Blog Headers and other things

In case you have not noticed, I have changed (make that corrected) the header on my blog. Unfortunately, once posted the crappy things do not update. Suffice it to say that I have straightened out my spelling of some key words.

I am doing some employment stuff for a manufacturer in Grand Haven for a few weeks. It is fun to get back in a plant again. I never thought a farmerboy like me would like manufacturing plants. For those of you who don't know my past, the first plant I was ever in was the Campbell Soup plant in Camden, NJ...Plant I. There was a plant II, but it was open only during tomato season. I enjoyed the smell of onions and celerybeing prepared for soup. I really enjoyed the smell of their Chicken Gumbo soup which had ocre in it... it smelled soo good when it was being brewed.

This plant doesn't smell like that, but rather than seeing a dingy place, I see a place where people work and make something. People working is a good sight. Unfortunately we are seeing plants close and restructure around Holland these days. Not good. My suspicion is that the multinationals have impacted our work economy more than we might think. Privately held firms tend to hang on longer...until they sell out, then wham...the bigs take over and start acting like an MBA project rather than the keeper of some pretty sacred things...like people's jobs.

Funny, but S C Johnson is advertising that it is family owned...no multinational here. W R Grace is doing well, and it is a big family owned multinational as is Cargill...the second largest privately held corporation in the the US...second only to the building giant Bectel. I had a friend from Campbell days who went to work for Bectel back in 1969. Jim Reinch was his name...a great, smart, ambitious young man. I wonder what happened to Jim and Wendy? One day we went to work together, the next he moved...probably a multi millionaire. But I digress.

I have received (now, many) comments on the op ed piece I wrote for Veteran's day in the Sentinel. Phone, in person, email and U. S. mail (the most meaningful was from a former student and Sunday School, Youth Choir young women of about 41/42. She not only thanked me for writing the piece, but thanked me for teaching and guiding her 25 years ago, whew! And her husband is a vet.)...which is to say folks read it and digested it and felt moved enough to comment. I got another first hand comment from a guy who said his wife wanted to thank me for writing it. How about you? I thought. It is funny how people have trouble looking you in the eye, first hand and saying something positive.

I tried not to make it political, but I think they took it politically. If you are interested you can look for the Holland Sentinel, November 11, My Side, entitled "The respect is back for veterans" which was not my creation. If I was more capable, I would give you the link...I need to learn that process.

My point was that times have changed vis-a-vis the honorablness (if there is such a word) of service. Instead of being spat upon...as we were in Philadelphia by the anti war crowd...troops are honored today...the president is spat upon. While not a good thing, that is a better thing. Unless one has served, one does not know the sacrefice that is made by the service person and his/her family for good or ill: the separation, the boredom, the danger, that those who have not searved never go through for the love of Country... When a non veteran talks about the sacrifice of our service personnel I ask myslef, "How do they know?" Even if they live it vicariously through a close family member, they have never been there....ENOUGH...