In Chicopee, Massachussetts, we talked with Jackie and Bob Mashia on our last tour. They have a modest, one-story ranch style home. On the roof are four solar panels that were put in in the early ’80s. Bob said the panels heat the water for the water heater and saves him, on average, $100 a month. The initial outlay for the panels, with a government rebate, was about $2,500. When you do the math, the Mashias have saved a considerable amount of money over the years and the environment has benefitted as well. The Mashias also have a large rain barrel out back. They use the rain water to water their garden. Note: Last year the Mashias took a homeless woman into their home for awhile. The reason: She needed a place and Jackie said its, well, what Jesus would do.
a city on the edge
We live in a hardscrabble urban area of Cleveland, Ohio. And a couple days ago, I broke up a fight between a couple kids out in front of our local Rec. Center. Now kids fighting happens. But down here the fights seem more frequent and more intense. What’s more, people down here just generally seem more defensive, more edgy. And it’s understandable. That is, people in the urban areas of our country are surrounded with more homicides, more gangs, more drugs… It’s a continual pressure cooker. Note: I recently completed a book that, I believe, has an excellent blue print for how to bring significant change to our urban areas. It’s titled: America’s Best Urban Neighborhood.
grassroots health care debate
On our last tour, we stopped in Lee, New Hampshire, where groups of Republicans and Democrats were demonstrating about health care reform on a public green there one morning. We stopped and talked to both sides. On the Republican side, the consensus, basically, was that health care in America wasn’t “broken” (although some of the group acknowledged it could use some changes). For instance, one woman said there should be a cap on money you can receive in health care lawsuits so, in turn, insurance to doctors and other health care providers wasn’t as high… On the Democrat side, people were primarily for the health care reform being proposed because they felt more people (especially the low-income people) should have more access to quality health care… Frederick Berrien, MD, from Exeter, New Hampshire, was lobbying for Universal Health Care coverage. In a paper he was passing out, he writes: “Universal health insurance will decrease overall costs by providing access to covered preventive services and lower cost acute care, thus preventing the progression of expensive illnesses. The uninsured and under-insured presently do not seek preventive care such as mammograms, hypertension treatment, etc. They also delay in obtaining care for acute illnesses until preventable problems have progressed to debilitating conditions…” Like, say, some stroke victims… The other day I was near the West Side Market in Cleveland and heard a distraught man telling a friend what he’d just witnessed at the Market. A man was apparently having a stroke, had slumped to the ground and someone was frantically calling 911 — when the victim looked up and pleaded with the caller to put down the phone. “I don’t have insurance and can’t pay for this!” The man relating the story shook his head and continued: “Ironically, those might have been the last words this man ever says. And we’re arguing about health care reform in this country?”
saving their (and our) ‘soles’
We’ve just made it back home to Cleveland, Ohio, for a pit stop and the next few entries will be catching up on some other highlights from this last tour… In Holden, New York, we talked with Jean Hach, who was a missionary in the small village of Nyery, Kenya. Elementary and high school students there were required to wear shoes. And the poverty was such, said Ms. Hach, that many of the students would walk barefoot to school carrying their shoes. And they would only wear them in school, so the soles would last… Several stops prior, I met with Richard Duffee who taught school in both the South Bronx, New York, and in India. “Third world poverty is a whole different creature,” said Duffee. “If you get any extra money in the Third World, you spend it on food… because many people there are slowly dying of malnutrition.” Duffee was so impacted by what he saw in India (families, for instance, living in six-feet wide huts with mud floors and two threadbare changes of clothes…), that he decided on a new income for himself, the “world average income.” That, by the way, is $9,543 a year. So every year since 1996, Duffee, who teaches law, has set aside $9,543 for his family of four — and the rest goes to Third World relief funds and other charitable funds. “Everyone has a right to an equal share of the world’s resources,” he told me.
Norman Rockwell and the Retro Pop Shop
We were in Sockbridge, Massachussetts, over the weekend. Stockbridge is in the Berkshire Mountains and boasts being the home of the National Norman Rockwell Museum. At one point, I was in the Stockbridge City Building looking at some Rockwell paintings. A man was standing beside me looking at the paintings as well. “That (1950s) was such a good era,” he said. “The line between right and wrong was a lot clearer than it is today. That all started to change in the ’60s.” …Later this day in Lee, Massachussetts, we came across the Retro Pop Shop (featuring: “vintage signs, cool memorabilia & more”). An absolutely amazing place chocked full of stuff from the ’50s. I told owner J. Pierre Duhan that we were asking the American public to go back to the ’50s — when there was a slower pace of life, neighbors helped neighbors more, and rotary phones made you actually think about whether you actually wanted to go to the effort of calling someone, or not. J. Pierre pointed around his shop at the neon pink flamingo, the old Coca Cola trays, stainless steel egg beaters… and said: “Cool, the ’50s is where I live man. You have my vote.” Note: A local paper here carried a front page newspaper piece this weekend saying this was the 40th-year anniversary of “Woodstock.” A time when ‘right and wrong’ started to blur significantly?
healthcare prevention, a protest and an ‘assassin’
Our tour up Route 1 continues… In Colonial Heights, Virginia, we talked with Ted Du Varney, 68, who has diabetes. (He actually looks like he’s in his early 50s.) He now charts everything he eats on a computerized graph and, well, everything he eats is quite healthy now. He said he’s turned the whole thing into a “game.” With all this talk about healthcare reform lately, shouldn’t this also include a significant amount of talk about: prevention?… Traveling further north, we stopped at a beach in Naragansett, Rhode Island, where our kids swam for the afternoon. The waves were, oh, a little bit bigger (and cleaner) than the ones we see back home at Lake Erie… We then headed further north, where we stood in solidarity with some people protesting abortion in front of a Planned Parenthood office in Biddeford, Maine… We concluded the Route 1 Tour in Biddeford and headed back west, stopping first in Haverhill, Massachussetts, where I talked at All Saints Church about abortion. I noted that we’ve crossed the 50 million abortion threshold mark in this country. By comparison, I said six million people were killed during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany… We then headed further west where we went to the YMCA in Hollyoke, Massachussetts. While lifting some weights, I over-heard a man in his early 20s talking about his “addiction.” He said he plays an “Assassin” video game for two to three hours every night. This, basically, is about “going around and killing people,” he said. What’s more, he said a new movie is coming out with the plot being about someone playing a similar game, but they actually control a real assassin who, basically, “goes around killing people.” Our culture is getting so absolutely nuts it’s unbelievable.
global warming, wind and a parrot named “Kiwi”
We continue along our campaign tour of Rte. 1 on the east coast… I gave a talk at St. Ann’s Church in Colonial Heights, Virginia. I said our lifestyles in America are significantly fueling global warming. And as weather patterns change, more arid countries are already experiencing drought and famine. I said this would be analogous to us collectively firing slow motion bullets at these other countries. A “pro-Life” issue? Sure… While in Colonial Heights, I interviewed Fr. Lou Ruoff who is the author of the book: Reflections. At one point, Fr. Ruoff worked at the Covenant House in New York City. This is a transition home for run away youth. And some of the stories were beyond tragic. One 12-year-old girl, for instance, was on the run for having killed her stepfather. So often these days, extreme parental abuse pushes kids over the edge… While in Colonial Heights, we also went to Henricus Village, which was the first English settlement in from Jamestown. This was the home of the first hospital in North America and the first college in North America (circa 1619). Note: When we started on Rte. 1, we met Terri Sipanzi and his family at Lucky’s Ice Cream Place in southern Virginia (just off Rte. 1). He approached us with a green parrot (“Kiwi”) on his shoulder. He and his wife Barb have the company Precision Windsports, Inc. in Lynchburg, Virginia. Terri said the business is in a tail spin (pun intended) because of the economy — these kind of hobbies being the first to go from someone’s budget.
Softball with Iran?
Catching up on some of our recent backroads campaigning… Just outside Huntington, West Virginia, I interviewed Frank Holcomb from Point Pleasant in Mason County. He is a retired state trooper. Several years prior, he had answered a domestic violence call and was shot in the leg. He became disabled because of the injury and had to retire early. Officer Holcomb has a wife, two young children and is a member of New Hope Bible Baptist Church. We talked about how society was becoming more violent as a whole and I said it was my belief those who put themselves in harm’s way day in and day out should be compensated accordingly… While in Huntington, West Virginia, we spent time on the Marshall University campus. On Saturday Nov. 14, 1970, the Marshall University football team and staff (75 people in all) crashed just before reaching the Tri-State Airport runway while returning from a game. Everyone was killed… While in Huntington, we also talked with Grattan Gannon . His wife inherited the “Hatfield Cemetery.” That’s right, the ‘Hatfield’ of Hatfield’s and McCoy’s fame. We were told there’s not much fuedin’ going on these days. In fact, the families get together for an annual softball game each year now. After hearing this, I couldn’t help but ruminate that maybe that’s the answer to a lot of these current international conflicts (with Iran, North Korea…). Maybe we should all get together for some softball games. (And some actually intimate I’m weak on foreign policy. Ha!) Note: Gratten is an absolutely fabulous story teller, the Garrison Keillor of Appalachia, if you will. And, in ‘down home’ fashion, he told us that at one of the funerals at the cemetery, a rather cantancerous Hatfield was on his way to his burial. He was in a coffin on the back of a pick-up truck. The cemetery is at the top of a rather steep hill and as the pick-up was climbing it, the coffin slid off and created quite a ruckus. “See, even dead I knew Jeb was still going to mess this thing up,” one mourner (sort of) was heard to say.
Green Party Convention
We headed into Durham, North Carolina, for the Green Party National Convention. The Green Party, in my estimation, is tremendously forward thinking on a good number of issues, including the environment. They are on the cutting edge, for instance, of promoting “green economics.” That is, the party promotes a shift to much more: renewable energy, local production for local consumption, alternative transportation… I recently told an online newspaper in Huntington, West Virginia, that I saw climate change as a “pro-Life issue.” No world, no life… The Green Party is also quite strong on issues involving diversity, social justice and grassroots democracy. Note: While in Durham, I took our boys to a Saturday night Durham Bulls Minor League Baseball game. We sat on the lawn beyond the center field fence and had an absolutely great time. What’s more, it cost only 20 bucks for the three of us (and that included getting a pop in an “official” Durham Bulls big plastic cup).
whirlwind in Huntington, WV
We’ve stayed in Huntington, West Virginia (pop. 50,000) the last week amidst a whirlind of activity. I was interviewed by the online newspaper here and Channel 3 News did an interview during a whistle-stop event we held downtown. Last Sunday I talked at all the weekend Masses at St. Joseph’s Church about pro-Life issues. We then met with columnist Patrick Grace, who is with Huntington’s Herald Dispatch newspaper. We were on the same page with Mr. Grace when it comes to holding a Consistent Life Ethic. That is, this sets us against abortion, euthanasia, poverty, pollution and anything else that can end life prematurely… We also stumped in the Jolly Pirate Donut place here with some guys at the counter who had seen the Channel 3 News spot. One said: “Whatever you do, don’t say anything against coal as you’re touring West Virginia.” This still didn’t convince me that speaking against blowing the tops off mountains to get to the coal isn’t called for.