Goshen, Utah 1987

Spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties, our country put a really good foot forward today. As fate would have it, the phone rang just as President Obama was beginning to take the oath of office. It was a high school classmate calling to invite me to the 55 Year Reunion of our graduating class -- what there are left of us. I watch with the TV on "mute" as Obama faced Chief Justice John Roberts and raised his hand. I said to my caller that as we were speaking Obama was taking the oath, to which she replied: "Oh, I was trying to ignore that. With his hand on the Koran....." I interupted, "No, his hand on is the Lincoln Bible." "Oh, really?" she replied with a little surprise in her voice. I graduated a small high school just outside of Longview Texas: Judson Grove High School. Part of the Longview ISD now, but back in 1954, the year of my graduation, it was a small independent school district and we had only 23 seniors in the class. One of the reasons I left East Texas (joined the Navy to escape) was the small mindedness of the bible-thumping people I was in contact with almost daily. This woman who called today is probably a couple of years younger than me, still lives in the same house she lived in the 1950's, and even though she married, had childen, and now has grand children, she still clings to the beliefs as tired and old as herself. To our new President I say what I write at the end of most of my correspondence, ONWARD!