Pinto Bean Politics!

When I was growing up in a country store on Beaver Creek in Knott County Kentucky, we sold pinto beans by the pound, weighed from a galvanized barrel that sat under the main counter in the store. We bought the beans in 100 pound bags, dumped them in the barrel which also held a pretty nice blackjack carved from a piece of wood to a shape just like a miniature baseball bat, about a foot long with a nice handgrip and about a 3-4 inch circumference on the head which was drilled to about three inches down the handle to include a nice round cylinder of lead. To my knowledge the blackjack was never used in the long period my parents operated the store. Our customers came in, usually talked small talk for a short while, bought whatever they needed, maybe even a pound or two of pinto beans, and left without ever needing to be knocked out with the blackjack in the bean barrel. I no longer own that blackjack but in today's world of the most corrupt politics in the history of the nation, and the worst living example of a human being working on a daily basis from the White House to destroy the entire nation and our democracy, we sure need a good metaphorical political blackjack. On a recent check of the price of pinto beans, I found that WalMart is charging $14.94 for a 20 pound bag of pinto beans. That boils down to about 74.7cents a pound for bulk pinto beans. WalMart is now selling the one pound bag of pinto beans for a dollar. When I was often helping my parents behind the bean barrel, I don't think we ever charged more than 10cents a pound and we were making a decent profit in those days. The point to this focus on pinto beans is important because there are millions of Americans of all stripes and cultures who are eating pinto beans on a daily basis. Several different cultures are highly dependent on pinto beans as a staple source of protein. Most people of moderate to poor means in the American south depend on pinto beans as a major portion of their diet. That includes both Caucasian and African American citizens of the deep south. Most members of the various Hispanic cultures in America are also largely dependent on pinto beans. Frijoles, in many forms, are a common sight on Hispanic dinner tables. Nearly every person who ever grew up in Central and Southern Appalachia grew up, in large part, on pinto beans. We even had pinto beans once a week in the high school lunch room at Knott County High School at Pippa Passes, Kentucky, when I was a student there. Pinto beans may well be the answer to help us solve our ongoing attempted tyranny by TRAITOR Trump and the Right Wing Radical Repugnican party.

One of my favorite memories about pinto beans goes back to about 1992 when I was working for a short while, between human services jobs, at a horse farm in Central Kentucky. I was salesprepping several brood mares which were headed toward a November Breeding Stock Sale at Keeneland. The mares were actuallly owned by a man who was contracting for the sales prepping with the owner of a farm I was working on at the time. I was sent to the owner's farm to do the work. One day, the owner who was born and raised in Quito Ecuador, a Mexican immigrant blacksmith, and I were standing in front of a barn in a conversation and found ourselves talking about how we had grown up in three very different locations and cultures. We suddenly discovered that all three of us had grown up eating pinto beans, one in Mexico, one in Ecuador, and one in Eastern Kentucky. It was an educational moment for me for sure. What is the point to all this and politics? What the Democratic party needs to do to win all the next upcoming elections in this country is to locate, educate, register, and guarantee the turnout to vote of the great majority of the pinto bean cultures in America. If we do that we will be back in control of our country, our Democracy, and our future. We will no longer be facing the horrible situation in which we finid ourselves today. We can begin the next 25 to 50 years of necessary work in order to save our country after all the political, moral, and ethical damage which has been done over the last ten years by TRAITOR Trump and the other TRAITORS who facilitate most of his crimes against the government, the country, the world, and the planet. The answer is all about pinto beans.

"Nellie And The Mayor's Hat" by Charlotte Baker, A Fine Old Children's Book From 1947

Sometimes, a good dose of children's literature is a great thing to give us all a break from the horrible political events going on in America today. I have read and written about many children's books over the years, both those beginning reader books and adolescent literature can be fun and educational to read. I especially like to read books which have won or been finalists for awards such as the Newberry, Caldecott, and the National Book Award which also gives an award in the category of Young People's Literature. So far as I know, this book, "Nellie And The Mayor's Hat" never won any awards, and might not have even been nominated for any. I cannot find any significant information about the author Charlotte Baker. The search for information about her is also made more difficult by the fact that a currently living Right Wing Radical "Christian" woman of the same name is currently making waves in the country. But Charlotte Baker, the important Charlotte Baker who wrote "Nellie And Mayor's Hat" was an interesting writer and person as proven by this book alone. The book was published in 1947 with simultaneious issue in both the USA and Canada. It is a hardback book of 96 pages and published by The Junior Literary Guild and Cornwall Publishers. It is probably most appropriate for readers in the third to sixth grades. The title of the book refers to a little dog, Nellie, who is owned by a family of Hispanic children and their grandfather in a town somewhere, presumbably, in Texas. They are poor and the grandfather is trying hard to feed the children while at the same time Nellie has a litter of five puppies which are growing fast and eating the family out of house and home. Nellie is actually the heroine of the story which in today's parlance can be said to be a story about DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The grandfather tells the children they have to find homes for the puppies very soon or they will have to "go away". The children talk about finding a home for the puppies which will have plenty of food, a good yard with a fence, and children to play with the puppies. They decide to "investigate" several people they know whom they believe to be appropriate people to care for the puppies. They begin with Miss Bliss, one of their teachers in school and that is a miserable failure when Miss Bliss leaves the puppies alone in her small apartment and they wreak havoc and disturb the neighbors. Then they "investigate" the service station man who has to tell them he can't keep the puppies because there is too much traffic around his service station. Finally they decide the mayor who lives in a big pink house and has two children would be a good person to take the puppies because he has a big yard, lots of money, and children. They try to see the mayor and have to sneak into his back gate and hide in the shrubbery until he comes out to walk in his yard. But he says he doesn't like dogs and refuses. The mayor has just been given a big hat, actually a sombrero by the mayor of Monterray in Old Mexico and is planning to lead a parade for Founders Fiesta Day wearing the hat and riding a big palomino horse. The children convince their grandfather to take them to the parade along with the puppies in a little wagon. At the parade, the dogs spook the mayor's horse and he loses his hat which falls in the river. But Nellie, who has been a big part of the book and the multiple "investigations" all along, jumps into the river and drags the mayor's hat back to shore just in time to return it to him which causes the crowd to cheer loudly for Nellie. The mayor instantly gives a speech to thank Nellie and finds himself backed into taking Nellie's puppies which saves the day. It is fascinating to find a book this old, written for children, which addressed issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in a time when almost no children's books approached subject matter about minority culture, equal rights, or other issues of discrimination or human rights. It is a wonderful surprise of a book from the late 1940's and can become a great classroom tool in today's public schools if enough copies can be located. In all honesty, this is a book for which a legitimate argument can be made to have it reissued in a new edition. Find A Copy! Read It! Tell The World About It! Use it to support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Some Immigrants I Have Known

As I have watched the steadily increasing coercion and terrorism being directed at immigrants by TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump, I have thought frequently that I needed to write this blog post.  Yet I have put it off time after time since January 20, 2017.  Due to current circumstances in American politics, I can no longer procrastinate about this post or this issue.  I will insist on saying that I have not avoided speaking my mind on this topic to anyone when the subject arose and I have always been willing to say that it is my considered opinion that any immigrant who wishes to come to America is worth more to this country than the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  During the course of their first year in America, nearly all immigrants will pay more in taxes to the US government than TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump can prove he has paid in the last twenty years.  Any immigrant who is being forced out of the country by the current illegitimate and TREASONOUS Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which lives in the White House would be welcome in my home to which I will never invite any Right Wing Radical Repugnican supporter of TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump. 

Now that I have prefaced this post about some of the immigrants I have known, I will get down to the meat of the writing about these people who have crossed my trajectory and, almost without exception, enriched my life.  I honesty do not remember clearly the first immigrant I met but I remember stories I heard in childhood from old Appalachian coal miners about the immigrants they worked with in the mines of Eastern Kentucky.  My father, Ballard Hicks, and my maternal grandfather, Woots Hicks, both worked many years in the mines of Floyd County Kentucky and worked with many Italian, Hungarian, Polish, German, Romanian, and Czech immigrants who had often been specifically recruited and brought to the US to work in the mines because the coal companies of the time wanted hard workers who had no connections in the immediate community which meant they had no significant support system other than the coal company and, possibly, other immigrants from their own country.  In the stories I heard miners tell about these immigrants,  I do not remember any particularly disparaging remarks about them from anyone.  I heard numerous stories about how hard they worked, how they often got paid less than American citizens for the same work, and how well they were respected by their American coworkers.  The great majority of these immigrant miners stayed in America for the rest of their lives and most achieved citizenship while working an incredibly difficult job for companies who often used the old statement that "a mule is worth more than a miner.  When a mule dies, you have to buy another mule but you can always hire another miner if one dies." Companies which applied that type of thinking always applied it equally to all their miners whether American citizens or immigrants.  

Many of the descendants of these immigrant miners achieved great things in America based on the values which their parents taught them.  Daniel Mongiardo, descendant of Italian stone masons who were brought to Hazard, KY, by coal companies, became both a doctor and the Lieutenant Governor of the state.  One of my professors in the 1970's was Peter J. Laska, the descendant of Ukranian immigrant coal miners in Northern West Virginia, achieved a Ph.D. degree and was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry. His book of poetry "D. C. Images And Other Poems" was a finalist for the award in 1976. Peter Laska is one of my closest friends, professional mentors, and role models.  In Logan, West Virginia, I became friends with Monty Stagnoli, the descendant of Italian coal miners who had been brought to Harlan, KY, by coal companies and became a grocery store manager for a major chain. I have also come to know the highly respected West Virginia novelist Marie Manilla whose novels and short stories are read and studied all across America. Her novel "The Patron Saint Of Ugly" won the Weatherford Award as the best Appalachian novel of 2014. All of these people achieved more than most of their classmates who were descended from people who had been considered Americans for far more generations.  

But we should discuss the actual immigrants who have been my friends, mentors, professors, coworkers, and, in some cases, heroes and role models.  In the early 1980's, when I was working as a door to door salesman in Logan, WV, I was incredibly lucky to meet a family of immigrants from Afghanistan.  I sold a vacuum cleaner to Mrs. Amena Loynab, the wife of Dr. Noor Loynab, who was practicing medicine in Logan, WV.  I was often brought into their home in Whitman, WV, for supplies or repairs related to that vacuum cleaner.  The home was always spotless and I was always made to feel extremely welcome there.  When I expressed an interest in the Koran, Amena Loynab loaned me her personal Koran wrapped in a bright yellow scarf to protect it.  Every time I ever went to that home, I was invited in, placed at the table and offered food which almost always included the best baklava I have ever eaten.  I always remember that Amena Loynab's aged father, who spoke only Arabic, would be in the house and would always pass through when he realized I was there.  He would always say nothing to me but would give a short stern speech in Arabic to his daughter which I always assumed was a reprimand about allowing a man inside the house when her husband was not present.  But, regardless of whatever he said, I was always brought into the home and treated as a respected guest. Dr. Loynab was then and still is a highly respected physician in Logan who always treated anyone who came through his office door regardless of their poverty or any other negative factors.  I will always cherish the memories I have of this immigrant family.  

In 1992, I was living and working in Lexington, KY, and, for about two years, I worked on a horse farm which was a profession I had practiced in the 1970's and 1980's for nearly twenty years. I had returned to horse farm work in 1992 temporarily as I was searching for my second job placement in the human services professions.  During that time, I worked with two Mexican immigrant brothers who were some of the best horsemen I have ever known.  They also had a third brother who, as an immigrant, became one of the best, most highly respected and sought after, farriers in Central Kentucky, an area where a second rate blacksmith cannot last a week.  These brothers were friendly, open, honest, compassionate people and I will always remember an occasion when one of them gave me a dozen fresh ears of corn from their personal food supply simply because he wanted to do something nice for my wife and I.  I will always remember these brothers fondly.  

In the early 1990's, my wife Candice began to develop serious neurological symptoms which eventually caused her to spend the last eighteen years in a wheelchair.  We eventually learned from Dr. Joseph Berger, M. D. , the current Associate Chief of the Multiple Sclerosis Division of the University of Pennsylvania and retired Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Kentucky, that he was unable to diagnose the cause of her problems.  Dr. Berger referred us to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where we traveled regularly for nearly five years only to eventually learn that Candice's problems were due to a rare and untreatable genetic anomaly.  But from the first day we arrived at NIH, we were blessed to know and Candice was blessed to be treated by Dr. Elif Arioglu Oral, M. D., a young, brilliant female Muslim physician from Turkey who at the time was on a fellowship at NIH.  Today, she is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Medicine.  She was one of the best, most intelligent, most compassionate, and most honest humans I have ever known. 

When I was working on my Master of Education Degree in Counseling and Human Development at Lindsey Wilson College, from 2002 to 2005, I was blessed to know and learn from Dr. Daya Singh Sandhu, Ph.D.   Dr. Sandhu came to America with degrees from a college in his native India in English and went on to switch from English to Counseling, and, in the process, became one of the most experienced, best respected professors and authors on the topic of mental health counseling in all of America. He went on to earn three further degrees including his doctoral degree after coming to the USA.  He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited at least thirteen books on counseling related subjects most of which were published by the American Counseling Association Press.  He also has published fifty professionally refereed articles in counseling journals and has published at least eighty chapters in professional books edited by others. Dr. Sandhu is an Indian Sikh, a religion which is often misunderstood and villified by Americans who know nothing about it.  But Dr. Sandhu is one of the most compassionate, professional professors I ever had to the good fortune to know.  When I met Dr. Sandhu, he was teaching a course in substance abuse counseling in the masters degree program during his summer vacation from his full time job as Director of the Counseling and Human Development Department at the University of Louisville, a job from which he subsequently retired to join the full time faculty at Lindsey Wilson College.  There were about fifteen of us graduate students in that course.  On the last day of class in that substance abuse counseling course, he took the entire class to lunch at Pizza Hut out of his own pocket.  He was available, professional, compassionate, and served as a mentor to many of us in that graduate cohort.  I will always cherish the time I able to spend under his instruction and mentoring and I firmly believe I was a better counseling professional for the remainder of my years of practice because I knew Dr. Sandhu.  

This list of immigrants I have known and benefited from includes a housewife and mother, two medical doctors,two common laborers in the Thoroughbred horse business, a farrier in the Thoroughbred business where unskilled blacksmiths were quickly shown to the farm gate, a couple of college professors, and all of them were excellent people.  They included Catholics, Muslims, and a Sikh.  I would trust any of that group of immigrants in any situation more than I ever could anyone willing to work for TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  I would invite them into my home gladly and I never would do the same for anyone who ever worked for the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  Any and all of those immigrants is more valuable to this country than any person, citizen or not, who is stupid enough to believe the lies coming from the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which lives in the White House today.  Any of those immigrants is much more highly developed morally than anyone who would participate in the separation of children from their parents and agree to incarcerate those children in tent cities in the desert.  It is long past time for this country to come to its senses and stop this rapid political, moral, and social degeneration at the hands of a Russian Agent who committed TREASON in order to steal an election.