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Don Locke: Looking Through Bifocals

How about a little YONDERING this trip? When one of our granddaughters was young, she asked, "What do you and Grandmamma mean when you say, 'over yonder?'"

Yonder is a pretty good word. You can say over yonder, back yonder, down yonder, or up yonder.

Someone said, "We can learn more from those who have gone before us (back yonder) than all the coffeehouse intellectuals and philosophers lined up from here-to-yon (yonder)."

***
Both of my granddaddys called a bicycle a "wheel." "Son, where's your wheel?" I never really knew why until I first saw a picture of an early bicycle. It had one really, really tall wheel in front with a pedal on each side of the axle, like a tricycle; close behind were handlebars and a seat. This all ran, via a long curved bar down to a small wheel in back. Hence a "wheel."

***
We keep learning things even in older age. Have you ever wondered where the word "FIRED" (as in being dismissed from a job) came from? We've all more than likely heard of the vigilanties back in the old days. . .a bunch of people who took the law into their own hands. Sometimes they would whip a person, or worse, sometimes hang. When they decided a person needed to be run-off, they would burn his house down. They had FIRED him.

Western writeer Louis LaMour talked about so-called "vigilante justice" on the frontier: "The danger lies in there being no due process of law brought about by legal authority. Maybe it started off with good intentions, but too often a personal vendettas, or settling old scores got in the way. Often innocent folks were hurt or killed.

My daddy used to tell a story of a vigilante group called the "Possum Hunters." They ad this ole guy tied up in the back of a wagon. On the way down the road, they met an old man with a load of corn in his wagon. They all stopped. The man in the corn wagon said, "Where you-all taking ole Joe?"

"Well," they said, "we're taking him out here where we are gonna tie him to a tree and whip him. He won't work, or see after his wife and kids. We're gonna see if a good whipping wil cure this."

"Don't do that," the old man on the corn wagon replied, "I've got a load of corn here; I'll give him part of it."

About that time, ole Joe raised up and inquired, "Is it shelled?"

"No," the man with the corn answered.

Joe looked at that big load of corn and said, "DRIVE ON."

***
Tom Brokaw wrote a book entitled "The Greatest Generation." It centered around those who served and fought in World War II. We are told these veterans of WWII are dying at the rate of 1500 per day. At that rate, the remaining ones won't last long. Of course, I feel like those who have served in all our wars are the greatest. They all left the comfort of hearth and home to go and be subjected to fear, terror, death, and pain.

And what is puzzling about it is most of those who have "seen the elephant" won't talk anything about the actual fighting; they will only tell the amusing things that happened.

My old friend and fellow teacher, Kermit Dwyer, was in the last battle of the Phillippine Islands during World War II. He said in one battle his unit was held in reserve behind the lines. There was a call for a volunteer to take a message to the front. This ding-bat of a guy stepped-up and said he would take it; he got in a Jeep and took off. When he got back, they asked him how his trip went.

"Well," he said. "I got there and delivered the message. Before I got ready to come back, I asked this sergeant, 'Just where is the front line?' The sergeant said, 'You're standing on it.' I jumped in the Jeep and got outta there quick. I'll be that sergeant is cussin me for slinging mud all over him."

Kindest regards.

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