The Difference Between Men and Women.

There was a best seller a few years ago entitled, Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus .(by John Gray). None of us who are married or have ever been married will disagree. We are facinated with one another but men ands women certainly do not always understand one another. The current story making the email rounds illustrates this well.

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a good time so a few nights later he asks her out to dinner.

They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while, neither is dating anybody else. Then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

There is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Gosh, maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either.Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward. I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy?

Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: So that means it was ... let's see ...February when we started dating, which was right after I had this car at the dealer's, which means...lemme check the odometer. Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face.
Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed-even before I sensed it-that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. Scumbags!

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self- centered, school girl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a warranty. I'll take their warranty and ...

"Roger," Elaine says aloud. "What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," Elaine says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have... Oh God, I feel so..." (She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that ... it's that I... I need some time," Elaine says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.) "Yes," he says. (Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.) "Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."

(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Roger," she says.
"Thank you," says Roger.

Then he takes her home. Ealine lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn.
Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechs he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it.

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say, "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the difference between men and women!

Semper fidelis:Always faithful

The United States Marine Corps Birthday has been celebrated every year since the 10th of November 1775! My husband, Charles Shaw, like most Marines, as the Marine hymn states, was “proud to be member of the Unted States Marines.”

He served in the Marine Corps, Semper fidelis in World War II. “Always faithful“ was more than a motto to him and to his buddies and also to the wives and widows of these men, who do not question that they were indeed the “greatest generation.”

But my grandson, Captian Joshua Hearn who recently was stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia after serving over a year in the U.S. Army in Iraq and anotehr year in German. He and his generation are also “the greatest generation."

They are struggling daily and honorably with new enemies as we saw clearly on September 11, 2001 after years of more minor attacks on Americans.

Then the vicious killing of thirteen and the injuring of over thiry more at Fort Hood in Texas a few days ago is another wake-up call.

In my house there is one room I call my “study.” It has my desk, and two walls lined with bookcases filled to overflow with books.

My granddaughter, Amanda, when she was small liked to come in here, fill our cards for her younger cousins and called this room “the library.” I spend a great deal of my time in here reading as well as writing.

Family members, including children when they visit are welcome and usually make a least one stop in here to check email or just “putter around” looking at pictures when they visit. The young children usually ask for and receive a supply of paper and pencil to write or draw and make themselves at home in “the library.”
On my hallway wall just outside my study is a gallery of family pictures that fascinate the younger children when they are here. They love to find pictures of themselves on Grandma Ruth’s wall.

The large bookcase near the doorway inside my study has a group of pictures above it. This one wall contains almost exclusively, photos of my husband Charles or the two of us together.

Shortly before Charles died in 1986, he had framed a Semper fidelis emblem. It now hangs in my study.

Unlike the Abu Ghrabb case with it's 24 hour a days news broadcasts, most of us were slow about hearing that Dellon Tyler Ward finally pleaded guilty to two counts of "knowingly and willfully making false, fictitious and fraudulent statements" to federal agents last year… allegeding members of the Marine Corps committing murder on Iraqi soil.” The investigation of these false charges ended up costing $193,000 and involved pulling U.S. Marines out of combat zones in the spring of 2007.

Dellon Tyler received only 15 months for this kind of treason against the United States of America and false changes against our Marine Corps ?

USS New York Commissioned 11-7-2009

Here SHE is, the USS New York, made from the World Trade Center!
USS New York. It was built with 7 and 1/2 tons of
scrap steel from the World Trade Towers.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, 'those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,'recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. 'It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.'

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the 'hair on my neck stood up.' 'It had a big meaning to it for all of us,' he said. 'They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back.'

The ship's motto?
'Never Forget'