Email Connectors and Mr. Hogue's Wisdom

By Dale Hogue and Eileen Hogue

Email connecting has become the hobby of most every person who owns a computer. This type connecting is described nicely and expertly in this book written by Dale Hogue. Emails that may become historical are displayed within its pages. Dale Hogue's poetry, essays, and short stories liven the pages and inform the reader, who could ask for anything more? It's a light read worth the time and effort.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 22, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462805150

Dale Hogue

Engineering Whiz Kids invented the computer, other Whiz kids created the Internet and still other Whiz Kids concocted a means by which electronic mail messages could be distributed by high speed electronic means from one computer system to distant recipients and called the new process electronic mailing or E-mailing. This part of the computer process brought about a communication phenomenon that has grown by leaps and bounds for more than a decade and a half primarily because of the efforts on the part of ordinary individuals who informally banded together into what has become Connector Groups. These Connectors exchanged personal messages, poems, jokes, essays, cartoons and pictures. This book contains some examples of messages that have been making the E-mail rounds. Dale Hogue, a 1954 Whittier College graduate, studied poetry writing, screenplay writing, essay writing and short story writing at UCLA, California State University at Fullerton and the University of California at Irvine. This artist-actor-poet-musician has written poems, short stories, screenplays, song lyrics and a book called The Poet on How To Write A Poem. On March 10, 1997, the Board of Directors of the National Library of Poetry elected Dale Hogue into the International Poetry Hall of Fame.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

E-mail Connectors and Mr. Hogue’s Wisdom

A Note Written Especially For Readers of This Book!

I am a retired high school teacher. From 1954 through 1996, at different times during these 42 years, I taught many high school courses in English, American Literature, speech, drama and the history of the United States.

I taught students of every stripe: good students who wanted to learn and worked hard, average ones who learned when I would push the right buttons and got them interested in what I was teaching; and I taught poor students who sat in my class with a closed mind and dared me to teach them anything on which they found worth expending valuable time and effort.

I like them all, some a bit more than others, but I gave all of them the same chance to learn. Some of my former students turned out to be policemen or policewomen, firemen, lawyers and a few became nurses and doctors; some are ministers or preachers, some of these former students are actors, some own and operate their own businesses; some are teachers, some are carpenters, mechanics, plumbers and painters; some are clerks in stores, hair dressers and barbers in shops of their own; some work for big businesses at jobs where they are important cogs in the wheels of industry; but above all of that, most of my students turned out to be good American citizens who believe in themselves and in their country.

Many of these students keep in contact with me via e-mail connections and some call me on the telephone and some come to my home for an in person visit.

On another topic: If you are interested in what comes out of this brain I own, you might be interested in reading the poetry, essays and short stories that I have written during my lifetime. You can read some of them in this book.

There was a problem on how I should organize a book of this type because it included a little of this and a little of that. However, a great deal of what is included in this book was used by me in my classroom during my forty-two year teaching career. Some of my more creative writings were turned into e-mails and have been sent to members of our Connector Group. In exchange, most members of our Connector Group have sent to me interesting e-mails that I’ve included in this book.

This part has to do with the physical layout of this book. You will notice that I have double-spaced between paragraphs in some parts of this book. It is my opinion that double-spacing between paragraphs makes the book easier to read. I could be wrong about this, but I’m the one in charge, so that’s what I did when it came to laying out this book.

This Post Script Was Written By Dale Hogue.

The three pictures that appear on the cover of this book were taken at three different times during my lifetime. The first picture is of me when I was a teen-age student at North Phoenix High School, the second picture was taken when I was an actor in stage plays during my middle years and the third picture was taken when Eileen and I were about to enter our Golden Years. Everybody knows that these are old photographs taken by photographers who were able to freeze frame the way we once looked.

While we are on this subject of freeze framing, I admit freely, and with just a pinch of humbleness, that I liked the way I looked in these old photographs, so I’ve taken this opportunity to include them as part of this book. These pictures present images that are frozen in a time that I’ve chosen. One might say that they are like the Picture of Dorian Gray—but in reverse. Whatever you are thinking when viewing these pictures, you just might feel, as I do, that photos taken of us over a lifetime represent period impressions that remind us of the way we were regardless of what Father Time eventually did to our physical features.

It’s a darn shame that we don’t have the choice or the ability to freeze frame how we look and feel in real life and in real time. We have to go with the flow in regards to how our bodies react to growing older during the span of our lifetime. I’m sure that growing older isn’t done to keep us humble, but it might be done to keep us from believing that we are omnipotent or immortal. Goodness knows, some of us feel this way without any outside encouragement—metaphorically speaking. Life isn’t a straight line process.

The older I get in years the more I appreciate those days in my life when I had the energy to tackle most anything that came my way. If I do say so myself, I think I looked reasonably good while doing it, however, I now recall that I didn’t always think so at the time some of these events were taking place. Anyway, I guess that is why we have a word like narcissism in the dictionary. Nostalgia is another word that is included in this book, but that word refers to those yesterdays of our lives long gone. Nostalgic means that we have yearnings for memories that are sentimental and wistful. Every living human being has these feelings. These happy memories continue to gather dust in our memory storage bin until we take them out and dust them off and shine them up a bit. Sadly so, some of these memories are bitter to our memory’s taste buds, for they are of regretful events we can’t change or incidents that we are unable to forget. Whatever may be the case, I’ve tried to be as positive as possible when it came to selecting thoughts and stories that I’ve included in this book. I believe, for the most part, I’ve succeeded in doing so. But I must add that our moods don’t go in a straight line, either.

CHAPTER TWO

A Worldwide Connector Zone

In this book I’ve presented stories and poems that were sent to me via e-mail. In those cases where I knew the author’s names, I gave credit to them. To those authors I didn’t know: I do hope that you don’t sue me for adding your thoughts and stories to a magic collection of stories and essays that have provided fodder for the e-mails that many of us have sent to friends or received from friends who reside in this electronic Connector Zone.

Let’s Jump this Straight Line and Cut To the Chase:

What is the book really about?

This book is about communication between those people who live active lives in the 21st century and those who are merely spectators. Furthermore, it gives the reader some information and some direction about how the events in the computer age touches their lives on a daily basis even after they’ve retired from the tough responsibilities that are associated with making a living.

I, along with millions of other daily users of this magic machine, will connect with other like minded individuals via electronic generated messages that have been dubbed with a very simple name—e-mail. In many cases, these electronic connections merely offer the correspondent another means by which an opinion can be shared, poems enjoyed or funny jokes can be appreciated by many friends who live thousands of miles away from the source of the e-mail message. Quite a few, or even most, of these e-mail exchanges take place between connectors who have never met each other in person, but they still consider each other friends.

There is a great deal of magic comfortably bouncing along with these e-mails we have sent out over electronic airwaves using methods that hardly any of us fully understand. We type our messages, add the addresses of our friends and punch the send button—and we have made a connection with someone who lives thousands of miles away. I believe that this marvelous process is truly magical, pure and simple. The birth of friendships formed through these connections is more than magical, it is something beyond magic. It might be a good idea for us to invent or coin a new word that truly describes the relationships we’ve formed by sending and receiving daily e-mails. The following words may describe the friends or friendships we have created because of the close association we have with our E-mail Connectors: E-boon companions, electronic partners, computer comrades, E-cronies or, maybe, E-confidantes, E-bosom buddies, E-compeers, E-alter egos or E-chums. But, quite frankly, whatever we decide to call our e-mailing friends, the act of communicating with them via E-mail seems destined to continue far into the future or until a better method comes along.

CHAPTER THREE

Some Thoughts for My E-mail Friends

What is the reason for having an e-mail connector group? Why would anybody want to belong to any kind of connector group regardless of what it may be called?

I read books, magazines, newspapers, letters, e-mails and listen to radio talk shows and watch television in order to satisfy any curiosity I might have concerning any information on what is going on in this world of ours. In other words, I’m a living, breathing repository for all kinds of information—a kind of news junkie, if you will.

I have spent many hours of my lifetime in educational communities and I still have a need to experience the give and take of discussions or debates. Some of the subjects that arrive by e-mail tweak my curiosity, so I read the entire message with a youthful relish that feeds a kind of yearning that I can’t explain!

I realize that I could go back to teaching or take classes at a university or at some nearby community college where I can join with other people who want to participate in the give and take of spirited debates or discussions, but this means I have to take a shower and put on clothes that give an appearance of being dressed up, get in my car and drive in traffic that frustrates the hell out of me, park the car and walk to the place where the discussion and debates are being held, then go through the greeting process—you know the rest of the ritual.

The fact is that I don’t belong to a social club, a country club, a debating club, or even a discussion club, but I do have a computer, a brain, fingers that type, a sense of humor and a strong curiosity, so why not take advantage of the conveniences that are built into my brain and into the computer?

This means of communication seems to get my intellectual cells functioning on a daily basis, so I seek out people who have the same needs or desires that turn me on. The Connectors in my group have the same opportunity I have to opt out of any subject matter being discussed.

I can’t and won’t hold your feet to the fire in order to force you to become an active member of our connector group. Opportunities for this type of interacting are all around us, and have been lurking there during our entire lifetime. What we do about the opportunities that are presented to us is a personal choice each of us makes.

Most people who are involved in what’s happening—discussing an idea or subject that might be political or social—enjoy the give and take experience. It’s an opportunity to express an opinion or a whole lot of opinions. Let’s just say it’s a park bench discussion without the park or the bench.

In our Connector Group there are members who inherited an intellectual virus that contain curiosity bacteria that will feed on this virus. They may have discovered the merit of such curiosity in some school or college class during their lifetime. As a result, they’ve become highly educated without worrying about whether or not they’re going to complete the assignments on time. In our Connector Group, we have former teachers, librarians, college professors, doctors of all kinds, lawyers as well as former military professionals. You’re welcome to join our group if you feel so inclined.

CHAPTER FOUR

Several poets have written poems that describe the poet’s feelings for their e-mailing friends. Here are two pages of poems about e-mailing friends and the act of e-mailing to other E-mail Connectors.

Dear Lord,

I know you’re watching over me

And I’m feeling truly blessed,

For no matter what I pray for

You always know what’s best.

I have this circle of e-mail friends

Who mean the world to me.

Some days I send and send

At other times, I let them be.

I am so blessed to have these friends

With whom I’ve grown so close;

This little poem I dedicate to them,

For they are the Most!

When I see each name download

And view the message sent,

I know they’ve thought of me this day

And well wishes their intent.

To you, my friends, I’d like to say

Thank you for being a part

Of my daily e-mail contacts

That comes right from the heart.

God Bless You, is my prayer today,

I’m honored to call you friend.

I pray the Lord will keep you safe

Until we write again.

Another Poem Regarding E-mail Connectors!

Every single evening

As I’m lying here in bed,

This tiny little Prayer

Keeps running through my head

God Bless all my family

Keep them warm and safe from harm,

For they are so close to me.

And God, there is one more thing

I wish that you could do:

I hope you don’t mind me asking,

Please bless my computer, too.

Now, I know that it’s unusual

To bless a motherboard,

Please listen just a second more

While I explain it to you, Lord.

You see, that little metal box

Holds more than odds and ends;

Inside those small compartments

Rest so many of my friends.

I know so much about them

By the kindness that they give.

And this little machine of metal

Takes me into where they live.

By faith is how I know them,

Much the same as you.

We share in what life brings us

And from that our friendships grew.

Please take an extra minute

From your duties up above,

To bless those in my address book

That’s filled with so much love

Wherever else this prayer may reach

To each and every friend,

Bless each e-mail Inbox

And persons who hit Send.

CHAPTER FIVE

An Essay Concerning Connector Groups

By Dale Hogue

What is the reason for having an e-mail connector group? Why would you want to be a member of such a group? Let me explain some of the reasons. As a member of an e-mail connector group, you feel the need to check your computer before going to bed just in case someone from your connector group is trying to connect with you through a forwarded e-mail message that can’t be delayed until tomorrow.

If you get up in the middle of the night to pee, you check to see if a member of your connector group has forwarded you an e-mail after the last time you checked your e-mail messages. Before you brush your teeth or take a morning shower or use the commode, you check your computer for any incoming messages that have been forwarded by members of your connector group.

After you brush your teeth, take a morning shower and use the commode, you eat breakfast and read the morning papers. You clip out any articles or columns that you want to share with all the members of your connector group. You turn on your walkman radio, plug in your earphones and listen to conservative talk radio to balance all the articles and columns you’ve already read in this morning’s local newspaper. You wave at your house mate as he or she walks by the table to make his or her breakfast—no voiced communication ensues.

You refold what is left of the morning paper—as a courtesy to your housemate, even though he or she couldn’t care less about reading anything except the obituary column. At this point, you check to see if any incoming voice communication is in order and is being received by him or her. Good morning, is always a safe oral comment to make at this juncture.

If you receive a perfunctory morning from him or her, then you can feel free to comment on the weather or the climate changes or some other non-personal remark that you feel safe in producing by raising your voice just a bit so your comments can be heard by him or her.

If, he or she, wishes to communicate with you in any way, you sit quietly with a smile on your face, your head tilted slightly and your hand cupped around at least one of your ears. At this point in the morning’s intercourse, it is wise to remain patient until spoken to.

If, he or she, doesn’t look at you with anything but the top of his or her head, then you may safely assume that this is as far as any type of communication will be going during the next hour or so.

Well, I think I will check my morning e-mails, is a safe way to disengage from whatever passes as a civil conversation this morning. However, one should be moving in the direction of the computer room when this statement is made, lest he or she really believes you would be willing to another one-sided conversation this morning.

When you are safely ensconced in front of your computer, you can exhale and breath a sigh of relief, for you are home and now you can feel free to comment on this or that or make any type of political remark or give your opinion freely without the possibility that you will get the look from him or her.

I must explain to the reader of this discourse that I’ve spent many years in training in order for me to live intrepidly in this distinct period of what is laughingly referred to as my golden years. One should not expect to get all the positive reactions I get if one is not as experienced as I in conducting one’s personal business in this manner. After all, I am a professional trained e-mailer.

About this time in my one sided banter, you might be wondering or saying something like where is he going with this? Hang in there, stay with me on this, we will get to the destination of this train of thought eventually.

When we were kindergarten, the teacher taught us to play nicely and to share with one another. We learned that there were other people in this world who were just as important as we were sure that we were. In other words, we were taught to connect with other people in such a way that nobody would get their feelings hurt. Kindergarten teachers were some of the first purveyors of politically correct social conduct that we would spend a lifetime incorporating into our life style. If I’m wrong about this, then I apologize for being so darn presumptuous this late in the games that I’ve played all through my life—even though I am right about what you just read on this page.

Now, I don’t think I have to point this out, but I will: There are people in this social society who can’t stand you no matter how nicely you treat them. There are people out there in that vast jungle who take delight in ignoring you completely. Really, I’m not kidding you or just writing these words to shock you or hurt your feelings. The sooner you understand this type of anti-social behavior the better off you will be and the smoother your boat will sail. I’ll go on to the next reason for belonging to a connector group while you’re in the process of digesting the words you’ve just eaten hook, line and sinker.

As we learned in kindergarten, it is always nice to share! Your kindergarten mates loved hearing what you had to say as long as they didn’t feel threatened in by any remarks that you might make.

As you grew out of having childish thoughts and playing childish games, you learned what could be said and what should not be said in polite society. You were taught that it is not nice to hit other people or to call them bad names. If you followed the rules taught in kindergarten and again in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades, then you would be able to enter your teen years with a clean slate—so to speak. Don’t laugh, being considered a nice guy or gal who followed the rules was a handy way to become a popular member of the high school society where teenagers of every stripe had to make social adjustments in order to endure the rational and irrational experiences they encountered daily.

The problems we faced in our elementary school years were made a great deal more difficult by sneaky infusions of chemical hormones that took over our bodies, brains, common sense and our ability to make polite and proper judgments during the times we were put into situations where it was necessary to use the new skills that we needed in order to conduct any type of social intercourse with members of the opposite sex. Don’t get me wrong, old kindergarten lessons did come in handy. Essentially, all of us were forced to remember these lessons: We realized that it was always better to treat other people the way that we wanted to be treated. Now, I know that that lesson appears to have religious overtones, but I hope you don’t think that I’m trying to recruit you into believing as I believe—philosophically speaking.

However, I do remember those lessons well. Don’t crowd in line. Wait your turn. Don’t take something from somebody without their permission. Don’t touch a member of the opposite sex inappropriately. You should, at the very least, wait until you are given that person’s permission before making physical contact. Smacking some member of the opposite sex on the buttocks is not permitted off the athletic field. Talk politely, don’t use cuss words in polite conversations. And when you become an adult, you shouldn’t use improper grammar. Quite frankly, I’ve always believed that people who don’t have much to say in a conversation are just afraid of using words incorrectly, so they stand around and try to look interested and pleasant. A great many professional actors got their early acting experience by doing this all the way through high school.

After graduating high school, we either went on to advance educational communities—colleges or universities—or we entered the job market. Both of these societal entities presented bigger and more complex problems that were replete with difficult social challenges that had to be solved on the dead run. We learned that good connections with other people were not only important, they were imperative. It was a fact of life that we adjusted to readily or not at all. Failure to adjust became a stumbling block in our pathway to success. We couldn’t ignore the problem, for it just wouldn’t go away. Ignoring this ‘fact of life’ created problems that we didn’t need at that stage in the game we were being forced to play.

We have spent our lifetime making connections. Some of these social connections brought about pleasant results like love affairs and marriages while other connections were a great deal more complex. Some of our job related connections were difficult to master—diplomatically as well as ethically.

Stage plays, novels and screenplays have been written about some of the different types of connections made in our society, especially those connections that imploded or exploded. You will have to admit, life didn’t get any easier after leaving the security of our educational institutions.

During our ‘golden years’ the word ‘connection takes on a different meaning than it has had at other times during our lives. We have found that we don’t have to make connections with other people if we don’t want to. The choice is ours to make. The manner in which this connection is carried out is entirely up to us.

If someone chooses not to make a connection, then that’s okay with the rest of us. If someone wants to make a connection with a connector group, he or she, can do so at anytime. He or she can make a phone call, or make an in person contact, or write a letter that is sent by snail mail or they can write e-mails.

In any of these methods of connecting with other human beings we can talk about nearly anything that interests us. In our e-mail connector group we can send personal notes, poems, essays, columns on any subject we want or we can send articles that we found in newspapers or magazines. Most of what is sent to other members of our connector group has been sent to the sender—maybe a number of times. It is a safe connection, for no demands are made on your time or your efforts. It might be the first time in the life of an e-mail connector that he or she can opt out of a program without reservation or having to make some type of phony excuse.

You can participate or not. And when an e-mail is received, it can be deleted or it can be read and then sent on to other connectors. Life connections don’t get much better than this.

Dale Hogue, March 7, 2007

CHAPTER SIX

To Be or Not To Be a Patriot,

That is The Question

I will start off this essay by telling you that a patriot is a person who is devoted to and ready to strongly support or defend his or her country. A patriot can be a nationalist or a loyalist. A patriot can be a flag-waver, jingo or a jingoist or a chauvinist. I really suggest that you use your dictionary when you are not quite sure of the word meanings that I’ve presented in this essay.

Most people like being called a patriot while others haven’t quite made up their minds whether being a patriot is a good idea or not.

Consider the words jingo, jingoist or chauvinist. These words may cause one to shy away from being a patriot if they’re going to be called by a name we don’t encounter very often in an every day conversation. This is the way the game is played: I will give you some information about the meanings of these words, but it’s going to be up to you to decide if you really want to be known as a jingo, a jingoist, a chauvinist or a patriot.

A jingo is a supporter of a policy favoring going to war in order to solve any discord or misunderstanding, or misconception, or misinterpretations or some kind of misgiving about a problem that can’t be settled by talking in a civilized manner to those who control the government with whom your country is diplomatically at odds.

By Jingo, is a mild oath. It might sound like something people would say who use mild oaths to express dismay or disagreement with those who are stubborn and won’t buy the diplomatic efforts they are being fed. By Golly, Mr. Ambassador, I do believe you will appreciate what I have to say about your country kidnapping our citizens on the open sea. If you don’t appreciate my words, then by Jingo, you may regret your actions when we send our soldiers and airmen to destroy your ability to harass our citizens. Civilized nations did that very thing before the advent of the Ultra-Leftist Political Party who deems such things as war mongering or some such bully like action. They whine a great deal and makeup facts to back their complaints about those who really understand how nations get along diplomatically, as it were.

Now, a person who is a jingoist is considered by intelligent people to be some type of blustering patriot or a warmonger. Truthfully, it has been my experience, that there are not too many people who want to be considered a warmonger or a blustering anything, let alone a blustering patriot. If this is the case, he or she is thought of as a being a belligerent person who is filled to overflowing with bellicosity.

These bellicose people are very eager to fight at the drop of a misplaced adjective. Those who are victims of any kind of action by bellicose people really believe that they’re being treated unfairly and, in some cases, bullied. I’ve never met anybody who wanted to be called a bully. At least, they did not want someone in their face calling them a bully or worse. So you see, if you’re overly pugnacious and people are smart about such things, they have learned not to rattle your cage too often, if at all.

It’s no accident that our national symbol is a bald eagle. Eagles by nature are birds of prey that have keen eyesight and powerful flight abilities. They do not suffer fools gladly or take kindly to being riled up or teased by birds not of their feather or by animals of any kind, including human beings.

They tend to become bellicose and pugnacious when they are agitated. If you throw a rock at a bald eagle, it will fly away. However, if you continue to throw rocks at it, it will decide that you mean to do it physical harm and will take measures to protect its territory. Really, you can darn well count on it becoming quite hawkish, voracious, pugnacious and angry as all get out at those folks who are disturbing its tranquility as well as its safety. If ever it gets to this stage, I would suggest, if you are the rock thrower, that you back off and reconsider your actions. Why? You got to be kidding! Eagles that are annoyed will counter attack and kick your butt, big time! That’s why!

A chauvinist is a person exhibiting chauvinism. Now, my friend, you should know that Chauvinism is exaggerated or very aggressive patriotism. A Chauvinist will show excessive or prejudiced support or loyalty for one’s own cause. In short, he or she is a patriot who will fight at the slightest hint that you mean him or her harm in any way, shape or form. And they will do so willingly, gladly and enthusiastically. Quite frankly, President Bush entered into the war against Iraq after much soul searching. He requested the advice and consent from Congress and the United Nations. When all the diplomatically avenues were blocked or ignored by Saddam Hussein, Bush gave Saddam Hussein another chance to abide by all those rules set forth by the United Nation’s seventeen proclamations.

Saddam decided that all United Nation proclamations could be ignored by his government. President Bush decided it was time to resolve this problem in Iraq by using force instead of diplomatic pussy footing. Saddam Hussein made a big mistake when he tweaked President Bush. He really thought that he could get away with challenging Bush to put up or shut up! He tweaked the wrong person, at the wrong time and in the wrong place and, as a result of his arrogance, he lost his country, his job as Iraqi president and his life! Anyway you fry it, that’s one hell of a price to pay for tweaking a man who had the guts and resolve to meet Saddam’s challenges head on!

Are you a really a patriot? Do you support those patriots who are in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting to defeat the Islamic terrorists who want to destroy the chances of the new Iraqi government to establish a Republic based on the premise that its people should be free? If you want to Cut and Run when the going gets too tough, then you might be interested in what happened in past wars to cowards and traitors who turned on their own country during a time of war. In many case they were tried in courts and when found guilty, they were lined up against the wall and shot!

It’s sad that many of these cowards call themselves patriots. Let’s face facts, no matter how they refer to their cowardly acts and defiant posturing, they certainly shouldn’t be considered patriots by any stretch of their very progressive imaginations! There are some of you who are reading the thoughts on this page who believe that the words cowards and traitors might be a more appropriate description of these misguided individuals who patrol the political party halls along with those steeped in avant-gardism and includes a strange mixture of unconventional innovators, far-out leftists, revolutionary extremists and fusspot nitpickers. And, quite frankly, any political party that isn’t patriotic during war time deserves every single bit of intellectual ridicule that can be directed at it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

How This Book Is Organized

When I was a student at Longview elementary school in Phoenix Arizona, some of the teachers used the Reader’s Digest as a supplemental text. During the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the Reader’s Digest was a pocket-sized magazine that was loaded with many types of stories, essays, articles and jokes that had previously been published in other kinds of magazines. There were no advertisements in this wonderful little magazine and that made it all the more attractive to me.

However, somewhere along the line, a person in authority or in a position of power decided to screw around with a winning formula and added paid advertisement to the pages and to print the magazine on slick paper. I am sure you know what eventually happened. After this went on for a number of years, the space generally allotted to stories, essays, articles and jokes was being used to provide a seemingly unfair amount of space for the magazine’s advertisement rather than using that space for, what I think, was more interesting reading material that had made The Reader’s Digest famous. I have lost interest in the magazine because I felt that the publisher had spoiled a great magazine for a purely commercial reason. I stopped my subscription of Reader’s Digest earlier this year.

The original idea and the original intention of the magazine is to provide interesting reading material at a cost that the average reader could afford. Sadly, the editors, or the publishers—more likely—lost sight of the original format and intention and ruined a great idea by screwing around with this very successful idea and format.

Why am I writing about the Reader’s Digest when I am supposed to be explaining how this book is organized? Well, the explanation is simple. I’m stealing the original idea that the publishers of Reader’s Digest had when they were one of the most popular magazines ever sold in America. This book will contain stories, essays, articles and jokes that you might find interesting enough to read. There is no heavy lifting here, no sweat has to be expended and, best of all, there are no tests on any of the reading material that appears in this book.

This book contains essays, short stories, poems and articles that I have written over the years. Some of this written material was used to teach my high school class over a 42 year time period. Some of the material in this book has been sent as e-mails to our Connector Group. I have used some of the material to spark discussions and some has been used to create opportunities for the recipients to engage other members in such a way that it allowed for the free flow of ideas while helping the participants to develop new brain cells. I’ve added essays and jokes and other stuff that has been sent to me by active Connector members who enjoy the give and take opportunities of e-mailing.

I hope that you enjoy your reading experience while you travel on this E-mail highway we have constructed for your enjoyment, enlightenment, edification and illumination.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Black or Colored or African American

By Dale Hogue

From time to time, I send out email letters to authors of articles and opinion pieces that I’ve read in newspapers and magazines. After reading an opinion piece by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, I wrote a letter to him because I thought he had written an interesting column.

You should be aware that not all the New York Times columnists put their e-mail address on their work so that the readers can send them notes about their writing efforts via e-mail, but Bob does, so I fired off a note to let him know just how his latest column had set with me.

Inasmuch as Bob is an avowed card-carrying liberal member, in good standing, of the Democratic Party and the liberal press, you might guess at what I think of his political views.

I sent Bob a note about an interesting column he had written about his experiences growing up black in America. I was fascinated by what he had to say. I thought it was the type of column he should write more often instead of the Bush bashing ones he usually writes.

In this particular column, Bob Herbert referred to his family and his friends as being African-American. I’m not fond of calling Americans by hyphenated names, so I did some thinking on the subject and tinkered a bit with a follow up letter that I sent to him when I felt the times was ripe. What follows is the result of some of my tinkering on the subject. I do hope that you understand that what I’ve written is nothing more than my opinion on the matters being discussed.

You have to take into consideration that some people of color refer to all people of color as African-Americans. They get a bit touchy when it comes to using words describing the color of their skin. I know that I might be on shaky ground, but I’m determined to have my say even if this essay is not considered politically correct.

Most Americans with darker skin aren’t African-American no matter what they call themselves. How do I know this? I know it because it’s true. Most of these so-called African-Americans never in their lives have been to Africa and have no intention of ever going there. Besides never going to Africa, many have no clue as to the history of African continent. Some have no idea where Africa is located on the world map. Too many of these dark-skinned Americans are strangers to the customs of the African countries.

At one time the Spanish referred to these people as Negroes, a Spanish word referring to the black color of their skin. Some of the white people who lived in the southern states called them Negroes or niggers.

Many of the black slaves prior to the 1860s referred to themselves as niggers and in some cases, Negroes. For reasons known primarily to these people of color, the word nigger has become a name that is insulting to them. Most of the White people try not to use the N-word when referring to Americans of color. You will notice that I referred to that word as the N-word, because I sure don’t want to get any of the liberal members of this society upset at me.

Even the term Black American disturbs some of those who are easily offended, so most Americans refer to all members of our society who are dark-skinned as African-Americans in order to be more politically correct regarding this name calling issue. Now, really, I suppose it’s better to be safe on the subject of who calls who by what name, than it would be to make a mistake and create problems one cannot undo without hurt feelings.

Whatever the case, these people didn’t come willingly to our shores. These people were brought to this continent as slaves, first by the Spanish explorers, then the French, then the English. When the colonists broke away from the English during the Revolutionary War, they inherited the slave problem developed by those who came before the United States was formed and developed as a free nation.

The Americans set the slaves free some eighty years after the writing and signing of the United States Constitution made these states into a nation that was undivided. However, the slave states created a problem for those people who lived in states where most of the people didn’t think it was a good idea for a person to own another person regardless of whatever color they might be.

The slave states broke away from the non-slave states and started their own country. Those who were members of the non-slave states supported the new president, Abraham Lincoln, in a war between the states. Quite a few people died in this war before it was settled in favor of the non-slave states of America. However, the freeing of the slaves created a new and very different problem for both the North and the South. We always seem to be involved in trying to settle big problems between the black people and the white people in a manner that would be satisfactory to the many racial groups living in this society.

Quite frankly, I believe that we should call all the citizens of this country Americans no matter what our color or ethnicity—no hyphen is necessary. However, if some of us are so hell-bent on pointing out distinctions between us, then we