What a week we just ….

What a week we just went through. How can we hear nothing but virus news for weeks, then suddenly we switch to something else? And it is not good, as there is probably more unrest now then there was eleven days ago when it all started.

After hours and hours of television watching the other night, I finally said to myself, that’s enough, I can’t take any more and shut the television off.

It was bad enough watching all the demonstrations when all of a sudden you see the president of the United States standing in front of a church holding a closed Bible. He never said a word, just stood there.

Then the truth came out. Demonstrators were forced to leave the area just so he could walk over there and get his picture taken.

ÓÓÓÓÓ

Seems some people forget there are cameras everywhere, and somehow all these scenes are being captured on film.

If there is any good to come of all of this it is the re-enforcement that never in my life would I want to be a police officer. I’d be in big trouble when someone objected to be arrested or fined. It is a no-win situation and no time to second guess.

It is a no-win profession. As we saw in Minneapolis, there was something wrong with the officer that held the man down for over eight minutes. Then it looked like the other officers just stood there and watched. Now that it is over we find a couple of them had only been with the police department a few days. The man involved with the man he killed had 17 years of experience on the force and should have known better.

You would have thought he might have understood the problem, but we learn he has had a number of problems over the years. So you end up with a bad cop/good cop situation.

It may be years before it is resolved since I would assume the union the officers are in will try to protect them. Then as many lawyers we have who try to get justice done you have as many on the other side trying to make sure their client is set free.

ÓÓÓÓÓ

Meanwhile, the race issue continues. Is there any doubt when it has been going on for over 400 years, ever since our country was formed. In the early days the blacks were used as slaves. The the Civil War changed that somewhat but never really made a complete break in the theory. Not until the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s came along and at least we saw some change.

In 1948, President Truman integrated the Armed Services and three years later I found myself in a company of half whites and half blacks. We never really had a problem. In fact, we had kind of a joke about it.

We had one member of the company who was an exceptionally black man. His name was Gibson and his fellow black bunkmates, when they got upset with one another would say, “You is black, you is black as Gibson.” Then everyone would laugh.

ÓÓÓÓÓ

The other day I thought I was getting more birthday cards when a letter arrived with a newspaper clipping in it. The sender thought I should know the man as he was a 30 years newspaper reporter, editor and publisher as well as having been president of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.

That might have been, but after I looked at the picture in the article, I recognized the Beaver Creek Lutheran Church near Ettrick.

Seems the man was Chris Hardie, who along with is wife, own the Brambleberry Inn (former Bed and Breakfast) somewhere between Black River Falls and Ettrick.

Our granddaughter, Shelby Rueth, had received a coupon good for a night’s stay and didn’t want to use it. So she turned it over to us. We certainly enjoyed the night we stayed there and their breakfast the next morning. In addition to the hotel they are in the wine making business, but we didn’t try any the night we were there.

Chris writes a column for the Country Today newspaper and one week had covered the subject of hoarding. He pretty well covered the subject like I did about people hoarding toilet paper and told about growing up and all the things they used in place of it. Even corn cobs, which I never remember, but we always had a good supply of Wards, Sears and Spiegel’s catalogs that did the trick for lots of years of running out to the outside “rest room.”