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RHAPSODY, SORROW, AND A SAILFISH

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RHAPSODY, SORROW, AND A SAILFISH It was a sad conclusion to a day of trolling off of Soldier Key, about 20 miles out of our launch at Black Point Marina south of Miami. The sail hit the lure then disappeared, not taking the bait. I told my pal Gen Brookins to back the big engine on the Carol Ann to idle and allow the big plastic skirt of the jig to drift and sink. The hook up came very quickly, the rod holding up to my repeated hook sets. What a fight the old girl put up, leaping time and again until she was alongside of the boat. I was shocked to see the long line protruding from her mouth along with the lure. She was the biggest by far of any sail in my ten years in South Florida. She had beat the long liner's effort, but that meant that now she had a huge stainless hook in her belly. It would not rust out. What constant agony she must have suffered. Feeding was almost impossible and explained the missed initial strike. Glen and I knew we had to break our code of catch...
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Retrospection/Grandma's Root Cellar

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Secrets and memories of Grandma's root cellar, the headless man, the roosters, and a rural farm in the 1950's in the Ozark foothills of Wayne County, Missouri.   Shadows.  Some light fog and mist.  I wonder if I could somehow step through it?  Go back to that time almost seventy years ago?  Would that rooster be waiting for me there still?  The black walnut tree?  The woodpile? Is it possible to remember joy and be overwhelmed with sadness at the same time?  Maybe that fits somewhere in the very definition of nostalgia. A few years ago we made the trip back to what once was the small farm of my grandmother, Bessie Wilson, near Greenville, Missouri in the Ozark foothills of Wayne County, Missouri.  The house now is in total ruin and a few of the wooden outbuildings have succumbed to weather, decay, mold, and mildew and have become as one with nature.  But not the stone masonry of the old freestanding root cellar.  It still stands an...
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Wayne County Missouri/The Indian Rock Redux

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Wayne County, Missouri 8.12.17   60 years ago I sat on this rock and wondered about what all the ancient symbols could mean. The rock was in the old Southern's pasture and it was passed each and every time we walked down to our old swimming hole in Reece's Creek. Some of my favorite memories of cousins, including Pam, Connie, Ronnie, and Susie and of course AUNT Bev were gathered here like precious stones and stored for frequent recall and wonder. Thank you sweet Bev, who I love more than I can express, for making possible the flood of emotions of seeing the old rock once more, untarnished and still presenting as much challenge and intrigue as a good detective story. It was easy to imagine holding Pammie's hand on a scorching summer day and jumping off the creek bank to the giggles of a gaggle of waiting cousins (and an Aunt) below.  And, then coming back up the slope to dry off sitting on the rock in the summer sun before entreating bare feet to make the march back up the ...
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Covered Wagons, Feather Beds, and Granny Susan

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Great Grandmother Susan Ann Tarlton Moore I remember my mother brushing Granny Susan’s long white hair as she sat up in the old featherbed in her daughter’s home, the home of  my grandmother Bessie Moore Wilson, on Reece’s Creek in the Missouri Ozarks.  She was old, I thought.  And maybe a little scary because of it.  Mother finished, and Granny’s slight frame remained turned in our direction, Grandmother’s colorful patchwork quilts up to her waist. I was less than 4 years old, Ken must have been around 8 that day when Granny Susan patted the featherbed for us to hop on and sit with her.  Now I was about 1/2 cowboy and 1/2 Indian at this time, so I paid rapt attention when she began to talk about covered wagons.   Covered wagons automatically meant cowboys and Indians so she, as much as was possible, had me on every word. I doubt any other theme of her story would last a man near 80 and be as fresh as a new lily after a spring shower. This would most c...
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I AM GRATEFUL TO GOD

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  There you have it, from former Nazi turned American aerospace engineer and architect.  The scientist' scientist and one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century, acknowledges the existence of the soul.   I am grateful to God for thinking enough of me to place my soul in this body and live this existence.  And, I might add, for my years of that existence--the memories, the lessons, the relationships, and the intelligence, to consider all the possibilities for it. Perhaps the most marvelous gift was being able to come to the understanding though the living of life, is that He gave me this life and left the living of it to me. I could spend it anyway that I wished. I could deny Him because it was popular, trendy, perceived as the mark of a superior mind …or come to the understanding that He gave me a heart with my body as well as a brain, and they were designed to work together and that they were an integral and cohesive part of my soul as well. I did not ...
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POLITICAL PARTIES, POLITICS, AND "THE WALL"

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2019, THOUGHTS ON PARTY POLITICS AND THE WALL   Because I rarely if ever allow politics to be my reason for existing on any social media, I limit my thoughts on the cesspool that it has become to but a few times a year.   I began 2018 with a few opinions and I follow suit in 2019.  But since even many in my extended family and circle of friends do not get the weekly Keith Ragan insight into every subject politically relevant to the headlines of the week, I go on record with some thoughts and feelings on this subject of discourse now.  As always, you are entitled to yours, and I will defend to my death your entitlement to them.  Because that’s always been at the core of what this great country stands for. The number of people I have known in my life that I would testify for, as to sound character and reasonable intelligence, seem to diminish in number when politics are the subject of conversation.  The blithering regurgitation of the party speak of the ...
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DAD, PRAYER, AND RECOLLECTIONS OF A FIVE YEAR OLD BOY

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      Dad, Me and Brother Ken circa 1949 I was 4, maybe 5. "I wish I had some money to spend." Dad looked at me and gave his little grin. "If you close your eyes and pray real hard for God to give you some, He will. When I tell you to open them, if your prayer was good enough, since you are a little boy, God will answer." We were in Jackson, Tennessee standing by the curb and corner of a street about 5 feet away from the corner drain. I remember Dad had a friend with him, probably some family member. It would have been impossible to have squeezed my eyes any tighter and prayed any harder. "Open your eyes". As my head was already bowed, I did so, and to my delight, there in the gutter was a dollar bill. This was about 1950 and a dollar bill was a lot of money. A year later we were in our little house on Meacham Lane in McCracken County, Kentucky. We were in our tiny living room and I was standing next to a small, dark magazine rack under the picture...
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