Events involving Morgan monument called troubling

Everybody must live somewhere.  But on 4/25, Asheville Citizen-Times readers Jacobs and Kyle emphatically pointed out it shouldn’t be North Carolina, and especially Asheville.

When I shared many Asheville happenings with a trusted friend, he replied, “Rick, this is your mission field.”  Even Billy Graham lives nearby.

After church today, I inspected the recently placed monument for Col. Morgan outside City Hall to confirm what I have been reading in AC-T.  Asheville taxpaying citizens need to know we are funding bureaucrats (and possibly others) who have no better use of their time than to deface and obscure  Col. Morgan’s favorite Bible verse in small letters near the bottom of the monument.  According to AC-T, to “Restore it to its original design.”

Last year I was honored to recommend to Carl Mumpower  (helped spearhead the project) the highly regarded monument maker who prepared the tasteful tribute, including the inscriptions. 

Living 100 miles west of Asheville, he will likely concur with Jacobs and Kyle and be glad he is far removed from Asheville.

I do believe Asheville has scores of decent, honorable, responsible, and intelligent citizens. But this group does not include some of our city leaders.

Ability to laugh  at oneself termed vital for all citizens

Can we all learn to laugh at ourselves a little more?

Some of us take ourselves a little too seriously. You can walk around this city and see people who are all tight-lipped and stern-faced — the business suits and briefcases hurry from one meeting to another.

Downtown Asheville is such a dichotomy. Take a walk from the bottom of Broadway, where HomeTrust Bank and Olive or Twist are based, and stroll up to where all the city and county happens at Pack Square Park. 

Oh, that’s where you see all kinds of people. The suits are definitely down there.

Then follow on down Biltmore Avenue to the Fine Arts Theatre and across the street to what I call “The Wall,” where I go every month or so.

Yesterday, I made sure to make buy myself a box of chalk so that I would be able to write some of my bucket list on the “Before I die I want to....” wall.

No, I try hard not to take myself too seriously. Learning to laugh at myself has taken some time.

Here it is my birthday tomorrow (April 28). I have a lunch date with friends scheduled and then a meet-up group in the evening for target shooting.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of dancing on a Tuesday night. Dancing is my current passion. You sure have to be able to laugh at yourself when you start learning to dance, especially when you start at 55 years old! Your hips, knees and feet don’t flex near as well those of the 25-year-olds out on the dance floor: or those 65-year-olds who have been doing it forever.

But I just laugh at my mistakes and get back out on the floor for the next dance and keep smiling.

Again, I see the striking dichotomy between the pinch-faced suits and the wonderful hippy-dippy goofballs just relaxing, sitting in doorways, strumming on guitars, and having a fun time on a Sunday night.

Citizenry urged to remember U.S. Korean War veterans

The Korean War is known as the “Forgotten War” for two reasons.

First of all, it was too close on the tail of WW2 and the public wasn’t interested in any more wars.

The second reason was that President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Atchison did not want to irritate the Soviet Union . That plan did not work because Russia encouraged China to enter the war in support of North Korea and the Russian Air Force  flew missions against South Korea every day. 

This war received very little news coverage so the American public knew very little about what was happening.

You might ask “What was happening?” We were the major force of a United Nations  and had more than 20 other countries helping us. It was the world’s first war against Communism. It started on June 25th 1950 when the North Korean army invaded South Korea. More than 5 million people  died before a cease fire was signed on July 27th 1953.  Almost 40,000 American soldiers died  during that 37 months of fighting and over 100,000 were wounded. We still have more “missing-inaction  from Korean than from any other war we ever fought.  It was one of the bloodiest wars in American history.

I’m one of the youngest  Korean War Veterans and I’ll be 81 years old on August 6th. Many Korean War veterans also fought in WW2 and they are well into their nineties. 

There was no fanfare when they returned from the war and all they want is for the American public to know what they sacrificed in defense of our country .