Opinion

The treat of fall foliage

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

McCook has been blessed with another half million dollar gift. Thank you Allen Strunk. I find it interesting that several families with youth that grew up in McCook and the surrounding area have enough love in their hearts for this community that they make generous gifts back to help make it an even better place to live, work and raise our children.

This place is beautiful this week with trees turning shades of bright yellow ranging to orange and brilliant reds. It is a transient thing but I hope that you have put the family in your car and taken a drive about town to savor the fall colors. It won’t last as Mother Nature will command the leaves to drop to prepare for our not too long winter season.

At the moment the FAA has me grounded so I can’t take the old Champ and explore the area from a low and slow altitude to enjoy the beauty of our local area. Memory though recalls a day years ago when I was flying a T-39 Saberliner for the Air Force a fore runner to what we now call business jets in the general aviation world. Our primary mission was to haul generals to their important meetings all around our great country.

Our mission that day was to fly to Plattsburg AFB, now closed, located in upstate New York just across town from Lake Champlain. Actually Vermont to the east and Quebec, Canada to the north are not far away. My friends that were stationed there loved the place. Normally when flying the jet Air Traffic Control would have us penetrate; throttles to idle about 100 miles away and descent at 4000 feet per minute. It was a clear fall day about this time of year and that day ATC descended us to about 1500 feet above the ground some 100 miles short of our destination. I guess that it was a public relations stunt because the ride was truly beautiful. The forest below was in full color, splendid to see and enjoy. People pay good money to tour New England at the season peak of fall color and here we were getting the experience for free. Why yes I fly airplanes---why do you ask?

This week (I write this on Sunday evening) we will be treated to a frustrating televised display of the Senate holding a hearing on the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to become the next justice of the Supreme Court. After the disgusting display of partisanship at the hearing for Judge Kavanagh anything may be possible. A big part of the questions will be on the fact that she reportedly is a member of a charismatic Catholic group and will be reasoning with strong Christian principles. Actually she will be bringing her foundation in Christian reasoning with her just as did the founders of our great country when they wrote our Constitution. A major bone of contention will be her stance on abortion for which the Constitution is silent. The Christion stance on abortion is that it is an abomination and those of strong faith are against the practice.

Sadly our great nation seems to be falling away from using Christian principles as a rule and guide to our lives. Many asking the questions of Mrs. Barrett have also most likely fallen away from living by Christianity as their rule and guide to life and seem to adhere to the idea that if it feels good do it. Obviously Amy Barrett feels, as Christianity teaches, that the strength of our society comes from raising a family, she has seven children, by a committed husband and wife in a loving household.

With a Republican Senate majority the odds are that Amy Barrett will be confirmed. In the near future then after a long record of 5-4 decisions in favor of the more liberal/leftist leaning Judges our Supreme Court will have again a more conservative majority. Such is the nature of politics. Why then is it necessary to dig out every negative bit of dirt in a candidate’s past life, all much imagined, so Senators in the negative can have a little facetime on national TV? Politics should be much better than that in this great country.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail

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