Ode to the Month of June

God made the beautiful month of June

To be used for weddings and Ray and Dorothy chose the 9^th.

A perfect day for a perfect wedding until death do we part.

We had a family of eight, and Dorothy loved children

After our children were raised, she turned her love to other children

First with children in summer school in the inner city

Then religious ed for mentally retarded children in various churches

This required gentleness and calmness with candle light.

As the years went by and we had 50 and 60 Junes

Age was showing and Dorothy’s mind began to fail

Her body was broken, and she lost the desire live.

So on another June 2008, on the 9^th to be specific,

God called her name, and Jesus took her hand to a special place.

We put her body to rest on the 13^th, her 85^th birthday.

I thought that was the end, but that was the beginning.

A few weeks later, while I was raking outside in the sun,

She spoke to me twice.

In disbelief at the first, I continued to rake.

On the second time she said the same thing.

“  That is enough already “

Then a few weeks later, an eagle flew directly over me

This eagle fly over occurred two more times.

My Dorothy is in Heaven

She is my unofficial saint.

Voting as a Catholic Doctor

To be able to decide on voting  your desires, you need to be informed about the morals of the Catholic church. From a medical view point, the most important item is ABORTION. In medicine we treat and save people's lives. We do not kill people especially babies. Abortion is killing unborn babies.

In the ten commandments, God says you should not kill anyone. Babies are human beings in a developing stage. They have a body and a soul given by God. Now any one killing a baby is a murderer. Also any one who votes for a person that promotes abortions is a sinful act. That is the catholic moral teaching.

That alone should be enough to not vote for that person in my book. There is no choice in this matter. In addition  when the opponent is a spiritual minister who believes in God.

The Lord be willing, I hope  he wins. Amen!!

    Raymond Broz  MD   

Old Business and New Business

I have to apologize for last blog, because I had computer problems and only a third was printed. The part that was not  printed was when the two presidential candidates had a debate at a university, and a group of students asked the questions. They were more interested in their own future then what is the future of our country, As expected, president Obama would make it fine by giving them everything they would need by supplying all the money. Ignoring the enormous debt our country has.

Now the new business.
Yesterday the Pope elevated Kateri Tekawitha to sainthood. Thanks be to God. But what is not really known about our gift from then Blessed Kateri. I asked a priest about it the time, but he felt it was not a miracle from her. I felt then, as I feel more so now, that it was a miracle from Kateri.

Our Wisconsin lake home is on the Lac du Flambeau Indian reservation ceded to us. We had a guest, Jan, from Minnesota who was packing her pick up to leave for home, when she locked her truck with the keys in the ignition. She was so distraught and upset that she could do such a thing. She so anxios






































































































































































I want to apologize for the last blog, because I had a computer problem. Only a third of my blog was printed, and now my repeat copy was suddenly reduced to a blank page. Now I am frustrated, and I will skip  the old business,

Yesterday the Pope made the decision to elevate to sainthood our St. Kateri Tekawitha. How wonderful that is after all those years of prayers and petitions and watchful waiting. It gives the native Americans something to be proud of and our country as a whole as well.

The third and final debate was performed in a pleasant and professional manner, and both candidates did well. I'm a little biased because Mr, Romney is my favorite, and he was able to gain a little stature that he deserves. As an older person, he has a lot of experience on a broad base which will give him a lot of respect all over the world. I hope he can get the catholic vote this time around. I was told that it was the catholic vote that put Obama in office before.      























   

Two Debates

The debate with vice president Biden and candidate Paul Ryan was poorly monitored and appeared openly biased. V, P. Biden was acting like an idiotic buffoon and repeatedly interrupted Ryan all evening. He made all sorts of facial gestures including laughing and with body movements. Later even his son said he was having fun.

The next debate was more under control, but the questions were made by a select group of college students. They were self centered, and the economy was hardly mentioned. They were more interested with what the government would do for them. The fact that our credit rating was lowered because of our massive debt, and it is still growing. They still want more without any concern about reducing it.

In my opinion we are in dire need of a radical change. We cannot continue to spend money that we don't have.

I have read that there is a proposal that the IRS would be abolished, and it would be replaced with a federal sales tax which everyone would be paying. The workers would all get a pay raise, because there would not be a pay roll deduction for income tax. To get rid of the IRS would a blessing as well as a saving.

  

Time to Harvest

We are having fall weather, and, believe it or not, I have been able to harvest some of my produce. The cucumber plants were producing for about 2 to 3 weeks at 1 cucumber every day, and now an occasional one still shows up. The tomatoes are turning red, and now it is their turn. Next it will be time to pick the green peppers. The only disaster was the sweet corn which failed completely. It appears that corn will not grow in that spot.

So a new plan for next year. One plant nursery had a picture of a postage stamp orchard on a 10 by 20 plot. That is the exact size I was using for the corn. They show how you can have 6 dwarf fruit trees in that space. Well that is my next challenge. I have ordered 2 peach trees and 1 each of apricot, pear, red and yellow apple. I'm real excited about the prospect of having my own little orchard. I turned over the soil with a garden fork that belonged to my father which must be over 100 years old. Then I plan to plant each tree in top soil as well. It will be interesting to see if it will work. I also have an animal sound repellent to keep the animals away, I hope.

With the national election getting closer, I would like to add a few points of my own. During the democratic convention our national debt went up to 16 trillion dollars. To me, I think we need to stop spending money that we don't have and increasing our debt. In the presidential election we have a choice between an financial expert or a novice who has to rely completely on others for advice. For me, you can't beat experience. We already had a reduction in our credit rating under the present administration.    

Ann Romney Speech

I was able to hear Ann's speech at the convention, and she did a marvelous job. It was very emotional, and there was not a dry eye tn the place. Even I teared up a little at home. The camera showed the audience wiping their cheeks from their tears. She mentioned that when they got married, they were still in college, and they lived in a basement apartment. Mitt worked for his church, and later he became a pastor. When he was governor, if there was a need, he would give them help. Then she added, " He is a genius."

All the reports in the paper that I saw afterward, did not carried these comments. She did such wonderful job of telling the story of their life, because they older people with grand children. To me that is a big plus.

Last night I was able to hear Michelle Obama give her speech at the convention. What a difference. She is much younger with school children but her presentation was not the best. She made an explanation of their family background, but she spoke very rapidly. I have heard a term, " Motor Mouth " well to me, that was her. If the people would applaud, they would miss a whole sentence. I'm old, 93, and for me that is deadly.

In my opinion, this election turns out to be between older and more experience, and younger using trial and error system.

Up date on gardening. I am having good success with cucumbers, almost one 8 inch per day, for almost 2 weeks, If things stay the same this should continue. Also green peppers are small, but each plant has one with blossoms for more. Cabbages have small heads, and the tomatoes are still green about ten per plant. The corn was a complete disaster, I'm planning an orchard of dwarf fruit trees instead for next year.        

Congratulations to the USA for our teams in the Olympic games. They won the most medals, and that was no easy task. Several records were broken especially one in swimming by a 17 year girl in her first event. Remarkable, and she was all smiles.

How pleasant it was to see all the smiles and hugs for the winners everywhere. Winners would hug the losers, and it was pleasant all around. There were some tears for the losers, but it didn't last long because it was an honor to be there. All the entrants had to qualify to be there. Now for me, I never won any thing in athletics. It was more like some one has to be last.

It is so refreshing to see all these beautiful people from all different countries smiling and hugging each other in peace. I say that every time I watch the Olympics, because it is true. There were tens of millions of people that were able to watch these games which is also remarkable.

To change the subject, most of you know that I like to garden, and I can report some success. My cucumbers are doing fairly well, and they are delicious, That is the good news. My tomatoes are very tall, and so far I had one tomato. However there are many green ones coming along. This new watering system is working fine, and I do not need to water them. The cabbages are starting to head, and they look pretty good, The peppers are starting to bloom, so we will get some later. The really bad crop is the corn. There is too much shade for the corn to grow. I might have to change to something else next year.

I do have some beautiful phlox, white and purple, and I'm waiting for my order of irises to come for fall planting. I like flowers too. 

Why Would God Be Mad At Us ??

Could it be that God is angry with us as a whole nation ?
Of course He has many reasons. We have been identified as having a culture of death, however I have not heard of anyone doing anything about it. Just the reverse. A 24 year old crazy man shoots 70 people killing at least 12.  This is the worst tragedy of this type in our country. This happened two days ago.

I believe that God gave Moses ten commandments, and one says not to kill any one. " Though shall not kill "
Before this recent tragedy, abortions have been killing babies by the millions.

Where are the moralists, the religious leaders, the Christian churches that are accepting this situation by their silence,  They should be telling the truth that this activity is grave evil. I believe God is angry with our Christian nation as it continues to accept this evil of killing. I also believe that voting for individuals that promote abortion are guilty,  to some degree, as well. White is white and black is black, Amen

The country as a whole has to return to the original morals that we had before, and start teaching the Ten Commandments again  Because the violations are rampant, and the end is not in sight. .  . 

Is God Mad At The USA ?

Is God mad at us?  You would think that perhaps He is since all the terrible things that are happening to our country. Theoretically that this is not the case, because this is not the way that God does things. But now I am not so sure. According to the insurance companies, they say that this an act of God when a tree falls on your house. The Natural Law of God allows this to happen.

My thinking is that God created haven and earth and although He allows this to happen that there might be a way that we might have an influence on things. When Jesus was on earth, He said that God the Father will hear us if we pray. Could this be our problem ? Did we stop praying ?

In praying we can use informal or formal prayers. Informal is like talking to God as if was in the room. However formal praters have to come from memory. This could be a problem. Most Christians know the Lord's prayer or the Our Father, and the Hail Mary. We need to use these.

In my personal praying, especially while saying the rosary, that the part about Mary's womb was a bit annoying. I am a doctor of medicine, and I felt annoyed having to talk about part of Mary's anatomy. Also in teaching small children, that phrase is meaningless, Now that I am in my senior years and saying.my daily rosary, I needed to change those words. Now I am comfortable with the prayer. I would like to print the whole prayer:       Hail Mary, full of grace,
                           the Lord is with you
                          Blessed are you among women,
                         and Blessed is your Son, Jesus.
                         Holy Mary, Mother of God,
                          pray for us now and at the hour our death, Amen

Most people like it, it is easier to teach, more appropriate in meaning, saying that Mary had a son. I think it is a beautiful prayer, and we can use any words that we like.

My point is that we need to pray  

Gardening With A New System

This year I am having more success with my plants, because my son was able to set up an automatic watering system. It is working very well, and the tomato plants are doing very well. He only installed it for the tomato plants since we have 16 of them which is a lot if they grow. Last year we had the same number but we had only a few tomatoes. So this time we are making a few changes, and this irrigation is the main one.

My son Rick was aware of  this system and was able to get the parts, It is a bit complicated, however he did get it working perfectly. This is all operated by the water, and there is no electronic parts or batteries. He has it set so that it waters each plant, and it gets 1 gallon of water in a 24 hour period. The water is given in small amounts through out the day. He has his in tubs, and his tomatoes are growing like crazy. All of them are full of blossoms and several have small fruit on them now in June. Mine are in the field, and they are smaller but have some blossoms. My location does not get as much sun, and they are much smaller. Stay tuned to see how many tomatoes we get this year.

Now for the rest of the garden
Next to the tomatoes, I have 8 cucumber plants. Now these have to be supported, so they are in 4 cages.
Next are 7 cabbage plants that some deer that started to nibble.
Next is a row of peas for pods. My daughter, Barbara, visiting me had a sample, the first produce.
Next are 9 sweet green pepper  plants, one is starting to bloom
Last is my corn field which is about 10 feet square
 Now I have to brag, because I planted these all by myself at 93 , almost.

Speaking of Barbara, she came from Minnesota for a visit which I appreciated very much, We had a wonderful lunch prepared by Hedy and her daughter, Nora. It was very pleasant. Thank you all. 

New Exercise For A 92 Year old

Would you believe this exercise is in the kitchen ? Yes, emptying the dish washer, and I am an expert. Let me explain..
The dish washer was invented about the year when our twins were born in 1956. That was a time when you had to sterilize the glass baby bottles. This had to be done by boiling the bottles in water. When I was reading the news paper I read about a home dish washer that is now available for the first time. This unit could do all the sterilizing for both bottles and dishes. I promptly called the store, and it was available. I was able to have it installed in our kitchen with no problem. From that time on we always had a dish washer.
Over the years I was able to load and empty on occasion but not very often at first. But now in my old age, I am in need to be active as much as possible. Living here with my son and his large family they needed larger  bowls and heavy pots and pans. I volunteered to empty the dish washer.
I was surprised how heavy glass bowls are. Then stake them on shelves that are above my head. Also pots and pans and various grills that have to be stacked.
I find myself bending and lifting and carrying and walking all over the kitchen usually for 1/2 hour almost daily. I don't need to go to any health club, or pay any one a fee. Besides my school teacher daughter-in-law is happy that that is done. I'm making points that way too.
Needless to say that I'm happy to be here rather then in a type of home for old people.      

Did the Jesus Man die ?

On Good Friday I was reading in my monthly magazine " U.S.Catholic, " and this title caught my eye. Upon reading this essay, I learned that a little girl about three years old, asked her mother at the end of the service, "Did the Jesus Man die?" The mother answered, "Yes, honey, He died."

In our Apostle Creed that we say at mass there is a phrase that states that Jesus was a True God and a True man. He was born in a natural birth from His mother, Mary. That is how we all were born. After our birth we will live a certain number of years, then we all have to die. Now if Jesus was a true Man, then He had to die. Well it was predicted that His death would be very horrendous and break His mother's heart. My opinion is that His death had to be so severe that there would not be any question that He died.

After the three days He rose from the dead, and was alive again. He was completely healed and walking around, but the others did not recognize Him until He spoke. He went to Mary Magdaline and said, " Mary." Then she knew who He was. Why didn't she know Him because He was transformed, but His voice was the same. This happened several times later.

I personally had a similar experience after my wife died, I heard her voice about one month later speaking to me. My granddaughter-in-law heard and saw her in a dream about three days later.

So there is life after death, but our bodies will be transformed. If we are good on earth and we get to heaven, there will be complete happiness.

Happy Easter to all

Thin Ice

Even though I live now in Illinois, I continue to get the Minocqua Wisconson news paper every week because I have many friends there. Also our lake property is there with my son,Jack,as owner, and we need to follow the various changes that are occurring.

Now in last week's paper was a sad item even though I didn't know the people personally, I still felt the sadness for these people. In four consecutive days there were four accidents where people went through thin ice and drowned. The last one was the worst. Here the vehicle fell with two passengers went through the ice, but one was able to escape out of the vehicle. The other person drowned. How tragic to have sudden deaths in four families of active people.

This winter has also been mild with very little snow when a normal mid January temperatures should be near zero and ice on the lakes over 4 inches thick. This brought to my mind the time when I fell through the ice.

Very similar circumstances, mid January, but temperature was near zero and a good cover of snow. It was a week end when Jack and Marilou were over to do some cross country skiing. They went on the pond that I call, Broz Lake, because it is on the East end of our property. After they returned they suggested that there was a beautiful spot on the pond where the snow covered branches arched over the inlet creek, like a cathedral.

Then on Monday I told Dorothy that we should check it out because there was not much happening that day. After lunch we put on our skies and went to find our new found "cathedral". We were skiing on our pond before, and I knew where this creek was located. We would have to go about a half block across the pond and to our right.

There it was. A beautiful winter scene. The trees were on both sides, as if it was an entrance. It was narrow so I told Dorthy that I would go first. I hardly finished saying that when I started to go down as if I was in an elevator. Skies and all made a seven foot hole in the ice, I told her not to come any closer because I fell through the ice.

This was a shallow spot and I was standing on the bottom, However I am up to my waist standing in ice cold water. I leaned to the side to get out but the ice broke. So I moved back to thicker ice, I was able to get my left leg and ski out of the water. However when I turned my body, my right ski was caught under the ice. Now I had to lower my self back into the water to release the right ski and turn it to be able to get it into the hole where it went in. Now I was able to get both skies on top of the ice, and I decided to keep both skies on since I had to get back to the house.

I made it back but my shoes were encased in ice. I was able to get my skies off, and then I had to melt the shoe laces before I could get them off. I proceeded to remove my wet clothes and dry myself. Then a hot chocolate drink. The next day I developed a cold, but that was all of the effects after an ice bath.

My guardian angel was with me all that while so I'm here to tell you my story. So be careful of thin ice.

Birding

This term, birding, at least to me, is a relatively a new term for a hobby of studying and bird watching. This my impression.

When I was living in Wisconsin many of us had bird feeders, and we would be watching to see which type of bird was feeding there. Most of us had two types of feeders, one for humming birds and the other for all of the other birds. The humming bird had to have a special liquid feeder that held a syrup. Then this was colored red to attract the humming bird, The other feeder had the sun flower seeds which all the other birds seem to enjoy.

In Wisconsin our challenge was to locate the feeders out of reach of the black bears. They loved both of them, and they would even destroy the feeders just to get at the food. Now in Illinois that is not a problem, so birding is much more enjoyable.

At our first feeder we had a pleasant surprise when the first birds arrived. They were the American golden finch. They were rare in Wisconsin, but here we had 3 or 4 or even 5 at one time. Very pretty site, When the weather became colder, the yellow birds disappeared. We had plenty of birds, but I assumed that they went south. Several months later after a little research, my son Rick discovered that they changed coats for the winter and become brown and white, so they were still with us Now we are waiting for them to start to change back to yellow.

We had so much bird traffic at the first feeder that we needed to put up another. And now do we have birds. We have cardinals,mourning doves, juncos, chickadees,nut hatch, woodpeckers just to name few. Surprising we can have all of them at one time. They also come in large numbers,like 6 cardinals, 16 mourning doves, numerous juncos, also many sparrows. The red headed woodpeckers come in different sizes, and they are very flighty. The tiny chickadees take one seed, and then fly to a tree near by. There they peck on the seed to crack open the shell. They really work hard to get out that morsel inside. Then they fly back to get another seed, and do it all over again.

My son, Rick is buying bird seed in 35 pound bags, because the birds are eating about 1 pound per day. It seems to me that we are the only people feeding the birds. It might be the sign of the current times where you have to feed your family first.

If you can feed the birds, you will find it very entertaining,and you will be aiding the trees as well. After all this is in God's plan as well.

A Christmas Story

Good tidings and a Happy New Year to all of you. At present most indicators are that this year of 2012 will be a very good year.

I have not written blogs for a while, but now I have written 3 recent ones before this. I will try to do better this new year.

Our Christmas amaryllis is in full bloom. It is beautiful but it missed Christmas by one week by one week. Now for my true story.

This occurred in the 1950's when we were in CFM, Christian Family Movement. Basically we were meeting in groups of 10 couples about every two weeks in our own homes, on a rotating basis. Naturally we would become very familiar with each other. We were very fortunate to have a swimming pool, so during the summer we would have an outing with all.

In our group we had an owner of a wholesale fruit and vegetable business. While we were serving watermelon, I mentioned that I really like watermelon, and that I even would like to have it in December at Christmas time. Now remember this was in the 50's when air travel was in its infancy, so my desire was only an exotic dream.

However at Christmas that year, he shocked me when he handed me a watermelon.

That was the time that Tom Brokow called us, " The World's Greatest Generation "