Oh? You haven’t heard of Linux? Indeed, this platform is the best kept non-secret of the tech world. And a certain big dog software corporation is afraid you’ll discover Linux and use it, so much so that their newest operating system essentially locks out those who want to dual boot Linux alongside their product. Oh yes, you can do that with the current o.s., but not with their next offering.

The variety of available Linux distributions is a breath of fresh air. Rather than being confined to one hard-drive-hogging system, you may choose the one that best suits your needs. Did I mention they’re f-r-e-e? A majority of Linux distros can be downloaded online and burned to CD without charge. They come in the form of an ISO file. Most CD/DVD burning programs have the capability to make a live bootable image disc. This makes it possible to load the operating system without having to install it.

That’s another great thing about Linux. You’re not pushed into making a commitment. The user can play with Ubuntu or Fedora or PCLinuxOS before they make the big leap. Yes, that’s right, free products you can test drive.

Linux distros come loaded with useful software, also gratis. The operating system is not burdened with free 60 day trials of programs for which you later have to pay. These software packages include media players, office suites, browsers. The list is quite extensive.

There is a learning curve, but it’s not steep. No need to be a programming guru. Some distros are more technical than others, but there are several user friendly choices. For the person who is accustomed to Windows; this writer recommends Ubuntu, Mint, or PCLinuxOS.

Though Linux has its own software, some Windows programs can be run through an application known as WINE. But the only MS program that hasn’t an effective free alternative, in my opinion, is PowerPoint. (Hint to code writers.)

The choices offered by the various Linux distributions have already attracted a growing number of users. Why not shake off captivity to the over-priced, bloated operating system? The user deserves better options. Linux presents those options, here and now.

Whether it be a desktop or a notebook, I find computers to be an indispensable aid in my life.  The convenience of email over snail mail, the advent of word processing software, and the ability to research any subject via the internet would be enough, but then there are the photo, audio, and video editing programs.  My pc has opened a whole new world to me.

Indeed, I would never have attempted to finish college if each paper had to be banged out on a typewriter.  The idea of having to erase or use white-out holds no appeal for me.  But when all one has to do is backspace away their mistakes, writing an essay or research paper becomes less of a burden.

Over the last few years of computer ownership, I have learned how to do some upgrades, and thereby save a few dollars.  The first thing I did was install some extra RAM memory, then a CD burner.  The most recent journey into my pc’s inward parts was undertaken to replace a fried power supply.  (No, I didn’t overheat the machine playing video games.)  Online tutorials abound with instructions for each of these tasks.

The various editing applications available for free download provide a nice surprise, for they do a better job than one might expect.  The Audacity audio editor is a handy little tool for making one’s own ring tones or converting an LP to digital format.  It even comes equipped with some noise filters to clean up the sound.  Gimp is a wonderful free photo editor, almost like having a mini-Photoshop program.  It does everything I ask of it, and likely can do more.  I am still learning its features.  For video editing there is Microsoft Movie Maker, which is included on the newer Windows based computers.  Also, check out Avid Free DV and Wax, both free.

Life without a computer would be unimaginable now.  Many tasks that once required more time or involved payment for professional assistance have been made easier, less expensive, and quicker.  Better yet, new desktops and notebooks are more affordable than they were several years ago and one can often purchase a functioning used computer for under $100.  Yes, owning an internet connected computer is like holding the world in the palm of your hand.  The possibilities are vast.

There, I have said it.  Before you call for my removal from the church or praise my insight, please read on.

While it is true that the United States has never been a Christian nation, the founding fathers did attempt to use a number of Biblical principles in framing the laws that govern our country.  The concept of all men are created equal, the very foundation on which the government supposedly rests, is derived from a passage in the New Testament.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28) If all have equal opportunity for salvation, then all should have the same political freedom, but the founders failed to deliver freedom to all.

Those in bonds were not allowed the same liberties as the free man, and women were denied a voice in government for one-hundred-forty-four years of the nation’s existence.  The Native American was not considered a citizen, but rather a nuisance to be pushed westward and eradicated over time.

The founders’ true intent would read more like this:  all white male landowners are created equal. That doesn’t sound very holy or charitable, does it?  But for all their mistakes and misdeeds, men like Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin planted the idea of freedom in the minds of the people.

A large amount of British common law was derived from Mosaic Law.  The concept of punishment which fits the severity and nature of the crime was advanced in the Pentateuch.  Though the Continental Congress consisted of men newly freed from Britain’s rule, they borrowed heavily from the laws of the mother country, and therefore carried over much of the Old Testament’s legal design. This was one of the better uses of Biblical principle, as the government could not punish a minor offense with a grievous sentence.

Also, written into U.S.  laws were ordinances dealing with moral issues such as adultery, fornication, and sodomy.  Many of these have been struck down by judicial rulings.  This is one of the unfortunate aspects of our modern court system.  Moral laws serve the public good by acting as a deterrent for promiscuity, thereby keeping down the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, births to unwed girls, and perversion.  In earlier times, immoral behavior wasn’t flaunted before the youth of our nation as it is today, because public disclosure meant adverse legal and social consequences.

When a nation uses Biblical principle in making its laws, the result can only lead to eventual good.  Even though the founding fathers twisted the concept of equality to suit their ends, the seeds of liberty continued to grow beyond their limited vision.  Citizens deprived of full freedom began to raise our awareness and prick our collective consciences.  Changes were legislated to broaden the scope of human rights.

But Biblical freedom does not extend to those who flagrantly continue to violate the laws of God.  How sad to witness the watering down of ordinances that support public decency.  How unfortunate that the common law of suitable punishment for a crime is no longer consistently applied in the United States.  Murderers who cop a plea serve a dispropotionately short prison term for taking a human life, while children are prosecuted for bringing a tiny pocket knife to school.

Although it is frustrating to witness the departure of the United States from a number of Biblical principles, justice will come.  The political leaders of the United States may think they hold great power, enacting and abolishing laws.  But God is still in charge.  Here’s what His word says:  Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. (Proverbs 14:34)

Our house rang with the sound of his voice, singing or whistling while he worked. Long ago there was talk of a recording career, perhaps as a boy singer for a regional big band.  He was that good.  My uncle had connections, but for one reason or another, it didn’t happen.

Dad’s young life moved to a syncopated rhythm.  The labels of his 78 rpm records tell the tale.  Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Harry James, the Dorseys, and especially Glenn Miller.  This was the music of my father’s contemporaries, the soundtrack of the Greatest Generation.

Once in a while he managed to hear a major orchestra live.  The New Casino served as Fort Worth’s venue for the big bands.  When he had money, Dad would take a date to enjoy an evening of music and a little dancing.  He wasn’t a hepcat, didn’t jitterbug much.  He preferred to listen.

A few years before he died, I began to understand why my father loved swing/big band music.  The solos, the reed ensembles, the layered rhythms.  I finally paid attention to the parts and learned to appreciate the result.  His music became my music.

Now I share the story of Dad’s music with school children and civic groups.  It has become my goal to keep the big band sound alive.  I can think of no better tribute to my father than sharing the songs he loved with people of all ages.  He lives on in the presentation of his music.

Miss May

What Miss May did do, was attempt to teach her students what they should have learned in fourth grade.   The fifties were the age of Dr. Spock (the pediatrician, not the Star Trek character) and social learning.  The then-current fad in education called for a well rounded student, rather than an emphasis on math and science.  That orientation would soon change with the Soviet launch of Sputnik, but Miss May knew she was fighting an uphill battle.

Not only were there academic differences between this teacher and the administration, but social and faith based issues, as well.  She lived in Fort Worth and went home on the weekends, instead of mixing with the parents and teachers of Garland.  Also, Miss May was not a member of a certain religious group which possessed the political clout to make or break a teaching career.   In the face of these obstacles, she soldiered on, trying to give her students a solid education.

Miss May’s contract was not renewed for the 1953-54 school year.  Nevertheless, she went on to teach in another district closer to home.  During the intervening summer, she married, and before the end of the spring semester she was expecting a baby.   That baby was me.  Yes, the former fifth grade teacher was (and is) my mother.

Yes, Mom is still very much alive at age eighty-five, and lives in the greater Fort Worth area.  She often speaks of her year at Garland and wonders if she accomplished any good there.  I believe she would like to know if her long ago students think of her now and then.

While scanning some family photos into my computer, I discovered a number of pictures of her students at Garland Elementary.  She had kept them for all these 57 years!

Here is my request to you:  if you were one of Miss May’s students please use the comments section on this blog to make contact.  If you would like to visit my mother or give her a call, I know she would be thrilled.  She turns eighty-six in September, and I can’t think of a better birthday present than giving her the opportunity to reconnect with the children from her class.

Greed and Compassion

October 24, 1929

Stewart lowered his fifth story window overlooking Broad Street and opened the silver humidor on his desk.  Selecting a cigar from the box, he savored the aroma of fine Cuban tobacco.  A pleasant expression played on his countenance, but disappeared as quickly as it came, for the noise he had tried to shut out again disturbed the sanctity of his office.

This bothersome din emanated from the growing crowd of investors in front of the New York Stock Exchange.  They had begun to gather on the steps and in the street when word of the frenzied selling got around.  With each bit of bad news, cries of agony laced with anger rose from the street into the banking and finance offices above.

“They remind me of ants, milling about after their nest has been disturbed,” he said, lighting the hand-rolled panatella.

“An apt description, old boy.”  Tom laughed.  Then his expression became serious.  “But most of them will be wiped out by the closing bell, if they aren’t already.”

“Well, the sting they’re feeling is self-inflicted.  Even a common insect doesn’t behave in such an irresponsible manner.”

“Perhaps not, but the average human does.”

“Ah-ha!  You have hit on the correct word:  average!  A bunch of penny-ante workers, borrowing money to purchase stocks they can’t afford.”

“Careful, Stew.  We’ve all taken risks, and not so long ago.”

“But they were calculated risks.  No, these peons deserve exactly what they’re getting.  Corrections occur.  If they haven’t sufficient resources to absorb the reverses, then they shouldn’t be investing.”

“Be that as it may, we must shore up the economy or there will be a collapse of Herculean proportions.”

“No!  Let the free market have its way.”

“If we wait, a crash is inevitable.  The time to act is now!”

“Do what you believe to be right, but I’ll have no part in it.”

“As you wish.”  Thomas Lamont, head of Morgan Bank, rose to leave.

Stewart stood behind his massive desk, firm in his position.  Still, the time might come when Tom would prove a useful ally.  Perhaps I’d better extend the olive branch, he thought.

“Are you coming to the Bankers Club for lunch?”

“You can’t be serious!”  His eyebrows shot up.

“Of course I am.  Why shouldn’t I be?”

“If you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you.”  Lamont said, walking out of the office.

Tom managed to close the door gently, though he wanted to slam it hard enough to break the jamb.  How can Stewart refuse to help the nation at a time like this?  That man hasn’t a charitable bone in his body.

Stewart laughed to himself.  For all of Tom’s controlled calm, he knew that his colleague was ready to explode.

“Oh, to blazes with that bleeding heart.  Rescue the economy, indeed.  I have better things to do with my money.”

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I did bring along a few little prizes for those who could answer questions at the end of each class period.  Still, the students displayed an enthusiasm that went beyond the inexpensive items they could “win”.

I am also a substitute teacher in the Boyd ISD, and have come to enjoy working with middle schoolers.  Challenging?  Absolutely!  But kids in the 12-14 year old age group are really starting to get it when it comes to investigative learning.  They not only want to know who, what, when, and where, but why.

So much of a young person’s identity is established in the middle school years.  Of course a child’s family life will  impact who they ultimately become, but I believe education can be a powerful force for good.   A dedicated teacher can still make a difference.

Today, classroom teachers are so burdened with standardized testing and governmental regulation, they cannot do what they love best:  teach!  Full time educators deserve all the accolades we can heap upon them.  At times they must surely feel like soldiers in the trenches.  What a shame, for most of them care about their students.  Why else would they deal with low pay (compared to other professions), a work day that extends well beyond 3:30, and the threat of losing their position if test scores aren’t high enough?

Substitute teaching is like being a grandparent.  We don’t have the heavy responsibilities of the regular teacher, but there are teachable moments (if the students finish their work early).  Oh yes,  the kids will test us, because we are subs.  Nevertheless, if I can make one shred of positive difference in a child’s life, I will proudly remain a substitute instructor and volunteer educator.

Do you have an area of knowledge to contribute to students in your city?  Why not contact the local school district and volunteer as a guest speaker?

I recollect just such a place.  Who could forget the best backyard in the world?  Within its chain-link boundaries my friend Tammy and I could dig to China, re-fight the Battle of the Alamo, or pretend to be big game hunters in Africa.  It was the land of imagination, situated behind a house full of laughter–and love.

Grandma's and Aunt Kaye's House

Isn’t it strange how something so pleasant can grow out of sad times?  My grandparents divorced in the summer of 1941.  That’s when Grandma May, Mom, and Ruth (my mother’s younger sister) moved from Oklahoma to Fort Worth.  Aunt Kaye, Grandma’s older sister, took them into her small house on Lillian Street.  In 1953, Mom married my dad and Ruth walked down the aisle later that same year.  Grandma and Aunt Kaye also retired from the laundry business in ’53 and built a nice three bedroom house.  It sat on a large lot with plenty of backyard, just right for children to run and play.

Lori (rt.) and me celebrating our fourth birthdays at Grandma's house

Tammy (rt.) and me in Grandma's backyard

When my cousin, Lori, and I were born, Grandma and Aunt Kaye loved for us to come visit them.  We spent much of our first four years in and around their white frame home with the pink brick flower box.  Then Lori’s parents decided to be missionaries in Hong Kong.  For a while, Grandma’s backyard seemed awfully lonely, until  Tammy came to live next door.  We became friends instantly, and so our backyard adventures began.

Aunt Kaye

Grandma May

Grandma didn’t involve herself in making outdoor fun for us the way Aunt Kaye did.  I suspect that my great aunt was a tom-boy when she was young, much like myself.  Grandma was more the girly-girl type.  She liked to sew, cook, and do indoor things.  It was Aunt Kaye who mowed the lawn, tended the garden patch, and transformed the yard into a kid’s paradise.

An old garage stood in the back left side of the yard.  Though garden tools were stored in its front corner, Aunt Kaye helped us transform this utilitarian out-building into The Bunk House.  We used shower curtains strung on clothesline to partition the 200 square feet into a couple of kid-sized bedrooms and a kitchen.

Monkey Rope Swing

I’ll never forget the day that the monkey rope swing arrived.  Aunt Kaye had sent off for it from a mail order catalog.  A bright yellow metal disc with a hole in the middle, she strung a knotted rope through it.  My dad tied it to the strongest branch of the catalpa tree.  Being round, it moved in any which direction.  Sometimes we would spin round and round until we stumbled off the swing, giggling and too dizzy to stand up straight.

Wham-o Slip n Slide

The blue blow-up pool was great for soaking on a hundred degree day, but like most kids, we wanted something new.  Tammy and I had seen television advertisements for the Wham-o Slip and Slide.  How we begged for one of these strips of plastic sheeting, to which one could attach a garden hose, and create a film of water on which to slide.  You guessed it.  Aunt Kaye did her best to fulfill our wishes.  Though the water toy she purchased wasn’t made by Wham-o, we were soon slipping and sliding.

Nothing like a fresh grilled hot dog!

All that activity could really work up an appetite. So what did Aunt Kaye do for an encore?  She went and bought the Smoky Dan, a green rectangular charcoal grill.  Late in the afternoon, when we had done enough slip and sliding, swinging, and tree climbing for a half dozen children, she would fire up ol’ Smoky Dan, and we would have a wiener roast.

Anyone for a seed spitting contest?

Charcoal grilled hot dogs weren’t all we ate in the backyard.  Aunt Kaye grew tomatoes in a curbed off garden space.  Tammy and I would rinse them at the outdoor faucet, sprinkle a little salt over the deep red spheres, and bite into freshness itself.  The seeds would squirt out onto our faces, but we didn’t mind.

When Aunt Hattie and her daughter Zoe came from Sunray, we had a watermelon feast in the backyard.  Grandma and Aunt Kaye set up a table and brought out the red chairs which matched their Formica dinette.  Everyone grabbed a slice of fresh melon.

Yes, those summers of the early ’60s raced by,  thanks to the wonderful times we spent in the best backyard in the world.  Family, a good friend, and lots to do made the days fly.  Then Lori and her new brother, John, came home from Hong Kong, and we had some adventures of our own in that special backyard.

Tiny Little Robots  Two by Two

Mattie stood in the church kitchen gossiping with a group of women, while her husband waited by the exit, hat in hand.  Elmer caught his wife’s eye and tapped the glass on his pocket watch.  Just a few more minutes, she signaled.

“Lord, why did you give me a woman who loves to talk?” he asked, walking out the door.

When she saw her husband leaving, Mattie said goodbye to her friends and picked up the plate holding a half-eaten German chocolate cake.  She sampled a few crumbs.  Not again!  For some unknown reason, Sarah always left out half the necessary sugar.  That girl must have a screw loose, she thought.

Elmer looked up at the night sky.  The moon was a tiny sliver, and clouds were rolling in.  If only they had left a little earlier.  Now he had to drive three miles of bumpy road on an overcast night.

The headlights of his ’53 Chevy weren’t much help, for they wore a heavy coat of Page County dust.  Washing them was no use.  A few minutes of driving and they would be covered again.

Might as well get started, he thought.  So they climbed in the car and headed toward home.  The couple rode along, lost in their own thoughts, until Elmer turned off the blacktop.

“Slow down!” Mattie shouted, tightening her grip on the cake plate.

“Can’t see how that’s going to help.  The road will be just as rough.”

“Well, you could try to dodge the holes better.”

“But they’re all across the road.”

“Confound it!   Why did Charlie Dinsmore–”

“Now don’t go and start that again.”

“Nevertheless—“

Elmer gave his wife a warning look, and Mattie fell silent.

Charlie Dinsmore was the county employee assigned to grade the road that ended at the Muellers’ front gate.  This he did faithfully, until the pre-dawn hours of a certain January morning. Charlie arrived at six am to plow snow off that familiar three mile stretch.  At nine, he planned to have breakfast with his co-workers at Betty’s Café.

At the appointed time, Charlie’s friends assembled around a table in the small eatery on the square.  They waited for their co-worker until nine-thirty, then gave up and ordered.  Ten o’clock came and went, but still no Charlie.

“Something’s wrong.  That old boy is never late for a meal,” Bob, the foreman, said.

“Think I ought to run out there and check on him?”  Tom Reid asked.

“Yeah, do that.  I’ll go by his house.  Maybe he got sick and went home.”

Tom drove to his friend’s assigned area.  He found the grader in the middle of the road, still running, but Charlie was nowhere to be found.  Bob went to his employee’s house, but Mrs. Dinsmore hadn’t seen her husband since he left for work.

Bob called the sheriff and reported Charlie missing.  The deputies conducted a search, but to no avail.  It seemed that the county worker had vanished into thin air.

Around midnight Sheriff Wilson returned to the courthouse.  There was Charlie, sitting on the steps wearing a blank expression, and muttering to himself:

“Tiny little robots.  Two by two.”

From that time onward, this became Charlie’s mantra.  The poor man was still reciting the two phrases when the orderlies came to take him away.  Now Mrs. Dinsmore is a cashier for Woolworth’s and visits her husband every other Sunday afternoon at the state asylum.  And Charlie?  He sits in his room repeating:

“Tiny little robots.  Two by two.

After Charlie’s breakdown, the county searched high and low for an employee willing to grade the stretch of road between Clarinda and the Mueller farm, but to no avail.   Not a soul would work out there, once they heard the saga of Charlie Dinsmore.

So Elmer found himself dodging potholes on FM 27, while his wife juggled that doggoned cake.  The horrid confection should have been thrown in the trash before they started for home.  Why does she force Sarah to cook?  Mattie knows the child’s too young.

“Stop!  Stop!” Mattie yelled.

He stood on the brakes.  Dust and gravel flew everywhere. The Chevy fishtailed to the left, righted itself, and slid to a stop.  In the middle of the road, there they were:  tiny little robots, two by two, a half dozen in all.

“Elmer, did you forget to padlock the workshop?” Mattie asked.

“No, I didn’t forget.”

“Well, they’ve escaped again.”

“They’re not prisoners, you know, but I’ll go talk to them.”  Elmer said, opening the car door.

When the robots recognized Elmer, they broke ranks and gathered around him.

“Pa-pa!  Pa-pa!” they shouted.

“Speak more quietly, children.  Someone might hear you,” he said, looking all around.

“Why?”  Adam asked.

Adam was the oldest, the first robot child Elmer had created.  This is exciting, he thought.  Our son is asking a why question for the first time.

“Why?”  Adam repeated.

“Because people might not love you the way I do,” Elmer answered.

“Like the man who drove the big machine?”

“Yes, Adam, just like him.”

Elmer remembered when he first conceived the idea of robot children.  It was a year after he came home from the war.  He and Mattie married in November of 1945.  All their friends were adding to the population, and the newlyweds also wanted to start a family.  They tried for months, but the rabbit refused to die.

“Please visit the adoption agency with me, Elmer,” Mattie had begged her husband.

“No.  We’ve had this discussion before.  I don’t approve of adoption.”

“But there are orphaned children who need good parents.”

“And how do we know what kind of child we’re getting?”

“Even if we had a baby the regular way, it might not be perfect.  Giving birth to a child also involves some risk.”

“Well, at least our own child would come from superior genetic material.  No, children should be made at home.”

Mattie stared at Elmer.  Who was this stranger?  He was certainly not the sweet, funny boy she had known since first grade.  The intelligence was still there, but that was small consolation.  She started to cry as she thought of how he used to be.  Why did he change?  Was it college?  His work for the military?

Always intrigued by mechanical things, Elmer graduated at the top of his high school class.  The Iowa farm boy applied for, and won, a scholarship to MIT.  He was on his way to the top, until his roommate delivered the news that Sunday afternoon.  Pearl Harbor had been attacked.  Two months before graduation, Uncle Sam came to call.

Elmer was tapped to work on a top secret project, part of the military’s fledgling non-human combatant program.  On the day that the first atomic bomb leveled Hiroshima, his team completed a functioning prototype.  Before a proper demonstration could be arranged, the Japanese surrendered.  All research was halted and orders came down to destroy the robot.

“How dare they?  We were this close to replicating human intelligence,” Elmer said, holding up his finger and thumb, a fraction of an inch apart.

“I’ve been dealing with the military a long time.  They have no logic, no understanding of science,” Dr. Hillermann, the lead researcher, said.

“I refuse to destroy the prototype.”

“Do what you want.  It’s just so much war surplus now, but if you are found out, I know nothing about it.”

“Understood.”

Elmer proceeded to box up every spare part in the lab.  He found a packing crate and secured the robot inside.  On his lunch hour, he hired a truck and two men to deliver it all to his apartment.  When Elmer left D.C. for home, he could barely afford the freight to transport his technological cache to the Mueller farm.  For eighteen months, the boxes sat collecting dust.

It was from the prototype that Elmer constructed Adam.  He built a workshop and scrounged parts from any available source, traveling to underground auctions in Kansas City and St. Louis.  Most of what he bought was procured in a questionable manner, much like his own materials.

With some trial and error, Elmer created a crude computer chip, long before the first transistor radio hit the market.  This made it easy to build Sarah.  Then came the next four, one every year.

“Six robots are more than enough,” Mattie declared the week after Charlie Dinsmore was taken away.  “This has got to stop.”

“But I’m working on our seventh child,” Elmer said.

“They’re not our children.  They are machines!”

“How dare you speak about the children like that!”  His face contorted in horror.

“You need help, Elmer.  This obsession is dangerous.  Just seeing them has driven poor Charlie out of his mind.”

“You’re the one who needs therapy, Mattie.  Why do you hate our children?”

Elmer stomped from the room and slammed the door.

“Now he’s going back to the workshop to sulk,” she said to herself.

Mattie grabbed the telephone directory and started leafing through it.  Who should I call?  The military?   A psychiatrist?  It’s all so unbelievable; they might lock me up instead. She closed the yellow pages and put them away.

A month passed, and Mattie knew that Elmer was nearing completion on robot number seven.  She had to do something, but what?  At last she settled on a plan.  Mattie picked up the telephone and dialed a familiar number.

“Hello.  Sheriff Wilson?  This is Mattie Mueller.  I’d like to meet with you in your office.  Two pm?  That’s fine.  I’ll see you then.”

Mattie didn’t tell Jack Wilson anything about the robots.  She knew he would have a difficult time believing such a fantastic tale, so she secured his agreement to lie in wait for them on a certain night.

As Elmer stood in front of the Chevy with the robots surrounding him, Sheriff Wilson walked out from behind a tree.  He couldn’t believe the sight his eyes beheld, or the voices he was hearing.  Were they actually calling Elmer “Papa”?

He drew his service revolver and approached this unlikely gathering.

“Hello, Jack,” Elmer said when he noticed the lawman.  His tone was casual, as if they were meeting for a cup of coffee.

“What is all this?” Sheriff Wilson asked, staring at the robots.

They were shaped much like small humans, but their movements were jerky, mechanical.  The female figures had heads full of long, well-kept hair.  Their eyes flashed blue or brown.  The hands consisted of four fingers and a thumb.  Each one was dressed in children’s clothes and they wore shoes.

Jack Wilson couldn’t help but feel intrigued.  For a moment he was distracted by curiosity.  How did these robots work?  He’d known since high school that Elmer was a genius, but this far exceeded any science fair project.

“Why these are our children, Jack.  Say hello to Mr. Wilson, kids.”

The robots all greeted the sheriff, who stood there amazed, still holding his gun.  It was obvious that these creatures had no intention of harming him, and Jack suddenly felt silly for having his weapon drawn.  He put the pistol back in its holster.

“Hello,” he said, wondering at his impulsive greeting to a group of machines, but darn it, they were so life-like.

“Aren’t they great?”  Elmer asked with obvious pride.

“Yeah, but h-how?  Wh-why?”  Jack stammered.

“We couldn’t have children the natural way, so I made some.”

“Do you have any idea how much damage these children can do?  Have done already?”

“But they aren’t violent.  I programmed them to be peaceful, loving children.”

“Charlie Dinsmore is in the state asylum because of these children of yours.”

“I’m sorry for that, but it’s not their fault.”

“No.  You are to blame.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t expose people to new things all at once.  It scares them.  Sometimes it frightens them right into insanity.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“You’ll create a panic in the community if any more people see your robots.  That’s why I’m ordering you to dismantle them.  It’s for the good of your neighbors, and for your own good, too.”

“I can’t do that.  They’re my children.”

“Snap out of it, Elmer.  They’re not human.  They don’t have a soul.”

“Don’t say that!  How dare you say that!”

Mattie watched from the car as Elmer stepped toward Jack Wilson, put his hands around the sheriff’s neck, and choked him to death.  As the robots observed this murder, the conflict of the act they witnessed clashed with their nonviolent programming.  Their circuitry overheated.  Smoke began to pour from their ears, and each one of them suffered a fatal meltdown.

The robots’ artificial intelligence turned inward on them, and became their undoing.  Elmer had made them too human.

When he turned from his evil work to see all his children dead, Elmer stared through the windshield at his wife.  Mattie thought that he would kill her next.  The driver’s door was still open.  She sat paralyzed with fear, not knowing whether to run or attempt to lock herself in the car.

Then Elmer’s face contorted into an exaggerated smile, and he began to laugh.  It was a most hideous laughter.  The sound of madness itself.

For those of you who enjoy classic movies that swing, check out Orchestra Wives.  This gem from 1942, which features the Glenn Miller Orchestra, delivers plenty of solid sound, as well as an inside look at life on the road with a big band.

George Montgomery stars as Bill Abbott, the trumpet playing Romeo.  Ann Rutherford is the star-struck Connie Ward.  When musician meets girl, it’s love at first sight.  The couple end their first date by getting married.   This does not sit well with Jaynie Stevens (Lynn Bari), ex-girlfriend of the groom and singer with the band.  And so the games begin–

L to R:  Ann Rutherford, George Montgomery, Lynn Bari, & Jackie Gleason

Glenn  Miller plays the bandleader Gene Morrison (naturally!), and the Great One, Jackie Gleason, appears as the bass player.  Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle, and Marion Hutton really deliver on vocals, backed by the Modernaires.  All the remaining sidemen are authentic members of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

L to R:  Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke, and Ray Eberley

While the plot of Orchestra Wives is far from great drama, it is more plausible than that of most big band musicals.   This is due, in large part, to Miller’s insistence on a believable storyline.  He didn’t want his orchestra connected to a picture with inferior screenwriting.  But in the final analysis, this movie is all about the music.

Who can resist such swing era classics as Serenade In Blue, Bugle Call Rag, At Last, and I’ve Got a Gal In Kalamazoo?  One of the Miller band’s best musical efforts, People Like You and Me, comes near the beginning of the film.  This flag waver reminds us that each person must do their part to win the war (WW II).   Watch the YT clip and see for yourself:

Orchestra Wives is now available on DVD.   Please visit your local or online movie retailer.  This one is a keeper!