Tomorrow
Must Be For Kids!

They grow up faster.

They learn faster and understand more.

They love to use computers.

They love to play electronic games. But they still have the same needs you faced when you were a child,, a need for stability, a home of safety where love is a wall and a shield that keeps darkness out and defies the forces of darkness for their sake.
They need books where courage is a buckler and a shield, where magic is still used for good, where the pretty princess finds her fair prince and brings him home to rule from a golden throne beside her.

X-rays and microbes were only the beginning; today we have sounds coming crystal clear from our radios that started from somewhere far away, around the world, and phones that can tell time and take pictures and text the guy next to us just like s/he was a thousand miles away. We have televisions that can interact with the muscles of our bodies and so teach us how to surf an ocean wave, win a game of bowling and keep multiple bands of hula hoops spinning simultaneously. Consequently, children need a sound education providing basic tools of knowledge that peel back the frontiers of science revealing the fabric of reality and establish understanding of how the world really works.

Yet, just as the world is about to demand more of our children than ever before, it is painfully clear to our children that bullies still stalk the streets. Indeed, today the bullies seem to be more vicious than ever. Bullies are initiates of hatred working hard to learn how to become criminals, pushing, shoving, forcing, compromising, demanding reverence and obedience from those less vicious than they are.

Can we claim to remember, much less teach children, how we used our wits to push our bullies back into the realm of darkness where they belong when our grownup world is still threatened and often ruled by men of corruption wielding their clubs of terror and drugs of despair? Whole nations are ruled by thugs today, thugs that first learned how to exercise unrighteous dominion on our school grounds and our school buses.

If man would claim the cosmos he must first protect his own hearth and teach the twin virtues of courage and compassion both by precept, and by example.

Read
these other essays now.

Symbols of Easter  *  My First Merry Christmas

Pray for your spouse because in these treacherous times there are forces threatening us in the workplace as never before.

Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation  

1984 is defiantly upon us.  In their FAMILY PLANNING section, drug Stores today often have shelf after shelf and counter after counter filled with -- shall we say "Casual Mating Goods". Nurturing the family in these times, may help us keep our eyes where they belong.

Tomorrow Must Be For Kids.  What are the issues, what are the solutions? Where can the answers be found?

The recipe for keeping the modern family together still begins in the kitchen.

Some of J. T. Hale's ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence.  Nathan Hale is counted as one of his relatives.  (They come from the same Hale family)  These are parts of his own personal heritage but ALL the signers of the Declaration are part of every American's heritage.  That means Nathan Hale can be a hero to all of us.  After all, if you go back far enough all of us are related to kings, queens, and all the other rapscallions too.

Why do we give Carte Blanche to all the child molesters we know? 

When Cancer comes again, a very special essay written by Jeannie Nugent, reprinted with permission from the Stuttgart Daily Leader.

When You Thought I Wasn't looking.  Words we all long to hear.

Curing Bad Credit  A step-by-step guide to honestly making bad credit all right again.

I've learned, I have!  I've not had the best time of my life! But, I have learned to accept the bad with the good. You do not know what your life will bring tomorrow, so enjoy all that you've been given today.

This isn't an essay about the family, but it may spark a thousand bright memories in your family, You now have access to download a very special cookbook with 333 pages of good old sweet treasures you can make at home for the family you love.

Free Scholarships for your young scholar. It takes hours online every day to update, research and verify all four thousand of the Scholarship offerings available. YOU can get all that information for FREE. The Scholarship Directory contains textually enhanced links to over 4,000 websites where you can register for all types of Scholarships and Grants for your children. Download the Directory for free, and while you're at it, take the time to register for a FREE Scholarship worth $10,000.00

They sat around moping when Daddy died because he had not left them any legacy. They were so down in the mouth that I stood up and volunteered to pay Daddy back for that time he drove 350 miles to get me when my car blowed up and my whole family was stranded on the road. "I figure that kind of service call is worth a thousand dollars because he kind of done it on credit and I never paid the bill. I'll put that in the pot for yawl a legacy to divide up." 

Down with the Willow... Daddy always was a better man than I;  How do you deal with that?  The willow tree was bigger than both of us.

The Debt Management Cure To Our Financial Woes.

A Christmas Quiz:   How much do you really know about Christmas? How much of what you think about Christmas is Bible and how much is world? Could you pass the following quiz on this topic? Test your knowledge. There are no trick questions, but you might be surprised by some of the answers. The answers are at the end of the quiz.

Whistle -- an inspirational Father's Day Story told because the promises we forget are usually the ones never forgot.

The First Day of School is always the toughest, by Lin Stone

There Are Gypsies In My Dreams 

Pretty Pictures taken by a father who might could have been something.  If only, if only.

Smiles, by Filomena Borsellino.  A smile is the sweetest Treasure on Earth.

Michael was not my problem.  When he first came to us he was a bundle of boyish energy, too large for his age and too bright for his years. It was said that he ran his poor grandmother to death, and having seen them together I believed it. It’s strange. All of us believed it, but none of us helped, not like we should have. Oh, we hoped she could hold out, and some of us probably prayed God would give her more strength. But somehow we all felt Michael was HER problem, and not ours.

The Ice Cream "Comb" by Rick Beneteau because Quitting is never an option.

Ice Memories that never get cold, by Lin Stone

I Can't Remember You:  That first shock of being forgotten by someone we love is enough to turn our world upside down.  All I could think of to say was, "I am someone you have been very kind to over many years." 

Kids and Sunday School, by J. Edgar Hoover.

Grandma's Bath Tub, an essay of love by Lin Stone

A history of showers and bathtubs

Doing the Dishes:  Take pride in who you are and what you like doing, even if there are some to this day who believe that gender should decide what we like or dislike and that doing the dishes is for sissies. 

Living with Spina Bifida, a poet's story.

The Hug.. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we can't get what we want until we give it away to someone else first.

Remember Grandpa:  Nearly 17 years later, I can still hear grandpa's laughter, still smell grandma's coffee, still shiver at the memory of how cold those rivers were.

Why Teach Your Child To Read?  Reading problems are a further challenge to our world.  They contribute significantly to the perpetuation of socio-economic, racial and ethnic inequities. However it is not just poor and minority children who struggle with reading. According to the 2002 national report card on reading by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 64% of our children are less than proficient in reading even after 12 years of public schooling attempts to teach them.

Good Old Dave