye).

I can still see my mother dunking that pink shirt into a kettle of dye until, like magic, it turned a lovely shade of shamrock green. Which was just fine with me because I never was comfortable wearing a pink shirt to school. I felt like a member of that girl gang from "Grease."

Well, the pageant came off without a hitch. I was one proud Irishman standing on the stage in the church basement in front of all the parishioners and wearin' my green. And Sister Mary Ann Dolores was so happy. She didn't have to listen to my singing or my flatulence.

So as the Irish blessing goes, may the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, and may God hold you in the palm of His hand...just pray that he doesn't squeeze.  

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

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Musical Memories Evolved From Monkees

 

(I wrote this column several years ago and thought I'd re-run in light of the passing of Monkees member Davy Jones.) 

 
I'm going to let you in on a secret. I had to work up my courage to put this in print. I am a Monkees fan.

Several years ago, one of my treasured Father's Day gifts was a Monkees' greatest hits CD. I asked and I received. The Bible was right…for a change.

Now, I'm as willing as anybody to admit that The Monkees was not a group that ranked especially high on the list of all-time great technical musicians, and that in the beginning they were merely four guys thrown together in 1966 for the sole purpose of creating a silly television comedy series, with the bottom line being, of course, to make money.

The newly invented pop band/TV stars did their job much better than anticipated.  In the ensuing years, their TV show not only harvested high ratings, but The Monkees sold millions of albums and endeared themselves to a generation of bubble-gummers.

This all started back when I was about 14 years old and could chew bubble gum without pulling out any crowns.

Listening to Monkees music today sparks some fine memories. Mostly of sitting in the kitchen on winter nights, listening to my favorite AM radio station -- 1520 KOMA, out of Oklahoma City.

After dishes were washed and my parents had retired to the living room to hog our only television, I'd sit on a stool at the counter, with the kitchen light turned off and the darkness illuminated only by the radio dial while the Top 40 lit up the airwaves.

Besides Monkees, there were Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Hermits, Troggs, Buckinghams, Tremeloes, Doors, and Mamas and Papas.

Music has an uncanny ability to touch the human soul and be retained somewhere in the subconscious. How many times have you heard a golden oldie that transported you back to a particular moment in your past? You suddenly remember what you were wearing, who you were with, what the weather was like, and so on. The most minute details of a tiny grain of time become perfectly clear to you again.

When I listen to The Beatles' "Abbey Road," I'm 17 years old for a fleeting instant and cruising the streets of Fullerton, Nebraska with my friend, Steve, riding in his sister's Malibu. Hearing Three Dog Night's "Eli's Coming" reminds me of after-ball game dances at the American Legion Annex.

The first time I heard Waylon and Willie's bar anthem, "Good Hearted Woman," was from the jukebox at J&L's Tavern in Fullerton, and still when I hear that song I find myself back in that bar for a split second.  Then I drink a beer as a tribute to those good times at J&L.  I like tributes.
 
Some great musical moments were spent in the kitchen, listening to KOMA. I even have to chuckle at the occasional intrusion. For instance, when my Dad would gruffly holler from the living room to "turn that thing down. I can't hear Gunsmoke!"

Or when he would refer to what I listened to as "that wild yeah-yeah-yeah music."

Dad always claimed that my music made no sense, that it was just a lot of noise and the lyrics couldn't be understood. You know, the same kind of things people my age say about the music children today are listening to.

Except we're right and our parents were wrong, that's all there is to it.

Whenever I hear The Beatles' "Yesterday," I recall an evening when a singer of Dad's generation was on television, doing a rendition of "Yesterday." My dad sat back in his chair, nodded his head, and proclaimed, "Now that's a decent song." When I told him that Lennon and McCartney had written it, he refused to believe me. "Well, they must have stolen it!"

I have to admit that, over the years, Dad was willing to give my kind of music a listen and even grew to like some of it. It must have been when Bing Crosby recorded "Hey Jude" that Dad decided "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

I haven't reached that level of tolerance yet when it comes to a good share of the music that today's youth is tuning in to. But then, with Golden Oldies of the 50s, 60s and 70s still playing today on FM stations all over the nation, and popular as ever, why even bother to make concessions?

Go ahead and let this generation of teenagers pierce their tongues and bang their heads to Ludacris, Ke$ha, Black-Eyed Peas, and Timbaland. 

Me? I'll be in my kitchen with the lights off and traveling back in time while quietly rocking out to "Pleasant Valley Sunday."

And perhaps drinking a tribute. Or two.

Hey hey I'm a Monkee. Yeah yeah yeah! 



Rest in peace, Davy....and thanks for the memories

Riding Harleys with Jesus Christ and Nixon

Not long ago, a friend and I were discussing world-famous personalities and he asked me who would be my choice if I could sit down in private conversation with one celebrated person.  Without hesitation, I  answered "Warren Buffett!" 

Then I qualified my pick:  he had to be drunk and in the mood to give away money.

So my friend redefined his terms. Historical and dead. 

Well, then.  An obvious pick might have been Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, when the fellow asked me to select a figure from the past, I immediately said, "Jesus Christ!" Then I added, "That's a tough one."

Of course, there are those who would take exception to placing Jesus on the Dead List.  Jesus is risen!  they would say.  He's alive!

But if we're going to split fundamentalist hairs, Jesus was dead from Good Friday afternoon to Easter Sunday morning.  So technically speaking he earns a spot on my friend's "historical and dead " list.



But actually I wouldn't want to waste a pick on Jesus, since I plan to one day meet him anyhow. And it won't make any difference whether or not he's drunk and giving away money.

So after much pondering, I went out on a limb: I told him my choice would have to be Richard Nixon.

Either my friend was astounded by this or he, too, was voicing his preference for Jesus Christ.


"Richard Nixon," I told him, "had a great and twisted political mind. It would be a hoot to slam down a few beers and shoot the breeze with Tricky Dick. Besides, it was said that Nixon understood the game of football better than most NFL coaches."


So there we have it. Nixon was my final answer. But that wasn't the final question.


As we talked about past history (is there any other type of history, by the way?),  the "what if" game got more interesting when we started discussing our teenage years in the 1960's.


I mentioned that it would have been fun to hitchhike cross-country and have seen San Francisco during the Summer of Love, when hippies converged on Haight-Ashbury and bands like Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead were changing the face of music and ushering in the psychedelic age.

My friend asked me, "What if you could go back and do things differently? Would you have tried LSD?"


I guess he was just assuming that I've never actually dropped acid. 


"Yes I would," I replied. "But only before 1966 when it was legal and widely used by the CIA and the United States Army for mind control experiments. I'm still an upstanding citizen and a patriot at heart."


Then we talked about moments in history that we wish we could have witnessed first hand. My friend mentioned such diverse events as the parting of the Red Sea and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.


Me? Woodstock. Those were three magical days in history that will never be duplicated in any way, shape or form. 

I would like to have been there,  listening to the music in the midst of those 300,000 young people peacefully pressed together in the heat and the rain and the mud the sweat and... I guess, on the other hand, watching the video isn't too bad, either.


And I would like to have stood along the mourning route and saluted when that train passed by, carrying Robert Kennedy's body on the journey to his final resting place,  along with America's hopes and dreams that had been derailed while the train rolled on into the Senator's last sunset.


I've wished, too, that I had learned to drive a motorcycle. Movies like "Easy Rider" and books such as "On the Road" instilled a wanderlust in many of us in our younger years and we could see ourselves cruising the byways of America on our Harleys with life clipping along, our faces set hard against the wind.


Actually, the only time I ever drove a motorcycle was when I was 16 years old and a friend just bought a Honda 90. I lost control of it almost immediately, starting in an alley and ending up in my friend's back yard where I repositioned his little sister's swing set.


I never tried again. I should have.


In reality, we can't go back and change things. Choices and decisions are made as we go along and they become like handprints that harden in the concrete of the sidewalk we follow through life. Good or bad, we've made our mark. That is how history develops.


But playing what-if can be kind of fun. For a brief moment we can go back. We can change things in our minds and make them turn out the way we want. We can even ride Harleys with Jesus Christ and Nixon.

Copyright 2011 by Wendel Potter

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How The Game Is Played

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I don't like bars. That's not to say I'm against drinking. I'm half Irish. Often, my cup is at least half full.

I love football. You'd know that only from talking to me about football and only if you brought up the subject, or from reading a column such as this.

You wouldn't know it because you saw me in a drinking establishment with a gazillion bar stool quarterbacks watching (and coaching) the game on a Big Screen TV.  No, you won't see me there.

I will watch any NFL or Division I-A college football game any time. It's not a personal prerequisite that I be a fan of one team or the other.

I watch from home where I am the sole football fan (and beer drinker). I will adjust to any chair in front of any TV in the house. It makes no difference. 

Over the years, bars have become too trendy. They have become Theme Bars, usually called Sports Bars and they have cute names like "Sluggers" and "The Dugout" and "The End Zone", and any town of any size has them.

As Jimmy Durante used to say, "Ev'rybuddies try'n ta get into da act." Everybody has a gimmick. I guess that's just part of the Wide World of Commerce.

When I first drank legally and socially, it was in a bar in Fullerton, Nebraska, the town where I lived. Fullerton boasted a population of less than 1500 citizens and the bar was called, quite simply,  J&L Tavern. That was before the age of cable and dish TV and Pay-Per-View and if J&L Tavern even had a television set above the bar, it was probably a 19" Black-and-White model.

If you wanted to talk sports, you could talk baseball with the bartender, Bags Umstead. He was a good bartender with a great memory. Once you'd drank at J&L, Bags could match any face with its drinking pleasure.

Bags knew baseball. That's how his nickname originated. He not only knew the sport, he could have played it. Instead, he ended up tending bar at J&L Tavern in Fullerton, Nebraska, population 1400-something.

There was probably a sad story there. But that's what life is. People and their stories, happy or sad.

Hoisting a couple of beers at the bar or in a booth at J&L was tolerable.  Pleasant, actually. The tavern had that small town ambiance and the patrons were good company.

Mainly, no one there put on airs. I don't like putting on airs.

In his memoir, "A Drinking Life", writer Pete Hamill recounts how he got through his first few weeks without booze by reciting these words every morning: "I will live my life from now on, I will not perform it."

I've thought about that often. We are performers.

Even Shakespeare said, "The whole world's a stage".  He knew.

Sometimes none of us are real. We all have an innate talent for acting and that's how we react to life and its slapdash twists of fate.

Perhaps when we get to heaven, there will be an Academy Awards type of ceremony and we'll all be nominated. I hope I don't win.

When I sat in a bar like J&L Tavern, I didn't feel like I was waiting in the wings. My friends and I conversed, we listened to the jukebox, we played shuffleboard. It would generally be a quiet, good time.

Beer was two bits a draw and if we were hungry, a buck and a quarter could get us a good burger and some pretty tasty French fries. No nachos, no tortilla chips and salsa, no fancy drinks with paper umbrellas and snickering ha-ha names like "Sex on the Beach", "Hanky Panky", or "Flaming Volcano".

The Sports Bar today offers a much different milieu than the small town J&L Tavern of yesterday. With fully staffed kitchens touting grand Tex-Mex menus, bartenders who will concoct anything you want to drink and offer up a name for it as well, and a half dozen ESPN-locked TVs viewable from any chair in the joint, the Sports Bars are rocking.

But one thing they lack is intimacy. Because people don't live life, they perform it.

People like to be on and a Sports Bar is just another backdrop to act out life against. There will be a stage full of noisy fellow actors there, brimming with liquor and hot wings, and the Big Game will bring out the worst of both insecurity and arrogance in the room.

Each play will be sent around the tables for review and a subsequent faulty analysis by some of the most brazenly vocal, yet unknowledgeable fans in the city. The biggest and most empty barrels can be found on any given Game Day in any given Sports Bar.

Not only do they not know how to enjoy a game, they don't know how to drink. But the Sports Bar is their stage. So they act.

And I stay home, where I can enjoy a few beers in peace and listen to the play-by-plays and analyses of qualified professionals.

If I want to have a drink with friends, I'd just as soon seek out a bar like J&L Tavern, where there is no pretentiousness, no Big Screen TV, no fancy cocktails, and no roaring crowd.

And if I want to talk Sports, I'll talk to the bartender who has a sad story and doesn't tell it. But he sure knows the game.

---

Copyright Wendel Potter

Humor Put On Hold

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This column appeared in the Grand Island (Nebraska) Independent on September 12, 2001.  At that time, I was writing a weekly humor column for the newspaper and the 9/11 attacks occurred just as I was putting the finishing touches on that week's column.  

We all have memories of where we were when we heard the dreadful news.  This is the column I ended up writing for publication:

Good morning.  It's Tuesday, September 11, 2001 as I write this.

This morning, I was about to email  my editor with the final draft of this week's column, a screed about the state of this past weekend's college football events.

It was infused with humor, the type of writing I generally perform in this space on Wednesday.  It's what's expected of me.  I had worked many hours on the piece and was happy with the outcome.

But prior to hitting the send button,  I glanced at my TV which was tuned to MSNBC and what I saw and heard numbed me. You know the story, and it will have been updated thousands of times between now as I write this and tomorrow when this column appears in the hands of my readers.

While humor can be a saving grace in difficult times, and it has always been the proud American way to carry on with a brave face, I felt personally that it would be unconscionable to greet my Wednesday morning readers with tongue in cheek, and so asked my editor to extend my deadline that I may produce something more palatable, given the horrific times in which we are now awash.
 
At this time (Tuesday), I have no idea what lies ahead for our country in the face of the heinous and blistering attacks that have served lethal notice on the United States. It just isn't a time to laugh.

At this early point in time, there is no "best medicine" to bind the wounds that have been inflicted by such inhuman savagery. And what concerns me is the aftermath.

And that aftermath, folks, will perpetually linger in the seams of a dark, dragging cloud of fear and hysteria because the United States is a symbol for all that is good and free and that makes it a target for everything that is evil and corrupt and barbaric.

This morning, in the midst of trying to make sense of this jagged puzzle thrust on us by terrorists of the worst variety, I received word that Grand Island Senior High had been evacuated, but had not heard why. Having a child enrolled there, I jumped in my pickup and headed across town, thinking that students were probably being dismissed early, as a precaution, in light of the attack on our country.

When I drew near to the school, I spotted a city police officer involved in the task of keeping traffic off that stretch of College Street that runs past the south side of the high school. I pulled over to the curb and got out of my truck to ask him about the details of the evacuation, as it appeared that now throngs of students were re-entering the school.
 
The officer confirmed that school officials had received an anonymous bomb threat.  He assured me that everything was all right and classes would be resuming according to routine.

I suspect that this won't be the only bomb threat phoned in to schools and institutions across the nation today. There are sick people out there who thrive on this type of malevolent upheaval and disorder and while they may have no intention of actually carrying out their threats, they have murderous hearts nevertheless.

I am appalled, perhaps naively so, that this type of thing would happen in this community--here in the Heartland, in the middle of Nebraska The Good Life--and that, while we watch our national state of affairs with nail-biting interest and unease, we also have to lend credence to the catcalls of a lame and twisted mindset that apparently exists right here in any one of our neighborhoods.

What has happened to our society that we must not only dread the sophisticated treachery of the outside world, but also must have our fears and anxieties compounded by the psychotic actions of a few degenerates existing unworthily as fellow-citizens within the fabric of our very community and who get their obscene jollies from disrupting the lives of school administrators, faculty,  and a couple of thousand students -- not to mention their concerned families -- in the wake of a national alert?

This is a time when Americans need to stand together and work to somehow get past this tragic episode in our nation's history. It's certainly not a time to mine some kind of perverted humor by creating even more calamity for our countrymen. And those who do are criminal punks of the lowest order.

I wish we could have shared a laugh today. But nothing is funny.

Maybe next week. I'm afraid it's going to take a little time.

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