Honoring a fine young man from Frankfort

Travis Clark, the son of Steve and Susan Clark, is now serving with the Marines in Iraq.

I've known his mom and dad for several years.  Steve is a firefighter and Susan's a nurse, so he comes by his attitude toward public service from influences at home, seems to me.

Travis was recently promoted to corporal and here's a picture from the ceremony.  Travis is the tall young man with the sunglasses to the right of the officer wearing the shoulder holster rig -

At a time when so many of the young people in this country don't have a clue what's going on in the world, don't think critically and don't have any love for their country I am thrilled to see an superlative young man like Travis volunteering to go into harm's way to serve his nation and defend us from a merciless and implacable enemy.

From an guy who's slowing down and getting creaky but was once upon a time a strac young Sgt. E-5 in the US Army, let me say to this young Marine -

OUTSTANDING!  Semper Fi!

As long as young men such as Travis choose to serve their nation there's still hope for our future.

Congratulations!!!

It's so strange when the boys that you knew as infants and toddlers and teens become parents.
But that's the way of life, growing, changing, aging, renewing.
Now Sellus Wilder and Jessie Bessinger have a lovely new baby girl, Jamison Elise Bessinger!


What a beauty, and already smiling!
Thank God she looks like her mother. :-D
Way to go, kids!

Building a community? Not like this, they're not.

There's a coffee house in Frankfort, the Kentucky Coffeetree Cafe, where my daughter worked just after graduating high school.

(photo by Scott Beale, www.laughingsquid.com)

It was recently taken over by a young couple who just had their first baby. They're earnest and enthusiastic, and by all appearances very liberal. They've spoken in the press about their desire to encourage a sense of community and involvement in the downtown. To that end, they've provided computers and wifi in the cafe, and encouraged musical and literary events.

They have good coffee, and the dogs and I have enjoyed a lot of sausage biscuits, scones and muffins there. I make it a point to try to patronize local businesses as much as I can, and have encouraged everyone I know to do the same.

But that might be about to end.

While the cafe's former owners, current owners and the majority of its clientele have always been obviously liberal in their politics, and some of the expressions of that leaning have been annoying, the introduction of one particular product in the store may be the tipping point for me, leading me to avoid patronizing them in future.

This is a coffee cup with the title "I have a dream!" which has on it a map of the USA with the now-classic red and blue states depicted. But when you fill it with hot coffee (or chai, or holistic green tea, or whatever young lefties slurp) ALL the states turn to BLUE! Yup, the dream is a map devoid of any red (Republican) states.

I'm only nominally a Republican and have been pretty annoyed with the GOP many times. I'm only supporting McCain because I fear an Obamanation and think Sarah Palin's a good thing. But I very much dislike such partisanship in a store that professes to want to build "community" and spouts all the other buzz words that go along with that.

I haven't told them about it yet, but I intend to, and to point them to this blog as well so that they can reply if they wish.

But until they can start stocking bi-partisan products that embrace both sides of the political spectrum, the dogs and I will get our morning repast from another vendor. Too bad. The coffee's pretty good and the dogs like the cranberry muffins a lot.

Yet another blog?

There were things that I wanted to say about my home town of Frankfort, Kentucky that didn't fit into the context of the "Bloggo The Dog Boy" blog and were much more focussed on local events.
So now, yet another self-indulgent web page cluttering up cyberspace.
But I gots things to say 'bout Frankfort and the folks in it, so here we be.
Pour a drink, pull up a chair and kick back for some musin' and reminiscin' about the Bluegrass and the folks in it, strickly from my point of view.
I'm likely to piss off some people but that's what's fun, ain't it? Poking wasps' nests and seein' who gets stung, n' who gets away?
Stay tuned!