Father's Day

I said on Sunday that I would elaborate on lessons from my father, Homer Noel Jackson. He was born in 1910 when there was a classical revival. Ancient names sounded classic, but now Homer and Horace are considered rural names from the past - and funny.

Dad grew up on a farm, just like Mom. Both farms failed from FDR's schemes, so both reached adulthood during the Great Depression. It must have been great, because they never stopped talking about.

Dad was obsessive about saving everything that might be useful, and he carried a wad of money in his pocket, like all Depression survivors.

Those people expected to work, felt good about working, and were tough and resilient at the same time. Not working was a sin, and earning money was a day well spent.

Lessons from Hours of Repetition

A lot of work was repetitive, such as the time we sugared and bagged 900 dozen donuts for a money-raising sale at a Roman Catholic Church. Fortunately, I was able to hide evidence of donut breakage by eating the broken pieces.

Research can be tedious at times, and getting things done is often no more than copying and pasting - the Bethany Hymnal Blog - and placing links for Search Engine Optimization.

Quality Parts Management

Melo-Cream donuts were always getting better because Dad insisted on the best ingredients, long before W. Edwards Deming. The shortening, flour, cocoa, vanilla, sugar (cane, not beet), and nuts were the highest quality. My friends from 50 years ago want me to revive Melo-Cream for the cinnamon fries.

Dad got some kind of award, but the newspaper photo showed him looking through the hole of a donut. He loved that shot.

This also applies to theology. If someone constructs a book or article from junk - like carob for chocolate, cheap chemical flavors - the results will always be poor. Why start with the felon CFW Walther when Martin Luther is the greatest Biblical scholar of all time? Do you want a genius baker to make the wedding cake or some friend who makes cement style cakes for a deep discount? Yet people use their friends, relatives, and professors as the greatest authorities on the Word even when against the Word.

 This was my first calendar, age 4, and I remember disliking the flour on my face to make me look cute.

 This was my last photo-shoot for a calendar, at the nearby apple orchard, holding a Classics Illustrated comic book and my favorite vanilla iced bread donut.

Promotion

Dad was always promoting his products because he said, "I lose 25% of my customer base each year." We had family calendars, paper hats, ads on WQUA, and sponsorship of baseball teams. The WQUA disk jockeys got free donuts and coffee, and the station provided free ads. Dad was considered the other manager of WQUA because Flambo always listened to his advice and took it. Don Nelson told me about that.

 Cousin Dean Jacquin wore his Melo-Cream hat for a postcard promotion.

When the Internet became available, I looked for ways to publish, first with websites, then with blogging, later with print on demand books from Lulu and Amazon. The social media allowed me to leverage everything by repeating the same material via links on different platforms, including Facebook. I have also helped promote non-profit activities for free, using the same methods. I showed a small college how to use blogging for world-wide publicity, gaining about 20,000 views for free.

 The matches were popular because they were not cheap, crumply ones.

 Rev. Charles Willey, Disciples of Christ, the denomination of Donald McGavran, Understanding Church Growth.

Dad Was Active in Church

I remember lots of congregational events at First Christian in Moline, now empty and sold to someone. Dad was an usher and we helped with that. He also made the donuts for their coffee hour.

Someone took this hard, but it is the truth. First Christian - and especially Rev. Willey - were the reasons I became a Lutheran. I asked Lawrence Eyre where he went - Salem Lutheran across the street from FC? -  and crossed the street when the family arrived at First Christian.

"Where are you going?" GJ - "Salem Lutheran. I'll walk home."

Right from the start, as a pastor, Church Growth and other pestilences reminded me of Rev. Willey at First Christian. He was always tan, always smiling, and always trying a new gimmick, like arriving in a fire truck with his chaplain's white hat on.

Dad and Mom died as conservative Lutherans.

I gave a talk at the Ohio Conference, WELS, where I asked about using the Deming theory instead of Church Growth. "Why not start with Luther and the Book of Concord?" That was the equivalent of asking for the Left Foot of Fellowship.

Independent Little Business - Long-Lasting

Dad started Melo-Cream in the Depression with his brother, then bought him out and continued. After decades, he sold his recipes to Hasty Tasty, but continued making candy on his own! He never changed his method of preparing food, so it remains a legend among the Moliners who enjoyed it.

That is all we need to do, keep emphasizing the best when everyone wants to cheapen the product to make a few more dollars. That matters the most when it comes to eternal values and the treasure of the Gospel.

We All Read 1984 in High School - It Should Be Required Reading Now

From the Lutheran Librarian - Borrowing Leadership Principles from Rome

 Is it possible that McCain helped Al Barry and Matt the Fatt get elected by appealing, chameleon-like, to the Romanists, the Seminexers, and the Bronze Age Otten bunch - all at the same time? McCain's Roman Catholic training was perfect for Missouri politics, where pastors pope and semi-pope regularly. 

Alec Satin - The Lutheran Librarian:

Compare the following to what we are witnessing today.

Like Fascism and Nazism, Roman Catholicism will use science when, but only when, it suits its purposes. Just as its ‘leadership principle’ was the groundwork of Nazism — as Goering testified at the Nuremberg trials last March 14 — so too were its censorship and Inquisition methods, its book burnings and other means for the repression of individual thought and scientific progress. Hitler himself, in Mein Kampf, laid down the principle that, “The greatness of every powerful organization… is rooted in the religious fanaticism with which it intolerably enforces itself against everything else, fanatically convinced of its own right.” Further on in the same book (p. 882) he says:

 McCain defended Objective Justification by quoting the LCMS professor who penned this drivel and later joined Rome, Edward Preuss.

“Here too one can learn from the Catholic church. Although its structure of doctrines in many instances collides, quite unnecessarily, with exact science and research, yet it is unwilling to sacrifice even one little syllable of its dogmas. It has rightly recognized that its irresistibility does not lie in a more or less great adjustment to the scientific results of the moment… but rather in a strict adherence to dogmas… Today therefore the Catholic church stands firmer than ever.”

From “The Roman Catholic Church and Science” by JJ Murphy.  Emphasis added.

  We know McCain was the secret agent who forwarded DP Al Barry's material to Otten for early publication. Both pastors denied they were in cahoots while bragging to me that they were. Did McCain arrange or smooth the way for Matt the Fatt to sing Otten's praises when running for LCMS prez?

Rain Is on the Way to Springdale

 Easy To Please Roses - adding more purple to the section of roses.

"Easy To Please™

"We were wondering how we could improve the award-winning Easy-To-Love® collection – the best true rose collection containing fully petaled varieties with very good disease resistance. Well, it's quite simple! We've added a missing color to the collection with the pink flowering variety Easy To Please. Just like its name, this floribunda will please everyone! Want more bang for your bloom? With Easy To Please, not only are you getting a high performing rose in multiple climates, but you are also getting a multitude of classic spiraled flowers on a bush for which the disease resistance surpasses many landscape Shrubs. What else are we missing to make this rose a crowd pleaser? Nothing, as a moderate clove fragrance completes this SUPER flowerful, upright and vigorous plant to near perfection!"

Many of the roses bought were grown at Weeks, a big wholesaler for roses. The rainbow selections I get often have the Weeks tags on them. I get great roses at a big discount, plus an introduction to a new variety that may be spectacular.

Between today and tomorrow, we should have plenty of rain. I have bare root roses sitting in rainwater buckets. They could stay that way for a long time, but that also means keeping the water level even and not letting the roots get established.

Be back soon...

And I am back.

I found two places in the backyard garden for Heirloom (purple) and Julia Childs (yellow).

Another good place was hard as a rock - clay soil, dry. Rain would be coming along, so I decided to let the last three roses soak in rainwater.

Sassy had an overnight with Ranger Bob and she was due to come home. I walked down to fetch her, and she began telling me off. I sat down on the floor at Bob's and said to her, "You need your tummy rub!" She enjoyed that so much, even though Bob doted on her. Yesterday, his friend's wife guessed the same = and I watched Sassy's delighted face as she massaged the dog and talked to her.

When we got home (two houses away), Sassy took her spot on the bed and I went back to the roses and patio. I doubled the patio size by shoveling the mulch off and putting in metal sides to keep soil and debris away from the door and kitchen floor. Sunflower seed leftovers are very prone to come inside on five feet (my two and Sassy's three).

Here are the steps in bare root rose planting:

1. I soak them in rainwater or stored water, letting the branches stay out of the water (most of the time. The soaking roses can get sunshine and grow green leaves this way. 
2. I plant on the east side of the house, which prevents afternoon baking. The west side is good when the roses get sun but not too much. North is generally too shady and south is too sunny.
3. I prune the branches somewhat and the roots a little. I take off anything discolored on the branches. That can happen after planting, so I clip that too. ROSES LOVE PRUNING.
4. I often fill the hole with upside-down sod, a treasure chest of bugs, minerals, fungus, and organic matter. 
5. I used a $1.88 bag of Peat Humus as the top layer, which the soil creatures will pull down for the rose and themselves. That is a ruinous cost, almost a dollar a rose!
6. I used about 1/3 of a bag of shredded Cyprus wood as mulch on top of each rose, allowing sun for the branches. 
7. I had barrels of rainwater, so I watered the two rose locations liberally.

Julia Child Rose - was I looking for this? No. It came in rainbow selection, free shipping.

Julia Child

"Just before our wonderful American icon left us, she selected this exceptional rose to bear her name. Julia loved the even butter gold color & the licorice candy fragrance. Yet it wasn't just the old-fashioned blooms that inspired the recipe. The perfectly rounded habit, super glossy leaves & great disease resistance finish off the dish. An awesome AARS award winner—a right & proper honor for a dear friend. Consistent, hardy & floriferous in all climates. Very disease resistant. Available budded & own-root."