plain, russet-coated Captains!

       I wanted to bring this post from a few days ago to the fore and expound on it a little bit, particularly this statement....A much more likely scenario for myself and others would be to work for principled true Republican conservatives for Congress and a third party candidate for the White House.  This pitched battle that is just commencing between Conservatives and Royalists is not a chance encounter. It has been brewing for many years and the Republican Establishment, or Royalists as I like to call them, have taken advantage of us, their base, time after time. They launched a volley this week announcing that 100 Republican donors, mostly gentlemen I presume, signed on to their cause. I gave this quote by Oliver Cromwell before but it seems extraordinarily apropos today: "I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else." Here is the situation. As it stands now we could not win the presidency with a third party candidate but if America does not experience a reformation and a great awakening... then even winning both houses and the Oval Office would do nothing to stop the hemorrhaging. On the other hand should Americans return to the God who gave them their very existence, all the money in the king's purse could not help Karl Rove. Should God will it the numbers will be there in abundance, both in 2014 and 2016! That is should He will it that we even make it that far unscathed and unbroken.
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          This is the topic for today.... John McCain and others of the establishment elites are making it very clear that they are turning away from issues of the conservative. Oh they will talk a good game as usual but there is nothing behind that talk. At the last moment they give in and of course try to make it look like they didn't give in. Such is the respect that they have for conservatives but I don't believe that they are going to run a successful sting this time around. Tea Party types are not low information voters, libertarians are not gullible and too many Christians for them to say good-bye to will be more than willing to let the Republican nominee sink in the muck and mire under their big tent.
         This in-house battle needs fought now, before the primaries . John McCain & Co., thinking that they are advancing against a weak line, may be about to wish that they stuck with the pretend your a conservative con game, for much more than three to five percent of Republicans have absolutely no faith whatsoever in a Republican Party that continues to be ruled by establishment elites who have proved time and again that their leadership is a grand waste of time.... and that's a very generous assessment. A much more likely scenario for myself and others would be to work for principled true Republican conservatives for Congress and a third party candidate for the White House. Republican strategists take note: you would not need a big tent for after we leave you would have more than enough room for your few new members!
         Here are just some of the problems with the old guard: They don't guard anything! They give in to bad Supreme Court nominees, bad legislation and bad people in general. They get a hold of a new principled legislator or senator and corrupt them. They constantly give speeches full of outrage at what Democrats are doing but then you see them yucking up with them behind the scenes. They make back-door deals where the Democrats give them a win when their jobs are on the line and they return the favor, and they are oblivious to the magnitude of the problems that we face in America for the very biggest problem that they can see is their own reelections and subsequent control of committees that they accomplish very little with anyway.
         I have written about it before and will do so again; former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint was the man we needed last year. He's a better than Reagan!  He's at the Heritage Foundation now and shame on us if we don't support these folks. As for Rand Paul, he responded to the idea of the Federal Government bailing out Detroit with....Over my dead body! Now that's a Charleton Heston type of comment that no speech writer is going to come up with and it's worth a lot more than all of the commercials we will hear trying to convince us of something we know to be bunk. As for Ted Cruz, he passed his test with flying colors but the biggest obstacle to the Brother Rove's Travelling Salvation Show (see June 12, 2012) is us.... everyday Americans who know the history of America, of our Constitution, of our indebtedness to every battlefield, cross covered cemetery, Pacific beachhead, barren snow-covered Korean hill, Vietnamese rice paddy and every Iraq and Afghanistan veteran or Gold Star mother and most of all of an Almighty God who blessed us, reprimanded us with a rod when necessary, at other times pulled us in gently with a staff and gave us every opportunity to humble ourselves and seek his wisdom and live in freedom.
        

Scratch Golfer

      I used to like to run. Had I been a good runner there probably would have been no Special Dog's Conservative Bark. I thank God that I was a scratch golfer.....after every shot I'd just scratch my head. Otherwise there may not have been a Special Dog either. I'm sure that this probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you but to me it's been over four and a half years of at least trying.....trying to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ and trying to warn of America's impending collapse if its people do not humble themselves before the God who had his hand upon our beginnings, sustained us in war and had longsuffering towards us for over a century as we systematically removed him from our institutions and step by step turned our children over to the world culminating in our most grievous offense, the effort to legalize same-sex marriage. If I might be so bold to make this observation... if you cannot see what I have been writing about, if you can't hear the chorus of voices all around you and if you can't discern for yourself that America is in trouble....then maybe it's because you do play golf too well, or maybe other talents have occupied your time.

July 26th, 2009....Is God Trying To Tell You Something?

       I took up golf when in my teens and I understand very well why so many men have a passion for the game. My father bought me a set of clubs when I was about 15 years old. The putter in my bag today is the same one that I wrapped around a tree on the 18th green at Grover Cleveland Public Golf Course in Buffalo in the mid 60s. The 9 iron is the same one that I waded, chest deep, into the water to retrieve on the 3rd hole of a course in Monroeville.

       I remember taking the bus to Hughes and Hatcher men's store in Pittsburgh to meet Gary Player and have him autograph his new book Gary Player's Golf Secrets (1964). I also was the only person I have heard of that lugged his clubs on buses to get to a course to play.  Fortunately for me, I was never very good at the game. There always appeared to be a black hole somewhere down the right side of the fairway that sucked my drive into it.

       My son plays golf and last summer I thought that I would practice a little bit on my own, and that maybe this would be a good pastime that we could share together. I went to a local driving range and put some tokens into the machine for a basket of balls. I guess that I figured that there was someone working inside the machine that would gently lower the basket of balls? With no basket in place, they started shooting all over the place. After looking around to see if anyone was looking, I settled in to hit a few. The first was o.k., the second sailed right, over the fence and on the 9th fairway of the golf course. Has anyone ever yelled Fore! on the driving range before? The third was at least in the driving range but the fourth was back onto the 9th fairway! I wanted to practice but cannot put other people's lives in danger doing so. I put every tip that I was given on hitting a straight ball into effect... moving my left foot forward...bringing my right hand over the top....but the ball went back onto the 9th fairway. I left the bucket of balls and came home.

      I may have related this story in a previous blog, I know that I have told it often enough; David Wilkerson was a pastor in a small church in eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1950s. The newspaper stories of gang shootings in New York City stirred him so much that he went there to address these young men himself. The result was a book The Cross and the Switchblade and a movie of the same name starring Pat Boone. The result also, was Wilkerson establishing a church in an old Broadway theater and preaching there to this day, 50 years later. After David started to become established in NYC, his passion for preaching the gospel may have slacked off just a little bit. He read an advertisement for a classic sports car and thought how much he would like zipping around town in it. He and his wife travelled to New Jersey to see the car. It was just what he always wanted. He bought it and felt proud as a peacock on his ride back to the city. His wife asked him if he smelled something burning. Looking into his rear-view mirror, he could see smoke coming from his new car. It was then that his wife asked him a profound question that brought David back on course of preaching the gospel...David, do you think that God is trying to tell you something?

        I would really like to be a golfer but, knowing my tendencies, I would probably abuse the blessing. I 'm no smarter than anyone reading this blog, the basket of balls certainly proves that, but anyone would have to put in the effort if they would expect to discern the times, identify the schemes being constructed and garner enough passion to want to make a difference. The Christian faith is no different. The tendency is to become quite satisfied with our born again experience, pat ourselves on the back, and settle into 40 or so years of what may be ignorant bliss. It's a good idea for all of us, on a daily basis, to look into that rear view mirror to see if God is trying to tell us something.

Don't Pass This Post On!!!

        A young person quite naturally thinks he knows more than the parent for he see flaws from a 24/7 home life. What he doesn't realize is that he himself is a factory for sin and error and that that parent most likely has done reasonably well at guiding them in a world determinedly hostile to God. One need look no further than our Founding Fathers, flawed as any other men, to see how imperfect men could come up with such a wise document, and the highest example of the genius of our forefathers would be the Puritans who concocted the Westminster Standards, documents of such precision that they serve as moorings to faithful churches even in this postmodern world. God guides our thoughts and our pens in instances such as these. When his hand is lifted we come up with  books such as Das Kapital, Mein Kampf or Mao's Little Red Book!
       I wouldn't want to be young again for I was headed to being a poster boy for immature, irrational thought all the while thinking that I was compassionate and a defender of the unfortunate. I found out that defending the unfortunate involved strengthening what was right.... not tearing it down, that honest inquiry does not mean fighting for a platform for ideas that have long since been proven wrong, and that true liberty is enslaving oneself to that which is good and..."there is none good but one, that is, God." (Mk 10:18 KJV)
        Let me give you two very easy reads for summer and I can assure you that you will benefit from both. The first, but not first in importance for obvious reasons, is by Professor of International Relations at Boston University Angelo M. Codevilla and the book is The Ruling Class; How Political Elites Hijacked America. the second written by Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California and the book is Putting The Amazing Back Into Grace, Embracing the Heart of the Gospel.
       The following post is a few years old. I add it here because it is one of the many posts that I had written addressed to the youth:

In Due Time

       It was the winter of 1959 in Buffalo, New York. There was just enough light to put the ice skates on and whack the homemade puck around for a little while on the toddler's play area turned hockey rink but no one had shown up. The snowflakes falling were large...I remember that. All dressed up, or bundled up, and no where to go, so to speak. A few feet away from the chain-link fence was (and still is today) a small hill, maybe six feet high at the most, where I once, in summertime, was riding my bike home with groceries on the handlebars and hit a rock or something on that hill and crashed but survived, shaken but unhurt. A tree was growing beside the path worn by bike riders and all the leaves were long gone, the branches covered by a blanket of snow. I climbed up that tree and peered off to the north and the south etc., as a seaman in a crows nest would. I contemplated life and the beauty of the snowfall and the desolate fields behind the Airport Plaza. My parents had separated and there wasn't much money. With no siblings or father at home, and my mother working hard, all I had was the silver screen and television to show me what life was about. Sometimes it was about patriotism and courage for it could not have been too long since I watched Fess Parker gaze off over the Texas landscape as his friend Georgie Russell strummed that ballad Farewell the night before the Mexicans overran the Alamo. Life was gay (not as used today) as Fred and Ginger would glide across the screen. Life was dramatic as I watched Robert Ryan dig for gold on his own farm when he should have been farming it. I didn't come close to understanding that movie-God's Little Acre! Life was funny as Lou Costello was constantly getting he and Bud Abbot in trouble. And life was this curious thing called romance. Life was black and white, heroes and villains, good and bad. I had no idea what I wanted to do in this life. I stumbled around in the confusion of unmentored youth until I joined the army then marched around in the confusion of unmentored young adulthood. I married a wonderful young lady (I still can't figure that one out either) and stumbled around a little bit more before God said "I will have mercy on that one." I will never figure that out until He tells me Himself. And then a son came. I only had one bit of wisdom from my past for what was within my scope of raising him; whatever I did in youth, have him do the opposite. The television was stored in the basement for nine years and he recently graduated with honors from law school. Now its time to turn attention back to myself. Lets see...what do I want to do in life? Besides work in a coal-fired power plant and write a blog that is. Well, I guess that is, what it is, and it is good..., maybe not the blog, but God's plan. I sat down tonight to write to the youth and this came out. By the way, don't pass this post on to anyone, it's kind of embarrassing, but to those youth, should any read this, one piece of advice: your scope of knowledge is greatly limited right now and you are a source of income to those who would readily sell you as a fish at Wholey's Market on our Pittsburgh strip! Examine the issues of the day, indeed-search for truth but burn no bridges until you see Christ's imprint on every page of Scripture. Hold fast, dig in, establish a perimeter and keep watch. None other than Jesus Christ commands this army. Supplies will always be there and reinforcements when necessary. No military victory any mortal army ever achieved will compare to when Christ returns with His holy angels. Trust in Him and not yourself for He has joys unspeakable to share with you...in due time!

Gettysburg

       The following blog was written on October 3rd of last year.

 

       Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death.....

       OK, I just returned from Gettysburg.......again. It seems like I write that a lot for Gettysburg is like a magnet to me. If I’m going to Ocean City, New Jersey or any points east the car seems to veer off to Gettysburg for a rest, but this time my wife and I actually had to go to there for reasons other than the battlefield and it also just happened to be our anniversary. There’s been a lot going on lately so we did things a little bit differently in celebration of it. We decided to pick out our own gift as we walked the town and shopped in the stores. My wife picked out a pair of pearl earrings inside a thin sterling loop. As for me, I came across something that signified man and sin, redemption, true glory and everlasting peace.  I’m not really into relics. Maybe this comes from my Protestant Christian faith that shuns relics like the plague for the whole concept of a piece of anything that may have belonged to anyone having any intrinsic value other than intellectual or personal interest is way too close to being an occult fetish. Do I compromise this in my great love of visiting historical sites? I don’t think so for I know that it does not make me anything special nor give me any added powers. Anyway, I found myself walking slowly past locked glass cases of various Civil War relics that were for sale, most of which had been found on the battlefields of Gettysburg and identified as such. I really wouldn't have even considered asking the price of anything but one of these relics stopped me in my tracks.  It was smaller than a quarter and I had to ask for the glass case to be opened to examine it closer. I typically spend about 15 minutes picking out black socks so I was there quite a while just looking at it when the salesperson offered to call the owner of that particular item so I could talk to him. We had a nice conversation and I told him that I wasn’t a collector but was just intrigued by this piece of the Civil War that he owned. He assured me that it was legitimate, as best as one can tell for items like this. So I bought it as my anniversary present.

       It is most likely that on that hot July 3^rd, 1863 as Picket’s Division of the Army of Northern Virginia came out of the tree line of Seminary Ridge, steel bayonets shining so that even the Army of the Potomac troops were momentarily in awe, that one of those men wore this tiny cross around his neck, and then lost it on the uphill charge to the copse of trees and Union lines, and there it remained until locals scoured the fields years later for just such artifacts. Many times have I visited battlefields but I always tempered my admiration for the heroism with the reality that many of these men did not know Christ nor had any hope in eternity. For instance, as much as I admire General George S. Patton I can’t help but focus in on his mistaken belief in reincarnation and his ultimate standing in front of the judgment seat of the One who is no respecter of persons. On the other hand I know that all of the accomplishments of men such as Generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain , thankfully, in no way effected their ultimate salvation for it was in their faith in Jesus Christ...alone... that their redemption was secured. I have written blogs on George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, greatly admiring both but hoping in the salvation of only the former. Even today I'm conflicted while listening to Rush Limbaugh; I like him, I respect him and we need him but I can't ignore that there is no evidence that he is remotely  aware of the gospel other than the patently false and destructive facsimile accepted as the gospel in America today. So, if this small cross was indeed dropped or ripped off on that three-quarter mile stretch of land that bore the tread of Picket’s Division in that famous charge.... who might have worn it? The condition and the health of the Christian church in America was stronger in the South at the time of the Civil War although great revivals had broken out in the armies of both sides. Today, the wearing of a cross means little to nothing, even attendance at church on Sundays can be done by the most rebellious against God but that southern farmer or even landed gentry in the antebellum South would only have donned such a religious item to proclaim their faith in their Saviour! The bearer may have been clutching this small cross as he walked into the hail of bullets and canister fire, maybe even ripping it from its chain in the process. It’s certainly not the small piece of flat metal with no marking whatsoever on it that interests me but the location that it was found, that the wearer was most probably a brother in Christ now free of all conflict and praising his Saviour and also that America today is once again torn apart only much more so than in 1863. The soldier who dropped this cross was a soldier twice over, a pilgrim, doing his best to protect that which he loves but clinging to that which is infinitely more important, to a freedom immensely more valuable and to a King whose victory is already accomplished and eternal and who will someday have every knee bow before Him and separate those who He knows from those who will be surprised that He doesn’t know them!

Conservatism Itself Saves No One

       The following blog entry was written on November 30th of 2008. We are in far worse shape today than when I wrote this and farther away from Christ as a people and a nation.

I agonized for a long time over how the Christian is to deal with politics. I read books on the subject and certainly went to Scripture. I've been on both sides of the issue. Edmund Burke wrote "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Burke was not a Christian, and I am not "good," but the concept and the logic still hold weight. Our nation is crumbling fast and most of us are the proverbial frog in the kettle. The local news from the metropolitan city that I live near started their telecast last night with three different killings among young black people. Yesterday's paper had a picture of two beautiful young children joined at the head while the surgeons were dismayed that nothing could be done for them. Every day the sufferings of people are there to remind us of the fallen condition of this world. We say that we yearn for Jesus to come back but do we? Martin Luther once said when asked what he would do if he knew that the Lord was coming back the next day, "I would plant a tree." In the final analysis, we cannot quit on this nation. If people's sufferings are to be alleviated, if we are to return to at least being a "God-fearing" nation we have to seek God's mercy and try our best to be good and responsible citizens. This blog title has the word "conservative" in it to get the attention of who it is meant for but conservatism itself will save no one! Our hope is not in princes or their military power. Christians, who have been relegated to being part of the "religious right," must remind themselves of this every day. This does not mean that we do not support a political party of ardently work for its success but it does mean that we never alter our ethical beliefs or compromise that which is our only hope, the gospel of grace of our Lord Jesus Christ! We lost our moorings in this long before we lost this last election. Our churches are social gatherings with political causes meant to assuage our guilt of not knowing who we really are in Christ. Our pulpits mention Jesus every week but rarely preach His cross for they have lost faith in the power of preaching Christ and prefer to give biblical advice on how to live. I stumble into church every week to hear the atoning power of the blood of Christ and of what He has done for me and how He will keep this poor wretched sinner despite my gravitation to dally with the world. More than anything we need to pray that ministers enter their pulpits, look over the congregation and set forth to lay out the glories and majesties of Jesus Christ present in every book of the Bible. Only having done that can they begin to exegete the passages on how we are to live.

Given Over To The Plunderers

       
     "So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. (Judges 2:14 ESV)  After the death of Joshua the Israelites were ruled by judges. Time after time they openly rebelled against God and then found themselves being plundered by enemies. What followed that was the people crying out to the Lord for help and often God responding by providing them with a strong judge to lead them....for a time....until they rebelled again.

 

     When I read this verse today I thought about Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. We had been given over to the Clintons who plundered America and later sold to Barack Obama to complete the pillaging. The plunder came in the form of destroying our values, obscuring our heritage and devaluing our traditions. The ideology of the Progressive had no use for terms such as duty, honor and country, and later a dumbed-down culture responded favorably to the prepared and cultured Manchurian Candidate Barack Obama. The Marxists entered through our gates and we feasted with them oblivious to their intentions. It's not that the Clintons and Barack Obama are alone responsible for our collapse for they are only the worst. I bear the responsibility of ten men for our condition, for it is those such as myself, an idol factory...self-serving and asleep in my entertainment induced trance, who caused God to give us over to plunderers and it is also I who wants to be among those pleading for God's mercy, for his name's sake and his glory....alone!

      It is difficult, on the one hand, to witness what our military has done with such honor and great skill and then turn around and view the society it defends, a society that ridicules the need for vigilance as it admires the diversity of those who seek to bring us down.  General Douglas MacArthur, in his farewell speech to West Point in 1962, spoke these words to the cadets. "The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country." No, the long gray line has not failed America but we may fail it and those who came before us if we do not cry out to the Lord for help.

       The following post was written over four years ago, before watertight compartment after watertight compartment of our ship of state had been breached. The second post is more recent. In our foundering condition, the only thing that could get us to a safe harbor would be God's mercy.

April 15, 2009

       America The Beautiful expresses the wondrous bounty God had bestowed upon this country. Spacious skies, amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties surely describe this land. I appreciate the beauty of this land and also the liberty that it was built upon, but I love this country for other reasons. When I talk about America, I'm talking about it from its beginning when small ships carried whole communities across the ocean. I love it for its diversity. We have problems but we have overcome bigger ones. We have new challenges that almost seem insurmountable but its not the first time. We have been bonded together through a concept that demanded diversity of background but became unity as Americans. I love America because of the hope and stability it has given the world. I can write my opinion and speak it. I can pass out books without fear of intimidation. I can oppose iniquity and protest tendencies that are too close to tyranny for comfort. I love America most because God has used it to spread the gospel to every corner of the world. Everywhere I go, in the workplace, in the recreation and shopping arenas, vacation spots and at preserved historical landmarks there are Christians. I can empathize with them, enjoy their fellowship, share my needs and pray for theirs. My son will find them at college, my wife and I will work with them, and many of our representatives will govern with Christ as their head. God has raised this nation and used it mightily, this is why I love it so. I write this blog because these things are in danger. The bond is disappearing. European immigration is occurring again but this time it is an immigration of philosophy. Illegal immigration, sponsored by politicians for political reasons does a great disservice to the legal immigrants who continue to bolster and favor us as they become one with us. Our corporations are becoming more international than American. Our activist courts look to international law, for American law will not suffice the paradigm change they envision. Our media is failing its calling and most importantly, the faithfulness of our churches to the gospel is at low ebb. Previous to revisionist history, we were taught that Americans were a special people who could do almost anything. The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville thought this people special enough to travel here just to observe. He wrote, "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power..." Ignoring these problems and the historical tendency of many nations to collapse from within, is not love.

January 14, 2012

     Dawn breaks and pull by pull the flag rises until its stars and stripes blend into the red sky. The 21st century America cold front collides with the warm heritage of American liberty. Dark clouds form above the eagle perched atop the pole and the flag snaps as the winds begin another day of adding to the tatters and waiting for the rain that month by month fades the blue and red hues that Americans have savored as the taste of freedom for so long. A icy chill settles in the bones of the one raising the flag for he knows that its stars and stripes will be indiscernible before long. He looks down to see if the cracks in the foundation supporting the pole have widened from the tremors that increasingly shake America...they have. He steps back, standing as erect as he can under the burden of seeing his nation collapse, and salutes; a tear forming as he knows that he may be the last to perform this duty. His mind wanders from, first... the drum and piper escorting the newly created flag, to the inspiration for Francis Scott Key's poem, to the charging Union soldier picking up the banner dropped by a fallen comrade in arms, to the lifting of the flagpole on Mt. Suribachi, to the camo flag on the fatigues of the grunt in Vietnam, to the brilliant contrast of red, white and blue with the gray mountain of fallen steel, brick and mortar of the World Trade Center, to the lone flag now raised in the Green Zone of Baghdad. In only a few hours cheers and shouts will be heard off in the distance, not for returning heroes, not as a President passes by, not as a war ends in victory but for the beginning of a football game. The Star Spangled Banner will play and be sung by the latest celebrity seeking a national spotlight but not a word of its lyrics will resonate with the power it had since Fort McHenry. We are not as the Roman Empire falling, we are as the Roman Empire beginning whose gods are numerous, whose Caesars consolidate powers given by a populace that only wants another day at the Colosseum. God's hand is being lifted and the exhilaration of choosing our own destiny emboldens us to stare into the eyes of Caesar and say not, "Give me liberty or give me death" but "Give me liberty to choose my own death." All the while the remaining Christians gather in their catacombs wondering if God's mercies on America are over; imploring of Him one more time for America to be a beacon to the nations, a people that not only openly proclaim Jesus Christ as the Savior of mankind but evidence the beneficence, mercy, majesty, power and glory of Him who created the universe and without whom not one molecule would continue to exist. It was a marvel and a wonder while it existed in its original form....these United States of America, but now they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd (Zech 10:2.) They are a people once different as night and day in their habits and their speech that bonded together as a new entity...Americans, freed from the tyranny of kings, freed from serfdom and most importantly freed from the lie that man is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul, but that freedom, once defended, is now merely petted in the lap of luxury, "Free" as the famous rocker penned..."Free Fallin'." The American Creed, never spoken but always evident, is now but a liberal screed against God, against tradition, and against history itself. The sun, obscured throughout the day by clouds, sets in the West. The rain that would normally give life to the fields, runs off of the frozen, barren and lifeless ground. The flag is lowered and gently folded into the shape of a tri-cornered hat, one of the last vestiges that remain of the fight for independence. No Taps is heard, only the music of the night coming from wherever the revellers gather after the game. The winds die down, no longer needed, for the flag has been taken down, while angels sent by God prepare to blow their trumpets.