“STUFF” HAPPENS. GET OVER IT.


       I hope all of my readers are as upset as I am about the fact that very little, if any of America’s history is taught anymore in our public schools. I find that deeply disturbing. Young people today can tell you next to nothing about our past involving our Native Americans, the revolution, our founding fathers, the Mexican war, the Alamo, the Indian battles, the two World Wars and most of the more recent wars, names of important people from our past and the events, discoveries and inventions that made them famous. They don’t know dates and locations of those famous events, and worse, they don’t care. That is wrong, devastating and sad.
 

Through Kelsey Grammer, Pete Hegseth, Rob Lowe and other TV personalities, the channel called Fox Nation provides dramatic reenactments of some of America’s historical events, with full and accurate costuming to match the time period, and detailed information about the where, when and why of those events. It is all done in a very exciting and entertaining way that any young person would enjoy watching while at the same time, learning real history.

        

        These docudramas include the Boston Tea Party, George Washington’s crossing of the icy Delaware at Christmas time in order to surprise English troops during the Revolution, Civil War reenactments, various stories about the World Wars in which America was involved, as well as detailed stories about the early years of discoveries and wealth and well known builders of this nation as the industrial revolution exploded across the land through names like the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Astors and Henry Ford. Yes, with wealth you usually also find corruption, but it is all part of the rich history of America, and it is people like those above who, through our unique freedom and democracy, made us the strongest, richest nation in the world. And there is nothing wrong with that. We must strive to keep that pride and strength at all costs, and learning our history is all part of that.

 

        Yes, this country made a lot of grievous mistakes as it grew, and yes, there was and still is greed and racism and all the wrong things that come with learning how to cope with the unusual freedoms with which we have been gifted. But just as a little child has to learn not to do things that will hurt them, and how wrong it is to lie, to steal, to hurt others, our nation has had to learn such things on a much bigger scale. But how can our future generations learn from history’s mistakes if they are not taught that history at all?


        You cannot ignore history. It is real, and it is both wonderful and sad, something to be proud of in so many ways, and something to be ashamed of in just as many ways. To teach that history and all its faults is not to offend or insult, but rather to show our young people how we got where we are and how and why all the wrong things happened and how we can learn from that and correct all the wrong.

 

        Through the new part-time job I work now, I have to watch short videos about diversity, equity and inclusion, three words we hear talked about through our schools, on the news, and now, often, through our jobs. It is through this nation’s history that a new generation has come up with this way of teaching how to correct our past mistakes and misconceptions about other races and cultures. That’s okay. But why not also teach our youth things from the past that led to this necessity? 

 

        Don’t forget that understanding our history and being truthful about past wrongs can we teach a new outlook on life and other cultures. We have to make our young people understand that there is nothing wrong with telling the truth, nothing wrong with learning the details of America’s history. So much of it, and so many of our founders and inventors and explorers can bring out our patriotism and pride, as well as a desire to make things even better, more fair, more equal and accepting.


        I hope you will encourage your children and grandchildren to learn the truth … not the political, slanted versions we hear on network news, but the real truth. Make it exciting for them. Whenever they can watch reenactments of famous events, discoveries, people, inventions, and the wild action that was the settling of America, let them watch and learn things like the gold rush, the land rush in Oklahoma, the era of stagecoaches and the Pony Express, the telegraph system, the growth of our great cities, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the Hoover Dam, the truth about how our Native Americans were treated, our most famous explorers and the more famous Native American leaders and wars. Let them watch and learn. Today we can stream just about anything we want to watch. It is easy now to go back and watch an old tv miniseries, like James Michener’s CENTENNIAL and ROOTS. If our children are not going to be properly taught history at school, then use entertaining tv shows/miniseries to teach them. Give them books to read. Some of the best books that truthfully and realistically show the history of the French & Indian Wars that led to the Revolutionary War are by Alan Eckert – THE FRONTIERSMEN, A SORROW IN OUR HEART: The Life of Tecumseh, WILDERNESS EMPIRE, THE CONQUERORS, THAT DARK AND BLOODY RIVER, GATEWAY TO EMPIRE and more. These stories are historically accurate and written in a very active, entertaining way, so much so that it is like reading a novel.

         I hope you understand the importance of American History and its impact not just on the past and the present, but on this country’s future. Our youth can only make things better today and tomorrow, but for years to come if they learn and understand the past. Learning can be a tool used toward greater strength and a stronger tomorrow. 

 


 

January 2024: Remembering Maria


         It has been a while I posted a blog. Sorry about that, but I have been mulling over my next new story as well as being involved in all the hoopla of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations.

          I decided to dedicate this blog to my daughter-in-law, Maria Bittner, who passed away one year ago on New Year’s Eve day at the young age of 54. I will miss her forever. My blog this month is a repeat of the dedication I wrote for Maria that was read at her funeral. She had a huge funeral with a packed sanctuary and a lovely talk by my son about how much he loved her. The following is my personal memorial to Maria that the minister read at the funeral. Rest in Peace, Maria. I will miss you forever. Rosanne


          Throughout our lifetimes we all end up attending funerals. The cycle of life makes it impossible not to. But most of us expect the funeral to be for an old person, whether our own relative or someone else’s. 

 

Expected. We manage our way through those expected ones. Much as we love and will miss that person, we are relatively prepared for his or her death.

 

Then comes the unexpected, and it hits like a blow from a baseball bat. There is always the “why?” of it. Here I am 78 years old and Maria was only 54. Why her? I was blessed to live through my own sons turning into men, my grandsons turning into men, and now I have been ultra-blessed to be here for my great-grandson. I might get to see him grow into a young man, too, but that is up to God. The fact remains that Maria won’t get to see her grandson or her step-grandchildren become adults. She won’t get to enjoy their children. 

 

          I have decided on the “why?” of it. She was one of the most loving women I have known, and perhaps my son and my grandsons will remember her patience and her unselfish caring for them and their little ones. Perhaps her memory will help them be good fathers and grandfathers, and will help the women who knew her be better mothers and grandmothers. Perhaps Maria was sent into my son and grandsons’ lives simply to help them through the tough years of learning to live in a blended family and to leave a glow in their lives … the glow of warmth and love that will always be with them, not in the flesh, but in the spirit. 
 

If we believe that Jesus Christ is always among us, and that angels are always among us, then we have to believe that the spirits of certain special people are also among us. After all, death is only in the flesh. I can name a few of my own loved ones who have passed on who I am sure are always with me. Some people just plain can’t help leaving a “forever” memory that doesn’t fade with time. Maria is one of those. We were as different as the sun and the moon. Other than when I would go to a gathering of friends at her and Brock’s home, we never did anything together socially because I was the extrovert and Maria was the stay-at-home introvert. I could give you a long list of our personality differences, but that doesn’t matter. I just loved that woman, and she loved me. Although she was step-mom to my grandsons rather than mom, she loved them just like her own. She had total love, honor and respect for her husband’s family, and there was nothing fake about it. You could sense it, feel it. You knew it was real.

 

Brock told me Maria often said she didn’t really want to live long enough to have to go to our funerals. What a thing to say. And she did tell me once that she did not believe she would live to be an old woman. I don’t know why she felt that way, but she seemed to sense that was exactly how it would be. The morning of the day she died I took her some things she needed and felt bad that she wouldn’t be able to go to the belated family Christmas that was to take place later. As bad as she felt, she made me take the gifts she had for the baby, and for my husband before I left. She was thinking about them. I figured Brock would take her to the hospital and she would get better and next year we would have a normal Christmas.


       But when I walked out the door, something struck me, and I will never forget it. A little voice told me I might not see her again. I feel so guilty for leaving, but don’t we all think it’s not possible that a healthy 54-year-old woman would die just a few hours later? I told myself that, and I left, glad that Brock was going to take her to the hospital. We would all celebrate and eat the ham I had in the oven and then Brock would take some home for Maria.

 

We can all look back and think, “I should have done this, or that.” But God will have His way, and no matter what our decisions, His will always rules. So I tell myself not to feel guilty, because Maria Bittner died exactly like she wanted to die, a happy, happy woman who loved much and lived a giving, unselfish life, and without a jealous bone in her body. She loved sunsets, and once told Brock that enjoying a campfire and watching the sunset with him was like heaven.

 

She is there now, and she died before she had to bear the death of other loved ones. Some of us have the strength for that, and some of us don’t. Maria would rather watch over us from a better place, where she is perfectly happy to wait for us to come to her. I will be so glad to see her again, and until then, I will miss her as much as any other special loved one who has gone before me. She was not my daughter-in-law. She was my daughter.