CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF 8 NOVEMBER 2011

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:03 pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by ERNIE GUTHRIE
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
No. in attendance – 24

New attendees were:
THOMAS E. VASGAR, originally from Philly, but has been here since 1967.  His mother was from Newport.  Currently lives on the Nine Foot Road in Newport.
JIM AND SUSIE BENDER from Cary, NC.  They are here on vacation and heard about our meeting.  BOB asked it they had a TEA Party in Cary.  Jim said they probably do, but was not aware of one.

BOB said he appreciated everyone’s good wishes and thoughts concerning his absence last week while undergoing a colonoscopy.  He believes it went well, however, he does not remember any of the surgery.

BOB congratulated everyone on the parade.  He thought it went well.  Everyone agreed. (Round of applause)  He felt we were cheered as much or more that any of the other floats.  HOWARD GARNER said except for Ken Humphrey’s wife.  She just stood there and shook her head, refusing a copy of the Constitution or even a piece of candy.  EULA PARKIN wanted to know where the guitar player came from.  HOWARD said he added a whole lot to our float.   He even had those watching the parade join us in singing ‘God Bless America”.  Only thing anyone knew about him was his first name was ‘Jeff’ and he was from Havelock they thought.  HOWARD said he had heard him say something about being a part of some program in the next few weeks in the Havelock City Park, and Howard thought we should try to find out and support him in return.   TOM HARMON said he thought he had attended one of our meetings about 3 or 4 months ago.  (Secretary’s note:  Checked the minutes back to April this year – no Jeff signed in that I could recognize in the signatures.  Possibly, he did not sign in.  Sorry.  No help.)  TOM said he understood someone had invited him, but he didn’t know who.  HOWARD said ‘Jeff” had talked like he might be here tonight.  NANCY BOCK said she understood that ‘Jeff’ was getting married this coming Saturday.

BOB said he was surprised that SCOTT CARPENTER was not in attendance tonight.  He figured he would have a presentation and discussion on what we did right and wrong for the parade.  We missed SCOTT and his presentation.  Maybe he will be here next week to enlighten us.  Several talked about how SCOTT could take charge and keep things moving.  He could still bark orders and everyone jump.  HOWARD said he had not been out of service long enough to get ‘re-civilianized’.  It takes a while to get that military stance completely toned down.  Everyone agreed he was an excellent organizer.  TOM said he still holds staff meetings.  (Sorry, SCOTT, you have to be there to protect yourself).

BOB called on STEVE BEST for a report on his ‘Cave’.  STEVE said, ‘This coming weekend they are having a Prayer Rally in Detroit – a man named Lou Ingals.  He does it (according to STEVE) whenever the LORD tells him to.  It is a fasting and prayer rally and is going to be at the baseball stadium.  The stadium holds around 10,000 people and they are saying it will be full.  There will be various speakers and musicians.  They will fast, pray and worship for 24 hours.  Pray for the nation, the coming elections, and all kinds of stuff.  STEVE will be showing it in the Cave, through the internet service.  He has everything hooked up so he can show it live and everyone attending will be joining in the praying and fasting from Friday at 6:00 pm to Saturday at 6:00 pm.  BOB said he was cool until he got to the fasting part.  He said after that colonoscopy, he had to refill, couldn’t skip that many hours without eating.

JERE GEURIN said he had talked yesterday to a lady from the Morehead City Police Department and she said they will give a guided tour to any group that wants to get together and go through the new police station.  It is 22,000 square feet.  He thinks that ought to be something to see.  Discussion on size of station.  HOWARD said that would be a little over a ½ acre.

BOB called on EULA PARKIN to scare us again about something….  EULA said she was still wondering if we were reading J’Had Watch everyday.  She had a question she wanted to check us out on.  ‘Who was the top US General who was fired for telling the truth about the Afghan president Karside’s (?) regime’.  The answer was in yesterday’s J’had Watch.  Several members offered possible answers.  She read his comment.  “You might just as well poke me in the eye with a needle.  I’m sorry, but we just gave you eleven point six billion and now you are telling me I don’t really care.’  Here we have one official telling the truth about a leader who has openly said he will side with our enemies and has threatened to join the Taliban and the General gets fired.  Major General Peter Fuller, Deputy Commander of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan made the remarks in an interview with Politico that was published Thursday.  Fuller told Politico that major players in the Afghan government are isolated from reality.  Fuller acted angrily on claims from Karside that Afghanistan would side with Pakastan if we (the US) went to war with them.  Fuller called Karside’s statements irrational.  It was announced Friday that Fuller was to be released from his duties effective immediately, saying these comments are indicative of our current relationship with the government of Afghanistan.  The Afghan people are an honorable people and statements like these will prevent a peaceful and solid unity with our country.  The article ended with “Fuller will be proven right and we will be proven foolish – you can teach a man how to fish, or you can give them a fish.  Fuller said we are giving them fish while they are learning and they want more fish; and now they say they like sword fish; how come you are giving me cod?  The point being there will never be peace in Afghanistan.  ERNIE GUTHRIE asked if anyone knew the meaning of Afghanistan – it is the ’land of the unruly’.  ERIC BROYLES said we are never going to solve their problems.    BOB said, well we are pulling out of there this year – TOM said that’s Iraq (December before the first of the year) and Afghanistan is 2014.  MARION MERRILL said the only reason Obama is bringing the boys home from Iraq is to help him get reelected.  TOM said they had already started closing up some of the bases  last month.  ERIC asked how many will be left to act as advisors or some other such name.  TOM said his understanding is the only ones who will be left there is the Black Water Group.  A group of 2000 who will be in charge of maintaining ’peace’.?   JIM BENDER said his son is in the Air Force and he trains people how to fuel aircraft and things of that nature.  He is now with a group in Kobal, Afghanistan training the Afghani how to do the same things.  In addition to that they are trying to train the Afghanis how to run their cities, and ultimately how to run their country.  That is part of the United Nations effort and he thinks they are going to be there for quite a while.  BOB said he really doubts we are really going to pull out.  He thinks they will just change names – they will no longer be combat troops.  Same folks, different title.

BOB asked NANCY BOCK, Treasurer, how we were holding out in funds.  NANCY said we have $1,260.00 and owed $230.00 for parade items we had gotten.  BOB asked HOWARD and PEGGY if they had given NANCY a bill for the candy.  NANCY said she had gotten a bill for a little over $69.00 and the GARNER’s would only accept $50.00.  They had paid the difference.  BOB said CLAYTON and GRACE GILLIKIN had bought some candy also.  NANCY said she had not gotten a bill for that candy yet and they are not with us tonight.  HOWARD said we had collected most of the candy that was left in the basket on the float and brought it home with us.  It is in an air-conditioned room and we plan to take all the chocolates out and put them in the refrigerator (over in the double wide trailer that had belonged to PEGGY’s mother).  It is perfectly safe, since HOWARD is diabetic and can’t eat candy.  BOB said he thought we should take the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Tootsie Rolls and bring them to the meeting next week.  He would help us take care of them.    BOB wanted to know how much candy was left.  HOWARD said that tub, we had put the candy in so we could mix it up, was probably half full.  Discussion on what to do with the remaining candy.  Some suggested using it in the Christmas Parade, while others didn’t think we should get involved in that parade; and others said maybe we should look into selling it to someone who planned to enter the Christmas Parade.  No decision was made.  HOWARD said if we needed to hold the candy for any length of time, we could store it in the refrigerator that was in the double wide and he thought it would be alright.

NANCY had found a metal coffee cup that had been left on the float and wanted to know if anyone recognized it.  No one did, so she took it back with her and asked us to let her know if we found out who it belonged to.  She also had a box of candy that had been left in her vehicle Saturday and would like for HOWARD to take and put it with the rest of the candy we had stored.  BOB wanted to know what kind of candy was it.  RUTH PARKER wanted to know if there were any Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in there – BOB would be glad to help us with them.  NANCY said she thought we had handed out about 800 pocket Constitutions and about 400 flags.  She has a box of Constitutions and labels in her car if anyone would like to take them and put the labels on them.  EULA said she would be glad to put the labels on.  She said ‘old teachers never die, they just cut and paste’.

TOM HARMON wanted to know if we plan to buy our own military flags (for each branch of service).  BOB said he thought we should.  HOWARD said there was a guy at the Flea Mall that sold flags for $5.00 a piece he thought.  TOM said he did not want to buy anything made in China, especially an American flag.  HOWARD said he imagined these were made in China, as cheap as they are.  TOM asked if anyone knew about flag depot.com.  He thinks those flags are made by veterans in the USA.  NANCY said she looked it up but she couldn’t remember how much they cost.  She knows of a site where they are $30.00 each plus $5.00 shipping and handling.  (3×5 – $65.00) She thought that was flagstaff.com.  BOB said maybe we should do a Google on flags, wholesalers.  BOB said the law on ‘Made in America’ is kinda crazy.  He thinks it really ought to be changed.  For example: you can have a shirt made overseas,  bring it back to the states and if you sew the label in the back of the shirt, here in the US, you can declare it ‘made in America’.  LYN BAKER said another example would be cotton fabrics  manufactured here and sent overseas to be cut and sewn – you are still getting American fabric.

EULA said changing the subject; she wanted to brag a little, that she had seen in the paper that the Morehead City Veteran’s Day Parade was the largest in the state, with the highest attendance.

BOB told us about being asked by a teacher to speak to a class at East Carteret on the Beruit bombing in Lebanon.  The 28th of October was the 28th anniversary of the bombing.  He said he put together a power point presentation over the weekend and by the time he got to the school (a little over a week ago), it had expanded into six classes.  Some of the other teachers had found out and he ended up giving six classes; two in the morning and in the afternoon they had combined four classes into two classes.; so they went to the visual center where he gave his talk.  He thought it went really well.  Couple of things that really amazed him was how big high school kids are now days.  They are huge.  The first class were freshmen and they were like ERNIE’s size.  BOB said he would ask questions like ‘who listen to the news every night regularly‘.  No hands went up.  ‘How many know where Beruit is?’  No hands went up.  Anyway the presentation started out with maps of the Mediterranean to show them where Lebanon is and where Beruit is and showed them where the airport is.  He told them, to understand, they needed to go back a little bit and learn about the history of the whole area and find out where they are now.  He went all the way back to the Roman Empire and brought them forward through World War I and everything since then.   About 15% to 20% of the students were really locked up, engaged in, and absorbing the data; but the other 80% to 85%….. some of them, before the presentation ever started were heads on the desks and snoring.  BOB said it may have been the same way when he was in high school.  Several said they doubted it.  BOB said even so, he still enjoyed doing it.  Maybe they’ll invite him back again next year.

HOWARD asked if we had read the letter to the editor criticizing the Chairman of the County Commissioners.  He said he and DENNIS TOMASO had been discussing it before the meeting and they wondered if the person who wrote that letter, who didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to sign their name, was at the same meeting we were; because neither of us had seen or heard it that way.  BOB said he re-watched the meeting when it was re-broadcasted again on Channel 10.  He watched the whole meeting again  and he remembered it the same as the night of the meeting he attended.  It put him to thinking ‘what meeting did these people (C4) go to.  He was kind of appalled that they didn’t put their name to the letter.  MARION said they do sign their names but they ask the editor not to use it.  The editor does know where the letter comes from.  BOB said he realized that but if you are ashamed to admit you wrote a letter then you should not have written it.  HOWARD said most of that letter was untrue; because we were there and heard something different than what they were stating.  He said ‘Ironically, on the way down to the parade Saturday morning, we stopped at Cox’s for breakfast and Doug Harris came in.  HOWARD went over and personally thanked him for the power point presentation and them taking up for the tax payers.  BOB said it was one of the best Commissioners meeting he had ever been to because it was very transparent in the communication between the Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools,  and County Commissioners.  Knowing the background behind it, because KEN LANG had worked a lot with Commissioner Robin Comer trying to get some facts and figures; and then them coming out in the paper about they didn’t have the right numbers.  How many budgets are the schools operating on.  He didn’t like the fact that the Commissioners had released the contingency funds (the $500,000.00).  It was to have been contingent upon the School Board providing them with quarterly financial information (how the money is getting spent).   He was kind of wondering why they released the money since we haven’t even gone through the first quarter of the school year.  He didn’t think the contingency for releasing the funds had been met yet.  HOWARD said Commissioner Holt Faircloth told PEGGY that night, before the meeting started, that they were going to approve it.  They had asked for pertinent information which the school (right or wrong) had provided them.  Thus they had no choice but to release the funds, since it would appear their requests had been met.  BOB said they had had to assume that the figures they had been provided by the Board of Education were the same figures Doug Harris had used in his power point presentation.  Then the school employees and board said they had used the wrong information.  So it goes back to how many dang budgets are they operating under.  Why can’t they get together the “right” numbers and get them to the County Commissioners the first time when they asked for them.  He thought Doug Harris made that front row of school wheels look absolutely stupid.  ERIC said he understood that the Commissioners had not given the school the total amount; that it was prorated throughout the year.  He didn’t think they got it all at once.  BOB said he wasn’t sure about that but according to the paper the $500,000.00 was for paying teacher overtime, sick leave, and school bus drivers‘ overtime.  The state had provided funds for three days of sick leave but the teachers were apparently entitled to 10 days.  His question is ‘surely they (with 700 teachers) have not already gone through 2100 days of sick leave already in the first month of school‘.  He didn’t think they should release the money until the funds already allocated were expended.  He says they got the money and now they will do whatever they want with it, because once the funds are released by the County, they no longer have any control.  The school can spend it anyway they want.  They do not have to stick to the budget, which he thinks is why they are floating around all these budgets, to confuse the issue.  A budget for this group, another for another group, etc.  BOB said Novey says he is trying to get the biggest bang for the buck they can get, but he feels Novey’s modus operandi is just wanting to get as much money as possible, spend all they get, so they can ask for more next time.  He is an empire builder.  We all agreed with that.  BOB said we have new school board elections coming up and we have three members of the board who, the last he heard, were not going to run for reelection, so we need to find some good conservative folks to put on the school board.  Once we can get enough on the board then we can fire Novey.  He said he and KEN were talking to Adele Collins and she said they never had these problems with the previous superintendent (who passed away).  Then they got Novey and since then they have all these problems with the money and where it is going.  Just mass confusion.  The current school board just amens and rubberstamps what Novey wants.  HOWARD said they are violating state law the way they are currently operating.  The Board of Education is supposed to set policy and it is the superintendent’s duty to carry it out.  It is not working that way here in Carteret.  ERIC said this is also being spun by C4.  It’s the same information they have been spinning all along.  BOB said he thought that letter to the editor was dictated and crafted between Al Hill and Novey and given to C4 to send to the editor.  Novey will stand up and make statements and when you go to a C4 meeting they use the same talking points.  HOWARD said he understands that one of the Commissioners is meeting secretly/privately with C4 also.  Others have heard the same thing, so we wonder who’s side he is on.  BOB said he is chairman of one of the parties, also.   HOWARD said he is not a member of that party but he hopes that party will get rid of him next time.  BOB said he thinks he will be un-elected next election.  He told WAYNE WILLIS that since he lost his last election then we might just put him up for Chairman of one of the parties.  WAYNE said ‘you’ll be sorry’.

HOWARD asked BOB if he saw Al Hill riding in the yellow convertible in the VA parade Saturday.  BOB said he didn’t.  HOWARD said he rode by us and shook hands with one of our TEA Party tee shirted Patriots.  PEGGY said she bet it did not register who he had just shook hands with or he would not have done it.

BOB called upon WAYNE to give us an update on the history of his game he had ongoing.  WAYNE said the software is written and he is playing it on his computer now and has been for a couple of weeks.  Why he has been playing it is to make sure that there are no typographical errors, spelling, punctuation or factual errors in it.  Even in the wrong answers he found some things that somehow got changed when they went to put in onto the software.   Somehow some things got changed a little bit and he is trying to make sure that it is 100% correct.  It is a little bit tricky to do because there is a correct answer; there is a almost correct answer, (he has to really check on some of these to make sure that it is not the correct answer – only the near ‘bout); the ridiculous answer and the funny answer.  He’s checking out the pictures (100 images that had to be found that were not copyrighted or have some kind of intellectual property claim to them and the music is another thing.  It had to be cleared to make sure it was all available in the public domain.  The most recent thing he had to do was to come up with a EULA contract.  End User License Agreement.  This is something in that real fine print when you buy software or some kind of product like that.  And when he says ‘fine’ print, he means it.  When you type it out so you can read it, it can be over three foot long.  He called his patent lawyer in Greensboro to ask him would he do the EULA.  He said he was not familiar with that and it will be expensive; which while talking to him, translated into ‘don’t get him to do it because he would have to pay the lawyer to go to night school’.   He charges $350 an hour just to talk to him on the telephone, so when he said it was going to be expensive, he believed him.  So what he did was, he stumbled onto one on a piece of software that happened to be left by Denise, that she had bought in ‘02, that was very similar to what he wanted so he reworded that one and that’s what took up a lot of last week.  He hopes to have something available between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  EULA (PARKIN not the contract) wanted to know how much the game was going to cost.  WAYNE said he did not know yet.  BOB explained about the game that WAYNE had just been talking about to the new attendees.   BOB asked what would entice a teenager to play this game.  Do they get something like a jelly bean every time they get a right answer.  What is the motivation for them to want to get past question number three.  WAYNE said he thought the type of people who would need this game were about like those 80 to 85% BOB referred to in that class he taught.  80% of them would go to sleep.  What WAYNE had done was go to the Board of Education, Matt Bottoms, Asst. Superintendent, about a year ago.  Matt was really enthused with the idea and wanted WAYNE to hurry up and get it ready, because they could use it for a history test.  For those of you who do not know, there are 100 questions and it is multiple choice, with 4 answers to each question.  BOB wanted to know if it was set up for different grade levels.  WAYNE said it was not that sophisticated yet.  BOB asked what period of time was covered.  WAYNE said it started with Plato and came right on up to Obama.  He thinks it will be easy to put other sets of questions in it later.  BOB said, didn’t he say that some nursing outfit was interested in adapting his idea for other purposes other than history.  WAYNE said yes, a nurse he knew was interested in using it to help people understand more about cancer for example.   He had lunch with the guy, that was here at our meeting a couple of weeks ago, that had the patch over his eye because he had had surgery for a brain tumor.  It was his girlfriend that had the connection with Duke University that wanted to use his idea and put cancer questions on it.  It looks like they may be doing that.  WAYNE said for 2 or 3 dollars a piece it won’t break anyone’s budget.  HOWARD said he would need to charge more than that.  At that price they wouldn’t want them.  WAYNE said we will have to talk about that then.  BOB said we are anxious to see this thing so we can start buying them for our kids for Christmas.  WAYNE said, yeah, and making some money for the TEA Party.  That was another thing about the price.  The higher the price the more the TEA Party is going to get, so we were going to have to talk him into charging a higher price.  BOB said he thought WAYNE was going to become a millionaire or billionaire.  WAYNE said no, he didn’t want to be rich.  JIM said with games like that you usually had a measurement on how well you are doing.  WAYNE said there is a scoring system.  You start out with 50 points and you earn 10 points when you answer correctly and you lose 10 when you miss.  The first one to get 100 wins the game.  Then you start all over.  It doesn’t take long to get 5 questions right – but it takes longer to miss 5.  He has left it up to the teachers to provide incentives to encourage participation.

BOB said Herman Cain is probably done with his news conference by now.  Curious as to what the fall out is going to be about that.  WAYNE said seeing as how Herman has been wounded and if mortally wounded from this ‘Anita Hill II accident’ or episode or whatever you want to call it, who do you all think is going to be in line to take his place?  Most in attendance said they hoped it would be Newt Gingrich.  WAYNE said he just wanted to know what we all think.  Discussion followed.  HOWARD said he has found out how he can run in the next election and get free advertising.  He has set up a deal with Christy (a waitress here at the Golden Corral) for her to charge him with sexual harassment.

BOB said our next project was going to be a rally in the spring.  We want to have it before the primary which will be sometime in mid May.  It will be one of those ‘get out the vote’ type things but also gearing up for the November elections also.  So, let’s put our thinking caps on and come back next week and decide when we want to have it, a theme, and all the other things connected.  DENNIS is concerned how we are going to afford a rally when we only have $1200.00 in the kitty.  BOB said that would be part of the discussion also.  We are going to have to have some type of fund raiser….a car wash, sell WAYNE’s games or something to make some money.  He asked NANCY if she had a ball park figure of what it cost for the last rally….insurance, porta johns, speaker system, etc.  We will need to buy insurance again for this rally,  won’t we?  NANCY said yes, she thought it cost us around $700 for the year last year, which was good for up to three rallys.  He asked her to compile all that information together and give a report next week.

JIM said he was kind of new at this and they came tonight to learn more about TEA Party groups.  He wanted to know if there was any place where they could learn more.  BOB said if they will go to TEA Party Patriots.com (or .org) you can order a packet with information on organization and all kinds of materials for getting started.  You can also send an email to them asking for a North Carolina coordinator to get in touch with you.  BOB offered to get in touch with Russ (?) and ask him to get in touch with JIM.   When he contacts you, just tell him you are interested in getting a group started up around the Cary area.  There may already be one up there.  JIM said he had seen our float in Saturday’s parade and thought it was very impressive.  In fact he thought the whole parade was impressive.  BOB said if they wanted to start a TEA Party and wanted a cohesive group, he would recommend they meet every week.  The TEA Parties that he is familiar with that have once a month meetings, unless there is some hot topic/burning item like health care, or something like that that gets everybody riled up, the group kinda drops by the wayside.  If you have weekly meetings…he thinks that is the secret that keeps us going…it sorta becomes like a social thing for us so we can get out of the house once a week and have dinner together and discuss topics of mutual interest.  ERIC said he thinks by meeting each week we become more involved in things going on around us.  BOB informed JIM and SUSIE that we have also started a second group here in the western part of Carteret County.  We refer to it as our Wild West Tea Party.  We are trying to get one started in the down east part of the county, but so far have not been successful.  They will all be under our umbrella.  When we have rallies, it will usually only be one rally, not one in each locale.  Our county is so long, a lot of people do not want to travel so far to attend our meetings here at the Golden Corral.  JIM said from what he has determined we were more inclined in keeping our Country more toward it’s charter, as opposed to a more liberal leaning.  BOB said our core values are Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Promotion of Free Markets Enterprise.   JIM said those were similar to conservative ideals.  The TEA Party is basically trying to bring the Republican Party back to those principles.  BOB thinks we need to deny Democrats public office until they move back to at least center; because they currently are so far left they are totally unable to compromise.  HOWARD told them they could go to our website where our minutes are posted.  They are sort of like a newsletter detailing what goes on at our meetings and you can keep up with what we are trying to do.  BOB advised them to stick to the core values and not tackle subjects like abortion, gay marriage, Muslims, etc.  They are things you can talk about in your meetings, like we could stay here all night and talk about this Occupy Wall Street stuff, but there’d be no sense in it.  Someone pulled out one of our cards and gave it to them for our website address.  ERIC  wanted to know if we didn’t need some more business cards, since it would appear most of us were out.

TOM said, talking about elections, we need to watch out for Elaine Marshall, Secretary of State.  George Soros wants Democrats in the Secretary of State positions and he is paying out big money to get them that position; and then he will have control of them.  If Elaine Marshall gets back in there again Soros will have a big foothold there.  We have to do our best to keep her from getting elected.  BOB said we need to do like we did in 2010 and come up with our voter recommendation guide, articles in the paper, man the polls, and have those handouts.  He feels that was the best thing we came up with last time.  TOM said he had an article that he would send to KEN to get on our website that explains the Secretary of State, George Soros and how he is paying these people to run.  HOWARD said we are going to have some commissioners here in the county that are not going to run next time that we need to be thinking about.  TOM asked who and HOWARD said Holt Faircloth had told him he had no intention of running again.  BOB asked why….burned out or what.  HOWARD said probably, but he is disgusted with the way things have gone.  Rumor mill has it that Renee Coles, with the C4 group, is campaigning for the Board of Education but he has been told that Greg Lewis was trying to get her to challenge Holt.  Holt had told HOWARD he didn’t care because he was not going to run.  We definitely do not want her.  BOB said if Greg is pushing her, then we need to push him out too.  HOWARD said Greg was trying to straddle the fence and play all sides.

STEVE said he needed to set up a date to show the movie “Turning the US into a Socialist Country” about Agenda 21.  Maybe one Saturday evening or something.
The movie runs about an hour to an hour and a half.  With all that is going on now, Thanksgiving, Christmas holidays; maybe we should wait until after the first of the year.

EULA said, as we knew, she was in Charleston, SC a couple of weeks ago to an annual meeting of the Coast Guard Courier.  Her husband had been stationed aboard it.  She was surprised to find out, that as a widow of a service man, she was the only one there that knew about the new ribbon that has come out.   If you serve anywhere on the water (Atlantic/Pacific or anywhere) there is a new ribbon that you can send for and get.  Apparently, most do not read all the letters and papers sent out.  She said they all thanked her for keeping them informed.  She did not know how many of our members were retired military and got quarterlies, but she thought we should know of this new ribbon.  BOB said in his 21 years of military, he had managed to stay off a boat.  BOB asked how many here tonight were retired military, asking them to raise their hands.. A round of applause and thank yous followed.

BOB said he was going to adjourn the meeting and head down to Rib Eyes in Cape Carteret for the celebration (they hope).  KEN and DIANE are going to be there and Dave Fowler, Richard Hunt, Renna,  They are going to have an after the election get together.

WAYNE said he read where a town that an Occupy group was holed up in, the word got out that they had not had to get a permit to be there.  The TEA Party had been charged recently for a permit for them to protest, so they are suing to get their money back.  HOWARD said it was Richmond.  DENNIS said there were two issues on the ballot in Ohio we need to watch… one opting out of Obamacare and the other overturning the Governor’s ruling on the union dues.   Also they are going after Governor Walker for recall in Wisconsin.

BOB said he thought a letter to the editor thanking those who came out and cheered on the TEA Party float would be nice.  It really made us feel great.  It also gives us incentive to keep on keeping on.

TOM asked if anyone found his truck keys Saturday.  He had lost them somewhere during the parade.  HOWARD and PEGGY took him back to Newport so he could get his wife’s keys and then took him back to Morehead.  When we drove up to his truck he found someone had evidently found them and placed them in the door handle of his truck.  He would like to find out who did it so he could thank them.  If anyone hears who it was, please let TOM know.  He plans to write a letter to the Editor thanking them.  He said he had been praying that his truck would still be there when we got back.  He was going to cry if it were gone.  BOB said they must have walked around pushing the button until they found where they belonged or else it was someone who knew him and knew he had lost his keys.

NANCY said just an item of interest….Has anyone heard of the website ’I am the 53%’.  It is a response to the Occupiers who say they are the 99% who represent the people.  This is the 53% that say they pay their taxes.  She said it was very inspiring.  There are a lot of people with hand written notes who post pictures of themselves.  One of the articles …..   “I have lived through most poverty times.  My wife and I decided in ’96 that we were sick of poverty, so we went back to school and earned degrees and got three jobs.  No one handed that to us…we earned it, we did it.  I did not go through all that struggle while raising three children so that I could support lazy people who want nothing but government handouts.  You want to occupy something…occupy a job and start contributing….. There are a lot of comments like that.  You will enjoy this website. Google “I am the 53%”.   It is not just a website in itself but a lot of blogs.

BOB asked if anyone heard Neil Bortz today on the radio.  He had one of his folks down interviewing people at the Occupy group in the city he reports out of.  He had some maniac who could not carry on a complete sentence without throwing the “F” word in  so they had to edit that out in order to broadcast his remarks.  This guy said ‘I don’t care if we have a 9-11 another 9 hundred and 11 more times‘.  RUTH PARKER said she heard on Lockwood’s program on the way to the meeting that they were going to clean out Washington’s Occupy group tonight.  The police are going to make them move out.  BOB said the homeless in Sacremento want the Occupy crowd out because they want their home back.  Lockwood also said the ones in Raleigh were upset because they had no place to plug in their ipods, computers, etc.

PEGGY said everyone here remembers Catie, our great granddaughter, right?  Well, she had to brag a little tonight.  Catie was supposed to be on Lockwood’s program last night for two hours, but Lockwood had forgotten he had already scheduled a special Veterans Program, so he has postponed until next week his two hour session with her starting at 5:00.  It will be just Lockwood, Catie and people calling in.  BOB explained to our new comers that Catie, who is now 16, had been very active with our group until recently when she got her drivers license.  Catie has gotten interested in a subject most of don’t even think about ’human slavery’.  Young girls are held in captivity and made to serve as prostitutes.  If anyone is able to get them free, there is no place readily available for them or able to keep them for any length of time, so as soon as they are allowed to go, they run right back to their pimp, because that is all they know.  Several groups in the state are looking into getting together and building a home to house these young girls and help get them on the right path again.  Catie has been named State Coordinator for this project.  NANCY and BELVA MANNING both said they had seen a magazine in their doctors office in the last day or so with Catie’s picture and an article on her in it.  PEGGY said she knew about the article, but had not seen it.  Catie was supposed to get a copy for her.  PEGGY said she was quite proud of her granddaughter.  The others said she was like their granddaughter also.   HOWARD said he saw on TV last week where two males and a female recruited a woman, telling her they had a good job cleaning homes where she could make good money.  They brought her to Greenville and kept her locked up using her as a prostitute.  The reporter said it was suspected that the female that had helped get her here also operated several brothels just like that.  Catie had told him that from her research, they are all small with just a couple of girls in each brothel.  It is a big operation but done in small doses.

RUTH said Lockwood’s program last night with the high school and community college students (Catie was there for that) was on the ‘death of chivalry‘.  How boys do not open doors for girls anymore.  The girls said they didn’t want the boys to hold the doors…it embarrasses them.  PEGGY said we are training them wrong then.  RUTH said she was thinking ’what is wrong with you girls’.  ’Where is your mother?’  HOWARD said he was at the bank the other day and held the door for a young lady and she refused to walk through the doorway with him holding the door.  RUTH said well you should have promptly turned around and smacked her.  BOB said that would have been sexual harassment.  NANCY said kids today do not know how to date like we used to.  It is more of a hookup culture.  The boys do not know how to go to someone’s house, be introduced to the parents, and take the girl out to a movie, or pay for a meal.  They do not do that anymore.  It is really sad.  RUTH said she raised her boy…open the door, pullout the chair, hold her jacket.  NANCY said yes they do have to be taught.  TOM said he had had a guy come up to his house and honk the horn.  As his daughter was going out the door, he asked her where she was going?  She said her date was…TOM said oh no.  He went outside and asked the boy what he was doing.  He said he was waiting for his daughter.  TOM told him he could do that down on the street where the hookers were, not here.  If you want to date my daughter, then get your butt up to the door and introduce yourself.  PEGGY said something very similar happened to her years ago.  A boy, who was extremely shy and bashful, finally got up nerve enough to ask her for a date.  He drove up to her house and blew the horn.  Her mother like to have torn the front door off the hinges as she flew out of the house and walked up to the boy’s truck, shook her finger in his face and informed him we did not give curb service here.  If he wanted to see her daughter he was to come inside.  Well, he came in and about five minutes later, he got up, said he would see me at school and left.  He never asked me for another date, but I bet he never blew the horn in front of another girls home either.  BOB wanted to know if it was HOWARD.  HOWARD said no that was before his time.  BOB said he wished parents would raise their kids differently today.  They abrogate their responsibility to the school and others.  He doesn’t know how we can change that.  He said years ago (probably 25 or more) he was listening to the radio and Paul Harvey said the biggest problem we have nowadays is the government.  He said in the 1950’s the government took one out of every fifty dollars you made in taxes, on an average.  He said now they take one out of every five dollars you make in taxes.  He said this is causing a lot of problems.  The government has been the biggest drain on the family income overriding the electric bill, rent, etc.  We used to be able to get by with one wage earner households, where the father went out and worked and the mother stayed home and raised the kids.  Now the mothers have to go out and work too.  It is the mothers who pass on culture to the children.  They are the ones that tell the tales, teach the dances, stories, and traditions. BOB said it was like, WOW, I never thought about it in those terms but sure enough, he was right.  The only way he can ever see us getting back to where parents are parenting is somehow set it up so that women don’t have to work.  They can work if they want to but the way it is now many folks have to work to make ends meet and the kids are the ones losing out.  However, it is our own fault.  We have become so spoiled … have to have two cars, a TV in every room, dine out several nights a week, have to have this and that.  Another thing about the government causing us to live beyond our means…back before Jimmy Carter we were able to deduct interest paid on our homes, cars, credit cards, etc. off our taxes.  Jimmy Carter put the stop to that.  By then everyone was up to here in debt and once you got to there you could never recover.  In the meantime all the kids learned ’hey, just get the credit card out’.  THOMAS VASGAR said it was Ronald Reagan that did that, not Jimmy Carter.  BOB said he was going to have to check that out.  It didn’t sound like Reagan.  He was going to have to trust and verify.  ERNIE said those values that people used to hold dear and cherish are not there anymore.  That is part of the plan…Agenda 21…When socialism was first formulated they tried to sit down and figure out why communism did not materialize all over the world.  They found the answer was the values of western society were so deeply engrained that the middle class would never fall for it, so instead of coming at it from an economic angle, they needed to come at it from a cultural angle.   If we can change the culture of America we can rebuild it in a way that we will have the power.  BOB said he thought it didn’t catch on because most countries had a middle class and Russia did not.  ERNIE said they discovered you had to tear down those principles.  Our founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw what was happening today.

STEVE reminded us of the shut down of all communications for a test tomorrow.  BOB said that scared him to death.  He thinks they are testing out a weapons theory because back in the sixtys  they launched two A6 Prowlers, one from Florida and one from Maine and they flipped their jammers on and blacked out the whole east coast for radio and TV transmission.  They were checking to see if they could take out a whole area if they wanted to.  He feels they are testing out another system that covers a broader range.  Either that or it has something to do with the whales’ sonar system off the coast.  Thus ending the meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 7:25pm.
Minutes submitted by Secretary PEGGY GARNER