When You Feel Helpless to Make a Change…Do Something that Matters

Posted on July 30, 2016 by crankyoldguy067

TeacherBedBuyijja

If there has ever been a time to “do something that matters,” this is it.

Worldwide, we find ourselves immersed in a political climate that seems to thrive on the latest headlines of violence, terror, and geopolitical hacking. We have reached a point in our world culture where “bad news” sells ratings, newspapers, and political contributions, like a huckster outside of an old circus “side show tent.”  It’s easy to get discouraged, frustrated, confused, and just shut down.

I get no fewer than 15 emails a day from both major candidates, along with countless pleas from SuperPacs, asking for donations…to add to coffers that are already bursting with hundreds of millions of dollars, and projected to go into the billions. All of this, for “movements” that breed anger and a sense of helplessness to actually make change happen? I think not.

It’s time to do something that matters. It’s time to do something that actually makes a change in the lives of people forgotten by the “modern world” but who may grow up to be the leaders who shape the future, if given a chance.

Friends of Buyijja needs your support. We are stalled in our fundraising efforts to begin our biggest project ever…one that will fundamentally change the scope of our support at the Buyijja School in rural Uganda.

We have divided this large project into several small projects, the first of which being a teacher dormitory that will allow almost half of our staff to sleep somewhere other than a mattress, on a dirt floor, while “camping out” in the school storage building. It is a start…that with long-term focus will grow to become a building that is the heart of our vocational training.

Please donate what you can today. My goal is to get at least $4,000 in this first phase of the fund, so we can at least offer temporary solutions for our teachers.

DONATE HERE

Every dollar helps. Please do what you can today.

When it comes to “Changing the World,” we are going to do it one child at a time…in the kind of place that has been rendered irrelevant by today’s standards. But every life matters.  Ask the man who was the son of an African student…who became President of the United States.

In Peace, Love and Hope…
Patric

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Rediscovering America – Days 24-25…Balancing Our Delicate Past and Future

Posted on July 27, 2016 by crankyoldguy067

MAP1

Leaving the gorgeous, artistic splendor that is Santa Fe, we headed into a region of New Mexico that has two of the most disparate creation histories of almost anyplace in the country.

While Santa Fe claims the world’s oldest home, the pueblos and cave dwellings at Bandelier National Monument go back to pre-1100.  Again…Donald and his ancestors are lucky that these folks didn’t build a wall when his people were immigrating from Europe. As I have heard said by native Texans and New Mexicans, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!” But, that’s another post…

It is a gorgeous place, with a fairly easy 2 mile loop that takes you back close to a thousand years.

From there, we went to the place that may have all but guaranteed that humanity may not make it another 1,000 years…the birthplace of the Atomic Bomb…Los Alamos.
Continue reading →

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Days 23 – 24 Rediscovering America – Get Your Trix on Route 66 Part II

Posted on July 22, 2016 by crankyoldguy067

Map

As I intimated in Part I of Day 24, one of the big reasons I chose the course we did for the final days of this trip, was to traverse portions of the old Route 66.  We had started the “connection” just across the border of Missouri in a small Oklahoma town, of Clinton, OK. When we pulled up to the Oklahoma Route 66 museum, we had high hopes. The museum is in the old Clinton Armory, and the sign looks very official. But the place is mostly just a bunch of videos, which you can watch from various seats that are supposed to represent old cars from different eras of Route 66…or from a motel bed. It sounds waaaaaaaay cooler that it was.

And that’s kind of the way it is with most of trying to get a sense of Route 66. It’s like meeting a WWII veteran who stormed Normandy Beach. The stories are real, the emotions are rich, the sense of history and nostalgia are palpable…but trying rectify the aging, often confused vision in front of you, with the pictures of his dashing youth, are often difficult if impossible.

Much of Route 66 is gone. But, just like the memories of that aging war vet, there will suddenly be a burst of lucid, clear vision that can immediately take you back to those times in history when America was on the move, growing, and showed no signs of ever slowing down.

Trying to recapture history could be a chore, you had to look… Continue reading →

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Day 23- Get Your Trix on Route 66 Part I- Tornado Alley

Posted on July 18, 2016 by crankyoldguy067

Route66-Map1

I know…it’s supposed to be “kicks” from the old song, but the fact is, Route 66 as it is today, is kinda tricky to find in most places.  There is a romance that surrounds this piece of highway heritage, as much of it follows the same path as the great railroad line that connected the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific Railways. The original route, much of it two lane highway that cut through the heartland of America, started in Chicago and ended up in Los Angeles, California.

But, like I said…finding today can be pretty tricky…just like many small towns that used to be on the original route, they have succumbed to “progress.”

But we DID find our share of Route 66 in refurbished and thriving little gems that were often not well publicized.

And some of them were pretty damn cool…once we worked our way through the TORNADO.

Continue reading →

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