* * In God many of us trust

As you’ve probably heard, the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors recently voted to decorate the wall of its meeting chamber in the County Government Center in Christiansburg with the words, “In God We Trust,” along with mottoes of Virginia and the County.

This was passed 4-3 with the 4 Republicans voting for it and the 3 Democrats voting against. I personally sided with the Democrats, and I argued my point of opposition at a recent public hearing before the Board. I would have voted against it if I’d been on the Board.

Why would I have been opposed? For this simple reason: it is not inclusive. Let me explain.

From the earliest days of our republic, our national motto was, “E Pluribus Unum” (which means “Out of many, one”) chosen by Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams. Our founders, while many of them were religious people, strictly ordained that the new nation of the United States of America would have a firm wall of separation between church and state. E Pluribus Unum is the very definition of inclusiveness.

Congress put “In God We Trust” on the currency in 1955 and then adopted it as our national motto, replacing the original, during the anti-communist Red scare of that era. Our country never should have done this, as it violates the founding principle of separation of church and state.

Court cases since then have challenged it, but the Supreme Court, in Aronow v. United States in 1970, ruled that it could remain, saying, “It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency ‘In God We Trust’ has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. … While ‘ceremonial’ and ‘patriotic’ may not be particularly apt words to describe the category of the national motto, it is excluded from First Amendment significance because the motto has no theological or ritualistic impact. As stated by the Congressional report, it has ‘spiritual and psychological value’ and ‘inspirational quality.'”

Of course, it only has “spiritual and psychological value” and “inspirational quality” for those who believe. However, by some estimates from the research I’ve done, over forty million moral, ethical, patriotic citizens don’t. Forty million! Belief in God is neither a requirement for citizenry nor for public office.

Furthermore, if the motto has no theological or ritualistic impact, then what’s the point of it?

Our dollar bill has “In God We Trust” on it, but we know it’s not really totally true. So in truth, this line should read, “In God many of us trust.” And of course then it has no meaning whatsoever.

Montgomery County was founded in 1772. For 244 years we’ve gotten along fine without these words on our wall. It seems increasingly to be a penchant for one particular political faction to present solutions to problems that nobody is having, bringing unnecessary controversy, divisiveness and scrutiny, and providing another distraction to the important business our Board members were elected to address.

The proponents of this measure, as I heard at that same public hearing, believe that our decline as a nation, as they perceive it, is a result of the removal of God from our public sphere. This notion took me back to my days at Christiansburg Elementary School when my parents removed me from Bible classes in the public school, arguing that public schools were no place for religious education, particularly since, as is inevitable, the education would be slanted to a particular religion, one that we were not part of. We have great places in our society for the practice of religion, including churches, synagogues, mosques, and in the minds and hearts of all of us. I daresay the number of previous non-believers who have come to believe because “In God We Trust” has been on our currency for the past 60 years is likely zero! There seems to be a population of our neighbors who feel their faith, rather than being a personal matter between them and their Creator, is only real if validated by governmental entities.

In practical terms, my guess is that this action will change nothing about the way our County Board of Supervisors does its business. However, I suppose we can receive some comfort in knowing that if Board members are duly stimulated by the “inspirational quality” of these national motto words on the wall behind them, perhaps they can better achieve the level of honor, integrity, and efficiency we’re now enjoying from our federal government.

* * Shoot me if you must

You can shoot me if you must. I’m unarmed.

As our nation is again rocked with a senseless mass murder, this time in Orlando, anybody with a shred of empathy is washed in agony, wondering when or if it will ever end and what if anything we can personally or collectively do about it.

We live in a nation where murders, mostly by guns, are at an epidemic level, higher than almost all other nations and at the top of the developed ones.

I don’t want to die; I’ve never met anybody who did, except those in constant pain or abject misery. I don’t want you to shoot me. But I’ve reached some conclusions about its potential.

I don’t own a gun. I never have and I suspect I never will. I don’t subscribe to the notion that my safety and security comes from having more firepower than the next guy. In my over six decades of life, I’ve never encountered a situation where I felt having a gun would have provided a better outcome than not. Moreover, it is practically unheard of for a person to defend himself or herself from a determined, pre-meditated attacker.

In Orlando there were good guys with guns, several of them, including an off-duty officer working as a bouncer. He returned fire the best he could, called immediately for help from two more officers, and still 50 people died. It took an entire SWAT team three hours to take down the killer.

A couple of years ago, a well-armed and trained county sheriff was having lunch in his parked police car in Williamson, West Virginia, when an assailant walked up and shot him in the back of the head.

If somebody wants to kill me, or you, good luck stopping him.

As I said, America stands alone at the top of the developed world in gun violence, and I believe it is the ownership of and mentality about weapons that is the cause. Here are a couple of examples of how things differ elsewhere.

In Australia, twelve days after that nation’s worst mass shooting in 1996, the government passed a law banning semiautomatic and self-loading rifles and shotguns, and required all firearm-license applicants to prove a “genuine reason” for owning a gun. Their Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, wrote, “The fundamental problem was the ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert their murderous impulses into mass killing. Certainly, shortcomings in treating mental illness and the harmful influence of violent video games and movies may have played a role. But nothing trumps easy access to a gun. It is easier to kill 10 people with a gun than with a knife.” The country then instituted a federally-financed, mandatory buyback program, purchasing and then destroying 700,000 guns. Gun deaths dropped dramatically since then, and they’ve never suffered another similar massacre.

In New Zealand, gun ownership is rare and citizens cannot own semi-automatic or automatic rifles. People can own pistols, but they must be a member of a licensed pistol club and the pistols cannot leave the club’s premises. Citizens can own rifles for hunting, but the owner must pass a qualification test, undergo a background check, and have their characters vouched for. Rifles must be registered and stored unloaded at all times when not in use in approved, locked safes. Licenses are expensive. Cops don’t carry guns; only members of the national SWAT team do. Gun violence per capita in New Zealand is about 5% of ours.

Other developed countries have similar policies. It’s amazingly refreshing and relaxing to wander in crowded public spaces and know nobody’s armed.

Owning a gun for hunting should be allowed but difficult, like getting a driver’s license. Owners should prove that they’re safe, trained, and competent. If you truly believe your safety is enhanced by carrying, in spite of volumes of research to the contrary, you should be forced to prove your competency. This is completely consistent with the “well-regulated” phrase in the Second Amendment.

If you’re arming to protect yourself from a tyrannical government or a foreign invasion, you’re living in a fantasy. Our nation has the greatest weaponry the world has ever known and can put a cruise missile in your living room in 20 minutes. Who are you going to shoot? If a foreign invader has overcome our military, you sure as heck aren’t going to stop them with your AK-15. If you’re afraid of a tyrannical government, don’t elect tyrants.

My personal protest against arming myself is a choice I’ve made in how I want to live. I could be killed any day by a drunk or inattentive driver; I ride motorcycles, remember? I choose to seize each day and not live in fear. And hope my country one day becomes a saner, more peaceful place, and in the meantime I’ll take my chances.

* * Your dentist knows what you’ve been doing

Amy Hunter, DDS, has been my dentist for twenty years, having taken over the practice of the late Dr. Howard Stanton. She told me as she finished my exam a few weeks ago, “We can tell a lot by just looking into your mouth. Everything, actually. Habits, good or bad.”

I was intrigued by this, so I asked her to tell me more about it. We arranged a meeting where she discussed her practice and her patients in detail. “I can tell if you’re a soda drinker. Whether you suck on candy all day. Soda is worse because it has acid and sugar. There is a certain type of decay from that.

“Smoking. Smokers can get nicotine stomatitis. These are small red bumps on the soft palate. With smokeless tobacco, the body forms a callus wherever the user puts the dip. It’s a white, pre-cancerous area.

“Sodas: one liter of soda has one cup of sugar. So when the patients come in who drink a lot of soda, we can see lesions at the gum lines or between the teeth that we see on the x-rays.

“Drugs like crystal meth produce lesions. Meth users often have poor diets as well. We can see poor diets like iron deficiencies and anemia. Their tongue is fissured. They have dry mouth.”

“Are we a well-treated society from a dentistry standpoint?” I asked her.

“Yes. I know from doing extra work in the area helping kids to get off to a good start in dental and overall health. Joe and Margot Thompson of Thompson Tire have started a program for the children and we’re now doing screening at all the schools in the area. I’m involved with that. We look in each child’s mouth just with a pen-light and do a quick exam. We characterize each child as either having no decay, moderate decay, or serious decay. There are only a few that have serious decay in Montgomery County. And that’s wonderful!”

Amy is a trim, ageless woman with curly black hair and a dazzling smile and an occasionally salty tongue. Concluding her exams of me, she always says nice things about my teeth.

She continued, “Education. Diet. Fluoride in the water. These all contribute to better health. I started in dentistry in 1993 and the rate of decay has declined greatly. It’s exciting; it’s great, especially for the children.

“It is thought now that poor hygiene and poor dental health can cause heart disease or strokes or diabetes. Overall, when you look at somebody’s health that is immuno-compromised, they get sick easily. Problems do show up in the mouth. So dentists can see serious things perhaps more readily than other doctors.

She described that our bodily health and our mouth health are to be thought of like the skin’s reaction to a splinter. “It swells up and turns red. It’s the same response. Your body is constantly fighting the bacteria in your mouth and it can’t win until you get a cleaning and change your habits. Your body is always compromised because it’s using its energy to fight the infection.

“I got here in 1996. I have had the opportunity to follow lots of patients for two decades. I have watched them move forward in life. I see positive and negative things Oral health is a map of health. We can follow it. There are numerous red flags in dentistry.”

 “Your patients become friends and family. I see the four-year old who (decades later) has graduated from college or gotten married. People become sick or they die. It’s not easy.

“When a young attractive female comes in with problems and we can get her fixed up and she looks in the mirror, it’s happy for all of us. When hygiene changes, everything changes. It’s usually a choice. Oral hygiene is a reflection of overall health. People should brush and floss regularly. If you limit your sugar, you won’t have cavities. And see your dentist regularly. Don’t suck on soda or candy all day; I carry a bottle of water with me and drink from that. I can tell if somebody drinks sodas or eats sugar all day; it’s black and white.”

Amy is from the Harrisonburg area that she considers similar to the New River Valley economically and culturally. “I feel very much at home here. This community has embraced me. I enjoy my job and my patients. 

“When people have good dental health, they smile. That’s it in a nutshell.”

* * Dick Horne knew everybody

Richard “Dick” Horne knows everybody. Or at least he once did, and he misses those days. He is the Chairman of the Board of a family business called Horne Funeral Services, a company that just about everybody in the Christiansburg area will at one time interact with.

He met me in his office on the second floor of his facility on North Franklin Street, escorting me down the hall with a noticeable limp from a knee he destroyed while firefighting years earlier. He’s a heavy man with a gentle manner.

“I grew up in the family business. It was founded in 1870 by a Mr. Leckie. They lived beside the old location on East Main downtown.”

He described in detail all the businesses on that one side of one block of the street, the location of the current police department. In addition to the funeral home, there was a bank, a grocery store, a shoe store, a dress shop, an appliance store, a florist, an ABC store, a jeweler, an office supply store, and a department store. All of this is gone now.

“The old funeral home (building) is still there; it looks like a house,” he told me. “It was built in 1808 as a residence for a Dr. Anderson. It has been remodeled and added on to. We’ve been here at this location for almost 30 years.

“Dad came to work for a Mr. Richardson in the 1940s. Dad in 1972 eventually bought him out. My son, Brian, is the new manager and President. I was active in the business fifty years from 1965 until 2015.

“My family has always been community minded. My dad was captain of the rescue squad. He instilled this ethic in me. He was a top-notch fellow. He was active in all community things, like the community Chest. He was President of the Lion’s Club. He belonged to the Masons. I’ve tried to follow his lead, joining the Rescue Squad, the Fire Department, the Lions Club and Masons.

“We primarily serve Christiansburg, Riner, Pilot, Shawsville, some of Elliston, Ellett, Alleghany Springs. We have a competitor in Blacksburg, but we do some business with Blacksburg folks.

I said, “This is not a business that can be outsourced to China.”

He chuckled and said, “No. Locally we are fortunate that we don’t have conglomerate-owned funeral services. There is one in Roanoke. There are some nationally-based companies, but we don’t have any here in Montgomery, Floyd, or Pulaski Counties. The conglomerate in Roanoke, Lotz, has 1000-1500 locations nationwide.

“Our challenge is to stay ahead of that. We don’t have trouble or arguments with competitors. We get along with all of them.

“Why do you think more people haven’t gotten into the business?” I inquired.

“Well,” he admitted, “It’s not a real popular business. By the nature of it, people don’t want to deal with death and dead people. People think there’s lots of money in it, but there’s not.

“Overhead is high. Our morticians have gone to college and have advanced training. They make $45,000 to $50,000 annual salary, and more with more experience.

“We do embalming and cremation. The traditional funeral is embalming with the body present. You can have a cremation with the body present. Or you can have a direct cremation where the ashes are disposed of. We are about 20% cremation, 80% embalming. Cremation is growing.”

He talked fondly about the community feel that his hometown of Christiansburg used to have. “In my childhood there were mostly locally-owned and family-owned businesses. Most of them are gone now, sad to say. Decades ago, everybody knew everybody else. Families knew families. I knew everybody who ran businesses in town. I could walk from one end of Main Street to the other and walk into every store and I knew every owner. I knew the attorneys and judges in the courthouse, and I called them by name. I knew everybody and everybody knew me. It was a wonderful way to grow up.

“It’s not like it is today. I don’t know lots of families I serve here. Main Street is gone. Everybody is (shopping) at the mall, and I don’t know anybody I see there when I go.

“When we were downtown, I knew every policeman. Every minister. Every doctor. They were all friends. I knew everybody. That was a better world, at least for me. If I ever moved from here, I’d move to a smaller place. And I’d walk up and down the street and try to meet everybody.”

“We all have an expiration date. How do you want to go?” I asked.

“I want to be buried. I have a plot picked out and paid for,” he chuckled.

* * Frank Soriano might be picking up your trash

Frank Soriano is new to my neighborhood and on his regular walks, he picks up roadside trash. I met him recently and we talked about moving here and his efforts to improve our area.

He said, “I’m retired now. I was a reference librarian and I moved here a year ago from Morristown, New Jersey. I moved because my son is here.”

Two of his four kids were educated at Tech, but the other two have scattered about the country. He is in his early 70s and when he walks, he makes it a habit to carry a plastic garbage bag to pick up trash along the way and bring it home for proper disposal into recycling and regular garbage.

 He said, “With two of my children having gone to Virginia Tech, I was somewhat familiar with the area before I moved here. One of my surprises here is how difficult it is to volunteer for something. I have called on several agencies and told them about my interest in volunteering. But too many times I don’t get return phone calls. They say, ‘Oh yes, we can use you.’ But then they don’t call me back. I am still rooting around for something to get involved in.”

He worked with a series of charitable organizations in New Jersey before he moved down.

I said, “You seem to have a very strong community service ethic.”

He replied, “When I grew up, there was such a thing as a neighborhood. Everybody always looked out for their neighbors. If somebody got sick, someone would bring food. People watched out for other people’s kids as they walked home from school. There was a real neighborliness. That seems to have gone by the boards.

“Plus, I enjoy people. In my job as a reference librarian I was around people seven hours every day. Some people came in with serious problems…”

I said, innocently, “It’s not as if it is an oncology ward.”

He said, “Quite the contrary; it really is. Often when they got sick or when a family member got sick, people would come to the library to learn more about the illness. We had a large reference library and I was in charge of the medical portion of that. We librarians would spend whatever time it took to get these people the information they were looking for.”

Here in Blacksburg, Frank immediately looked for outlets for community service opportunities. He found beautification and trash collection to be perfect. He said, “It was something that I could do myself. The traffic along the street is hazardous, but I still manage to walk three or four times a week. Lately I have been finishing up on Farmview Drive and I have been working on Hightop Road.”

Frank has also volunteered for the upcoming annual Broomin’ & Bloomin’ community pick up event.

“When I first came down here with the kids, the highways didn’t seem to be as littered as in New Jersey. Once I came here to live, I have to admit that it is not that different. There are the same beer cans, bottles, coffee cups, and plastic bags that there are everywhere else. The Styrofoam and plastic bags are my first priority, because if the wildlife gets into them, it will kill them.

“I have had at least three people driving by stop to roll down their windows and thank me for what I’m doing. I would like to do more. The streams are all covered with litter. But picking up can be dangerous with steep slopes, poison ivy, and soon ticks. The last one I did… my back is still recovering.

“The Zika virus is carried by mosquitoes. Any bottle or can that is littered can collect water where the eggs can be laid. Littering is a now a public health issue.”

He said he thought most of the litter was from people who just chose not to care. There is a lot of construction in the area and he blamed the building workers. They may care less about the neighborhood than the people who live in it.

I asked if he was happy or resentful when picking up somebody else’s trash.

He said, “If I got ticked off for every can that I picked up, I’d have an ulcer. And I wouldn’t do it any more.”

So next time you’re in the south end of Blacksburg and you see a man picking up roadside trash, shout out a “Thank you” to him, and make sure you’re not contributing to his work load. He’s making our community a better place, one littered bottle at a time.