Page 3 - Sanger Herald 5-10-18 E-edition

SANGER HERALD 3A THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2018 EDITORIAL & OPINION
By Dick Sheppard
from a nearby spigot, and we drank from a "dipper."
My mom and dad, two sisters and my brother and I lived in the metal cabin. I was probably 6 or 7 years old, the youngest in the family.
We all worked in the fields.
Between crops my dad looked for a steady job in towns around Linnel, Farmersville, Visalia and Tulare.
He was quiet and intense and didn't inter- act with us kids very much. Looking back, he was probably overwhelmed with the realiza- tion that California was not the land of golden opportunity he had been led to believe.
My mom sang a lot - always church songs. She seemed happy – even though, I know she must have been just as worried as my dad.
She hugged us a lot.
She made sure we ate our meals and kept clean and picked up after ourselves. She patched up my brother and me when we got into scuffles with other boys in the camp.
She sewed shirts and dresses for us out of feed and flour sacks.
She always fixed us breakfast and supper - no matter how early or late we had to be in the fields.
We didn't work on Sunday and when visi- tors came she never let them leave without serving them a snack or sometimes a full meal. She worried if they had traveled far and urged them to, "stay the night" – and we made, "pallets on the floor," and somehow, in the morning, she managed to find something else to feed them before they went home.
Sometimes it was only biscuits soaked in "bacon drippings" and drizzled with sorghum molasses or "Karo" corn syrup.
There were camp workers at Linnel – vol- unteers maybe – women with little white starched aprons who, on certain days, looked at my throat, took my temperature and gave me and the other Okie kids a little cup of orange juice and cod liver oil and talked about us as though we were not capable of understanding what they were saying.
One day my mom heard them talking about me – "the little pigeon-chested Okie boy who would probably grow up to be a drunk like his daddy."
That was the first time I had ever seen my mother mad.
Real mad.
She let those women know – in front of everyone – that I was a smart and a good boy and I would grow up to be, "somebody!"
She took me back to our cabin, hugged me and told me I could grow up to be whatever I wanted to be – not to pay any attention to
those women.
We left Linnel soon after that.
My mom was strong, confident, brave and
optimistic. She worked hard. She had a good sense of humor. She shared whatever she had with others but didn't put up with people try- ing to take advantage of her.
She shaped my early years – my early atti- tudes and priorities.
I like to believe I turned out a little like her. All her Okie kids turned out pretty well – at least a lot better than the orange juice-cod liver oil ladies expected. I forgave them a long time ago.
As my mama used to say, "They probably meant well – they just didn't know any bet- ter."
She was 93 years old when she died in 1994.
Happy Mother's Day mom! •••
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Random thoughts A Mother's Day inspired memory of long ago in a farm labor camp ...
Mother's Day is this Sunday and I have a few special not so random thoughts about that.
A few years ago, with Mother's Day around the corner, I shared an early memory of my mother and I've been asked if I would reprint part of that column for this Mother's Day.
Here it is:
I'm an Okie.
My friends sometimes call me a redneck
and while I consider that a compliment not all Okies are rednecks and not all rednecks are Okies.
I came to California from Oklahoma with my family in an old Chevy pickup in the late 30's.
My first real memories of my mother in California are at Linnel Farm Labor Camp in Tulare County, near Farmersville. It was one of the first places we settled in the San Joaquin Valley.
We lived there in a small, metal cabin. We had to go to another building to use a bath- room and to take a shower. We brought drink- ing water into the cabin in a bucket, filled
In my OPINION
"Government's first duty is to protect the
people, not run their lives." -
Dick Sheppard
1920 or '21 ... my dad and mom are in the back row on the far left ... 16 or 17 years before I was born ... before migrating from Oklahoma to California ... before Linnel Farm Labor Camp ... way, way before Sanger ... my roots ...
We welcome guest columns at the Herald
prove that one of the parties (the husband) wasdeceased.
It took three trips to the Department of Motor Vehicles and numerous visits with the widow to gather enough information to gain title to a $2,500 former church van which we had purchased for the delivery of newspa- pers. Their final complaint, before they final- ly gave up and accepted our money, was that they couldn't be sure it was really the lady's signature although her name had been signed to numerous documents they requested.
This just seemed like an appropriate
time to raise such an issue when a possible presidential candidate has announced that he intends to campaign on a platform of more government workers. There is a whole alphabet soup of these people who include such “understanding and cooperative” agen- cies such as The Internal Revenue and the Department of Motor Vehicles. They regu- late, dictate and restrict just about every- thing that American citizens can do. Do we really need or want more of them with their arcane way of thinking and reasoning?
But, as always, that's only one man's opin- ion.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the disgust which I feel every day as I watch the Democrats, the Washington establishment, the press and Robert Mueller's group of biased investigators continue their attempt to destroy Donald Trump, his family, campaign personnel,WhiteHousestaffandvirtually anyone who ever knew him. The damage this aforementioned gang is inflicting is not only professionally but financially and personally as well. Thanks, basically to Rod Rosenstein this group of “character assassins” have been given carte blanche with the Federal treasury to pursue Trump and his allies with no appar- ent crime or limits.
In addition to the Sanger Herald, Publisher Fred Hall oversees two other Mid Valley Publishing newspapers - Reedley Exponent, and Dinuba Sentinel. He can be contacted by phone at (559) 638-2244 or by email at fred@
By Fred Hall
With a little over one
year having passed since
the election of Donald
Trump as President of
The United States and the
Democrats continuing to
litigate that historical mes-
sage to the Washington
establishment, we noticed
that Bernie Sanders is already beginning to make waves about a 2020 bid for that office.
A major part of Senator Sanders' slate
has already been released to the press and pollshavebeentakenatthisearlystage. The Senator is proposing free college for every- one, free healthcare for everyone, and a guar- anteed wage as well as a guaranteed job for everyAmerican. Wanttoknowsomething scary? Thepollingwhichhasbeendoneso far indicates that 46 percent of the people agreewithhisposition. Sanderssaysthat
if the private sector is unable to provide the jobs the government will make employment available.
Given a choice of continuing to remain on welfare and feed at the public trough wasn't mentioned but it seems to me that the job description of the two is fairly indistinguish- able.
I cite this to use as a segue to our recent dealings with one of those agencies which “serves” the public in California.
Over the span of 59 years, during which
I have owned and operated a large number of vehicles, there was always a lingering suspicion that employees—and their man- agement—of The Department of Motor Vehicles were trained at a special school which required irrational thinking and total ignoranceofcommunicationskills. Guess what? WhenImovedtoCaliforniaabout
30 years ago all those suspicions were vali- dated. CaliforniaDMV,you'renumberone! There should be an award for that because they seem to relish in the obstreperousness displayedtowardtheircustomers. Lasttime I checked, their salaries are paid by those in the public they are supposed to assist.
We found, among numerous other things, that classic grammar usage goes right out thewindow. Somethingthatisgrammatically correct has an entirely different meaning tothosepeople. Caseinpointwouldbethe use of a slash to separate the names of the twopeopleonacartitle. Inpropergram- mar such usage of the slash (also known as
a solidus or virgule) indicates a choice of the namesormorecommonly,thewordor. They argued that in DMV language it means and. That left us with the dilemma of having to
Fred Hall
Ronald Reagan
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