When Dogs Talk

Take a look at your past and thank God. Then look to your future and trust God. Now, take a look all around you and serve God. Look within yourself and find God.

Your writer has traveled the world, 8 around the world trips, passports stamped in 157 countries, I have never been in a country, even Muslim, where there were not dogs. If 1 dog ever talked, then we would know that dogs can talk. I had a long time employed bookkeeper that declared to me, that she loved her dog more than family, friends or anything else on this earth, and he talked to her. But she never disclosed what the dog said.

Some people believe that you can predict the weather with a groundhog or the outer coating of a caterpillar. The 1 in the picture has a very dark coat which predicts a hard winter. God has control of the weather like he has control of everything else. When anyone tells me that they want an explanation for the unfairness of God "deaths of small children-horror stories about hurricanes or earthquakes" I tell them that these events are as impossible to predict as the weather.

I am 87 and cannot remember such a hard/cold winter as we have had this year. I believe we can attribute much of the flu epidemic to the weather. and yet, those of us reared in the country so remember those old houses where we lived, the outhouses, the severe weather on livestock. As a child, I was always listening. I still remember my mother and maternal grandmother talking about the great flu epidemic of 1918 when millions died. I'm willing to concede that probably about 1 percent of the population had indoor plumbing, even in the towns, they knew little about toothbrushes or toothpaste. Sanitation which we consider rudimentary. They knew nothing of supplements; few had radios or any formal education enough to read the few newspapers which could educate about prevention. Things stay in your mind that you never forget. My parents came from landowning homes, large plantations but they, like the people in town, like the schools, especially the black schools, and most churches had outside toilet facilities, hand pumps or open wells for water. Most of today's young people think history began the day they were born. They should think of what life was like 1000 or even 2000 years ago, just the basics of hygiene.

In the community where my parents were reared the flu hit very hard. Only 1 doctor, Dr. Hayes, would even go into the community. Both he and his horse (he had a horse and buggy) died from this plague. My mothers' young brother died. Her aunt, the schoolteacher in the community, died. (2 room school, aunt Cattie, for whom my mother was named). She gave birth to a baby boy just before her death. My great uncle Turner, her brother, whom I remember, took this newborn baby up to the aunt's house (aunt Lizzie) who had recently given birth to a baby.. called to them and told them to get the baby (the flu had not hit their house) and she nursed both babies. I had never understood why this man had a different last name from Aunt Lizzie and her family even though he was her son until I learned about his survival. My grandmother, the most saintly woman I have ever known, said those laying in the great plantation house, which is still there, which survived the civil war; when they started coughing they knew that death awaited them. The men, strong enough, were working building wood boxes to bury them. No preachers/no out of community family members would come into the community. It took the civil war for surgeons to learn to wash their hands before surgery. It took the flu epidemic for people to learn that exposure to those with it was the reason for contagion.

At civic clubs, scientific meetings, even AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) where I have had memberships and where some would actually listen to me; I have "preached sanitation" as the only preventive to contagious diseases. Most children walk around with a telephone in their pocket that contains more technology than when man went to the moon. Yet the most fundamental of scientific facts are still neglected by the science community. These things at the end of your arms, with 5 tentacles called fingers, are the causes of most disease. Yet, because it is a habit we "charming" humans continue to grasp 1 another's fingers not knowing where they have been, not realizing that they are the poison in the well. It will take me a long time to forgive the 100's of medical schools and science foundations that have neglected prevention; willing to sit by while 1000's die from an easily preventable microbiology dilemma. Like malaria in Africa, where I saw so many die, like starvation in many parts of the world, like women carrying jugs all day long to find potable water, the dog has barked and we know that sanitation and prevention talks.

On 1 of my around the world trips, I had 48 flights...many airplanes...many people...some well, some sick. Planes are just germ crucibles that fly through the air. When will hospitals and Dr's offices learn that carpeting/overstuffed chairs/draperies serve as harbor refuge for germs? I do not get out very much, my blindness, my cancer, etc., when I go out to eat with my friend, here they come; people I know and love, wanting to shake my hand while I am eating with my hands. Have you noticed that most people go to the bathroom only when they go to a restaurant? Did they wash their hands? If you really want to get sick, if you really want to spend some government tax dollars, just handle a few stair rails, a few doorknobs and the dirtiest, the most loved item known to man, fiat money. I still remember in my practice when women would pull out money from all over their body to pay me. I still recline from the touch of money. "Paper money can harbor thousands of microbes from every environment it touches—whether that’s someone’s fingers, a waiter’s apron, a vending machine or the dank area under someone’s mattress. Other research has shown that some bank notes and coins contain pathogens like Escherichia coli (E. coli), salmonella and staphylococcusaureus, which can lead to serious illness". (http://time.com/4918626/money-germs-microbes-dirty/).

I get so tired of today's spoiled young people. My mothers only surviving sister died last year died at the age of 96. She graduated from Louisburg college, 1936. Now, remember my folks came from plantations with large plantation houses. She had met some young man who came down to visit her unexpectedly 1 day. He said he needed to go to the bathroom and all she could do was point to a path. He had never been to an outhouse like most of todays spoiled young people. He got into his little car and left. This small child tried to comfort her as she laid on the bed crying not knowing I would eventually face the same embarrassment; particularly at the church house (where we were ashamed to invite our friends) or our own homes. There was not inside plumbing in our home until long after I had graduated from college and served our country in the military. Today, poverty areas of eastern North Carolina and many places of the world, such still exist, in spite of banks-security dealers-universities.