This past weekend I was honored to be the keynote speaker at the Oshtemo Grange monthly meeting in this bustling Michigan town.

      Attendees heard a vintage presentation on change and how we as parents and grandparents can make a difference in the development of a healthy environment for our children and grandchildren.

      What struck me hardest was the lack of youthful faces in the audience. Where have all our children gone…Gone to computers?  Times have changed.  Some would say for the better; others like me wonder aloud about the lessons lost by today’s generation of children.

      Social skills, creativity and physical activities are absent from most of our children’s lives unless we force them to get off the couch and participate in some form of physical activity.  I applaud my children for making it mandatory for their pre-school through high school children to get involved and keep both their minds and bodies healthy and active.

      When the Grange was started years ago, long before my time, it served a very important purpose, as it does today.  Children involved in Grange activities grew to be contributors to society, leaders who knew how to work hard for a day’s wages and to reject “entitlements”  from Uncle Sam.

      Unlike today where far too many young people are incompetent, academically dumb-down, selfish and lazy.  There were no entitlements for lazy people in the past, and most survived.  Once government began giving people a hand-out instead of offering a hand-up the country began its dreadful turn south.

      Where have we been, where are we and where are we going, America?  In the past ten months we have gone from a respected nation who reached out to others and provided strength to weaker nations to one of the world’s most pathetic examples of a sixties generation gone mad.

      My appeal to the Grange attendees was to rise up and challenge those who would destroy the essence of our country, her Constitution and erode her backbone.  I call upon you to consider doing the same.

      May I have the opportunity of coming to your community to share my views and call to action with you, your friends and neighbors?  I have spent years as an activist on behalf of the family, children and fighting against the George Soros funded drug pushers, the anti-American People for the American Way and the subversive ACLU.  Interestingly our battles were never lost.  Corrupt politicians ended in jail, close to 100 pieces of legislation became law and state and federal departments of education were held responsible for the product they introduced into our school system.

      It’s time for us to come together as a cohesive unit and take back our country before it’s too late.

      An example of the trouble we are in came to me the other day from a short story sent by a friend:

“Let me get this straight:

We're going to ‘maybe’ have a health care plan,

written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it,

passed by a Congress that hasn't read it AND exempts themselves from it,

signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes,

with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,

overseen by a surgeon general who is obese,

and financed by a country that's nearly broke.”

What could possibly go wrong?