For most of my life I was politically inactive, concentrating mostly on my education and career in science and engineering in order to provide for my family. My Grandfather made the Oklahoma land run of 1889, he was a Progressive, which is now merged with the Democratic Party, served on the territorial legislature and with a Republican Colleague co-founded what is now Oklahoma State University. He died in 1909 after an illness brought on by a cold Oklahoma winter as he traveled among three towns as a preacher. Thus my roots and heritage is in the spirit of our true pioneers. In those days, there was lots of individualism but it was tempered with the knowledge that if each was to survive than the many needed to work together to build the community. It was truly, "Do unto others and you would have others do unto you.". Neighbor helped and looked out after neighbor. In those days the pioneer was his brother's (neighbor's) keeper. for more on my grandfather, see MEMORIES OF AN OKLAHOMA TEACHER. For information about my Mom's mother, also a pioneer, see MY COATES FAMILY HISTORY. It is a shame that personal pride, greed and self righteousness has crushed our pioneering spirit and sense of interdependence.

My Dad inherited his father's political idealism but was politically inactive. I am told that he switched to Republican Party after suffering several strokes at the insistence of my brother in order for him to vote for Ronald Reagan. I must assume that my Mom mirrored my Dad's political views. My siblings and I were Democrats until we left home to find our own way in life. I remained a Democrat and became increasingly more Liberal but with a slight list to the conservative side as I aged. I guess one can say I am a middle of the road Democrat. Before I moved to Tulsa and married I considered attending a Caucus, which was the only way that candidates were nominated in Oklahoma at that time, but failed to do so. After marriage (10 years), divorce, marriage (8 years), divorce, marriage (as of Nov. 8, 2010, 25 years) and until I retired at age 65 on April 1, 1998, the significance of that day escapes me, I concentrated more on my career and family rather than politics but voted in each national general election. All my adult live I considered it my civic duty to vote. After all, if I did not vote I would most assuredly get the type of government I did not vote for. It was with the Primary Election of March, 2008 that after casting my vote, out of curiosity more than anything, I attended my first Precinct Caucus.

By the time of the 2008 primary, I had become so fed up with constant political ads on TV, the mud slinging, the lies, and the misrepresentations of the truth, mostly by the Republicans, that I decided to volunteer my services. I was also opposed to entering the Iraq War. When the UN inspectors found no WMD, it was clear to me that King George W. Bush simply wanted war, perhaps because a wartime President is always reelected. I was somewhat computer literate and looked up both parties on the Internet, read both the Party's Platforms and came to the clear understanding that the 2008 Democratic Party platform's proposed energy policy, education proposals and health proposals were exactly my what we need. After all, I have been working in the energy field since the late 1960's, a proponent of conserving our natural resources and alternate energy since 1958 and believe that universal education is the only way to solve our many issues that are in crisis today. The health care proposals match closely my Texan's Plus medicare HMO, the best HMO health care I have ever received, and far bettering anything private health insurance has ever offered me. I was thrilled. I am an ex-army medic and my parents family was deeply connected with medicine as doctors, nurses, X-ray techs and dentists and lab techs. Finally, in my entire lifetime, born in 1933, I never felt my taxes were too high, just sometimes ill-appropriated. Mainly, it was the tax form and the hard to understand language that was my objection. Thus, I volunteered to the Harris County Democratic Party, discovered that my Precinct had no Democratic Chairman, and was Appointed to that position not knowing anything about what my duties might be nor what I might be asked to do. I discovered that I would need to mostly train myself. One more thing I learned! Although my Precinct is small, it is very, very Republican with only five voters who voted in the 2006 primary. Today, November 8, 2010, I can identify only 31 Democrats, including myself.

I speak only for myself and my reasons for volunteering. But first, let me be very clear, I am a Democrat. Because of my political views, I have been called a communist and a socialist, however, the only label I will admit to, at times, being a whining, bleeding heart liberal. I can truthfully tell you that I am a conservative liberal Democrat who believes that the Constitution of the United States of America extends to all citizens. I believe that citizenship includes certain duties to serve, such as in the military, serving on jury duty, examining the platform and qualification of candidates for office then voting, and working diligently to resolve the issues my local community and the Nation. In other words, I do believe that being a good citizen means voluntarily serving to the best of my ability to preserve the traditions established by our forefathers as described by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

My parents set the example toward volunteering in the community. My Father were the X-ray tech and instructor for the Army Air Corps at Lackland Air Base near Kelly Field in San Antonio during World War II. He also wrote the military training manual for the men he taught. My Mother was the lead nurse at the base hospital at Camp Normorial, also near Kelly Field. It was war time and my Dad was in a critical civilian occupation and although he tried was not allowed to enlist in the military until the last few months of the War when the US Navy accepted him. So, to help the war effort he volunteered as an air raid warden. He was always handy to help the wives of the military when a toaster or some Other household equipment broke down. At the same time, my Mom volunteer medical aid for sick kids and wives of the military. Later, after the war but before we left San Antonio, my Mom worked for the US Public Health and with a Brazilian Doctor Pamplona did research to find a treatment and cure for tuberculosis. In her public health work she often came across prostitutes who were in great need of health care. She voluntarily provided them with medical assistance since the State and Government had no health care provisions in place for prostitutes.

However, it was after we moved from San Antonio to the Washington DC area, in the town of Kensington, Maryland, that the most notable of all my parents volunteering took place. My mom still worked for the US Public Health. It was in 1947 or 1948, when in the course of her duties, she came across a young Chinese family, husband Joseph Wong, Wife Cerila Wong - a half Chinese and half Filipino, and their baby daughter. Cerila was pregnant with their second child. They had left China on a student visa with a family contribute bankroll and were on a ship with other Chinese passengers. As they were in transit, the communists took over China and as Joseph was of the Chinese ruling class, he could not return to China under penalty of death. To top it all off, a Chinese General who was fleeing the communists stole Joseph's bankroll. My parents, mainly my Mom, found them a low rent apartment and provided them with enough food for the time that it took for Joseph to find work. Joseph's family remained friend for a long time afterwards. Mr. Wong did his schooling, receiving three PhD and became an administrator of the US Public Health. His youngest daughter eventually became an office in the US Air Force.

Through the examples provided by my parents and their parents before them, I too volunteer. The first instance of my volunteering centers around a personal interest in science. Mr. Burk, the chemistry and physics teacher at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Bethesda, Maryland wanted to have a science club organised at the school. This was the late 1940's, early 1950's time frame and High School science clubs were not a regular thing as yet. Because of my interest in science and because I did raid the school's chemical closet to play around with my own experiments, Mr. Burk asked me to help him start the school's first science club. We even developed projects to enter into the first ever Science Fair for the schools of the area. I showed the operation of Geiger counter.

I was told by several that when in the military, never volunteer for anything. But, after all, I had volunteered for the draft in the first place. A buddy and I had our college deferment but after our freshman years, we gave up, went to the draftboard and told them we were waving our deferment. He enlisted in the paratroopers and I was drafted into the Army and sent to basic medical training at Camp Picket, Virginia. When my unit was stationed at Camp Rucker, Alabama, I was asked to volunteer for special duty to serve as the "medic". I was issued a field ambulance with driver to transport three lifeguards and myself to an from sent to the recreation beach of a lake on the post. The driver would drop us off in the morning, bring us a lunch at noon, then pick us up near dusk. This beach was located on a wide arm of land which had the enlisted man's beach on the north side and the officer's beach on the south side. Believe it or not, this is one time when volunteering in the military paid off. Not only were we on our own for the entire summer, I had just been promoted to Corporal and was the ranking NCO. The summer was unusually cold and we had few visitors. Only one large group showed up, a bunch of Navy men who had just finished boot camp and were on leave. One of the sailors was drunk dove off a piling into three foot deep water and knocked out his front teeth. I radioed for an ambulance and when the sailor refused to ride in an Army vehicle, I had to pull rank and order him to get in. At least he was not so drunk as to know not to argue with an NCO. The only other incident while on beach duty was when I had to be the medic at the near by officer's pistol range. It was a cold, rainy day and very few officers showed up. The officer in charge told us that they could not return the ammunition and would we please use it up for him. We proceeded to do so. I attempted two gun quick draw, and fast draw, finding both methods of the old west resulted in missing their targets by a very wide margin. However, using the deliberate military method was most accurate even for the sloppy Army 45 Pistol. This was one time that volunteering in the military paid dividends, a promotion to NCO, using my new found rank to my advantage, and getting to practice my pistol firing expertise, LOL.

I had married a woman with two daughters, the youngest of which had been born without hip sockets for her legs to fit into. Cheryl had become a patient of the Shriner's Hospital in St Lewis, Mo. After she was able to walk again, she wanted to become active and asked her mom to take her to the 4H Club organizational meeting at her school. Mom refused and I told her, "If mom will not take you, I will!" Cheryl became a 4H'er and I was asked to help the County Agent by touring the other 4H clubs in Tulsa County, talking of science and weather forecasting. I even got a very nice writeup in the Tulsa Tribune which was clipped by the CEO of the company for which I worked and was brought to me by him. I was most thrilled, too, when one of the boys in 4H won first place in the county fair with his Weather Station project and went of to win third place in the State Fair. To my surprise, the County Agent contacted the Tulsa Tribune and I found myself a hero to my employer when he brought a clipping with my picture and a six inch long newspaper story about my 4H adult leader exploits. A transcript of this clipping can be found in my memoirs under the title of "A MONSTER IS CREATED".