For the past seven years we have had a little ritual.
We would make ourselves a cup of coffee open our lap top and with a terrible dread go to an Israeli news site to see if any soldier had been killed or wounded.
If there was such terrible news we would search for details of who what why and where all the while praying that it was not one of our sons.
If it was their brigade, we would call them and trying to sound nonchalant we would ask them if all was all. Invariably it was or at least they were alive and well enough to lie to us.
We would say a prayer of thanks and then we would feel guilty that we were rejoicing because it was another father’s child who died.
And then for the first time in seven very long years we felt no dread.
Our son, Arieh, finished his service this week Monday and no longer is on the front line and like his brother Shalom known here as Sam he is now a civilian.
Someone once said that a soldier does not serve alone, his family also bears that burden.
That someone was a very wise man but he didn’t say the whole truth.
Because while the last seven years have been fraught with trepidation we have found great comfort in the kindness of friends and strangers here in our home in rural Nevada.
We will not forget the gentle words given freely and without reservation while we were buying a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. The simple touch of a hand on our shoulder when we got our mail or paid our power bill. We will never forget the phone calls from their old school mates and teachers who since moved far away just to see how they and we were doing. We know prayers were said for our boys in practically every church in Nevada’s vast outback. And we are grateful for them.
Words really can’t express how much that support meant to us and means to us.
All we can say is thank from the bottom of our hearts and the sun seems to be shining just a little bit brighter now.
There are elections and then there are elections and then there are third world elections.
Welcome to West Wendover and the third world.
We have no objections to the number of candidates seeking office.
Democracy is alive and well.
We do have a problem with how the are selected.
With the lack of a primary vote to narrow down the field it is quite possible indeed probable that someone winning less than 40 percent of the vote could win a seat on the city council.
That is not democracy, that isn’t even republicanism and if one considers that it would be of no great expense or effort to hold a primary the only word to describe West Wendover’s electoral process is STUPID.
Hopefully by the next election they will fix it.
On the other hand the “winners” this time around may like the “winners” the last time around believe that everything is just fine and dandy.
The fact that more votes were cast against them than for them is just a technicality.
For much of December, January and February we were ill with combination of maladies that knocked us out and kicked us when we were down.
Still the paper got out, bills got paid, and invoices went out.
We achieved this not because we have a great work ethic but because while we bed ridden our wife Corinne was not.
She kept everything going and still made dinner.
This week she caught flu and wheels are off. We guess we now know who is the essential partner in this endeavor.