This week is Veterans’ Day, so I want to take a moment to thank all veterans for their service and their contributions to the continuation of our liberty. Some of those contributions may have been more significant than others, but no contribution is insignificant. Each contribution adds to the sum of the whole. Each contribution buys us as a society more time to find the optimum solution to this Rubik’s Cube we call a Republic as we experiment with self government.

The responsibility falls to older generations to keep the memories of those who have come before us alive for the coming generations. For me, (and I mention mine in hopes of sparking your own memories) there are people like my paternal grandfather, who was wounded and gassed in World War I.

I remember my late uncle Robert Eidson. As a Marine in WWII, he served at Guadalcanal, the Marshall Islands, Tinian, Siapan and (and!) Iwo Jima. He earned a Bronze Star on Iwo. On top of that, he was recalled for the Korean War.

I have no personal memories of my grandfather, because he died when I was young, but the stories I have heard of him are exemplary. Like my uncle, he came home to raise a family and make America an even better place to live.

There are many others I could mention, as can you. I offer my apologies to those others for not being able to mention them all.

Veterans know only too well what a gift life is and strive to maximize the time they have. Veterans know how quickly and unexpectedly life can be taken.

So please join me in thanking our veterans past and present, living and gone, in uniform and out, for the gift of continued freedom and progress they have enabled for all of us.

American Legion Post 32 is having a Veteran’s Day ceremony at 11:00 a.m. in Papillion, Nebraska. Any and all are welcome to attend. More information is available at this link.

http://papillionlegion32.org/content.php?id=72

Today I want to share some thoughts with you about scenes from popular movies and the insights those scenes may provide regarding real life decision making.

Now that Halloween is over, anticipation turns to Thanksgiving and then on to the final holidays of the year. The Christmas season always brings with it renditions of A Christmas Carol, as well as A Christmas Story. Both are favorites of mine. I keep promising myself I will buy a copy of the latter so I can watch it without commercials.

For those of you who’ve forgotten (or, incredibly, never seen) this hilarious tale, allow me to summarize. This is the story of a 1950s family living in or near the Chicago area. The son of the family, who doubles as the now adult narrator of the story, desperately wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. But, everyone he expresses his wish to tell him, "You’ll shoot your eye out."

In one of the scenes leading up to Christmas Day, the son and his school mates are at school on the playground during recess discussing what will happen in the freezing weather if someone were to touch the metal flagpole with their tongue. The boys (happens to be boys in this case, I’m sure elementary age girls have their own topics for similar discussions) go back and forth about whether or not a tongue would actually freeze to the pole and whether any of them has the courage to actually test the theory out.

This leads to the challenge. First comes . . .

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