Turn off TV/Devices, Ask Grandma & Grandpa

            Cascade is exceedingly lucky to have the fascinating history it does—a bit of which I have spent the last 15 month researching into and writing about, namely John Yates Beall, the Confederate “Spy,” who spent the summer of 1862 here.

            While doing this research, I encountered the idea that the Chew mansion was a stop on the Underground Railway, but that aspect is far more difficult to research. For the obvious reasons.

            I have written a manuscript that essentially tells the story of Beall’s life, and as next year is the 150^th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and Beall’s death, I am hoping we can produce it as theater over the 4^th of July. Anyone who would like a copy, please email me at keyronmcd@gmail.com. We need help getting community support for the production, and some wonderful musicians have already agreed to work on it.

The Holiday season presents us a unique opportunity to talk to older members of the community. If you know anyone who knows anything, or better yet has documentation—letters, diaries, etc.please let me know.

Margaret Chew may have been even more interesting that we thought—if she had a Confederate soldier in her 3^rd floor bedroom and a runaway slave in her basement!

A Critical Eye on the Causes of U.S. Kid Homelessness

            The National Center on Family Homelessness released some shocking statistics based on federal data this week—1 in 30 children in America is homeless, 2.5 million kids—1/5 of them in California.

            NCFH blamed 1) the high poverty rate, 2) lack of affordable housing, and 3) the lingering effects of the “Great Recession,” but left out some of the real reasons: i.e. indigent immigrants.

As the President is about to legitimatize a great raft of people who have come here to have kids (over the border or with legit-now-expired-visas for purpose of obtaining citizenship) it is not cool to mention this. I.e. A Korean kid who can’t go to college, we heard boo-hooing last evening,

A couple of other major contributing factors, one alluded to in No. 2 of NCFH official reasons is the “Great Bank Bailout.” The government saw fit to bail out the very people who caused the “Great Recession,” but left many middle class homeowners blowing in the wind, and as know, the 1% is thriving, the American Middle Class is dwindling.

Marketplace, a financial program got closest to another real reason: They pointed out that two parents would each have to earn $28 an hour to afford the average 2-bdrm apt. in California and minimum wage is a fraction of that. The commentator concluded “Childhood homelessness needs to be a priority.” Does that mean that what’s left of the Middle Class has to fix it?  Or that we are finally going to hold the people who created the problem responsible?

That I don’t know. What I do know is you need a Critical Eye to listen to the news!

History Halloween Hoot

     A year ago August, I thought it would be a hoot to dress up in a hoop skirt on Halloween, go up to the East Side School and tell the kids the story of John Yates Beall, Cascade's "spy." (Always spooked us!) In the early 1950s East Side of Cascade kids attended kindergarten in the old Chew mansion, where the school sits now. All of us knew about the "spy" blood upstairs.
     Beyond "spy" blood, (almost assuredly NOT ) we knew nothing--even Beall's name. So, I beat a path to the Museum. Father Loras Otting, who had done extensive research, then developed health problems had donated his work to Tri-County, and I spent several afternoons surveying it. (Thanks Fr. Otting, Bob Takes, and Paul Neiers!)
     The previous principal who initially appeared very excited by my Halloween plan to entertain with history in costume, rejected the story as too sad for grade schoolers. (She then scheduled Ronald McDonald to talk about fairness, responsibility, etc. Yeah! Ronnie knows about that stuff--McDo pays workers minimum wage they can't live on!)
     By then, however, I had become fascinated by Beall's story. Too, documents  had come online including Beall's "memoir," an assemblage of his jail diary and transcript of his military trial ("Guilty"), put together by his best childhood friend,  Daniel Lucas, then a successful Virginia lawyer. I spent the winter immersed in them and this summer finished an 16-page monologue of Margaret Chew telling Beall's story.
    This is not only our history, but Iowa history, and I believe producing the monologue with pix and music in the Ellen Kennedy Center next summer, which is the 150th Anniversary of both the end of the Civil War and the death of John Yates Beall will be the gift of history to the whole state.

Plus, this will allow us to view it with a critical eye sharped by time.

Elections, Cartoon women, 3rd World Countries, et al.

     The cruelest irony off all has to be that a woman-aping-a-guy-with-guns will be the first congressman from Iowa. I know I speak for a lot of women when I say:  Most of us would rather line up with the disgraceful likes of Mississippi, or Alabama, never having sent a woman to congress, than a bogus cartoon joke of one like Joni Ernst.
     The election also means that the slow, steady erosion of the American middle class that has gone on for 30 years will continue unabated. I am fully confident that before I leave this earth, the American nation will be 3rd World country with a fabulously wealthy 1% living in gated communities with their own pools, theaters, parks and armies.
     Wall Street has long since recovered (5 years ago), but ordinary people have not, will not and no effort will be expended to help them despite the amount of taxpayer $ to bail out the banks and the quantitative easing, which has been a direct gift to Wall Street.
     Conservatives in Sheep Fleece like the Clintons have exacerbated the demise of the American Middle Class, so expect those graphs that chart the eventual disappearance of the American Middle class to make another sharp dip downward.

And it doesn't take much of a critical eye to see why.