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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
For decades now, I have been the victim of several narrow-minded individuals who constantly insist that I am a man behind the times when in fact I was far-sighted enough to realize that social distancing would be an important survival skill. I hope now that I finally get my due for being far enough ahead of the times that I am the most accomplished on the planet at this practice now so necessary for the saving of the world – with only one notable exception, he has just been at it longer.
I have thought far enough ahead to be well supplied to honor St. Patrick’s Day in fine, solo style. Crowds and parades are over-rated anyway!
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
There are some who believe there are strong bloodlines that will always show themselves and their qualities when the test is put to the individuals carrying them. That goes for both critters and people.
Harry Vold began making his way in life as an auctioneer in his native Alberta, like his father. But also like his father, he was a sure-enough cowboy who traded in livestock as well. He especially liked trading in bucking horses in a time when there were plenty of spoiled saddled horses around. He more or less drifted into supplying such animals to rodeos and developed a keen eye for finding bulls that would both buck and fight.
By 1967, he had begun his second career as a rodeo producer and had moved south of the Medicine Line to southern Colorado. In 1970 he formally launched the Harry Vold Rodeo Co. which became the standard for the next few decades. Vold was one of the very first to raise his own bucking stock. In those days it was considered easy to search the country for spoiled horses and cross-bred bulls with an edge on them. But Vold waved off the advice of the great Harry Knight and began his own breeding program. He believed in breeding “the best to the best” and the bucking horses he produced are legends beginning with the great General Custer who produced a line with five different “Bucking Horses of the Year” to its credit. Later, there was a string of years when a Vold horse won the honor for six straight years. Crooked Nose was not only his first Bucking Bull of the Year but was a notorious fighter as well. Harry Vold was named the PRCA’s Rodeo Producer of the Year a record 11 times.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
Recently I had the pleasure of listening to Lt. Col. Allen West speak during the service of a local church. His presence and purpose, as much as the words of his excellent message, brought to mind something that I had been mentally digesting since the recent death of the British philosopher and writer Sir Roger Scruton. Both Col. West and Sir Roger serve up mental meals far richer than this poor cook can scramble together but I do have a few beginning bites partially digested enough to serve up a notion or two from them.
It was Scruton’s reflection on faith and family that I had been pondering. He had taken to task the need for government to tout so-called “family-friendly” policies. He contended that when the health of a nation’s faith was solid, the fate of the family was secure. He did not discount the importance and need of a strong family culture for the nation to flourish. But the foundation of that family culture was not in policy but the strong faith of individuals. A nation with a strong culture of faith will have strong families which keep the values of the faith, culture, and nation alive.
It should go without saying that the opposite is also true. So, it might be reasonable when questioning the cultural decline of a nation or society to look first to the strength of its faith traditions. It might also be reasonable for those who wish to pull down a culture or nation to start with that most fundamental element of its foundation.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
In October of 1863, southwestern Colorado Territory was months into a murder spree that would put any modern serial killer to shame. But Lieutenant Colonel Samuel F. Tappan thought he might well be looking at a chance to end it for good.
Leander Philbrook had stumbled into Fort Garland with word that he had escaped the murderers after they had shot the mules he was driving. He had been traveling by wagon between Trinidad and Costilla with Maria Dolores Sanches when attacked. The man and woman had fled on foot but soon Maria had hidden in some rocks so as not to slow down Philbrook while he searched for help.
A detachment sent by Tappan to rescue the woman met Maria on the way. She was able to confirm that she and Philbrook had been attacked by Felipe Espinosa and his nephew Jose Vincente. She had come out of hiding when a Hispanic man came by driving a cart and was asking him for help when the killers caught her. They told the man to go on his way (after robbing him) and to tell “them” that it was the Espinosas who had killed her when her body was found. They then brutally raped the woman and then tied her to a tree to continue a search for Philbrook, telling her they would come back to rape her some more and kill her after they found the man.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
A line taken from my favorite uneducated crafter of words goes: “it has taken me so long, but now I know I believe; all that I do or say is all I ever will be.” Words and Actions. I would like briefly to turn attention to four individuals who have not only authored magnificent words but backed them with lifetime action, examples to us all of human strength, reasoned insight and a keen understanding of the American vision. There are American to the core.
I find it more than timely that a man who is known for having few publicly spoken words but who has (in my limited opinion) written the very best, deepest and most poetic Supreme Court opinions of the last several decades has decided to offer up a straight-forward narration of his remarkable life’s journey in the recently released film CREATED EQUAL. Clarence Thomas has gifted us with his story before in his memoir My Grandfather’s Son. But this film not only adds the visual to that compelling story but also the direct and sincere voice of the man who lived it. There are individuals whose stories greatly help us to become not just better citizens and Americans but human beings also. Thomas’s story and character are both examples of this.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
Mitt Romney has been able to make himself feel relevant again, for a fleeting moment, to the class that really matters to him. The major media network NBC, its baby sister known as MSNBC, as well as CNN have all declared him a “profile in courage”. All those who hate the existence of Donald Trump, because he has proven to actually be relevant, are allowing Romney another five minutes or so of self-delusion before he will again fade back into their midst. When tested his conservatism wasn’t that severe after all.
We all want to feel relevant to those that matter most to us. Sometimes the key to our inner peace is the honest definition of what they are. And yes, they can change depending on our rate of maturity or insight.
Yesterday, February 5, 2020, was not the first time we have seen Romney buckle when faced with being an outcast from the class where he feels the warmest. It came in front of us all in a televised debate. He allowed himself to be cowed by a biased “journalist” whose name we can barely recall from pressing the very relevant point that the Obama administration had willfully abandoned Americans to die in a foreign land.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
With the unveiling of the latest “bombshell” to extend and draw out the sham impeachment of Donald Trump, some have compared the perfected timed leak from John Bolton’s book to the final stages of the Kavanaugh hearings. The whole thing is in effect over, with the left seeming to hold a losing hand. Then suddenly here comes a “new source” who can turn the tide. It is a false claim but it does its job of delaying and also adding to the smear which will remain as a stain on its subject. In Justice Kavanaugh’s case, it was an easily proven false claim from long ago. But the leftist tactic goes back deeper into history than that.
It was almost exactly the method used on probably one of the top five Justices we have ever had on the Supreme Court (I would say top three), Clarence Thomas. Thomas had already worked his way through the briar-patch of the hearings proving to all that the leftists led by a younger but just as corrupt Joe Biden was no match on subjects such as the Constitution. But the hearings were reopened when the “surprise” accusation from Anita Hill was sprung.
In a Reagan-like moment, Thomas discarded advice about not challenging the integrity of the Senators and confronted them face-to-face with his “lynching” reply. It is a moment worth reviewing in this age of easily found video. Justice Thomas is face-to-face with Joe Biden and delivers a message that is not just timeless but is an exact fit for us right now. If one wants to compare the quality of either man, watch that video.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
On January 21, 2020, one could easily be flooded with pointless, repetitive, and dishonest speech-making if they allowed themselves to be held captive by the pointless, repetitive, and dishonest media coverage of a political party’s effort to rewrite the text and intent of the Constitution. But there was a speech given that day worth noting … and taking to heart.
To know of it, one had to shift their attention from the floor of the Senate to a snow-clad ski resort in Switzerland. The gathering was of internationals “elites” and entitled the World Economic Forum. One of its stated objectives is to “improve the state of the world.” They were told exactly how to do it.
President Trump gave perhaps his best speech. And despite the impression you can get from media bursts, he has given a few very good ones.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
We are now formally into exactly the type of sham that the Framers argued against at the Constitutional Convention. One has only to read the clearest record of that discussion (Madison’s Notes) with even the most elementary understanding to know the whole process was to prevent this type of partisan action by the House.
The Articles of Impeachment were finally released from their hostage status in the House by yet another embarrassing Pelosi moment as she announced the seven House managers for this latest installment of a three-plus-year drama. Flanked by Chairmen Nadler and Schiff, she rambled about “time” long and confusingly enough that even Jerry Nadler briefly moved out of his trance-like gaze into nothing for a second or two to foster speculation that perhaps his months-long coma had ended. Adam Schiff also let those weasel eyes drift toward the heavens a few times as if to be asking for an end to the Speaker’s speaking – or perhaps a clue as to what the hell she was saying.
All of this so that Madam Speaker, who prays for the President each and every night as any good Catholic girl would, might take commemorative pens in hand to sign over the Articles to the Senate. While claiming this to be a grim and painful duty, she carefully signed the Articles one letter at a time to hand out the commemorative pens to proud accomplices. Ever the good soldier, she was able to hide the pain of the moment behind a satisfied smirk.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
He was the only man in the Continental Army who served as a general throughout the whole Revolutionary War, except for George Washington. He never won a major battle. One of his early decisions cost Washington almost half his army. A good part of the war, he was a “desk soldier,” champing at the bit to be allowed another battle command. Outside of Washington, there is no one more responsible for the army’s success.
On the surface, it would have seemed that Nathanael Greene had little chance to become a great military leader. He was born into a Quaker sect that not only opposed war but discouraged “literary accomplishments.” From childhood, he walked with a decided limp. His father was a successful farmer and smith with a large foundry.
The young Nathanael found ways around his faith’s boundaries. He became self-taught in the classics, mathematics, law, and yes, military science. Shortly before his father’s death, he was given charge of the family business.
Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
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Summers was raised in a rural, agricultural family, survived a fun filled college career which consisted mostly of rodeo and football with just enough brain cells to fool some gulible professors type
I don’t often read fiction anymore and hardly ever unless it has a historical context. Recently, I was convinced to order a copy of Oliver North’s book. It is a prequel to some other novels he has written and is titled TheRifleman (no, it has nothing to do Chuck Conners – might have dated myself on that one). I have only begun reading the book, but I am looking forward to it capturing (I hope) the flavor of one of my very favorite Revolutionary heroes, Daniel Morgan.
But the novel has caused me to dig up something that I wrote in another place and time with Morgan more or less at the center. I might have retouched it slightly since it was written in a darker time during the first term of Fearless Leader Obama and it is hardly intended to be a definitive piece.
But in a time when some among us seem to prefer that those who defend or advance our freedoms and ideals be more proper and civil, it reminds us that all heroes are flawed but does not diminish their worth or purpose. It also brings some reflection that perhaps in another time Daniel Morgan could well have been a reasonable choice for Secretary of Defense in a Trump administration – or even FBI Director, we could only hope!
There are some who believe there are strong bloodlines that will always show themselves and their qualities when the test is put to the individuals carrying them. That goes for both critters and people.
Recently I had the pleasure of listening to Lt. Col. Allen West speak during the service of a local church. His presence and purpose, as much as the words of his excellent message, brought to mind something that I had been mentally digesting since the recent death of the British philosopher and writer Sir Roger Scruton. Both Col. West and Sir Roger serve up mental meals far richer than this poor cook can scramble together but I do have a few beginning bites partially digested enough to serve up a notion or two from them.
In October of 1863, southwestern Colorado Territory was months into a murder spree that would put any modern serial killer to shame. But Lieutenant Colonel Samuel F. Tappan thought he might well be looking at a chance to end it for good.
Mitt Romney has been able to make himself feel relevant again, for a fleeting moment, to the class that really matters to him. The major media network NBC, its baby sister known as MSNBC, as well as CNN have all declared him a “profile in courage”. All those who hate the existence of Donald Trump, because he has proven to actually be relevant, are allowing Romney another five minutes or so of self-delusion before he will again fade back into their midst. When tested his conservatism wasn’t that severe after all.
With the unveiling of the latest “bombshell” to extend and draw out the sham impeachment of Donald Trump, some have compared the perfected timed leak from John Bolton’s book to the final stages of the Kavanaugh hearings. The whole thing is in effect over, with the left seeming to hold a losing hand. Then suddenly here comes a “new source” who can turn the tide. It is a false claim but it does its job of delaying and also adding to the smear which will remain as a stain on its subject. In Justice Kavanaugh’s case, it was an easily proven false claim from long ago. But the leftist tactic goes back deeper into history than that.
On January 21, 2020, one could easily be flooded with pointless, repetitive, and dishonest speech-making if they allowed themselves to be held captive by the pointless, repetitive, and dishonest media coverage of a political party’s effort to rewrite the text and intent of the Constitution. But there was a speech given that day worth noting … and taking to heart.
We are now formally into exactly the type of sham that the Framers argued against at the Constitutional Convention. One has only to read the clearest record of that discussion (Madison’s Notes) with even the most elementary understanding to know the whole process was to prevent this type of partisan action by the House.
He was the only man in the Continental Army who served as a general throughout the whole Revolutionary War, except for George Washington. He never won a major battle. One of his early decisions cost Washington almost half his army. A good part of the war, he was a “desk soldier,” champing at the bit to be allowed another battle command. Outside of Washington, there is no one more responsible for the army’s success.
I don’t often read fiction anymore and hardly ever unless it has a historical context. Recently, I was convinced to order a copy of Oliver North’s book. It is a prequel to some other novels he has written and is titled The Rifleman (no, it has nothing to do Chuck Conners – might have dated myself on that one). I have only begun reading the book, but I am looking forward to it capturing (I hope) the flavor of one of my very favorite Revolutionary heroes, Daniel Morgan.