What lovely posts. I enjoyed it all. My most memorable moment was when the Obamas and Bidens walked the Bushs to the helicopter and it seemed that there was genuine affection for one another and laughter. In that moment my disappointments and anger toward President Bush faded and was replaced by Obama's smile. (I felt myself turn from the old to the new with my head held high.) That smile melts. My second was on one of the news channels. A young African American girl attended with her grandfather. She ran up to the camera and he side stepped. She pulled him onto the camera and excitedly introduced him "This is my grandfather, he is a judge, he has fought for civil rights his whole life." She was beaming with pride for him and he seemed quite meek and small next to her large personality. As he spoke he began to cry about what this day meant to him. Seeing those two side by side- the sharp contrast- makes me cry even now. You can barely contain yourself from reciting the I Have a Dream speech. As a parent my greatest hopes are that the lives of my children are better than my own- I feel like that is possible again.

These letter are valuable to anyone doing genealogical research on this John and Joseph Thompson and their relatives. This is stuff that genealogists dream of! These would also be of good interest to the genealogy library of Ironton, Iron Co., MO and surrounding counties. I have an interest in these because I discovered that my great grandfather Marlow was living in Iron Co. during the Civil War. He was located south of Ironton, on a farm ouside Des Arc, MO. He struggled to hold his family and friends together. What you have is a first hand account of the great battle fought at Fredericktown, Madison Co., MO. - Priceless! Just before the Civil War (ca 1857), Iron Co. was organized out of Madison Co. Iron county was named for its iron deposits and the mines there. Some distance north of Ironton is the lead mining district. Both lead and iron deposits were critical to the war effort. Madison Co. also has mineral mines. These ore deposits made this part of MO worthy of fighting for. The war effort was compounded in southern MO because both northern and southern sympathizers were present even though Mo had been amitted to the Union as a "Free" state. Residents left at home did not know from one day to the next which side they should favor. Bands from both sides raided and killed residents if they deemed the residents may have favored the opposite side. For example, the miller and owner of the Bollinger Mill was executed by the Rebels because they decided that he had milled some flour that was used by the opposing side. One of the difficulties in transcribing/reading letters from that period is the style of writing and forming characters. Handwritting style was changing in that period. The old style was common up to 1830 and by 1870, the style became very similar to present day handwritting. One of the most common confusion that I have found is the double "ss" as in Tennessee. When a single "s" appeared, it was formed much like we do today. However, when a double "ss" appeared, the first "s" appears more like an "f" followed by the second s shaped as currently. However, upon close examination, you will find that the top loop of the first "s" is reversed to that of an "f". These two characters are sometimes confused for a "p" and often followed by a transcriber's question mark because the letter "p" did not make sense. Try writing a double "ss" with the first "s" shaped as one loop above the line and a second loop below the line followed by the second "s", and you will find that the motion "flows" well. The character, capital M, may be formed with sharp points on top instead of a rounded tops. These curious features, I believe, came about because of writing with quill/pen and ink; the sharp point of the inking instrument tended to dig into the paper on the upstroke. This affected a person's handwriting. (I learned to write with dip pen and ink.) Modern ink pens have rounded nibs that smooth the upstroke of the pen. Think of a pen digging into the paper and then the character shapes will begin to make sense. During the Civil War, if a note was not in ink, it would have been written by pencil and often had a crude point. The standard procedure was to sharpen your pencil with a pocket knife or hunting knife.

My goodness, at least where I live we have so many social programs both public and private that there is no need for someone to starve to death or sleep on the street for long. I work with a couple of the private programs and they seem to be much more efficient and effective than the federal government - which is to be expected as any large organization is fraught with bureaucracy and waste. Sometimes I feel like we have become so focused on expecting the government to take care of everything that we are creating a society of people who start to think they are powerless to make a better life for themselves. They expect the government to do it and that's never going to work if people don't believe in themselves. I grew up in a low income, dysfunctional family with two alcoholic parents, father often unemployed, bankrupt at one point. The one good thing my parents did was to instill in me that you are responsible for your own situation - bad decisions, bad judgment, whatever. If you want to make a better life for yourself, you can but it's up to you to do so. Whatever else they did to make my life a living hell, I am eternally grateful for the above. As a result I set a few goals for myself in high school that I think were very important in how I ended up. 1. get a college education in a field where you can get a job and support yourself without depending on a man (don't pick a degree that's useless in terms of making a living) 2. don't get pregnant before you're married or even after you're married if you can't afford to support a family and don't have more kids than you can afford (you aren't entitled to have kids especially if can't take care of them) 3. work hard, stay out of debt, don't waste money on booze and smokes 4. don't marry a loser Hardly a day goes by that I don't think how sad I am for how much my parents struggled in life and how grateful I am that they raised me in a way that inspired me not to go down the same path they did. I think we need more mentors and positive role models to help people see the possibilities in their lives and help them believe in themselves. I think too much government dependence crushes peoples' spirits.

Good to know you're back on better footing. It's a good lesson for all to sleep on the problem before you address it. That's a practice I always recommend. It allows you to cool down and respond correctly to the actual scale of the issue rather than the perceived scale of the issue that is always larger than life and emotional when first encountered. In other words, if this was the final labor on the project rather than just a prelim screwup that the GC hasn't even viewed yet, the scale of the issue would be much higher. You always want to save the escalated response to an inadequate response from the GC after he has had a chance, not the first response being volcanic. 20% for the material surcharge is for the time spent selecting the correct material, any associated required components, ordering the material, arranging for it's transport, receiving the shipment, inspecting it that it is correct and undamaged, and storing it so that it remains undamaged. Time is money and none of those services are free. ;) You'll pay it one way or the other, even if it's not specified in the contract. You'll pay higher labor fees, or you'll get less warranty, or something. The slack gets picked up somehow if the contractor is an actual business man and is going to actually remain in business. It's better to be above board with all charges in writing so you understand what goes into a remodel. If you elect to select and purchase your own materials, then you are the one responsible for all of the above and the contractor is no longer the point of warranty with the product.