~ ] A SA a vi hil SH) The Dallas Post Dallas, PA Wednesday, May 24,1995 5 Reporter's notebok Err 4 This weekend we'll celebrate Memorial Day, honoring veterans who died in all our wars. We'll _ raise our flags, hear prayers and _ Taps and lay wreaths on monu- ._ ments. ~ Like most others, my family __has sent its share of men to war. I grew up hearing their stories, an . important part of my family's history which has helped make me who I am today. During World War I, Uncle Bill ~ Swickey was “gassed” in service and Uncle Freddie Bitter had to _ learn how to ride a horse, which ‘was then required of Army all officers, after earning a battlefield “commission. During World War II, Dad (Harry Richie) was a tech sergeant with ~ the 90th General Hospital in Bar- le-Duc, France. His kid brother, Ray, went down with his ship, the Cooper, during the battle of Ormoc _ Bay in the Philippines. while my ! godfather, Walt Hansgen, barely ~.missed being captured by the Germans during the Battle of the = Bulge. My stepfather, Peter Kuchman- ich, served with the army in Ko- ‘ rea. Of all our family’s servicemen, “My parents came to this coun- - try and learned the language and “became Americans. And my mother only thought she was an American when she began dream- ing in English.” ; Thus’ contfibtited a Breakfast Club guest last year as club “members ‘debated the impact of minorities on the electoral proc- , ess. Such remarks are music to the ears of a group called “English “First”, a Springfield, Virginia lob- ' bying group which claimed a re- _ cent victory in its effort to make English this nation’s official lan- uage. According to material provided to me by a diligent reader, English First was instrumental in the House of Representative’s recent _ passage of HR 1158, which in- ~ cluded a $38 million cut in spend- ing for billingual education. The bill has gone to the U.S. Senate. As the former Soviet Union has discovered, totalitarianism can- "not keep an unwilling people to- .- gether forever. tries divided by language also find Likewise, coun- hot water being poured on the _ social glue. * It has always seem empirically self-evident that a common lan- guage is essential for social con- tracts to be trusted and under- stood. But what about Switzer- land, you say, where that trilin- gual nation is one of the most Honoring our veterans Dad is the only one still alive. For the past two years I've had the opportunity to honor my warrior ancestors in a unique way, during festivals held by my people at the Lenni-Lenape Historical Society's Museum of Indian Cul- ture in Allentown. Typically, Native festivals be- gin with the Grand Entry, fol- lowed by the veterans’ Honor Dance, two sacred ceremonies which we don’t permit visitors to photograph. During the Grand Entry, our spiritual leaders respectfully carry the American flag around the dance ring while the drummers sing a special chant, dancers fol- low in a solemn procession and the crowd stands at silent atten- tion. When the Honor Dance is announced, anyone present who has served their country with honor in uniform is invited to come into the dance ring. Led again by our spiritual leaders, the veterans slowly circle the ring, with people honoring deceased veterans in their families at the end of the line, while our women go the opposite way around the ring. When the Native women and the veterans meet, the women raise their right hands to salute the leader and the flag, then shake the hand ofeach veteranand each family member and say “Wanishi” (“thank you” in Lenape) as they pass. It's an intensely solemn, beau- tiful and meaningful experience for all who participate. The first time I danced, I hon- ored my uncle, Ray Richie. As I circled the ring doing the tradi- tional dignified toe-heel, toe-heel, I pictured his face as I had last seen it in a large protrait in my grandmother's living room - a handsome sailor with piercing blue-gray eyes and wavy auburn hair like Dad and Grandma had. Although I had never met him, I felt I knew him through Grandma's stories of him and Dad when they were young. His name is recorded at our high school as a football standout and has been immortalized as part of the name of a VFW post and on a monu- ment honoring World War II serv- icemen in our hometown in cen- tral New Jersey. Another dimension was added to my knowledge of his life when I first met Quentin “Cap” Walters, who served on one of the ships that rescued survivors from Uncle Ray's and other ships during the battle. It's neat to meet someone who knew an uncle I had never met. So when I danced to honor my uncle, he wasn't just the subject of my grandmother's reminis- cences. I felt as if I had really known him. I wondered what he and Grandma would think, looking down from the Spirit World, if they could see me, the chubby, freckle-faced kid with the funny eyes, now dressed in full Native regalia with my hair tied up Le- nape style, honoring him the best. way I know how. For a minute at the end, I think I felt him watching me. To the veterans, POW's and MIA's of all our wars: Wanishi! Make English official stable in the world. It has man- aged to overcome its language barriers, hasn't it? However, and in contradiction to most other democracies, Swit- zerland is helped by geography conveniently defining the differ- ent language regions and also by being a very passive nation. Put another way, democracies gener- ally encourage both diversity and aggressive individual action within a common framework and through common points of reference, i.e., our own Bill of Rights. Without a common language to allow both diversity and aggressive individ- ual actions to be understood and shared, it's likely that our nation would have gone through many civil wars in its history, and would not now occupy its premier posi- tion as leader of the world's de- mocracies. The motion of a common lan- guage in this nation is now threat- ened from several sources, among which are: —continued governmental emphasis on citizen participation in government by persons who don’t speak English, (and many of who can't read or write). —and a governmentally encour- aged proliferation of both radio and cable TV stations which cater to regional and ethnic audiences. Largely through Washington ivory tower thinking, and its pri- marily Democratically controlled Congress over the past 20 years, has come the misguided notion that cultural differences, particu- larly in language, ought not to be assimilated, but rather cultivated. This notion is dead wrong. And to the contrary, the Eng- lish language has long been the unifying force in America, and should be its only official lan- guage. Billingual education should be a transitional process only in our schools. We should be seeking to pre- serve, not destroy, the degree of unity which this melting pot na- tion has achieved. The kind of crisis developing—with increased polarization—was what skeptics of our republican democracy pre- dicted in the late 1700's. But for over 200 years, the U.S. has maintained sufficiently unity to make for orderly, stable govern- ment. This is primarily because immigrants coming to this land took it upon themselves to learn rthelanguage-—and wanted tolearn it. They also wanted their chil- "dren to leat it, and to be Ameri- cans, not hyphenated Americans. That English is our dominant language is not something for which we should apologize. That was an accident of history. But that continued polariza- tion among various ethnic groups will not accidentally cause an- thing: it will almost certainly re- sult in separate nations among one nation, bringing with it all the problems and conflicts inherent in that fractionalization. Only an official language; that is, an accepted language, enables everyone to completely under- stand the nation’s laws, history, freedom and traditions, all of which are necessary toward the preservation of individual free- doms and our republican democ- racy. Whether or not the Senate will agree with the House and keep the spending cuts for bilingual education will, literally, be de- bated in the upcoming weeks. As this debate proceeds, families should encourage cultural aware- ness and language differences at home. But we should have official English. And we should have it now. | Library news “Aspiring young author gives book to library . By NANCY KOZEMCHAK A note of coincidence and inter- % est! The Back Mountain Memo- rial Library is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 1995 and the New “York Public Library in New York City is celebrating its 100th. The , cover of The New Yorker magazine ‘ for May 22, 1995 shows two friendly walking lions in black tux and top hats walking down the ramp in celebration with cameras and many fans cheering them on. e The Back Mountain Memorial LJ Library will be celebrating in grand style on October 9, 1995, the actual opening day, 50 years later with open house and many other _ congratulatory activities on that Monday from 9:30 until 8:30 clos- ing time. A little friend, Colin Conrad, who attends Little People Day Care School on the second floor of the library after school, was visiting with Jane, one of our front desk personnel, and he was telling her he writes books. He told her about the current book he was working on called “Magic Megie" and Megie perorms magic tricks on the table for her friends. He drew the picture on the front and wrote the story to go with it. Colin gave a copy of the booklet to Jane, because she was interested in it, and asked him to giver her a copy and did. She was happy and said thank you. Colin is 9 years old and attends third grade at the Gate of Heaven School. This special little booklet is hanging on our bulletin board. New books at the library: “In Retrospect” by Robert S. Mc- Namara is about the tragedy and lessons of Vietnam. The author is the brilliant secretary of defense for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, who helped lead Amer- ica into Vietnam. McNamara be- lieved the fight against commu- nism in Asia was worth the sacri- fice of American lives, and yet he eventually came to believe that the war was, in fact, unwinnable. He has been silent—until now. “The Apocalypse Watch” by Robert Ludlum is about a remote hideaway deep in the Hausruck Mountains of Austria—the fortress like nerve center of an ominous movement, the Brotherhood of the Watch. American agent Harry Latham has penetrated the move- ment, a neo-naziorganization that was born in the days after the Third Reich's defeat and whose deadly tenacles have spread to the United States and beyond. Three years later, Harry Latham disappears. “Strange Highways” by Dean Koontz takes the reader along the strange highways of human expe- rience; the adventures and ter- rors and failures and triumphs that we know as we make our way from birth to death, along the routes that we choose for our- selves and along others onto which we are detoured by fate. It is a journey down wrong roads that can lead to unexpectedly and stunningly right destinations ... into subterranean depths and unlikely heroes. hte [424] i [KES © 88 I 0 Here's my donation to the Back Mountain Memorial Library July 6-7-8-9 the :Back:-Mountain:Li You can help. Your donation of an item or money will help your library survive and prosper. One-fourth of the library's annual budget comes from the auction. Name Freeport Fling is raffle prize AAA Travel in Dallas has do- nated a 4-night trip to Freeport in the Bahamas to be raffled at this year’s library auction. The trip includes round-trip air from Philadelphia, 4 nights at the Radisson Lucaya Beach Hotel, airport to hotel transfers, hotel baggage handling and tips for two adults. The winner also may upgrade to a longer stay or a : different location, at an additional Cost. Tickets are available at $1 each at the library or from library staff or board members. The drawing will be held July 9. Jim Hawk, man- agar of the local office, is coordi- nating the item with the library. Any and all donations of cash or saleable items can help assure the Phone continued fine service of the library to our communities. For more information, call the library at 675-1182. Address City/State I QI have an item to donate. Call me for details. 0 Here's a cash donation of § —____ to help the library. Mail or bring to: Call 675-1182 if you have any questions. Donations are tax-deductible. Back Mountain Memorial Library 96 Huntsville Road, Dallas PA 18612 Zip ioe ¥ This message donated as a public service by The Dallas Post SPRING SPECIAL! Now Is the time to lean and Tune-up our Furnace OR Air Conditioner Call Today for our Special Sale Price!! AGWAY ENERGY PRODUCTS 654-2798 - 829-4466 1-800-865-FUEL (Offer ends June 30, 1995) i Library Auction Corner For 49 summers, the people of the Back Mountain have come together to donate their goods, services and time to the | auction block of the Back Mountain Memorial Library. The life of the library is a year-to-year proposition, and the auction is crucial to its operation. Twenty-five percent of the annual budget comes from the auction. This year's 49th annual auction will be held July 6-9 at the library grounds on Huntsville Road in Dallas. LL i
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers