water, water, everywhere - but not a drop to drink

 

Arizona is the second-fastest growing state in the country, with a percent growth of 1.78%. Arizona’s population increased by 129,558 from 7,291,843 in 2019 to 7,421,401 in 2020. Arizona is attractive because of its sunny weather, good job market, affordability, and a wide variety of entertainment options such as festivals, museums, celebrity-owned restaurants, and more. Arizona also has the Grand Canyon. Arizona is considered one of the states with the best weather.

The Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas are seeing an explosion in housing in recent years.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/fastest-growing-states

Not surprisingly, the fastest growing city in the entire country is Buckeye, Arizona, which is a suburb of Phoenix

We live in an area that is close to the western border of Tucson, and new houses are sprouting up like weeds, which leads me to wonder – where is the water coming from to nourish all these new residents?

Contrary to what some pundits believe, global warming is NOT a hoax. Globally, the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2005, and the hottest year was 2016. All that heat has a strong negative influence on water supply. In Arizona’s case, the bulk of our water comes from the Colorado river, and Lake Mead is now 155 feet below its “full” level of 1229 feet, and the picture below clearly shows the “bath tub ring” that shows the loss of water.

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.HhgtNCBSokIJo3l3Q6vEXQHaEK?w=333&h=187&c=7&o=5&pid=1.7

Since most of the Southwest is in either exceptional drought or extreme drought conditions, the states in the Colorado river basin area are constantly working on ways to limit water use.

http://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp

 Those efforts are not new.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact

The Colorado River Compact of 1922 was signed by the 7 states in the Colorado river basin, and it divided the watershed area into two areas. The Upper Division includes the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The Lower Divisions includes Arizona, Nevada, and California.

Colorado was allocated slightly more than 50% of the water in the Upper Division, and California was allocated slightly more than 50% of the water in the Lower Division.

In 1934, Arizona, unhappy with California's decision to dam and divert the river, called out the National Guard and even commissioned a two-boat "navy." The matter was eventually settled in court.

The agreement was controversial even at the time, however. Arizona, for example, was dissatisfied with the lower basin allotment. Led by Fred Colter, the state refused to sign the agreement, and did not do so until two months after Colter's death in 1944. 

 

The specific allotments were disputed by Arizona until the United States Supreme Court upheld the amount in the 1963 decision in Arizona v. California. The agreement ended many years of dispute, clearing the way for the Central Arizona Project, authorized by Congress in 1968 – though the Supreme Court has been asked to readjust Arizona's water allocation a half-dozen times in the interim. Mexico was able to gain some of the river rights, and Arizona took steps as well to protect its water rights and keep California from gaining too large of a share, which ultimately led to the Arizona v. California Supreme Court case. The case lasted 11 years and cost over $5 million, requiring the work product of over 50 lawyers. Based on an assumption that California was using more than its contractually allotted water amount, Arizona set the precedent of SCOTUS using water rights. The case ultimately decided that the Boulder Canyon Provision was correct for the lower states (which are California, Nevada, and Arizona). While the Court ultimately ruled in favor of Arizona, it agreed with California's interpretation that how it received surplus water supplies was correct.

The 7 states in the Colorado river basin have implemented strategies to reduce water usage.

 In April of 2021,  the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the Southern Nevada Water Authority is officially proposing a ban on the continued maintenance of ornamental grass in the desert metropolis, and the entire state, by 2026. The authority estimates that by eliminating unused turf grass spaces outside of businesses and housing developments or in medians that aren’t being used for recreation—the state could cut back its water usage by roughly 12 million gallons annually. The figure was significant enough that on Friday, the state legislature responded by updating Assembly Bill 356 to include the proposal, with the bill now awaiting a full-chamber vote.

Several years ago, the city of Los Angeles passed a law the rewarded homeowners who replaced their lawns with desert landscaping – and my sister took advantage of the new law, which transformed her lush green lawn into desert plants that required little of no water.

Lawns have long been rare in Tucson, and we have gotten so used to seeing gravel instead of grass in years that green lawns, even outside businesses, look bizarre. 

 

Since states in the Midwest are losing population, and since states in the Southwest are gaining, it would seem logical to purchase some of the water from Midwest States, and send it the Southwest using a series of pipelines and canals.

 20% of the world’s fresh water supply is in the Great Lakes, so they would seem to be a logical source of water. However, that overlooks the fact that regulations prevent cities the Great Lakes basin from using those waters.

 https://news.wbfo.org/post/pipe-great-lakes-water-southwest-not-so-fast

The Great Lakes, of course, are not the source of water in the Midwest.

The longest river in America is the Missouri River, which is 2341 miles long. The Mighty Mississippi, though, is not far behind, with a total length of 2202 miles.

 Ten years ago, the Southern Nevada Water Authority proposed a plan to divert excess water from the Mississippi to states further west. The Authority also proposed to build a pipeline 285 miles long to divert water from the Snake River to Las Vegas, which depends heavily on water from the Colorado River.

http://www.earthtimes.org/business/plan-divert-mississippi-flood-waters-west-proposed/1206/

Even before the Nevada board floated its idea, other people have toyed with the idea of send Mississippi water out west, but there are two major problems with either proposal.

One is cost.

A Colorado rancher and engineer named Gary Hausler calculated that it would cost $23 billion to build. Although his idea does have merit, the politicians that he talked with were not enthusiastic.

The other issue is time.

Mr. Hausler estimated that litigation related to the pipeline would last 30 years, creating a bonanza for the attorneys on both sides of the argument, and it would also result in the creation of new construction jobs, similar to what happened on the Alaskan pipeline, when 21,000 jobs were added.

The link below provides a LOT more details on the pipeline, which would be 775 miles long and 144 inches in diameter:

https://www.deseret.com/2012/5/13/20502414/the-fight-for-water-can-the-mighty-mississippi-save-the-west#a-dam-consisting-of-a-sunken-barge-and-sheet-piling-is-seen-under-construction-on-bayou-chene-in-near-amelia-la-monday-may-16-2011-in-an-effort-to-prevent-flooding-from-the-morganza-spillways-opening-in-amelia-and-nearby-morgan-city-tapping-the-excess-water-of-the-mississippi-and-piping-it-to-the-west-is-among-the-suggestions-to-solve-growing-water-needs-in-utah-and-the-western-states.

Since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes the idea of an East to West pipeline, it does not mean that it won’t happen. It just means that it’s not likely going to happen anytime in my lifetime - and I’m already 73.

 

my dad, the mail carrier

 

After dad was discharged from the Army in 1945, he went to work for Cudahy Packing Company in St. Paul Park rather that returning to the farm to help his brother Clem.

A little over a year later, he married his neighbor in Hastings, Minnesota, a young woman named Mae Stenson, and a little less than a year later, their first child (me) came into the world.

Dave had saved most of the money he made in the Army, so he was able to pay $5000 cash for his first house at 958 McLean in St. Paul. In April of 1950, they became parents of a little girl, and it quickly became obvious that they needed a bigger house, so they bought the house at 2059 E. Third Street. Since the home sold for $12,000, dad was forced to take out a 20-year mortgage – which terrified him. As a result, he paid off the mortgage in 8 years.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/2059+3rd+St+E,+St+Paul,+MN+55119/@44.956759,-93.0135522,3a,75y,7.45h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1shL946N8M7k4i-WHLz4mycw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DhL946N8M7k4i-WHLz4mycw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D7.4508424%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x87f7d6016a2f9d15:0x381342da8238e71d!8m2!3d44.9569873!4d-93.0135251

Life was pretty good for the young Brennan family until 1954, when the Cudahy Packing Company closed its doors.

With two young kids and a mortgage, Larry Brennan took a job working nights at the Zinsmaster Baking Company, but dreamed of getting a better job.

Late in 1954, he studied to take the test for the United States Postal Service – and passed. He began working for the Post Office in the spring of 1955, and worked there until 1976., when he retired at the age of 67.

His first job with the Post Office was special delivery, and he had a few of those moments of “neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail shall keep the carriers from their appointed routes.” On one occasion, he delivered a live baby alligator during one Christmas season. He was never involved in any accidents, but managed to tear the fender off a mail truck when one of the chains on a rear wheel snapped.

Eventually, he got a “walking route”, which allowed him to work the day shift all the time. Over time, all that walking gave him bunions on his feet, which he found to be uncomfortable.

His walking deliveries came to an end in the winter of 1968, when he slipped on some ice on somebody’s front porch, causing him to land on his right side, injuring his shoulder. He sued the homeowner, and received a cash settlement of $3000, which allowed him to trade in his 1963 Chevrolet Biscayne, and buy a brand-new Ford LTD.

By this time, the Post Office was using Jeeps identical to the one shown at the bottom of this page, but they also used right hand drive AMC Ambassadors for a period of time, before reverting back to the Jeeps.

About 10 years after dad retired, the Postal Service came to the realization that an increase in first class mail volume made it necessary to start using a larger vehicle. In 1987, the LLV (Long Life Vehicle) model that is still in use today came into being.

The truck lacked a rear window, air conditioning, and reliable heaters, and got 10 miles per gallon, but many of the originals are still in use today, even though some of them are beyond their 24-year life span.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/24/uspstrucks/

Ten years after dad retired, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. PAEA was the first major overhaul of the United States Postal Service (USPS) since 1970, a year before it became an independent entity. It reorganized the Postal Rate Commission, compelled the USPS to pay in advance for the health and retirement benefits of all of its employees for at least 50 years and stipulated that the price of postage could not increase faster than the rate of inflation. It also mandated the USPS to deliver six days of the week. According to Tom Davis, the Bush administration threatened to veto the legislation unless they added the provision regarding funding the employee benefits in advance with the objective of using that money to reduce the federal deficit. 

Between 2007 and 2016, the USPS lost $62.4 billion; the inspector general of the USPS estimated that $54.8 billion of that was due to prefunding retiree benefits. By the end of 2019, the USPS had $160.9 billion in debt, due to growth of the Internet, the Great Recession, and prepaying for employee benefits as stipulated in PAEA. Mail volume decreased from 97 billion to 68 billion items from 2006 to 2012. The employee benefits cost the USPS about $5.5 billion per year; USPS began defaulting on this payment in 2012. The COVID-19 pandemic further reduced income due to decreased demand in 2020. The latest quarterly financials of the USPS do not suggest the COVID-19 pandemic further reduced income due to decreased demand in 2020.

According to Bloomberg, prefunding the health benefits of retirees "is a requirement that no other entity, private or public, has to make". Columnist Dan Casey wrote in a July 2014 op-ed in The Roanoke Times that the PAEA is "one of the most insane laws Congress ever enacted" Bill Pascrell, a Democratic House member from New Jersey, said in 2019 that it was rushed through Congress without due consideration, and referred to it as "one of the worst pieces of legislation Congress has passed in a generation". In May 2020, a segment on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver examined the law and its impact on the USPS, demonstrating that it has contributed to its debt. It has been alleged that this legislation contributed to the 2020 United States Postal Service crisis.

A 2021 bill, introduced with bipartisan support, would undo substantial parts of the PAEA, although it is unclear whether Senate moderates like Collins would support such effort

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act

First class mail delivery reached its peak in 2001, when it delivered 103 million pieces of first-class mail, but has gone down daily steadily since then due to our increased internet usage.

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/first-class-mail-since-1926.htm

The Postal Service actually made a profit from 1989 until 2007, when the Postal Accountability Act went into effect. If Congress is successful in amending the worst part of the act, the condition of the Post Office will improve dramatically, which will make it easier to afford the $6 billion that it will start to spend in 2023, as it replaces the current mail trucks with new models called “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles”.

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/pieces-of-mail-since-1789.htm

 Megan Brennan began her career with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in 1986 as a letter carrier in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She subsequently worked as a delivery and collection supervisor, a processing plant manager in Reading and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, and a district manager in Springfield, Massachusetts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Brennan 

Brennan stepped away from the USPS for a year to study as a Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following that hiatus, she served as manager of field support and integration and manager of operations support for the Northeast area. In May 2005 she was named vice president for the Northeast area, where she coordinated and integrated processing and distribution, transportation and delivery operations in that region.

Brennan was then named vice president of Eastern Area Operations, putting her in charge of postal operations in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Central and South Jersey, Western New York and parts of Virginia and Indiana. In December 2010, she was named chief operating officer and executive vice president of the USPS. In 2012, she began shutting down mail-handling facilities because of budget cuts brought on by less mail and congressionally-mandated pension-funding rules.

On November 14, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service's Board of Governors voted to appoint Brennan postmaster general to succeed Patrick R. Donahoe, who was set to retire in February 2015.

In May 2018, the Washington Post reported that President Trump personally pushed her to double the rates on Amazon and other firms.

(You may be aware of the fact that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, also owns the Washington Post – which frequently criticized Trump’s presidency).

On October 16, 2019, Brennan announced in a statement that she would be retiring upon fulfilling her five-year commitment as Postmaster General. However, on January 6, her retirement was delayed until a successor could be found.

 The Board of Governors used two search firms to find Brennan’s replacement, and 53 names were submitted.

Louis DeJoy was not one of the 53.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_DeJoy

 Prior to the appointment, he was a Republican Party fundraiser, the founder and CEO of a logistics and freight company, and the CEO and then board member and large shareholder of the company that acquired it. DeJoy's company holds contracts with the USPS.

Upon assuming office in June 2020, he instituted a number of measures such as banning overtime, forbidding late or extra trips to deliver mail, removing and dismantling hundreds of high-speed mail sorting machines, and removing some mail collection boxes from streets. The changes caused significant delays of mail delivery, resulting in investigations by congressional committees and the USPS inspector general. Controversially, the changes were implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, where mail-in-voting was extensively used, with President Trump and prominent Republicans deriding mail-in-voting. In August, DeJoy said that the changes would be suspended, and in October, the USPS agreed to reverse all the changes.

DeJoy's appointment was not only controversial because of his strong Republican connections, but also because of his financial position. While he divested shares in UPS and Amazon before taking on his role, he did not divest his $30–$75 million equity stake in XPO, a subcontractor for USPS. Under his tenure as Postmaster General, USPS has increased its business with XPO. Additionally, when DeJoy sold his Amazon shares, he purchased stock options in the company that represent between 20 and 100% of his prior holdings. USPS prioritizes Amazon package delivery. DeJoy is the first postmaster in two decades without prior experience in the United States Postal Service.

 Trump pushed to have him appointed in order to (1) slow down mail delivery during the 2020 presidential election and (2) gradually privatize the Postal Service.

President Biden has been successful in adding three Democrats to the Board of Governors, and will soon replace Ron Bloom, who is in a “holdover year”. When Bloom’s successor is confirmed, Louis DeJoy will become the FORMER Postmaster General, and another “swamp creature” will slither out the door.

Dad was known as “Larry the mailman” to the people on his route, but his story is actually quite remarkable, since he represented a time in America when a man could survive the Great Depression and WWII, get a union job, and make a living that was adequate to provide a comfortable way of living for his family.

The Postal Service will endure, and so will my memories of my dad. Since I have an “Avon collectible” mail Jeep mail truck on my dresser (identical to what he used to drive), I can always greet each day with a smile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 [tb1]

a blast from the past

 

The other day, we got a copy of the Montgomery Ward catalog in the mail – and it brought back a lot of memories.

 

 

During the 1930’s, my mom worked at the Montgomery Ward store on University Avenue in St. Paul. She was paid 29 cents an hour, which was actually considered a decent wage at that time.

The first minimum wage in America was not passed until 1938, and it was 25 cents an hour. In today’s dollars, that would be equivalent to $4. It has been raised 22 times since that time, by 12 presidents. In 2014 dollars, the highest minimum wage occurred in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson got it raised to $10.75 an hour ($1.60 an hour in 1968 dollars.)

https://bebusinessed.com/history/history-of-minimum-wage/#:~:text=The%20first%20federal%20minimum%20wage%20laws%20were%20passed,1912%20%28although%20they%20only%20covered%20women%20and%20children%29.

My first job was in the same store that my mom had worked in decades before. I started out at $1.32 an hour, 7 cents more than the minimum wage. I started working there on April 24, 1964, and quit shortly after I graduated from college in 1969. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but it was enough to enable me to buy my first car AND put myself through college.

Sharon started working in the same store in 1966, when she was still in high school, and she quit in 1976, when she became a stay-at-home mom.

 The retail industry today is drastically different than the industry it was in 1964, when I first started working. Oddly enough, the industry has, in many ways, returned to its roots.

 Chicagoan Aaron Montgomery Ward set out in 1871 to undercut rural retails by selling directly to farmers via mail order. Initially, things moved at slow pace, so much so that his partners decided to bail on the venture. He decided to move forward with distributing his catalog to rural farmers, even though most of his inventory was destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire. The first catalog for Montgomery Ward was distributed in 1872 and was an 8-by-12-inch single-sheet price list, which listed 163 items for sale. Ward wrote the catalog.

Illinois Grange

A break occurred for Ward when the Illinois Grange decided to name Ward its purchasing agent. This gave Ward access to mailing lists, and his business began to grow. Running short on capital, Ward turned to his brother-in-law, Richard Thorne, who invested in the company and became a partner, managing the day-to-day aspects of the business.

1875 Slogan

The company continued to grow because Ward offered goods to rural communities that they could not find elsewhere. In 1875, Ward started using the slogan "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back," with great success. During this time, Ward also became active in the community, for which he gained much recognition, especially for his work in establishing parkland along Lake Michigan.

The Wish Book

By 1883, Montgomery Ward's catalog had gained much steam and was even dubbed "The Wish Book." The catalog was 240 pages and had 10,000 items. Unfortunately, in 1896, others began to take note of Ward's success, and competition entered the playing field. The first serious competitor was Alvah Roebuck, co-founder of Sears, Roebuck and Co., who mailed out his catalog.

Catalog Warehouse

Because of large demand and sales of more than $8.5 million, Montgomery Ward opened a catalog warehouse in Chicago known as Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalog House. It was the company headquarters until 1974 and continues to be a historic landmark.

First Retail Outlet

In 1908, Montgomery Ward opened its first retail outlet in Plymouth, Indiana. By 1928, it was operating more than 244 stores. Its flagship store was on Michigan Avenue in Chicago between Madison and Washington streets. After World War II, Montgomery Ward was the third-largest chain of department stores in the country.

Downfall

The company continued on a popular path until 1950, when Americans began settling in suburbia, and malls started sprouting up everywhere. Montgomery Ward thought it too expensive to invest in these areas, and soon its catalog business was declining. The company soon merged with Container Corp. of America and became Marcor Inc. In the 1970s, the company continued to struggle and was acquired by Mobil Oil, which brought great cash infusion. The company decided that after 113 years, it was time to close the catalog business. Unhappy with the arrangement, the company's management undertook a successful $3.8 million leveraged buyout by 1988.

Unfortunately, in the 1990s, Montgomery Ward lost ground to competitors such as Wal-Mart and Target. In 1997, the company filed for bankruptcy. In 2000, it formally announced it was going out of business, after seeking help from General Electric. In 2004, the company was resurrected in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as an online retailer and continues with diversified store offerings throughout the nation.9:16

 

https://careertrend.com/montgomery-wards-history-13635908.html

Montgomery Ward prospered because the company made it easy for rural customers to order merchandise by mail, instead of traveling into large cities to shop.  That same philosophy has also helped a more modern company to thrive.

Its name is Amazon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Amazon#:~:text=Amazon%20was%20founded%20in%20the%20garage%20of%20Bezos%27,the%20company%20began%20service%20as%20an%20online%20bookstore.

On July 5, 1994, Bezos initially incorporated the company in Washington state with the name Cadabra, Inc. After a few months he changed the name to Amazon.com, Inc, because a lawyer misheard its original name as "cadaver". In its early days, the company was operated out of the garage of Bezos's house on Northeast 28th Street in Bellevue, Washington. In September 1994, Bezos purchased the domain name relentless.com and briefly considered naming his online store Relentless, but friends told him the name sounded a bit weird. The domain is still owned by Bezos and still redirects to the retailer.

Bezos selected the name by looking through a dictionary; he settled on "Amazon" because it was a place that was "exotic and different", just as he had envisioned for his Internet enterprise. The Amazon River, he noted, was the biggest river in the world, and he planned to make his store the biggest bookstore in the world.^[ Additionally, a name that began with "A" was preferred because it would probably be at the top of an alphabetized list. Bezos placed a premium on his head start in building a brand and told a reporter, "There's nothing about our model that can't be copied over time. But you know, McDonald's got copied. And it's still built a huge, multibillion-dollar company. A lot of it comes down to the brand name. Brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world."

After reading a report about the future of the Internet that projected annual web commerce growth at 2,300%, Bezos created a list of 20 products that could be marketed online. He narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products, which included: compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos, and books. Bezos finally decided that his new business would sell books online, because of the large worldwide demand for literature, the low unit price for books, and the huge number of titles available in print. Amazon was founded in the garage of Bezos' rented home in Bellevue, Washington. Bezos' parents invested almost $250,000 in the start-up.

In July 1995, Amazon opens as an online bookseller, selling the world's largest collection of books to anyone with World Wide Web access. The first book sold on Amazon.com was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. In the first two months of business, Amazon sold to all 50 states and over 45 countries. Within two months, Amazon's sales were up to $20,000/week. In October 1995, the company announced itself to the public. In 1996, it was reincorporated in Delaware. Amazon issued its initial public offering of stock on May 15, 1997, at $18 per share, trading under the NASDAQ stock exchange symbol AMZN.

Barnes & Noble sued Amazon on May 12, 1997, alleging that Amazon's claim to be "the world's largest bookstore" was false because it "...wasn't a bookstore at all. It's a book broker." The suit was later settled out of court and Amazon continued to make the same claim. Walmart sued Amazon on October 16, 1998, alleging that Amazon had stolen Walmart's trade secrets by hiring former Walmart executives. Although this suit was also settled out of court, it caused Amazon to implement internal restrictions and the reassignment of the former Walmart executives.

In 1999, Amazon first attempted to enter the publishing business by buying a defunct imprint, "Weathervane", and publishing some books "selected with no apparent thought", according to The New Yorker. The imprint quickly vanished again, and as of 2014 Amazon representatives said that they had never heard of it. Also in 1999, Time magazine named Bezos the Person of the Year when it recognized the company's success in popularizing online shopping.  

 

Today, Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $200 billion. The market valuation of the company that he started in his garage is now over $1 trillion, and some analysts are predicting that will be worth more than $2 trillion in the near future.

 

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/07/31/analyst-predicts-amazon-will-hit-2-trillion-valuat.aspx

 As shopping centers became more popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the thought of going to the mall, especially during the Christmas season, convinced a lot of people that it was easier to shop on line.

If you order from Amazon today, your order typically arrives in a few days. If you are not satisfied with your purchase, the company will cheerfully refund your money, which means that the business model of Montgomery Ward, “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back”, is still in effect today.

I'm coming back as a cat

 

Over the last 50 years, I have lost count of the number of cats that have lived with us, but I’m pretty sure that it’s several dozen. At one point, we had 5 cats living in the house simultaneously, and they all led pretty leisurely lives

The average cat lives 10 to 15 years old if they spend most of their time indoors, and about 7 years if they spend a lot of time unsupervised outdoors. The male cat that moved with us to Tucson was in the latter category, and he was roughly about that age when he disappeared one day, a victim of the predators in the desert.

One of our cats lasted for 18 years, which would be the equivalent of 88 human  years.

https://www.petmd.com/blogs/thedailyvet/jcoates/2011/aug/how_long_do_cats_live-11496

Cats sleep from anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day, but most of that time is in a state of “light sleep”. When they are awake, they are either eating, using the litter box, or wandering around in the back yard, but they also spend a lot of time sitting on people’s laps.

 

 

 

I’m actually not a believer of reincarnation, but several prominent American citizens were. Included on that list are Benjamin Franklin, Mahatma Gandhi, Henry Ford, Ralph Waldo Emerson, General George S. Patton, and George Harrison.

https://www.journeyofthesouls.com/famous-people-who-believed-in-reincarnation#:~:text=Famous%20people%20who%20believed%20in%20reincarnation.%20Benjamin%20Franklin,to%20the%20continual%20trouble%20of%20making%20new%20ones.

Sharon and I have decided that traditional funerals are silly affairs, and having your old bones sitting in an expensive box buried six feet down has very little appeal, so cremation seems like a fitting “end story”.

However, there ARE alternatives to cremation.

There is a company in Florida that will imbed your ashes in a reef

 https://www.eternalreefs.com/

 An Eternal Reef combines a cremation urn, ash scattering and burial at sea into one meaningful, permanent environmental tribute to life. An Eternal Reef is a designed reef made of environmentally-safe cast concrete placed on the ocean floor as a permanent memorial of a life well lived.

There are also companies that bury your ashes with a memorial tree. If this is your pick, here’s how to do it:

1. Dig a hole 1-2 feet wider in diameter than the root structure of your sapling. Loosening the soil will help initial root growth, as well as water and nutrient absorption.
2. Dig a little deeper still if you want to accommodate a biodegradable urn to place below the tree during the planting process.
3. If planting a number of smaller plants, first map out the planting on the ground. Using a garden spade, dig holes wide and deep enough to accommodate the roots of the plants.
4. Once all the holes are dug, you might wish to conduct an ash scattering ceremony or memorial service with friends or family to provide a sense of closure. Then scatter the ashes into each hole from a scattering tube.
5. Once words and prayers have been shared, and the urn or ashes have been placed in the ground, add any desired fertilizer and a shallow layer of dirt.
6. Place the root of your plant on top of the urn or ashes. Backfill the soil around the stem and tamp down the earth to ensure a stable footing.
7. Lastly, add three to six inches of mulch around the bottom of the new planting. This helps keep roots moist, deters competing weeds and insulates roots over the winter.
8. Give your memorial planting a good soaking, and continue to shower with attention at least once a week

https://www.oneworldmemorials.com/blogs/news/burying-ashes-with-a-memorial-tree-or-in-a-remembrance-garden#:~:text=%20How%20do%20I%20prepare%20the%20site%20for,first%20map%20out%20the%20planting%20on...%20More%20

This morning’s Tucson Daily Star provided information about another alternative.

Composting.

A woman in Kent, Washington founded a company that will transform dead people into compost. In 2019, Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill making natural organic reduction law. The law went into effect in may of 2020, making Washington the first state to offer alternatives to burials and cremations. The company that Karen Spade founded is called Recompose, and there are currently are 700 people on the waiting list to be “recomposed”. The fee for the transformation is $5500, This year, Colorado became the second state to legalize the process, and other states are also considering doing the same thing.

 I have several relatives that lived to be 95, so I am pretty sure that I’ll eventually become a centenarian. When it’s time to “check out”, it’s very unlikely that I’ll come back as a cat. However, if composting ever gets legalized in Arizona, I could eventually come back as a tomato, at least for a couple of seasons.

If you want to pay homage to me, come during the growing season.

 

 

a fresh look at disabled children

 

There was a time in America when children that had autism were described as “retarded”. Thanks to the efforts of people like Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the “r” word has become politically incorrect. Ms. Shriver established the Special Olympics in 1968, which helped to create a more favorable image of people with disabilities. However, it was not until the passage of the Individuals with Disability Act in 1989 that formal programs for persons with disabilities were established.

 

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/08/spread-word.html

There are a variety of conditions that would be considered “disabilities”, but the most common ones are Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism. Regardless of the specific malady, though, individuals with mental (and sometimes physical) disabilities were considered “retarded” in the past, and some still are today.

 To make things a little more confusing, you need to understand that there are FIVE different types of autism:

1 – Classical autism

2 – Asperser’s Syndrome

3- Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD-NOS)

4 – Rett’s Syndrome

5 – Childhood disintegrative disorder.

https://www.autism360.com/types-of-autism/#:~:text=Key%20Types%20of%20Autism%201%20Asperger%E2%80%99s.%202%20Pervasive,Disintegrative%20Disorder.%204%20Rett%E2%80%99s%20Syndrome.%205%20Classical%20Autism.

Jodi Picoult is one of our favorite authors, but her stories would not be considered “light reading” since they all deal with serious topics. Her 2010 novel, “House Rules”, centered on a young man who had Asperger’s.

 There actually ARE people who believe that inoculation cause autism, but that is absolutely NOT TRUE.

Being afflicted with Asperger’s is not necessarily a bad thing, since the individual involved can still accomplish amazing things. Two of the individuals that have the disease are well known to the public.

One of them is Greta Thunberg, who started sitting outside the Swedish Parliament on Friday afternoons when she was 15 years old to call attention to the dangers of global warming.

 https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2019/05/sweet-little-16.html

 She’s spoken to the U.K House of Parliament and the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland. She has also berated the billionaires at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and she has also met with the Pope (who’s written a book about climate change titled Laudato Si). On 24 November 2018, she spoke at TEDxStockholm

 Inspired by the survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, she began a weekly schoolwork strike every Friday, turning to social media to implore politicians to support and take steps toward halting carbon emissions.

 After she spoke at the U.N. Climate Conference, her followers on Twitter exploded, and now number over 600.000. She also has 1.6 million followers on Instagram. On March 15, an estimated 1.6 million people in 133 countries participated in a climate strike inspired by her solo action.   In March 2019, three members of the Norwegian parliament nominated Thunberg for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

In 2019, she was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

The other person that you will recognize just hosted Saturday Night Live.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/05/09/elon-musk-hosts-snl/

 His name is Elon Musk.

Born in South Africa in 1971, he later moved to Canada, where he married a Canadian singer known by the stage name of Grime.

His business career has been VERY busy.

At the ago of 24, he and his brother started a company called , which was sold to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. The same year, he founded a company called ban x.com , which later became PayPal, which sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

In 2002, he founded Space X, which recently started sending astronauts into space.

In 2005, he joined the electric car company Tesla as chairman and product architect.

In 2006, he helped create SolarCity,   which was eventually merged to Tesla to become Tesla Energy.

In 2015, he founded OpenAI, a company that promotes artificial intelligence.

In 2016, he started Neuralink, a company that focuses on brain-computer interfacing.

The same year, he started The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company.

As of May 8 of this year, he is worth $183.9 billion, just below Jeff Bezos, who is worth $200 billion.

For a retarded kid, I think he’s done pretty well.