Conquering junk mail and dictators

When is a residential move complete? Sure, one is reminded to have utility accounts disconnected and paid off. (Spending money for unnecessary things is always a good reminder!) The Post Office is cooperative about forwarding letters, but changing the address for all the other “necessary” mail that one receives seems to be an unending task. Actually, it’s all for the good. Those endless requests for money, political campaigns and wonderful unwanted bargains of things you don’t need or want will end up in the dead letter box.

We didn’t need to bring many of the long-accumulated furniture items we have acquired over the ages, so Grannie Annie is giving a lot of things to friends and family members. “Here, you can have this to remember me by!” is her usual retort. Still, there are quite a few “treasures” remaining in the “old house,” so Grannie Annie and your intrepid columnist plus daughter Nancy and son Don are pricing the items in preparation for an upcoming estate sale.

Visiting with one of the residents here, the lady recounted another way to prepare to move into a retirement facility. She recounted that her daughter had been living with her in our community, and when it came time to move to this facility, all she had to do was leave everything she didn’t need here back in her old residence for her daughter to use. Both are happy.

Over the years, I have kept in touch with Darrell Meister, the owner of the Bison herd near our beloved Red Willow Reservoir. Darrell is a retired Marine and also corresponds with several retirees from other services. All of us seem to be highly in favor of the actions taken by President Trump.

Recently, the discussion was about the three foreign conflicts that our beloved America is engaged in, at a distance and at the current moment. That being Ukraine, The Middle East and the Island Nation of Taiwan. So here is a gent named Phil in Meister’s group’s spin on it:

“ (1) The Ukraine: The more that I talk with the Ukrainian men in our Fitness Center, the more I wonder why the U.S. is wasting our time and money on the Ukraine. These men “escaped” the Ukraine shortly after Russia annexed Crimea many years ago. They said that the handwriting was on the wall – Russia would eventually occupy all of Ukraine.

“ (2) The Middle East: A good way for Israel to stop dropping 2,000-pound bombs on the civilians in Gaza would be for the U.S. to cease providing Israel with Military Aid. If Israel wants to spend their money on an “endless war,” they should spend their own money, not the hard-earned money of U.S. taxpayers.

“ (3) Taiwan: It is both a geographic certainty and a demographic certainty that Taiwan will one day be part of China. No one disputes this fact. So, in my humble opinion, the unification could still be peaceful and the sooner it occurs, the better.”

Now, this old military veteran has quite a different view from Phil’s. I think that President Trump is on the right track in the Ukraine dustup. He is trying to get the European countries to revolt against Putin’s Russia. After all, Putin has plans to overtake the countries that were a part of the USSR and Ukraine is just his first step. Those former Soviet block countries are the ones who will suffer if Putin gets his way. Will we need to send troops? I was a part of the force that won over the USSR and we never had to send troops on the ground.

In my opinion, we need to continue support for Israel to keep a damper on the Middle East. They are an awesome military force and will probably deliver the bunker buster bombs that we sent them to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. They need our support – not the troops on the ground that Darrell’s group is thinking.

The Island of Taiwan has never been a part of Communist China. It is where the National Government went to when pushed out of China by the murderous Communist government under Mao. They have always been a friend of the United States. They also have established a fantastic economy, as our forever-friend South Korea has accomplished. Their protection is warranted, I’m a think’un.

You may have noted the death of former Republican Mia Love, a representative of the state of Utah. Just very recently, she died of brain cancer. Knowing her time was short, she wrote a beautiful love letter about what a wonderful country the United States truly is. Pull it up if you can because it will make you proud.

That is the way I saw it.