I gave a talk to a Men’s Fellowship Group at St. Charles Church in Lima. I said part of our platform calls for Americans, almost across the board, to cut back lifestyle-wise and help more in the Third World. Out of this group of guys, one had gone to Belize, South America, on a missions trip and others were involved with various outreach projects to help in Mexico. Besides the social justice aspect, another thing that struck me about the group was their earnest striving for a deeper sense of spirituality in their lives and in their families in general. They meet once every two weeks to discuss the gospels and to support each other in their faith walks. Note: After the talk this morning, I stumped at the Farmer’s Market (“Buy Local”) in Bluffton, Ohio. One vendor, Dena McClure from Lima, was selling homemade soap and witnessing at the same time. Her t-shirt said: “When Jesus said love your enemies, I think he probably meant don’t kill them.”
6/7/07
average JoeOhio Tour cont.: We stopped in Kenton, Ohio, where we talked with Charles Shotwell. He said if he were president, he’d withdraw the troops from Iraq now and put warships in International waters close to Iraq to monitor potential, future terrorist attacks toward our shores. This got me to thinking. Maybe it would make sense, common sense, to withdraw the U.S. troops from Iraq now and position our warships out in those International waters for another reason. With our troops gone, it would conclusively show whether the insurgents would back off, or not. What’s more, it would conclusively show whether our exit would plunge the nation into civil war, or not. If these situations got worse, we could always send the troops back in to quell some of the escalation. But how can we definitively know, either way — if we don’t try. Note: Mr. Shotwell also told me he is a staunch gun proponent. And with a name like “Shotwell,” well, is there any wonder?
6/5/07
“average JoeOhio Tour” cont: In Morrow County, we visited the town of Cardington where we passed out campaign info at a youth league baseball game, then we walked about the town passing out info as well. Afterward we went to Suz-e-q’s (“It’s not you’re mama’s home cooking.“) for a burger. I put a flyer on the bulletin board and wrote: “Suz-e-q I love you!” Once again, we’re doing this without a paid PR consulting staff, or anything… We then went to Mt. Gilead, Ohio, hometown of Warren Harding, the 29th president of the U.S. We stumped at Sames & Cook Coffee Shop (great coffee!) in the downtown area. There I talked with Ralph Rapp, who is a retired math teacher. He told me he believes standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in education today. He said it discourages creativity on the part of the teachers to assess and teach to the needs of individual students. What’s more, he added that often information taught for the standardized tests is extraneous for many students. I told the Morrow County Sentinel that our education platform would line up with this as well. Note: While jogging through Mt. Gilead, we lost a bolt on our stroller. Joe at “Joe’s True Value Hardware” fixed it for free and then gave the kids some Tootsie Rolls and our dog a doggie treat. I just love small towns.
6/4/07
We stumped in Galion, Ohio, at the Pelican Coffee Shop downtown. Galion’s informal town ‘brain trust’ meets for coffee in a back room here every morning… Later we interviewed Fr. Bob Haas, who is at Galion’s St. Joseph’s Church. He does mission’s work in the South American country of Belize. In a village of 2,000 people in Belize, Fr. Haas (and steady groups of volunteers) have transformed the St. Vincent Palotti School. When they started the work, the school was “dark, smelly, hot and generally uncomfortable,” said Fr. Haas. What’s more, most of the 93 students had to walk 12 to 22 miles to attend. All these conditions led to poor attendance and little motivation to learn. What’s more, no St. Vincent Palotti School youth had ever gone to high school. However the volunteers rehabbed the school, adding ceiling fans, better ligthting, desks, bulletin boards, blackboards, a new paint job… And money was raised for high school scholarships. Now attendance is high, students are more motivated and some are, for the first time, going to high school. Note: One of Fr. Haas’s projects is getting books for a library at the school. (Belize is English speaking.) “Children there don’t read very well,” said Fr. Haas, “because they simply don’t have much to read.” Donations for the Belize Project can go to the: St. Joseph Mission Fund, 135 N. Liberty St., Galion, Ohio 44833.
6/3/07
We recently stopped in New Washington, Ohio, (pop. 1,000) — as preparation for soon being in ‘Old Washington (D.C.). We stopped to get gas at Hiler’s Service Center, a throw back to the gas stations of yesteryear where you can probably still get air for free. Hiler’s Craig Green tells me New Washington is the first town in the country to have chicken hatcheries (circa the late 1800’s). A neice of the service station owner just got a full scholarship to the University of Kentucky for volleyball. And Buckeye Central High School here has won four state titles for volleyball… Cranberry Township Trustee Louis Niedermier told me he takes pride in the township budget always being balanced, in no small part because of his and the other two trustee’s work. Niedermier said the biggest budget item seems to always be roads, and he and the trustees often pitch in to fill pot holes, lay black top, mow along the side of the roads… Note: In this spirit, my campaign promise is to mow the White House lawn regularly when I get to D.C. — to help balance the Federal Budget.
6/2/07
While in Wellington, Ohio, we talked with Rick and Linda Hatton. Rick facilitates a Bible Study at First United Methodist Church here and was preparing to give a Sunday Sermon tailored to the 2007 graduates. He gave me an advanced copy of the talk, which defined real success in life as looking to Jesus for our source of identity, direction and meaning. “That meaning is to be not just ‘all you can be.’ If that is all you achieve in life, you may have a very comfortable life, you may have a very impressive life to others — and you will have a very poor life,” Hatton wrote. And he added that people should not pursue purely self oriented goals, but rather they should pursue what they discern God wants for their life.
5/31/07
In downtown Wellington, Ohio, we spotted two long distance cyclists. Larry Albert and Gary Buck were heading 1,100 miles from Painseville, Ohio to Memphis, Tennessee. Last year they crossed America on bicycles. Very affable guys, they used to work together and are now retired. They like to cycle for fitness, for education (they did the Louis & Clark Trail last year), and, well, “…because it’s there,” said Gary. We, in turn, passed on some literature to the guys and told them about a 2,000 mile bicycle tour we did through the Midwest during Campaign 2000. Note: To follow Larry and Gary’s travels, go to www.crazyguyonabike.com/LarryA
5/30/07
“average JoeOhio Tour” cont.: We have come to Wellington, Ohio, home of Archibald McNeil Willard. He was an unknown, but inspired, wagon painter who did the famous “Spirit of ’76” painting. (And there is a Spirit of ’76 Museum downtown here.)… Wellington is also the home of Don and Norma Downs, who are ‘inspired’ in their own right. They have an apitherapy ministry at their home in the country. Wonderful people. Apitherapy is about the nutritional and medicinal aspects of anything having to do with bees (pollen, honey, propylis, venom…) That’s right, venom. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, people come from all over the northern part of the state to get, well, stung. People with arthritis, with depression, with paralysis, and a variety of other ailments, submit to the stingings. Bee venom, said Don (who has been written up in a number of local newspapers), has great curative properties. So much so, there is an American Apitherapy Society. The evening we were here, groups of people from at least a 100-mile radius came to get stung and pick up supplies of honey, pollen and so on. This has been our second stop at the Downs, and the testimonies of the people who come here are pretty pheonmenal.
5/28/07
“average JoeOhio” Tour: We stumped in Oberlin, Ohio, during Commencement Weekend at Oberlin College. People from across the country were here for the ceremonies. A physician from Chicago told me he’d like to see a move toward a National Health Care System because so much money gets lost in advertising, insurance paper work, extraneous administrative costs… On a tour in 2005, an Auburn University “Healthcare Economist” professor told me these costs add up to almost one-third of healthcare costs in America… Commencement Speaker Connie Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, exhortedd students to make a difference by treating those who much of the society considers “nobodies” (waitresses, car valets, maids…) with more respect. She said this would include tipping better, salutaions of “Sir or ‘Mam,’ and so on. I couldn’t help but think a more apt social justice message for these highly privileged grads would be to exhort them to stridently work to change the system so, say, the migrant worker picking tomatoes is compensated the same as the stock broker pushing paper. Often, privilege merely begets privilege. But to assuage our conscience, we’ll tip better every once in awhile.
5/23/07
In solidarity, I sat in with a group of farmers during a Statehouse meeting in Columbus, Ohio, yesterday. These farmers tout the tremendous nutritional value of raw milk — as opposed to milk that is pastuerized. They explain that when milk is pastuerized, the heating process kills off a significant portion of the nutrients. Selling raw milk in Ohio, however, is currently illegal. Yet it is legal for family members on a farm to consume raw milk. And in recent years “herd share” programs have developed as a form of Community Sponsored Agriculture. People buy “shares” in a farmer’s cows, and as a result have access to raw milk from those cows as well. A representative from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources explained during the meeting that new Ohio Governor Ted Strickland grew up on a farm drinking raw milk and is supportive of the herd share programs. What’s more, these farmers have started a “Graziers Association” in Ohio to inspire more farmers to get involved with producing raw milk. They believe as this happens, the climate toward raw milk will change in kind. Note: These farmers’ cows are grass fed and most do everything on the farm organically. It is, indeed, environmental stewardship at it’s best. Professor Wayne Feister, who is on the faculty for the Ohio State University Medical School, attended the meeting. He said it is an irony that smoking cigarettes (with all their attendant health risks) is legal, but raw milk for mass consumption in Ohio is not… To learn more, go to www.theotherrawmilk.com