"The Running Man Flying High For The Glory Of God" by Orville Rogers with Barbara Norris--Book Review

Roger, Orville with Norris, Barbara, The Running Man Flying High For The Glory Of God (Franklin, Tennessee. Clovercroft Publishing, 2016) 

Orville Rogers was born in relatively poor Oklahoma farm family in 1917 and when he was fairly young his father ran off to never be heard from again until Rogers encountered a half-sister when he was nearly eighty and learned that their father had died drunk in a flop house.  But, with the help of mother, grandparents, and a couple of uncles, Orville Rogers accomplished an exemplary life as a commercial airline pilot, oilfield investor, a volunteer pilot for a religious organization upon his retirement, a board member of a couple of religious organizations, and a world record holding elderly runner. He is still alive today at 100 and managed to run a mile on his last birthday. I chose to read this book, which is outside my normal purview, after seeing Orville Rogers featured on a television news show as he approached his centennial.  I always respect and pay attention to elderly achievers and did so even when I could not have been thought to be even approaching that aged status.  I still remember the well known Old Regular Baptist Preacher Clabe Mosley who was said to have preached a three hour sermon on his 102nd birthday when I was only 7 years old.  I have also come to understand that if I wish to live as long as two of my half-sisters and reach centenarian status that I must exercise and maintain as much of my physical condition as I can.  Orville Rogers did not begin running until he was about sixty and is still doing so today although not at the same pace at which he set several senior citizen records.  I thought Orville's book might be something I could learn from in the field of physical fitness for the aged.

The book was written with a named ghost writer, Barbara Norris, and I am not a fan of ghost written books.  But at 97 or 98, I can understand why Orville Rogers might have thought it was wise to use a professional writer if for no other reason than to ensure that the job would be finished in the event he died.  I am only superficially aware of Clovercroft Publishing, the vanity press which Rogers and Norris used to produce the book.  But the book itself is professionally acceptable in terms of printing, paper, photographic reproduction, and most other areas.  It does have a typical amount of typographical errors which one is likely to find in books from such companies.  

Orville Rogers led a sufficiently interesting life to keep me reading until the end when, at times, I knew I had better things to do with my time.   The book moves along in a manner which keeps the reader awake without ever approaching the status of literature.  Rogers and Norris tell his life story in a direct timeline fashion from poor Oklahoma farm boy to millionaire pilot, investor, runner, and religious believer.  But, for my original purpose of learning about physical fitness for the elderly, the book fall short.  It simply discusses how Rogers met Kenneth H. Cooper, M. D., who runs the Cooper Clinic in Dallas and wrote the early physical fitness book "Aerobics" in 1968 and has been a well known proponent of running and physical fitness for many years.  The book virtually leaves training routines untouched and focuses primarily on the religious life of Orville Rogers.  Shortly after I read the book, I saw in the media that Orville Rogers family threw a major birthday party for his 100th birthday and collectively ran a hundred miles in his honor with Mr. Rogers joining his family for the last mile.  It is good to know that even at 100 he has not given up running in which field he holds several world records for competitors in their 80's and 90's.  

If you are seeking an autobiography about an airline pilot or a religious believer and volunteer, you will find this book worth reading.  If you are looking for literature or advice or running, don't bother.  But I still hope Orville Rogers lives another hundred years and runs every day of his life. 

 

The Second Amendment As It Is Written

On January 3, 2013, I wrote and published a post entitled One Appalachian Man's Opinion Of Gun Control which since that time has consistently been one of my most read and most commented upon posts on this blog.  Naturally, there have only been two opinions expressed about that blog post, either I am a genius or I am an idiot who wants to forever damage the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution and have the government take away every gun everybody in America owns.  Since that post was written, the four worst mass shootings in American history have taken place.  The post was actually written in response to the Newtown School Shooting on December 14, 2012, which killed 28 people if we include the shooter and his mother. It is only natural to include all the dead after a mass shooting.  But we still do not  have a consistently used and solidly defined understanding of what constitutes a mass shooting.  The verbiage varies from at least three victims shot but not necessarily killed to three or four dead shooting victims.  Since many murder suicides involve spouses or life partners and are generally limited to two dead, most murder suicides do not fall into anyone's commonly used definition of a mass shooting unless they involve several other victims besides the shooter such as children or other relatives.  Another truly bizarre quirk in our examinations of mass shootings and other forms of mass murder such as bombings, arson, and vehicular homicide is that the media and police almost never use the words "terror", "terrorism", or "act of terror" unless the event is perpetrated by a non-white, non-citizen, non-Christian who has expressed some belief in some form of government or religion which is not prevalent in American society.  It is my considered professional opinion, both as a writer and a retired mental health professional, that all mass murders are acts of terror.  No one with good sense would ever approach a survivor of such an act or a relative of one of the victims and argue the point that an event which killed four or more victims was not an act of terror.  All murders, all attacks of any form which kill or seriously injure multiple victims are terrorizing to the victims, witnesses, other intended victims, survivors, first responders, and family members of those murdered or injured.  As a society we need to broaden our definitions of terrorism and acts of terror.  If Porky Pig became enraged due to rabies or having eaten poisonous food and marched into his local mall and killed, maimed, or otherwise injured a dozen people we should and probably would call it an act of terror because Porky Pig is not like the rest of us or his human victims.  But if a Right Wing Religious lunatic who is Caucasian, a self professed "Christian", and an auxiliary deputy  in his local sheriff's department lost his mind and shot and murdered his wife and three children, it is highly unlikely that any form or media or any police spokesperson would call that an act of terror. That is a serious flaw in our reporting, policing, and analytical perspectives.  We must recognize that terror and terrorism do not need to be committed by a Muslim, an African American, an immigrant, or a Rastafarian in order to be terrorism.  Any murder, whether by gunfire, bombing, automobile, stabbing, or poisoning terrorizes both the victim and her family and friends as well as any witnesses to the act.  

I regularly refer to the website Gun Violence Archive when I am seeking information about gun violence, mass murder, or murder statistics in America.  They are the best, most impartial, and most accurate website in the nation in the field of gun violence statistics.  As I am writing this blog post on January 2, 2018, there have already been 138 gun violence incidents with 50 deaths and 83 injuries in less than two days in America.  If you do not believe or understand it, that is far too many incidents, deaths and injuries in what is supposed to be the most civilized country in the world.  In Australia, the country most people commonly think of as being a great deal like America, there have been no mass shootings since a wide ranging change in their laws following the worst mass shooting in the country in 1996 which killed 35 people and wounded 23 more.  Strong gun laws worked in Australia.  They will work in the United States and the 2nd Amendment gives the judicial and legislative branches of government full power to regulate guns and their ownership and usage in America.  

There is something deeply flawed morally, ethically, legally, and religiously in any country which will not take appropriate actions to prevent the murder of 15,000 people and the unnecessary maiming of 30,000 others a year.  The language of the 2nd Amendment is this:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The National Rifle Association has managed, by spending hundreds of millions of advertising dollars and buying the support of thousands of elected officials, to perpetrate the mistaken belief that the government does not have the right to regulate gun  ownership.  The US Constitution is a living document and the US Supreme Court has the right to interpret that document to fit the needs of a changing world.  The phrase "well regulated militia" gives the courts and legislatures full rights to regulate all guns, gun ownership and use, and all auxiliary paraphernalia related to their use.  Both guns and automobiles can be and are used to commit murder, mayhem, and mass injuries and death all across America.  We regulate automobiles and their use from sea to shining sea and we regularly change the laws to meet the needs of the country as is taking place at this time in response to self-driving automobiles. Every state in the union requires registration, insurance, and a drivers license to own and operate a motor vehicle.  But anytime any courageous legislator or judge steps to the plate and makes an honest attempt to regulate guns a public outcry occurs and the National Rifle Association and its well trained members scream, yell, lobby, and threaten to riot in order to prevent life saving progress.  As a nation, we need to re-educate our populace and our legislators to the need for comprehensive federal gun control legislation.  We need to replace any elected official who will not support that effort.  We need to fund organizations which are fighting to improve gun control legislation and we need to lobby both individually and collectively until that legislation is enacted.  

I propose the following changes to US gun control laws and I propose that they be enacted immediately.  However, I am not naive enough to believe this can happen today, tomorrow, or even this year.  But it must happen step by step. 

1. All guns must be required to be registered.
2. All transfers in gun ownership must require a background check conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and that should include transfers of ownership within families in cases of estate management and gifting.  
3. Those background checks must include all sales at gun shows.  The gun show loophole must be eliminated.
4. All gun ownership should require the owner to complete and pass a basic gun safety course with testing as a requirement to pass the course. 
5. Gun ownership by convicted felons, the mentally ill, and those convicted of any crime of violence should be illegal.
6. All fully automatic guns should be illegal in the country except for use and ownership by legally constituted police agencies functioning as an arm of a federal, state, city, or county government.   
7. All appurtenances such as bump stocks and modified firing mechanisms which can be used to make a gun fully automatic should be illegal. 
8. All parts required to compose a working gun capable of firing, sometimes known as ghost guns, should be illegal for sale unless they carry a registered serial number and require the same permits, clearances and record keeping as complete guns.   
9. The creation of all firearms or any other mechanism capable of firing a bullet or missile of any kind via the use of printers should be illegal with a minimum prison sentence upon conviction.
10. No magazines holding more than five rounds should be legal.  
11. Armor piercing or "cop killer" ammunition must be illegal. 
12. Ownership of all forms of military weapons such as grenade launchers, flame throwers, and rocket launchers should be illegal.
13. All guns seized in the commission of a crime should be impounded by the police and courts and held until the complete legal process in the case has been completed up to and including the expiration of appeals timelines.  Upon conviction and expiration of the appeals process, all weapons used in the commission of a crime should be required to be destroyed the state police in the state in question. 

     I realize most of the ideas expressed in this essay are not going to be well received by supporters of unrestricted gun ownership.  That is fine with me.  We, as a nation, must become willing to listen to the uproar until such time as education and legislation have eliminated the need for these actions.