Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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Henry Ford a Socialist?

From “Henry Ford’s Own Story” by Rose Wilder Lane

Ford settled every problem by his own simple rule,”Do what is fundamentally best for everybody. It will work out for our interests in the end.” And always he was pondering the big problem of putting back into active use the millions that were accumulating to his credit. Every year the price was lowered on his cars, following his original policy of making the automobile cheap. Still the sales increased by leaps and bounds, and his margin of profit on each car mounted into a greater total.

“The whole system is wrong”, he says. Continue reading “Henry Ford a Socialist?”

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The Cookie Bowl

cookiejar Once upon a time, back in the day, when my kidrens were still knee-high to the proverbial grasshopper, my arm could still be twisted to get me to attend Sunday church services. My son, David, must have been around 4 which would have put my daughter, Keely, at 8.  We were living in Oklahoma City and we attended a Baptist church fairly regularly.   Sporadically before the main sermon the preacher would have a children’s story.  In the front of the church was a low stage with steps leading up to the pulpit.  He would sit at the front of this stage and ask the children of the congregation to gather around him.

This particular Sunday he did that, made his invitation to the children, and off rushed our two kids.  I do not remember exactly what the story was about, but it did involve a cookie jar and partaking of the contents unauthorized.

The preacher looked at Keely and asked her, “Do y’all have a cookie jar at your house?”

To which she replied, “No.”  Then she brightly added, “No, but we have a cookie bowl and Daddy gets into it all the time.”

The whole church burst out into laughter and turned to see me slinking down in my pew.

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Rewinding Life

From time to time I will hear or read an interview of some famous person.  One of the common questions asked is, “If you had your life to live over would you do anything differently?”  Almost invariably the answer is, “No, I would not change a thing.”   On hearing this, in my mind, I am screaming, “Bullshit.”

I look back on my life and there are so many things that I would have changed had I had the opportunity.  Maybe it is the programmer in me, but I see life as a imagesseries of decision points.  Like the traveler in Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, go one direction and the other path is usually lost.  I do not know a human alive, if they are being honest, that would not own up to bad decisions, to decisions they regret, or wonder what would have happened if they had taken the other branch.  I think it is part of the tragedy that is the quiet desperation of human existence.  The Buddha gave a way out, living in the moment.  However, that is much easier said than done.

One of my fantasies is to wonder what would happen if I could go back and change x to y.  What would have my path have been?  Continue reading “Rewinding Life”

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No wine for you, Cat

100_0380Robin’s cat, Booty Wang, is your typical finicky cat.  He is especially finicky about his water.  He prefers that it be from a running source.  A time or two or ten I have found Robin running the water at the bathroom sink and Booty lapping it up from the stream.

Given my attitude about the subservient nature of companions not of the Homo sapiens food group, I am not going to do this.  However, I do feel a responsibility for animals partially in my care.  We did start keeping a water bowl in the upstairs master bathroom as well as one in the laundry room.  He would not drink from the original bowl that I had purchased.  After a few weeks I wondered if it was because it was plastic.  So I changed it out for a glass bowl.  Voila, he would drink from that, BUT only if the water was fresh.  If the water had sat for more than a few hours he ignores it.   He will walk into the bathroom sit down in front of the bowl, and wait for a human to magically change it into fresh water.   Did I call him the subservient species earlier?

This morning that routine transacted, and he still just sat there looking at the fresh water in the bowl.  In exasperation I said, “Cat, I cannot change it into wine, deal with it.”  That is when I remembered I had not taken my meds.

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The Real Meaning of Black Friday

Wal-Mart heirs occupy slots 11, 14, 16 and 17 of the richest people on the Planet! Yet many of its employees are forced into public welfare programs due to low wages and their HR policies. If you work and are willing to work full-time should not have to get public assistance to make ends meet. That is the real Black Friday…a day of mourning for the American retail worker.

Make A Change At Walmart

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Hurrying into the office

Short, young, round woman jaywalking across a 4 lane one-way street in downtown St. Louis.  She attempts to hurry with her feet hardly clearing the pavement and her knees barely bending.  If it were not for the feminine form it would look like an old man’s shuffle in high speed.  The curb appears at the end of her rush from traffic.  Somehow she manages to make the shuffle leap the six inches up, but this acrobatic maneuver  throws her center of gravity off forcing her body forward much too fast.   She manages to regain her balance. Her travel slows to a normal gait.  Surely she is heading into the office congratulating herself for beating the odds of against downtown traffic once more.

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Raw Okra

There is an unknown person at work who obviously has a garden.  Occasionally they will bring in product of the okraaforementioned agricultural endeavor.  Some of it is rather strange, a single banana pepper, a half a cucumber, a grossly misshaped  tomato.

Last week this incognito agronomic  benefactor brought in a small, yellow bucket of tomatoes.  Next day there was a sign on the table in the break indicating that the tomatoes were gratis and to be taken, but please return the bucket.  I laughed.

This morning there were a few “maters” and two stalks of okra on the break room table.  I commented to a young lady in there, “That is rather strange, what do you do with just two stalks of okra?”

Her rejoinder was, “You eat it raw.”

“Raw”, I said, “I’ve eaten okra fried, boiled and pickled, but never raw.”

The lady replied, “They are crunchy like potato chips, but healthier.”

I had nothing to say after that.  Anyone else ever eat okra raw?