[Granville-Hough] 8 Jun 2009 - Easter Recollections

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:32:08 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Easter Recollections - 8 June 2009

    Last Easter (2004) as well as this (2005), I have watched various
movies about
Christ and the development of Christianity.  Charlton Heston I find to
be much overdone and overrated as Moses, as well as doing serious damage
to the history of the period.  Jesus of Nazareth is much more appealing
to me, and it seems to me less harmful to tradition.  However,
each to his or her own taste.  The most recent movie on Christ in the
last year or so, director I can't recall, is to me in the category with
Charlton Heston  It seems more for the glory of actors than it is for
helping sinners.
    When Jesus asks, in effect, that the bitter cup of death by
crucifixion pass him by, he also knows it will be over in a day or
two.  What can the Alzheimer's patient say or ask for?  It may be one
year, five years, or ten years. It is what I call the "slow
crucifixion."  I do not know how to phrase the prayer for the
Alzheimer's patient so it is meaningful to them.
Early during the time you learn you have the disease, you can think
about your own situation; and you can choose euthanasia, or suicide, or 
starvation, or quiet acceptance.  In the latter
stages, these terms have no meaning; and it is up to someone else to
decide for you how your end will come.
    I had a moment of sober reflection in the Chiavo case. (This was a
Florida case where the issue was removing life support equipment from a
person who had long been in a coma.) I learned
that the parents were Bob and Mary Schindler.  I thought for a couple of
hours that this was my executive officer when I was battery commander in
Panama.  He was a 1st Lt who took over as Battery Commander when I left
Panama for the States. The age
would barely fit, but not improbable. Bob and his wife could have had
children that young.  Then to my relief I remembered that my Executive
was Lt Robert Schindling, and that he and his wife were from Wisconsin.
Not Schindler, but Schindling.  So I was relieved that my friend was not
in the unhappy position of the Chiavo parent.
    Our church Easter Egg hunt was this afternoon.  Earlier I talked to
several young mothers about preparing Easter eggs, and they were all
trying to figure out where and how they would confine the color damage
to their floors and walls.  What is undoubtedly a most pleasant memory
for the pre-schooler is a nightmare to the mother; hard for her  to
relax and enjoy.  On the farm we wasted little, so our best solution was
to shell the "found" eggs and mash them up with potatoes and mayonaize
into a meal we would eat right away, and it could be most tasty.  Our
favorite coloring was poke berry juice, a bright red which was not a
fast color, but yielded quite readily to water and lye soap.  (Some day
in the future, I will tell you how to make lye soap.)
    I hope this year was a Happy Easter to all! Grampa.