The Common Man: God, Home, Country

By Melvin Valkner

The American Dream is fading fast. Everyone senses it, but it seems no one knows what to do about it – until now. THE COMMON MAN is an entertaining and remarkable book. But this is not dry academic research. This is one of those books you can't put down, absorbing and inspiring, woven together by the thread of life. It is the, “If experience is the best teacher, I should be President by now,” type of book.

After giving some childhood background, God & Home, the first section, begins with recounting the futility of my service in the Vietnam War, coming home disillusioned, using drugs and groping for the meaning of life. Graduating from college in Political Science and Philosophy, I set out to find truth at any cost.

Then, after the successive deaths of a good friend, father, brother and newborn son I accepted Christ - that was the easy part. Even as I committed myself to my family and a financial career the agony of job losses and business setbacks led me to seek a deeper relationship with God. I read the Bible through in its entirety year after year, more than 30 times now, and compared it to the Koran finding the unexpected.

In God & Country, the second section, I joined the Tea Party. As I lay very still in bed after a vivid dream night, God asked, “Are you ready to go to Washington?” Learning the core issues of our nation's decline, I was shocked to learn how far our Constitutional Republic has strayed from the precepts of the Founding Fathers. Not only is our individual liberty at risk, but the future of the world is in peril.

Leaning on my financial background and Biblical knowledge, I found two multi-faceted “smoking guns” in the hands of Democrats and Republicans that, unintentionally or otherwise, are killing The American Dream.

Again, this is not dry academic research, but a book filled with engaging, fact-filled, interesting stories that has the twists and turns of a great novel - except this is all true. Think of it like good dinner conversation.

There's no time to waste. Are you ready to turn on the light? Invest in your future. Invest in THE COMMON MAN today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melvin Valkner
• Release date: May 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310452154

Melvin Valkner

Mel Valkner, CPA is a life-long resident of the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. After serving in the U.S. Army with tours in Vietnam and Germany, he attended Western Michigan University (WMU) graduating with the double majors of political science and philosophy. Returning to WMU for two more years of business and accounting classes he eventually became a CPA and tax professional. Leaving public accounting he became a healthcare administrator, financial executive in manufacturing, education and service industries, entrepreneur and author. He is a former First Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Taxpayers Party of Michigan (USTPM.org), Michigan's affiliate of the national Constitution Party. THE COMMON MAN is dedicated to restoring The American Dream.

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THE COMMON MAN

God • Home • Country

Melvin Valkner

©2014 by Melvin Valkner

All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Website links contained in the Bibliography and Endnotes are provided solely as a convenience to the reader. They were accurate when the book was written, but are subject to change. The publisher is not responsible for links that may eventually become inaccurate or inactive.

Published by Melvin Valkner at Smashwords

License Notes

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Also available in trade paperback

(ISBN: 978-1-4992203-0-8)

Author photo by Tony Dugal

Cover photo by Sean Locke Photography / Shutterstock

Design & layout by Lighthouse24

Invite Mel Valkner to speak at [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Title/Copyright Page

Epigraph

Section I – God & Home

Simple Country Boy

Vietnam and Its Aftermath

Off to College

Romance

Death and Life

Rustic Living

Growing

Prophetic Words

Maturity

Into The Fire

Time Goes On

Hanging by a Thread

Leather Key Basket

More Testings

Section II – God & Country

Went to a Tea Party

What Happened in 1913?

Disappearing Heritage

Ten Fables of Madern Tyms

Running For U.S. Congress

Cornage

Appendix – My Views

Ten Fables of Madern Tyms – Terms & Meanings

Bibliography

Endnotes

Sometimes it’s difficult to agree

on what to eat for supper

let alone answers to the

important issues of life.

Section I

God & Home

Simple Country Boy

An exceptionally vivid dream night where the waters were rising was so real that upon waking I lay in bed intently listening for the sound of rushing water, thinking that the water pipes used for heating had burst, the basement surely filling with water.

Laying very still, thankfully, not a sound could be heard. All was quiet. Realizing it had been a dream a wave of relief flooded over me.

Unexpectedly a clear, non-audible voice distinctly asked, Are you ready to go to Washington? Somewhat stunned, so out of the blue, nonetheless I knew it was God speaking to me. I dutifully began researching what has happened to this country over the last several decades discovering that Democrats and Republicans have systemically been killing The American Dream. Then…seeing where…I...sorry, I’m way ahead of myself. Make yourself comfortable and let me start over.

Growing up in the 1950s, The American Dream, that a better life lay ahead, was very much alive. Trusting was easy; so was taking risk. Anything was possible.

Our secluded 84-acre farm was located one mile west of Doster, Michigan, halfway between Detroit and Chicago. Somewhat shy and reserved I felt secure. We never locked the doors of our house, day or night, not even when we went on vacation.

One summer just as our sweet corn was ripening we were leaving for vacation. We picked the ripened corn stacking it on a picnic table moved near the road, leaving a cigar box with a few coins for customers to make their own change, all on the honor system. Upon our return, the corn was gone but to the last penny all the money for the corn was there in the box.

Like I said, trusting was easy.

I was the middle of five boys: Jack and Don were older while Chuck and Rick were younger.

My dad’s side of the family was German-Swedish while my mother’s side was British-Scottish.

Dad had sandy-colored hair that was rapidly thinning. He had served in World War II, making the rank of staff sergeant serving as a tail gunner and bombardier on a B-17 in the Eighth Air Force Fortress Group, known to incur heavy losses. Mom said it always bothered him that during a bombing run over Germany he was pulled from a mission before take off and that plane never returned. I never heard him talk about it.

In the summer he worked hard and long employed as a landscaper. With a variety of farm implements in his spare time he raised crops for our farm animals. We had two tractors. The green John Deere had a huge, heavy wheel on the left side of the motor, which, with great effort, was turned to start the engine. The red Farmall had a handle on the front that was cranked to start. Sometimes it kicked back and once almost broke Dad’s wrist. If we were lucky Dad gave us a ride around the yard high in the tractor bucket.

For additional weight we would sometimes ride atop the drag being pulled through the cornfield. Reaching the end of the field, we would loosen whatever plants were wedged against the curved metal points and off we would go again getting filthy dirty in the process.

At various times we had milking cows, steers, chickens, rabbits, pigs and two Welsh ponies named Jerry and Gus. Our weathered barn stored hay and grain on the main floor. The barn’s basement had a regular door for people and a larger sliding door where the cows went in and out from their milking stalls. Chickens wandered about during the day being fattened for the cooking pot. Dad brought home 50 piglets one year, which were a nuisance as they were always breaking through the electric fence. Sometimes the cows and ponies would get out too and we would have to track them down.

With me on Jerry and Chuck on Gus we went riding throughout the countryside. A mile away Lake Doster, a man-made lake, was being created. When it was still only about six feet deep Chuck and I rode the ponies into it, swimming out to a telephone pole that had not yet been removed and swimming safely back. Like I said, taking risk was easy.

Of course, there was the occasional bumblebee or wasp sting.

Dad and Mom planted the largest family garden in the world, at least in my eyes, which my brothers and I were expected to keep clean of weeds. Hacking the weeds with a hoe we learned to get down to their roots ensuring the garden its best chance of success.

In the winter Dad delivered coal, coming home covered with soot looking like he had been working in a coal mine all day. When Dad came home with a load of coal to heat our house it was our job to shovel it down a chute through a small window into the basement. How I hated to be interrupted from watching evening cartoon shows on the television to go out in the cold, dark night and shovel coal. He also plowed snow for customers with his International Scout. One year there was a blizzard in Illinois and he chose me to go with him and plow.

My Dad’s mother died when she was 48. Grandpa Valkner came and lived with us. He was grumpy and bitter at how life had treated him. My folks bought a shoe store in Otsego to give him something to do, thinking he could repair shoes in the back while Mom waited on customers out front. Except Grandpa Valkner was so gruff that, with the exception of a couple of buddies, he scared off customers.

Most of the work then fell to Mom, a pretty brunette, who was always there for us kids. She kept busy canning vegetables, cooking and cleaning, plus attending to the shoe store. Her folks, Grandpa and Grandma Kirkland got divorced long before I was born.

Conversations often turned to politics during Grandpa Kirkland’s visits. More than once an adult would say, Well… In another room, I thought someone called Mel. I would come and listen to their conversation for a few minutes before asked what I needed. Grandpa Kirkland was fond of calling politicians educated idiots – self-serving elitists acting as if they have a heart for the average guy, The Common Man. Instead are leading a trusting and often ignorant, though not stupid, people to unnecessary hardship.

Mom worked at the shoe store during the week. Dad would come home on Wednesdays and Fridays when the store was opened late, get cleaned up, slap on Old Spice aftershave, and go relieve Mom. Dad normally worked the store on Saturdays with us boys taking turns going with him to wait on customers and helping as best we could. His shoe repair skills were impressive. I loved the smell of leather permeating the shoe store.

Occasionally our family piled into our station wagon for a three-mile trip over to swim at a cousin’s cottage on Pine Lake. I still have fond memories of Dad putting down the tailgate allowing my brothers and me to sit on it with our feet dangling above the speeding road below. Seatbelts? Forget about it, cars didn’t have them anyway.

Twice I almost drowned at Pine Lake.

The first time, we went there on a summer day without our parents. Bob Harps, a neighbor, took me out on his shoulders until he knew it was over my head. I was scared as I couldn’t yet swim. Don was fishing off the raft. His fishing hook caught my foot just as Bob pitched me off his shoulders tossing me towards shore. Don was trying his hardest to reel in his catch, not realizing it was me on his hook. I was crying and yelling for help. Bob, completely unaware of my predicament, was laughing sure I could make it to shallow waters. Fortunately, as I was going down for the third time Don’s line broke, freeing me, and with a mighty struggle I managed to touch bottom.

The second time we were at Shelp’s Resort where it cost ten cents to swim all day. They had an h shaped dock. Out on the end of the dock there was a diving board, and a raft out beyond that for experienced swimmers. The smaller kids could safely play within the shallow waters enclosed by the dock. Learning to dive and practicing what I had just learned I dove straight down into the shallow waters hitting the sandy bottom so hard it almost knocked me unconscious. Barely able to get back to my feet before drowning, I staggered alone to the shore sitting down with a terrible headache, my hair filled with sand.

We were quite the adventurous brothers. When both parents were off to work we would jump out of our farmhouse second story window, where Chuck and I shared a bedroom, to the ground below. We learned to roll as we hit the ground so it hardly hurt. Of course, we climbed every tree around as well as onto the roof of the house.

While Dad treated us fairly one day Chuck and I had done something that made Dad so angry he took off his belt and was going to use it on us. Afraid, we ran out the door. He realized he could not catch us and assured us that if we came back in the house he would spare us the belt. Forgiveness is a good thing.

Doster was a town founded by the Doster family which farmed much of the surrounding land. Annually they herded their sheep down our country road from one pasture to another blocking what little traffic came along. It was the home of Doster School, Doster Store (housing a post office), Doster Reformed Church, Doster Lumber and 27 residents including kids.

Doster School, one of the area’s last country schools normally teaching kindergarten through eighth grade, was a one-room schoolhouse, cozy and sufficient, that doubled as the church building on Sundays. I went to kindergarten there, the last year multiple grades of kindergarten through fourth grades were taught at Doster School. It was wondrous being able to listen in on what the teacher was teaching the older kids while we doing our coloring or whatever it is we were doing. Recess time saw all ages playing together. We were neighbors and, for the most part, got along just fine. Several Doster School students went onto college including two who became physicians.

There were six of us in my kindergarten class: Millard Doster, Jill Doster, Alan Krug, Jimmy Collins, Jerry Prolo and myself. Alan had some developmental problems and flunked, but with the help of loving and supportive parents still managed to do quite well. We considered ourselves neighbors even though our homes could be a mile apart. That was life in the country.

The following year, as part of a school consolidation program taking place throughout Michigan, Doster School was annexed by Plainwell Community Schools.

I still question the value of ever-increasing school size as thereafter Jimmy and I would play together at his house or mine but never again had any classes together. To this day that does not seem right. Eventually Jimmy and his family moved into Plainwell.

Jerry and I had every class together through the sixth grade, first at Bridge Street School then at Starr School but junior high, with its alphabetized homerooms, broke our string though we still rode the same school bus together until we got cars.

In sixth grade our teacher Mr. Brown divided the class into three parts so he could give each group the time and attention they deserved. I was put into the advanced section. He gave us problems and showed us problem-solving skills that the others were not exposed to. But he gave the others more of his time than us.

In the winter Jerry and his brothers used an old car hood as a toboggan. In those days the car hoods were not flat as they are today. Flipped upside down it had greatly angled, sweeping curves in the very front. Whether standing with the help of a rope or sitting we would hang on for dear life as we sped down a steep hill beside their house. After getting numb with cold we’d have some hot chocolate and hit the slope again.

It was common in the summer for Jerry to be at our house to play just in time for Sunday dinner. Mom’s beef and noodle dinners were the best. This was fine with me. But one day my parents said, If Jerry shows up right before dinner you have tell him to go home.

Sure enough, as if right on cue, at dinner time there he was. Much to my surprise and delight my folks’ willpower dissolved and they invited him in. He was funny and quite the cutup. On my 10th birthday he walked the 3/4 mile through the fields to give me a birthday present, a comb. It may sound silly, but that meant a lot to me.

I loved to listen to Detroit Tigers on the radio and watch them play on TV, and cried when they lost. We played baseball every chance we got. For our first ball diamond we used the front yard, carving large bases in the lawn. Being a landscaper, Dad was upset when he saw what we had done but he soon got over it and played catch with us. Later, Jack and Don took the lawnmower and mowed an area between two knolls in the back corner of our land where we and the neighbors spent hours and hours playing ball. Later we moved the ball field to a flatter area. We devised rules at game time depending on how many showed up to play.

One day only Jerry, Billy, Don and I were playing a game of overhand, slow pitch baseball. We played pitcher’s mound out where you only had to get the ball to the pitcher’s mound before the runner reached base to get him out. The whole infield was in play but the outfield from straight behind second base to the right field line was out of play. There was no catcher so if the batter didn’t hit the ball he had to catch it barehanded or chase it down and throw it back to the pitcher.

One game Jerry and I had fallen behind 25 to 1 with two outs in our last at bat. We turned to each other and with great determination pledged not to make the last out, and never did. We went on to win 26 to 25!

Many years later when I recounted this story, Don said cynically, That’s how you remember it.

We had an old family Bible although I can’t remember anybody ever reading it. There was a picture of Jesus hanging in the upstairs hallway. As we were not a religious family, I was stunned one day when Mom’s anger flashed and she washed out my mouth with soap for saying God disrespectfully.

While Mom and Dad didn’t go to church, a bus often picked up my brothers and me, but in the summer we chose to walk home exploring and talking as we went.

One year our church softball team was undefeated. We were good and it was exciting to play the teams fielded by the other small churches in the area. Keith Champion, who lived just across the county line and went to Delton Schools, was our centerfielder. He always impressed me as a clean cut kid with a terrific attitude. It was a lot of fun playing with all the kids in the area. I was a utility player, playing wherever needed: pitching, infield and outfield. The right field fence was so close that anything hit over it into the cornfield was an automatic double. Whenever we needed a key hit we would just try to pop it over the fence into the cornfield.

Those days ended for me and my brothers one Christmas when a church elder said that we could no longer attend just at Christmas to receive presents and in the summer to play ball; we needed to make a choice. Either we could attend year round or not participate in these events. We quit going to church.

Enjoying reading, school was okay with me. I read just about everything I could get my hands on. Jack teased me calling me a bookworm. I answered by putting my tanned arm next to his pale one.

I earned decent grades in school by paying attention in class with very little studying outside. But I got into a little trouble in an elementary school music class. I make a wisecrack to a friend. When he laughed the teacher demanded I tell her what was so funny. Over my objections she insisted.

I said, You need sunglasses to look at us, we’re so bright. That set off a chorus of laughter throughout the room. She suspended six of us. We had to go the principal’s office and do arithmetic until we apologized. In order to affect a speedy apology we were given one-half of whatever grade we would have earned for that subject. One by one my classmates apologized. Holding out as long as I could, I also succumbed to the pressure, getting a D that marking period – but I learned math.

My brothers and I normally carried our own lunch. Buying a school lunch was too expensive; after all it cost 25 cents. It was considered a treat. For perspective, you have to realize that a gallon of gas was also about a quarter.

My greatest accomplishment in school was perfect attendance in the second, fifth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades. I woke up late one day in the fifth grade and missed the bus. I hitchhiked seven miles to school to not miss a day.

Jack bought a 1952 Chevy Turtleback and following a cow path sped through our fields with it. With its sloped back it was perfect for the thrill of standing on the rear bumper while leaning forward on the trunk, leaving one virtually in an upright position. Hitting a bump in the rough path was sheer terror. With nothing to hang onto except by leaning forward and wedging our fingers into the crack left by the closed trunk, you never knew if you were going to stay aboard or fly off.

Then the idea came to us of pulling an old car hood behind it through the fields. Sure enough, it worked perfectly. It was one rough ride. However when we hit a bump hard enough to throw me off, cutting my knee in doing so, I had had enough of that. Holding a bleeding knee, I limped across the fields heading for home.

Those same fields were abundant with sand burrs. When Rick was small, he followed me through a patch one day, carefully picking our way. Hearing him screaming at the top of his lungs and refusing to go on any further, I backtracked to him seeing his shoes and pant legs absolutely covered with sand burrs. Giving him a piggyback ride, I made my way through a tormenting path, always avoiding it in the future.

We loved to play Stop Tag on the upper beams in the barn. The game was like normal tag except a rag tied into knots was thrown to tag someone. When whoever was ‘it’ yelled Stop, then everyone had to freeze. If you were hit with the knotted rag you were it. We had variations to the game. Sometimes we couldn’t move at all when the rag was thrown, other times we could move everything except our feet.

With our hearts in our throats we ran over the barn beams as fast as we dared to go. No one ever fell but one day Jerry jumped from a beam onto the roof of a grain storage room in the northwest corner of the barn. He was it and was yelling stop as he jumped except he kept right on going through the grain bin ceiling barely avoiding straddling a wooden divider below. Jerry was quite the comedian, so watching him yell stop as he kept going cracked us up. Jerry wasn’t laughing though. He was quite shook up and mad at us for laughing.

We even played normal tag on the barn beams. I loved to edge my way out over the two-story high barn door entrance making escape certain as only Chuck was brave enough to follow. Nervousness was good as the more the fingers sweated the better the grip on the large, dusty top beam while toes gingerly felt their way across a smaller, narrow 4x4 beam.

One summer vacation we stayed on a lake. Dad rented two small fishing boats with motors. It wasn’t long before we had them both out on the lake with a daredevil scheme. With Jack driving one boat and Don the other, we headed toward each other seeing how close we could get to each other before turning. After a couple of practice runs, we headed toward each other in earnest. Speeding for each other at full throttle, I could only hope that each turned the right way. Turning at the last second, barely missing by inches, we counted it a success and went swimming.

Jack bought a 1958 Mercury in excellent shape. One evening a friend picked him up and they went into Plainwell to visit their girlfriends. They heard a fire engine shriek by and talked about following it but decided not to. Jack did not know his car was on fire at home. That fire engine was headed toward our small family farm.

Dick Carpenter, who lived down the road on the edge of Doster, had sneaked over to steal some gas out of Jack’s car parked down by the barn. The gas tank quickly emptied as Dick had smartly unscrewed the drain plug. Not so wisely however, he lit his lighter to see if it had all drained out. Whoosh! He frantically ran up to the house pounding on the kitchen door, stammering that the car was on fire.

Jumping into action we coupled together all the water hoses we had which fell short of the burning car by twenty feet. We could only squeeze a thumb over the end of the hose jetting the water weakly toward the fire. The car was totally burned by the time the fire engine arrived.

Late one night we