I'VE BEEN DOWN THIS ROAD BEFORE

In 2008 I completed a book about my father, TROY WYE PRITT IN HIS OWN WORDS. He had made 30 audio tapes on which he told stories about his life and the memories he had of people in his family and of his close associates. I worked for two years transcribing the tapes and then organizing the material in chronological and subject order. There was enough material on the tapes about his father to write a six page article for GOLDENSEAL magazine. (Winter 2005)

When the book was completed I had to decide how to publish it. I didn’t think it was worth the effort to try to find a publishing house that would want to buy it. It would have had to be a publisher that specialized in West Virginia history. There are only a handful of these.

The other possibilities were various forms of self publishing – vanity press, print on demand, and set up my own publishing company. I chose the latter. I created Mtnpride Books. I obtained a business license for Troy Lynn Pritt dba Mtnpride Books. I opened a checking account for Troy Lynn Pritt dba Mtnpride Books, obtained a sales and use tax permit from Arkansas, an EIN number from the IRS, an ISBN number and bar code for the book, and a Library of Congress Number for the book.

My niece Laura Lynn Sullivan of Photography by Laura Lynn used an old photograph of my father to design the book cover. Then I sent the book and its cover to InstantPublisher.com of Colliersville, TN to be printed and bound. Including overruns I received 265 books. I sold the books on my website mtnpride.com, in a couple of book stores, by email solicitation, a newspaper ad, reviews in several magazines, person to person. My father was in a nursing home. He sold probably half of the books. After about a year I was almost out of books and I ordered 50 as hardbound copies. There were 10 overruns. I sold most of those. June 30, 2009 I closed the business. For almost a year selling books had consumed most of my time.

In November 2009 I wrote a novel LOST AND FOUND for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It was originally a little more than 50,000 words in length. I revised it, rewrote parts of it, added another 20,000 words and now I think it is ready for publication. I have awakened Mtnpride Books from sleep. My granddaughter, Emily Margaret Pritt designed the cover for the book. In the next week or so I plan to send the book and cover to InstantPublisher.com.



HOW MY WORLD HAS CHANGED

          The April 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine has two major articles that highlight for me how my world has changed. They are “It’s A Rich Man’s World: How Billionaire Backers Pick America’s Candidates” by Thomas Frank and “The Warrior Class: A Golden Age for the Freelance Soldier” by Charles Glass.
            It takes a lot of money to be elected to any office in the present times. In our Congressional District in rural Arkansas, a candidate for House of Representatives won in the Democratic primary over another candidate who spent many times more money. He won by “shoe leather” electioneering. However, the state and national Democratic parties are sorry he won. The Republican candidate has demonstrated an ability to raise lots of campaign funds, had no opponent in the primary and now is in a position to outspend the Democratic contender ten or twenty to one in the general election.
            On the level of Presidential primaries and in the general election in November, billions of dollars will be spent to gain residence in the Oval Office for the next four years. There were candidates who demonstrated an ability to raise funds from tens of thousands of ordinary citizens. They did not win enough votes to become their party’s candidate in the November election. It is the candidates with billions of dollars to spend, whose backers themselves are millionaires and billionaires, who will be our choice whether we like it or not. No matter who we vote for in November, to be our President, our Representative, and our Senator, we know in voting for them that they will go to Washington indebted to their millionaire and billionaire backers to do what is in the best interests of those who bankrolled their election campaigns.
            Military service in the United States of America used to be primarily for patriotic duty, for the defense of our homeland. Two major events have worked to change that, though patriotism is always placed in the forefront. One event was the elimination of the draft. Military service then had to be sold as an attractive and profitable career choice. The other event was the Viet Nam War. The defense of our country was not at stake. 

In former times the best known “mercenaries” were men who joined the French Foreign Legion. Many of them were criminals and murderers from other countries who joined the Legion to escape conviction and sentencing in their own countries. As little nations in Africa, Central and South America were formed from former empires of European nations, mercenaries found opportunities selling their barbarism to would be dictators in these young nations. At first these mercenaries were mostly European. After Viet Nam a number of Americans began joining their ranks. They even had their own magazine, Soldier of Fortune.

            Glass’ article details how mercenaries working for contracting companies in the USA became private armies in Iraq and Afghanistan.   

ST. PATRICK'S DAY 1966

St. Patrick’s Day reminds me of the birth of our third son forty-six years ago on this day.  We were living in England.  The arrangements for childbirth there, at that time, were considerably different than they had been in the United States for our first two sons.  In England most children were delivered at home by a midwife.  Those who could afford to go to a private convalescent home, had their baby there, but it was still delivered by a midwife.  The Army paid for my wife to go to Duchy House.

The day arrived that the baby was on its way.  I called for one of the soldiers’ wives to come and watch our two sons.  I took my wife to Duchy House and they took us upstairs to her room.  It was a large room with a hospital bed, a sofa, a coffee table with a tea service, an armchair, and an oriental rug on the floor.  After my wife was settled in the room, I started to leave.

“Where do you think you are going?”

“I thought that I would go home and wait so I’d be out of the way.”

The midwife was dressed in a crisp, white uniform.  She was tall and slim with bright red hair. She spoke with a distinct Scottish accent.

“You are not going anywhere, Yank. You are going to stay right here and help me.  The other patients are waiting for me to bring them their supper trays.”  She then gave me a list of things she wanted me to do.  I was also to keep checking on my wife and to shout if I needed the midwife.

When she returned she checked my wife and then we rolled the bed into the delivery room.  She gave my wife a shot which numbed the pain but allowed her to remain alert.  The midwife kept me busy assisting her throughout the delivery.  When our son arrived, she gave him to me to carry up to my wife.  After she had cleaned the baby, we rolled the bed back into the room.  The midwife carried the baby off to the nursery, brought my wife her supper tray – roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables, and tea.  I was allowed to go home at last.

Our third son was born in England, delivered by a Scottish midwife, on St. Patrick’s Day, and was named David, the patron saint of Wales.

CHURCHES INSULTING GOD

As the years have gone by and I have grown old, I have seen much of the religious nature of Christmas replaced by a steady secularization of the holiday. First there was the widespread replacing of the word Christmas with Xmas. Radio stations played less and less carols that told of Jesus' birth with sappy songs about Rudolph, snowmen, sleighs, holiday meals, holiday romance and anything but Christ. Many of the stores stopped using the name Christmas and just used the generic Holiday. Even Christmas cards had less and less scenes of the first Christmas. All religious meaning was removed from the verses inside the card. All of that could be blamed on unbelievers and Scrooge-a-likes in corporate offices.

Now that secularization has been adopted by Churches! Already there are listings in local papers of churches that will not be holding worship service on the Sunday that falls on Christmas. Santa Claus trumps Baby Jesus even in those churches now. What is the explanation? Do they really believe that if they are open for worship no one will come? Are the churches saying like Elijah that there are no more believers in God except him? Or is it that the pastor and the assistant pastor and the organist and the Sunday School teachers don't want to work on Christmas? How soon until the Easter bunny closes the churches on Easter - Easter always comes on Sunday.

RETIREE APPRECIATION DAYS, Ft. SILL, OK

For years I have received an invitation to the Retirees Appreciation Event at Ft. Sill, OK.  This year my wife and I attended it.

On Thursday we went to the huge Reynolds Army Hospital on Ft. Sill.  They really treated all the retirees grand.  There were a lot of medical tests available.  There was an eye clinic, dental clinic, heart health, etc. My wife and I received a shingles immunization.  A doctor of pharmacology & diabetes educator went over our medications and treatment and made suggestions.  I can't express how nice they treated everyone.  There were 475 retirees and their spouses and about 25 widows.  They were coming and going all day.  We had lunch in the Hospital's Cafeteria.

The Army has a new program called Privatization of Army Lodging.  We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express on base.  It is the largest Holiday Inn Express anywhere - 544 rooms in two buildings.  It was very nice and only $65/night including free breakfast.  They have several amenities not offered in other Holiday Inn Express hotels including free telephone call home when you check in, shuttle service anywhere on base, Wednesday night barbeque social, and a snack shop open  24/7.  Thursday we also went to the AAFES and shopped,  then went back that night for pizza.

On Friday we went on a bus tour to the historic Mattie Beal home in Lawton, OK in the morning, ate in a huge chow hall for lunch (what a change from the chow halls I remember).  That afternoon the bus took us to the Ouachita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.

Friday evening there was a banquet in the Patriot Club (I'm guessing it is an officers' club or a joint officers/senior NCO's club)

Before the meal there was an invocation, posting of the colors by an eight member honor guard, pledge of allegiance, national anthem, then some awards, a really good meal, entertainment by an Army Jazz Band and two speakers.  One was SGM Asepermy, an American Indian, who gave an illustrated talk about the Indian Code Talkers in World War I and World War II.  The other speaker was a woman, retired Major General in the Oklahoma Air National Guard, La Rita Aragon, a former school principal in civilian life, and now Oklahoma Secretary Veterans Affairs.  She had an interesting talk and she brought down the house by ending her talk with a video of Lee Greenwood's "Proud To Be An American."  The video showed wounded warriors and caskets coming off the plane in Delaware.  Everyone spontaneously rose to their feet.  There wasn't a dry eye in the place.

Two things impressed me. I'm not used to being "appreciated" because I am a veteran.  They really conveyed that message in  spades.  The other thing is that I had forgotten how easily you are accepted as a friend when you are in a military environment.  It was a long drive there and back but it was more than worth the effort. 

"CAVES AND GRAVES"

     When Sarah died, Abraham bought the field and cave of Machpelah for a place to bury her.  When Abraham died he was buried in that cave alongside Sarah.  When his oldest son, Isaac and his wife Rebekah died, they were buried in that cave with Abraham and Sarah.  When Leah, the first wife of Isaac’s son Jacob, died she was buried in that cave.  Even though Jacob died in Egypt, his sons brought him back to the cave at Machpelah to be buried.  Those were the only persons buried in that cave.  It became a lodestone for the Israelites.  Their religion was called “the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”.  They trusted the covenant promises God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They worshiped the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”.  The cave at Machpelah can still be seen today.

A hundred years ago my grandfather bought three cemetery lots, each with four graves.  He buried his father and mother in the graves on the northwest corner.  Later, he would bury two of his own infant children in graves at that location.  He and his wife were buried there.  His two sons and their wives are buried there.  Just as no one else was buried at Machpelah, no one else will be buried in those three lots.  The great grandchildren and their progeny have scattered to more than half dozen states.  For all of them, those graves in that place are the stake that establishes their origin, their clan, their heritage.   

Thoughts While Standing At My Father's Grave

My father died last year at the age of 93.  In four more days he would have been 94.  I wasn’t able to be at his funeral because of a snowstorm.  He is buried in a cemetery a thousand miles from where I live.  This past Sunday I visited his grave.  My father and mother are buried on a lot that adjoins the graves of my paternal great-grandfather and great-grandmother, my paternal grandfather and grandmother, and my aunt and uncle.  Nearby is the grave of a great-uncle. 

Why do we have graves in cemeteries with headstones and markers?  We make every possible effort to return the bodies of servicemen and servicewomen from foreign countries where they died so that they are buried in their home town or one of the national veterans’ cemeteries.  Their grave is marked with their name, date of birth and date of death.  For the Christian the body is placed in the earth to await the second coming of Christ.  “The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.”  At the very least the grave and its marker are a long-lasting declaration “This person lived upon the earth during these years; he/she is not forgotten.”

The Russians have a saying they use about someone who is not a likeable person, “Who will tend to his grave?”  I noticed that the graves of my uncle and aunt were decorated with flowers, an American flag and a tiny lantern that holds a candle.  They have two sons in town.  In another part of the cemetery the headstones of my maternal grandmother and maternal great-grandfather were knocked over as were a number of grave stones surrounding them.  They were either the objects of vandalism or maybe a tree had fallen in that area.  All of the graves are old.  My grandmother died almost fifty years ago and my great-grandfather before then.  I doubt if anyone in that town remembers either one of them.  Their headstones have become a moot point.

I am told that in Spain the cemeteries are so crowded that grave lots are leased for a year.  After a year the body is dug up and cremated.  It is nice that great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents can lie together resting in peace in adjoining grave lots.  That belongs to the past.  In our modern culture parents and children are often separated by hundreds or thousands of miles.  They will die, be buried, and their graves marked with the names, date of birth, and date of death.  No one in the nearby communities will care that they lived upon the earth during those years.  Will their children drive hundreds or thousands of miles to stand over their grave?