Hunting a Deere

I’ve always wanted one since I first saw it in People’s Park in West Plains when I was only two years old. It was a custom in those days for the local tractor and farm implement companies to show off their latest wares in the public parks.  The tricycle John Deere tractor I saw had the alluring smell of brand new machinery:  that certain type of grease you only smell today on the big Caterpillars blended with the odor of new rubber.  Most farmers, including Dad, were partial to John Deere because it had been around so long and had built the American farm.  Even if horse drawn, the machinery was likely to be John Deere.

It only occurred to me occasionally that I might be able to move back to the farm in retirement.  A tractor was always in the back of my mind.  I wanted the farm to stay in the Cherry family and that meant farming on a small scale to make it look good and keep sprouts, weeds, and trees from overgrowing the place.  Besides, I actually like the haying process.  It comes from being around two farms in my youth: Grandpa Newberry’s farm west of Leota and the Cherry farm.  Harry Truman used to say you can solve the world’s problems behind a team of horses.

I admit the process of finding the right tractor model took more than 20 years during which I actually considered buying foreign.  From my personal research I concluded John Deere’s cost about 20% more, but they had more iron and that means a lot on tough jobs even if you just have a utility tractor like my JD 5055D (55HP).  Of course, fitting the tractor to the jobs you anticipate is a slippery slope.  Where do you stop?  It seemed every little addition cost $5,000: more horsepower, 4-wheel drive, and a cab at a whopping $19,000.  I won’t mention the big farmers in Kansas because that’s chump change to them.  For example, if they grossed $500,000 in a taxable year, they might get back enough money in taxes enough to buy a small tractor.

My particular needs were clearing out the internal fences, bush hogging, and haying so I bought a loader (the hydraulic front lifting arms) with a bucket and a 3-in-1 gripper.  I also bought a 6 foot bush hog and a used rake.  Despite what you might think, the Ozarks are going back to wilderness and the farmers for the most part are gone.  No more are there diversified crops like sorghum, cotton, or corn.  Nature won, but I feel no remorse when, for just a fleeting moment, I can make the place look really good before I’m planted.

In the winter the priority is picking rocks, cutting sprouts, and burning the big brush piles the gripper stacked.  Now it’s haying time and I’m ready because working on farm can be fun.  It beats offloading trucks, typing purchase orders, or doing inventory.  The drought ended in the Ozarks and the farmers are waiting for a break in the rain to start mowing hay.  Right now, I just finished hitching up my disk mower.  Luckily, last year I took a picture of its set-up done by the JD salesman.  I still needed help from my share cropping neighbor to get it right.  It looks like spaghetti to me.

The Rape of Berchtesgaden

The history bug had only been with me a few years and even after majoring in it in college I still did not know that much about World War II.  Most of us had read William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or at least its excepts as we entered the real world.  I regret not knowing about Berchtesgaden.  It was so close.  If only I had made a right turn east to Salzburg on my way to Munich.  Reading the memoirs of Albert Speer many years later did much to spark my interest.  I remember one particular picture of him in his occasional twilight strolls with Adolf Hitler through the snow shoveled paths up to the Tea House (Eagle’s Nest).

Berchtesgaden lies high above Salzburg on a mountain located so far south you’d think it was in Austria.  Maybe it’s just me, but the Berghof reminded me of one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses: elongated, flat below a low pitched roof, and cantilevered with that bold giraffe pattern rock facade common in the Ozarks.  Its expansive terrace hosted for the most part Hitler’s domestic gatherings including his architectural alter ego, Albert Speer, and, of course, Eva Braun who recorded their happier times on film.  Heinrich Himmler, Herman Goering, and Joseph Goebbels dropped by occasionally and even Neville Chamberland and Lloyd George made an appearance.  I particularly remember the huge windows with their Alpine vistas through which there was that blood red sky apparition on June 21, 1941 the night before the invasion of Russia. The Berghof was packed with paintings, mementoes like initialed wine glasses, and even Hitler’s special bound phone book.  Much was lost to G.I.’s who bragged about the looting.  I believe the art and architecture of the Third Reich should not be forgotten because it’s part of history.  I don't believe in book burning either.

The Allies must have known Hitler was in Berlin by the time of the British bombing of Berchtesgaden in March, 1945.  You can see the terrible and needless devastation on the Internet.  Finally, in 1953 the rest was blown up.  The Fuehrer Bunker and Chancellery met the same fate with the latter’s red marble going to Moscow’s subways and war monuments. I’m sure the draconian measures had something to do with the post-war allied terms of occupation that feared the creation of a pilgrimage site for Skin Heads and Neo-Nazis.  However, the Russians preserved Petrodvorets, Peter the Great’s Palace in St. Petersburg and Moscow rebuilt its Cathedral of Christ the Savior.  The French mob did not destroy Versailles and Peking retains its imperial palaces even after Mao.

I’d like to put Berchtesgaden on my Bucket List, but I’d probably be disappointed with its new tourist traps and hotels festooned with microwave towers.  The less adventurous can view on DVD The Private Film Collection of Eva Braun or The Eagle’s Nest: Hitler’s Secret Center of Power reasonably purchased through International Historic Films, www.IHFfilm.com.  On Hitler’s Mountain is a real (not a novel) account of a local girl who grew up in the area and met Hitler.

The Day I Shot Expert

In spite of the diligent efforts of my rifle PMI (Primary Military Instructor) at San Onofre, California I had to settle for Marksman which in the Marine Corps means getting a toilet seat medal.  Regular drill instructors are removed from much of the snap-ins and assume a secondary role in the training.  I always thought it was because with live ammunition the higher-ups didn’t want them to get shot by their own troops.  Selective punishment at Magic Valley behind the barracks was a constant.  One time our platoon punishment steamed over the windows in our barracks in just 10 minutes.  Nights would resound with pleadings by the platoon commander for us to desert because Highway 5 was so near.

In that atmosphere few recruits could shoot expert with a smattering of individuals getting sharpshooter and the rest, the lowly Marksman.  The Marine Corps loves the first two and if someone doesn’t qualify, he is likely to be set back several weeks to resume his training with another on-coming platoon.  That’s after “bends and thrusts forever.”  If he has also been a Gomer Pyle, he’s kicked out.  I was happy to just qualify as Marksman because my situation was so precarious (see my Beyond Full Metal Jacket blog posting).

After graduation my first annual training for duty with Hq. Co. 24^th Marines took me back to California and Camp Pendleton in 1976 where our unit participated in a MAB (Marine Amphibious Brigade) exercise off the coast.  Prior to the landing our S-2 shop was introduced to the Starlight Scope, but the whole company only got to shoot at a pop-up range highlighted by the use of tracers.  It wasn’t until 1979 that I got another chance to qualify and redeem myself.

Our buses picked us up at the Brush Creek Naval Reserve Center in Kansas City in the pre-dawn hours for the trip to Ft. Riley, Kansas where we would get to shoot on one of America’s oldest rifle ranges.  Dad qualified as Marksman there at the Cavalry Replacement Training Center on December 4, 1941 with Troop B, Second Squadron, 1^st Training Regiment.  The photo shows him at graduation December 8, 1941 the day after Pearl Harbor.  Not many men can say they qualified on the same range their fathers did.

The old wooden barracks were still there and the burns probably contain enough lead to open a mine.  Someone in Operations had billeted the whole company next to the barracks of female cadets who were visiting Ft. Riley.  Unauthorized scouting parties roamed all night.  The next day many senior staff and officers who had brought their deer rifles zeroed them in.  The rest of us snapped in with a few rounds and little supervision.  That was important to me because by then with no retribution looming; I stopped listening to the experts and started thinking on my own.  I set my M-16 to mechanical zero and began adjusting my front sight (elevation) and wind drum (deflection) to the bull’s-eye.  With the help of a field telephone from the butts it was just a matter of walking-in the rounds until the sights were set.  I shot 222 out of 250.

Innsbruck

On Sunday morning I decided to leave for Innsbruck on the Inn River where I actually saw the sun for the third time in four weeks.  The train passed through Liechtenstein, but you were hardly aware of it.  The contrast of the mountains peaks to the valleys is quite dramatic and almost overwhelming not only in a visual sense; the brightness of the day and snowcapped mountains gave me a terrific migraine. 

I remember the train station in Innsbruck: “literally stinks –really filthy” despite what the tourist brochures say about the glamour of European travel.  If only their industry found out what McDonald’s found out a half century ago they could make hundreds of millions of dollars more.  The same goes with providing hot water for baths - not just in wash basins, but I digress.  The University Housing Center was supposed to have a youth hostel, but when I arrived someone said it wouldn’t be open until July.  Their tourist office with city maps and good information should have been at the railroad station, the main artery of the city.  They could learn from the Swiss.

East of the railroad station there was a below-par youth hostel with cold showers and a urinal pipe above an open drain in the floor.  The cost for one night was 18 Schillings which confused me because I thought Schillings were from England.  Austria also had a coin called the Groschen, but I guess they're all Euros now.  The master of the place was a very rude old man who shortly came in the 32-bed men’s quarters for inspection and promptly kicked my boot off the cot railing and quickly reprimanded me.  The only thing wrong with that was my foot was still inside it, but what’s a person to do if he has your passport?  Still, I’ve never put my shoes on any youth hostel linen.  I counted 30 smelly people in the room.  If hostel owners provided backpackers with hot water more often, I believe they would gladly pay extra for it.  I met some Swedes who informed me English was compulsory in Swedish schools. They were on their way to Venice where they’d have to catch the #5 boat to the youth hostel.  I thought that was funny. I also had a good talk with a middle aged South African man on perpetual wanderlust running away from his wife.  He said he'd been around the world twice and had visited Zurich at least ten times. 

The next day I went back to the train station for breakfast.  At least in northern Europe people eat like Americans.  My breakfast consisted of bacon, eggs, rolls, and a pot of tea.  Elderly tourists accustomed to escorted tours may yawn at this, but when traveling as I did, food (good food) means a lot. The World Herald Tribune at the station dated June 19, 1972 was full of foreboding news: Czech hijackers, massacre in Tel Aviv Airport, Italian police on strike, and the Red Army Faction bombing at Frankfurt.  I went back to the tourist office to find a better room for the night and visited the Tiroler Landesmuseum which was packed with tourists.  I quickly found out what the prominently displayed “Montag Raush (sp)Tag” meant on Innsbruck’s restaurants - closed.

That night I stayed in a private house on Prinz-Eugen-Strasse.  When I went for a walk at dusk I noticed there were modern high rises located outside the city apparently to ease the housing problem.  While down by the Autobahn, I was mistaken for a local by an American tourist: “Ver ist der Autobahn?”  I just let him speak in broken German until he was finished and I said, “It’s over there man.”  We both had a good laugh.  Perhaps my red hair and height made me look like an Austrian or German. The night was full of the sound of mysterious explosions and the ringing of bells in the city. 

Pioneers of the Reform Movement

Bruce Williams had a matter-of-fact gentle and reassuring way of letting radio listeners on Talknet know that they were not alone after the terrible Recession of 1982.  I listened religiously during that awful winter after I had been terminated from a large Kansas City corporation.  A conservative figure put the toll at 22 million workers.  He was the only one telling us how to get back on our feet just as he had done several times. The major networks cared nothing for the little guy.  To them the Silent Majority must never be seen or heard.

Bruce used to tell people how to pay off their bills even if it meant working two or three jobs as he had done. He reassured the callers that it was just a matter of time, but it would take hard work and perhaps years.  “Penny wise and pound foolish” was a favorite saying of his.  For instance, he told one caller that a spread on a CD of 1% wasn’t worth moving to another investment.  I also think his New Jersey accent gave him an endearing and believable quality.

Of course, when the opportunity presented itself, I attended one of his appearances at a fancy Corporate Woods hotel in Overland Park, Kansas at the peak of his popularity.  After his talk, throngs of button-holing people sought his financial advice.  That was then.  It was America’s misfortune to see his show fade over the years as counterfeit shows edged him out of the picture.  Now, it’s that screaming guy with the rolled up sleeves.  Bruce Williams was the calm common sense broadcaster who got me and millions of other Americans to listen to alternative radio.

Chuck Harder’s For the People radio show originally aired from White Springs, Florida at the folksy Telford Hotel.  His People’s Network Inc. was carried on 300 radio stations.  I picked him up on KBEQ in Kansas City and liked him immediately because he explained the connection between politics and the plight of the working class.  He talked about real and important topics and under covered events: the World Trade Organization (WTO); factories moving overseas and good value added jobs disappearing; the corruption of the Clinton administration (Whitewater, the Mena Airport caper, and the mysterious death of Vince Foster); gun control; and the militarization of the police at Waco, Texas. Two other timely topics were vote fraud and the militia movement.

Frequent guests on his show were Ralph Nader and Pat Choate, the 1996 running mate of Ross Perot. Hillary Clinton’s support of the National Health Care Proposal drew much criticism in our Raytown For the People Local Chapter, one of the many affiliate groups founded at the time.  Chuck was careful in his “Guidelines for Beginning a For the People Local Chapter” to emphasize “. . . LC’s are separate from the People’s Network Incorporated, People’s Radio Network, and the For the People (FTP) program.”  Even so, the IRS, during the Clinton Administration, began its campaign to audit Chuck and For the People threatening its tax exempt status.  I read somewhere the litigation lasted 18 years, effectively ending his career.  Tea Partiers are not alone.

My listening to For the People and my involvement as a steering committee member of the Raytown For the People Local Chapter (LC) in 1994 led to my early support of United We Stand America and my involvement in the Reform Party.  Millions of Americans were fed up with the Republicans and Democrats.  I was one of them.  Bruce Williams and Chuck Harder on Talk Radio gave us hope and a voice.

3647 Main, Kansas City, Mo.

My view of the world was influenced by Westport and in Westport there were little stores along Main Street still alive and vibrant in the Mid 1950s.  That's where the country began to fade and the city appeared quite dramatically. It’s where Ma finally got her own beauty shop in Kansas City and where I began to see the races and classes interact.  As I mentioned in Journal of the Silent Majority the proximity of Rollins Grade School, Westport High School, and Metropolitan Junior College pretty much sealed the deal until we kids grew up.

The apartment building where we lived, the Orinoco, reminded me of one of the pieces on the board game Monopoly: four rentals above, two store fronts facing Main Street, and one in the basement.  Swope’s Laundry was a mom and pop outfit that had been there forever.  Ma had her beauty shop in our tiny five room apartment on the southwest side of the second floor overlooking four traffic lanes with street car islands separating northbound and southbound lanes (Country Club).  I remember old ladies returning on the streetcars from the Starlight Theatre at 11:00 P.M.  That was in the safetime – the American Dreamtime before the violence of the Civil Rights Movement tore respect for the law to shreds and gave legions of criminals the upper hand.

In our neighborhood there were no civic centers, malls, or Midnight Basketball to keep the youngsters entertained.  They were usually home before dark to start on their homework, a requirement in high school students in those days.  To many parents the curfew would be the factory whistles that went off at 9:00 P.M. For the teenagers the closest thing there was to Mel’s Drive-In (American Graffiti) was Winstead’s Drive-In on the Country Club Plaza.  On our block, several doors north, was Valentine Drive-In where hamburgers were 35 cents.                         

Our particular play ground was the rear parking lot of the Orinoco after the cars left.  It had one of those coal cinder parking lots no one remembers.  There was a row of tiny garages of thin concrete grooved walls and flat tarred roofs. I was always worried about the back porch falling down or leaning too hard on the railing.  Since the pictures were taken in 1975 there is an uncharacteristic dumpster shown.  Tenants in the 1950s and 1960s burned their waste in concrete burners.  There was no regular trash pickup even on the residential streets that I recall.  Everyone had a burn barrel and Kansas City would be hidden in a blue haze every fall when people burned their leaves.

 What the photos represent to me was that most whites were poor and had to work their way up following the rules.  This was not the affluent suburbs of the 1960s radicals who were angry and bored out of their minds and desperate to display to the world their quixotic dream world.  This was the rough and tough asphalt and concrete world of the real America most of us knew before the history books were changed and our collective experience extinguished.  In my world there was no Ventura Highway.

From Shacks to Swimming Pools

It seems that the best part of traveling is watching the scenery from your cabin.  It began to rain heavily as I went north into the Alps toward Lake Como in June, 1972; Europe had not seen such wet weather in 39 years.  I could not take any pictures because the train was jolting around so much, but the scenery was breath taking.  I noticed rock slab plates that the farmers turned on end for fence posts.  Lake Lugano, next to Lake Como, was beautiful with sailboats gliding across it as feathers across glass.  There were the most beautiful flowers, lake marinas, and pastel villas with their characteristic terra cotta roofs.  I knew only the rich and famous lived and played there and I often wondered what they did for a living. 

When I crossed the Swiss-Italian border at Chiasso near Como the difference in quality of life really hit me.  Immediately I noticed swimming pools, gas stations, decent uncluttered housing, and a more polite higher class of people.  Cars were bigger and were of a better quality.   People look well groomed and cleaner. I also passed within about ten miles of where Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were captured west of Dongo practically on the Swiss border.  They gave him a “fair trial” and then hanged him - literally.

As I approached Zurich from the mountain passes, tunnels, and the Zuger See I saw soldiers with machine guns marching across a wooden bridge. Their camouflage had a weird color combination of brown, green, and orange. In Zurich, soldiers and civilians carry automatic weapons even to the outside drinking places where you have to unfortunately stand. For the first time I saw guns for sale.  The Swiss don't put up with any nonsense and realize that because of their smallness, everyone has to serve in the military.  Their history is not the William Tell story Americans so often hear about.  The Swiss natural history museum in Zurich gives testimony to their bloody martial past: shields, daggers, banners, and cannon.  That iron crossbow dart I saw was not the type William Tell used.  It could have gone through the thickest armor. 

The Swiss are to me unmatched in their efficiency and their attention to detail.  The currency exchange window and the Swiss tourist office are staffed with multilingual girls who are courteous and make tourists feel welcome.  The French and the Italians could learn a lot from these front line ambassadors.  I enjoyed having good meals, walking the long wooden lake jetty flanked by swans and even peering through elite shop windows at the gold and diamonds of Europe’s most prestigious jewelers.  Art Buchwald became a favorite of mine in Zurich after I bought an International Herald Tribune.

When I managed to get a room in the youth hostel, I met a Jewish fellow from upstate New York.  He was bunked next to me and we had a long talk before he went out on the town.  His parents had sent him away with plenty of money and a baggage train of five suitcases - entirely too much for one person and comically out of place among backpackers.  It was his first time in a youth hostel.  He was really mad at his parents and said they didn't want him around.  His vocabulary mostly consisted of four letter words and the 1960s repertory of “Dig it, Hey man, freak out,” and the obligatory "Cool."  I probably would have sent him away too because he was arrogant and abrasive.  He was the first case I remember where the parents were running away from the kid.

Pistol Pack’n Momma

Genie was another unusual person I met along the way.  I first met her when I worked for a large corporation in Kansas City.  She was one of those blue collar people you didn’t think much about, maybe because she was a janitor - diminutive, soft spoken, unpretentious, and possessing those big puppy eyes you see so frequently in greeting cards.  Her second shift work assignment was tidying up break areas around the plant.  It was a comfortable job nearing union wages, plus, she received the 10% night differential.  I didn’t know it at the time, but Genie was also a risk taker.

I remember her being unusually religious and infatuated with Reverend Ike whose admonitions always kept his flock bountifully supplied with red prayer cloths.  One night she revealed her new and improved model which was larger, of course, than the one she always wore next to her bosom.  She told me with childlike faith that Reverend Ike promised that the bigger the prayer cloth the more certain her prayers would be answered.  As time went on I sometimes wondered what she prayed for.  With Genie you never knew where she was coming from. 

One night as I entered a corporate (everything seemed to be named corporate) break area, Genie stood in front of me with an unusually big grin on her face looking up at me with those big puppy eyes of hers.  Not only was she standing on broken glass, but she was doing it barefoot.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was up to.  Shortly, someone connected the dots and told management about the strange event that revealed her darker side.  It should have been apparent long before that because on another occasion, as she fiddled with her keys in her purse, the gun she always carried went off blowing a hole through the top of the passenger elevator. She was forgiven for that small infraction, but dodging the bullet on a probable disability lawsuit prompted management to Affirmative Action her out of janitorial services.

With a predictability like that of the rising sun Genie got a new job, this time in security.  (We all got a big laugh out of that.)  I saw her again about a year later on her way to work in downtown Kansas City and I asked her, “What’s up?”  She said she was doing fine in her new job, but right now she was on her way to catch a bus in order to fall off and break her leg.  Yes, it was the same unassuming and incorrigible old Genie who always worked two jobs: the first being merely to mark time and the second one scamming the big boys for real bucks.

I never found out how much she took the Area Transportation Authority for.  Perhaps she was just kidding, but with her, like I said, you never knew.  The only thing I remember is that Genie always came out on top and I never met a criminal so honest about what she did or scammed to do.  Perhaps it was her religious training.  Reverend Ike would be proud.