Heroes and Villains of our Youth

It seems that we wait for an eternity for Winter to end...then we wait out Spring for the weather to turn decent, then we wait some more.....

This Winter in Western Ohio was long, not overly cold, but plenty of snow. The Spring, while warm in April, has been windy, and now 3 weeks into May, we are saddled with more rain than we can use in 2 months. The past few days have went from cold, rainy, and very windy, to downright wet....more rain yesterday, overnight, and this afternoon, once the fog lifts, we are expecting strong storms....especially north and northwest of here.

What this means for me, and the Sectional Baseball Tournaments, remains to be seen....I doubt if most got played last night, this afternoon's games look in danger of postponement as well. I will wait with cell phone in pocket, and see if I get that call, if not, I'll head for Convoy about 3:30 and work the plate for the Sectional Bracket final between Ft. Jennings and Antwerp, 2 teams that I am familiar with. If that gets pushed back, my game at Fort Jennings tomorrow, a Putnam County League game, will be cancelled...as of now, my season, beginning next week, will be down to the Elida 3 game District Tournament in Division 3, then the Regional Final, same place, same division. After than, it's on to Summer Baseball with ACME and American Legion on the agenda for June and July.

In the meantime, I will wait on the rains, and the phone calls.....

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Heroes and Villains____

I was thinking, always dangerous, the other day about what is facing this country...no matter how you turn the key, it's not good......

We have a corrupt President who is out to turn the country into his own personal failed Kingdom, and he is doing so by dividing us by race, religion, age, and political ideology...he is also driving the country's economy towards hardcore Socialism, and economic disaster, and pushing the courts to something the Founding Fathers would be shouting to disband...yes indeed, 2010 is nowhere close to 1775 in America, except that we may be heading for another Revolution. I know which side I will stand with, after all, at 61, not much they can do to me that will have a long term effect.

The thought process got me to thinking about growing up in South Florida...yes, we moved to Ohio in time for my High School years, but I always consider growing up, to be the years before those. I have written about growing up in 1950s Venice in length on this blog...just click on the Venice, Florida, label to find those. Those were the simple years...my life consisted basically of fishing, at the Beach on the Gulf of Mexico, hanging out with friends, playing baseball, catching snakes, toads, and exploring the then unexplored areas of south Sarasota County...Wild Boars, Snakes of every variety, Coon Hounds, and wild crtitters of every variety were part of my life.

We were naive, and now 50 years later, I am glad I was....my heroes were simple, and didn't take a lot of thought...Mickey Mantle was then, and will always be my favorite ball player, I loved the Yankees, the Cleveland Browns, and the Florida Gators. Funny part is, today I cannot stand those teams...leaning more to the Reds, Bengals, and Ohio State, along with Duke in Basketball. My music taste followed Elvis, The Everly Brothers, and Ricky Nelson. I loved Westerns, and Film Noir Mysterys, when I would go to the Venice Theater on Friday Nights.

When it came to politics, I grew up a fan of the Republican Party. Dad and Mom were Republicans, more or less...not sure how often the voted, but they were Republicans..as was Grandma Houseworth, a hard core Pentecostal Conservative of her day. Mom's side on the other hand, the DeVores, and the other Irish American Catholics on that side, were union supporting Democrats, the surviving members of that clan, still are today.

Eisenhower, Nixon, and Goldwater, were my political heroes...the Kennedys, LBJ, and those of that persuasion were on my despise list.....The 1960 Campaign was fun, for an 11 year old, even though my side lost.

Times have changed, Ike, Tricky Dick, Goldwater, and even Mickey Mantle, have been shown to have warts...The Kennedys, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and those like them remain, in my mind, American Trash, although JFK was much better than the inbred bunch that remain the Kennedy Dynasty today. The current resident in our White House, will in time, do more to destroy America, than even LBJ and Carter did.

Our kids and grand kids, although they might disagree, have no heroes...Pop Culture, Political Correctness, garbage Rap Music, and gadgets of every kind are their heroes/gods...and we as a nation and people are poorer for it.

back later>>>>

Photos-Mickey Mantle remains my favorite sports figure of all time...warts and all, nothing will change that from my childhood. Barry Goldwater was a political favorite, I actually met him at Nha Trang AB in Vietnam, when he was a General in the Air Force Reserve, and visiting...Goldwater's support for Abortion and his later writings took the shine off his star, at least for me. The Kennedy Bunch...JFK turned out to be the best of a sorry lot, Teddy the worst, I'm sure a special place in Hell is reserved for him. And Nixon/Lodge in 1960 seemed pretty good compared to Kennedy/Johnson, but especially when you consider the trash that currently resides in the The White House and Congress.