An old Portsmouth Trojan's Reminiscences and mine

Please. dear reader, if you are out there, indulge my good friends, Jack Plymale's and Frank Hunter's e-mail messages posted below:

I remember Lawrence, Jack. I remember that he was a kicker; however he didn't kick for his beloved Torjans. Somebody missed the boat on him. Another Eastern Kentuckian! I wonder if Ray Pelfrey remembers him.

Gib Lakeman's story of young Ockie Prater coming to the stadium with his kid-designed "Torjans" sweat shirt was a good one. Nobody loved the Trojans more than Ockie who had a partially paralyzed arm similar to Lawrence's.

Do you remember Darrell Coe? I remember that he kicked a very late game winning field goal at Springfield around 1949. He was from the Mabert Road area. I don't know who had more notable Portsmouth people between Mabert Road and McConnell Ave. It has to be close. Jim Smith, Joyce Meeks, Helen and Mary Ellen Scott, hundreds of us Kegleys, Dick and Eileen Brush, Jack Duschinski, Ronnie Walters, Pidge and Jim Zeisler, Charles Kirsch, Salsworthy- a former mayor- the Nichols sisters, Don Ginn, Walter Roe, "Balogna" Thomas, his thin and beautiful wife, and Bill and Nancy Thomas, Helen Lester, the Gemperlines- all are McConnell Ave. Alumni.

Your great friend, Doc Yeagle, was a legendary figure among my "older" friends at Mound Park, i.e. Bill (just recently deceased) and Bob Gilmer, Eddie Hill, Howard Rase, Clark Rapalee, and Gib. Jim Fout and all of you Portsmouth Trojans were legendary among us. My young son, Jeff, and a friend, visited one of Gib's classes at Northland High School while they were student teaching and loved it. Perhaps my favorite Lakeman story was one I have told many people:

Gib, like Bill Rohr did for our social problems class, liked to get the students involved with their discussion comments. He asked at the beginning of a class; "Who do you think are the three greatest people in history (subject of his teaching)? After many names and the session nearly passed, the students asked: "OK, Mr. Lakeman, who do you think are the three greatest people in history?" Gib harrumphed and said: "Well I put Jesus Christ first. Then Abraham Lincoln." Then, after a pregnant pause, he harrumphed again and said, with a little chuckle and his pursed mocked-modesty lips, and a twisting body, Mr. Lakeman announced:
"Of course, you all know me."

I will always remember your story of Gib's pre-practice cadence: "Pig poop and apple sauce!"

Jack, I love your reminiscences and our friend, Clay Vice does, maybe even more than me.

Keep'em coming from way down their in Costa Rica.

Your friend forever,

Sam



----- Original Message -----
From: Jack H Plymale
To: Sam Kegley
Sent: 2008-11-08 07:05
Subject: Re: Portsmouth school board makes wise move


Sam, I still have no idea what happened with the stadium, but it is a rare visit to Portsmouth when we don't at least walk out on the field. Any old Trojan footballer is a blood brother to that place. Just about every foot of it is espacially reverential.At one time the chairman of the school board lived on Mabert Rd. Mr. Lawrence Daniels. His son Lawrencie, was a manager on our team and in his spare time practiced kicking extra points and field goals. He never kcked for us but he went to Eastern when Walt Green did and I'm relatively sure he kicked for them. Lawrencie and Johnny Rapp( Sarahs husband) were big buddies.Lawrencie, by the way, had broken his elbow once in a Bicycle accident and was crippled in that arm.


On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 8:44 PM, Sam Kegley wrote:

I believe the younger, Phyllis still lives in Wilmington. Ray visited with her on a most recent trip home a couple of years ago in so far as I know. Clay Vice dated her when they were younger.

The School board action on the stadia won't be in the Portsmouth Daily Times. It is fiction by your Mabert Road buddy, Frank Hunter. I hope you can open it. Frank is playing with his Photoshop by dubbing in phony shots.

Ray had a naturally well built physique and each of the girls did as well.

Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack H Plymale
To: Sam Kegley
Sent: 2008-11-07 19:23
Subject: Re: Portsmouth school board makes wise move


Sam. Pelfrey had several sisters . I think they are (two at least) dead now., All of them were good looking but they really hadn't started to blossom when I pretty much left Portsmouth. One of them, I think, married a fellow Mabert Roader named Donny Richter. His older brother Ray(dead now also) retired from the A plant.


On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 6:04 PM, Sam Kegley wrote:


I dated Rosella once. She graduated in 1950 as I did.

They were extrenmey attractive young ladies. Rosella (Podey) is dead, as is her husband.


Sam

----- Original Message ----- From: "samgabe"
To: "Sam Kegley"

Sent: 2008-11-07 18:53

Subject: Re: Portsmouth school board makes wise move



do you know ray? His sister Phyllis was a couple of years ahead of me but what a beauty.

-----Original Message-----

From: Sam Kegley

Sent: Nov 7, 2008 6:40 PM
To: samgabe
Subject: Re: Portsmouth school board makes wise move

Now I remember. Another Mabert Road fellow, Ray Pelfrey, was born in
Sardinia OH.

Sam

----- Original Message ----- From: "samgabe"
To: "Sam Kegley"
Sent: 2008-11-07 18:36
Subject: Re: Portsmouth school board makes wise move



nod, I was born in Sardinia Ohio.

An expensive popularity contest- The enemy wins- America loses

What will happen to America?

I see no Christian principles in this new President, but our God knows much better than this mere mortal.

Poor loser? I am! But I believe our country is losing more and will be much poorer.

What will happen to the gains in Iraq?

Will we negotiate all the good of America over to our enemies?

Will Jimmy Carter be made Secretary of State or will Nancy Pelosi or Dirty Harry be? Perhaps Jeremiah Wright or Louis Farakhan?

Will our voluntary military people continue to fight for this great country?

Will we continue to be a great country without God in our schools and on our currency?

Will he strive for his "new bill of rights"?

Will he become in awe of the inscriptions on our national monuments which tout the great Biblical quotations? I don't think so.

I want to be more positive and see only positive changes and not the negativity he has haughtingly espoused during this far too expensive election campaign (both sides).

There will be a tide of changes and the most liberal and inexperienced Senator is soon to be inaugurated as our POTUS (President of the United States).

Somewhere in the caves of Afghanistan or in a palace in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden and his ilk are celebrating euphorically as they did after 9-11-2001. Osama's Trojan horse is in place in the United States.

Dear God, I want to be wrong about this empty suit of clothes. However, You are still in control as you were throughout the reigns of Stalin, Hitler, and so many other murderous leaders of this world.

It just cannot be right, but There is still God in Heaven.

We shall see soon, too soon I fear.

In God We Trust

There are the 86% and there also are the 14%...

I'll bet this was a surprise to NBC. **
NBC POLL*

*

Do you believe that the word God should stay in American culture?** **

NBC had a poll on this question. They had the highest Number of
responses that they have ever had for one of their polls, and the Percentage
was the same as this:** **

86% to keep** the words, IN God We Trust and God in the Pledge of Allegiance
**
14% against **

That is a pretty 'commanding' public response.* *

I was asked to** **send this on if I agreed** or **delete if I didn't** .

Now it is your turn. **�**It is said that** **86% of Americans believe the
word God should stay.* *

Therefore, I have a very hard time understanding why there is such* *a mess
about having 'In God We Trust' on our money and having God in the Pledge of
Allegiance.** **
**Why is the world catering to this 14%? **

AMEN!**

If you agree, pass this on** ,** **if not, simply delete.** **

**In God We Trust** *

http://www.irs/bible.htm

Thanks Ramey Sonny Hoskins! I also say "Wow!"

This is really fantastic. It has every book of the Bible. You can either read it or listen to it (when you call up a particular chapter, there is a voice icon at the top that you can click on and hear the verse read). Someone has spent a lot of time making this site.

http://www.jrsbible.info/bible.htm

Thanks for a touching message, Judi! I wish we could touch my lib friends with messages like this one. They are mesmerized by the con-man orator- little o.
Osama may yet dance on so many of our graves.

Sam

----- Original Message -----
From: judith Cole
Sent: 2008-11-02 22:06
Subject: Navy Petty Officer Mike Monsoor


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------




PO2 (EOD2)(Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Mike Monsoor, a Navy

EOD Technician, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor

posthumously for jumping on a grenade in Iraq , giving his life

to save his fellow Seals.

During Mike Monsoor's funeral in San Diego , as his coffin was being



moved from the hearse to the grave site at Ft. Rosecrans National
Cemetery, SEAL's were lined up on both sides of the pallbearers

route forming a column of two's, with the coffin moving up the center. As



Mike's coffin passed, each SEAL, having removed his gold Trident

From his uniform, slapped it down embedding the Trident in the

wooden coffin.



The slaps were audible from across the cemetery; by the time the
coffin arrived grave side, it looked as though it had a gold inlay
from all the Tridents pinned to it. This was a fitting send-off for a
war hero.

This should be front-page news instead of the crap we see

every day.

Since the media won't make this news, I choose to make it news by
forwarding it onto you guys. I am damn proud of our military. If you
are proud too, please pass this on. If not then rest assured that
these fine men and women of our military will continue to serve and
protect.

The Making of a Fuehrer

Thanks Les!

Halloween is over but it appears that we are entering a scary age for America.

Sam



Subject: worth reading and thinking about








Understanding Obama: The Making of a Fuehrer
By Ali Sina I must confess I was not impressed by Sen. Barack Obama from the
first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He
looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident – a wholesome
presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also
because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling.
His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's
speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history.
Never a politician in this land had such a quasi "religious" impact on so many
people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment
makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is
not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects.
Barack Obama is a narcissist. Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self
Love, also believes, "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist."

Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and
describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks
about narcissism everyone listens. Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture
and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest
that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic
personality disorder (NPD).

Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones,
the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his
followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children
was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko
Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao, Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of
narcissists of our time. All these men had a tremendous influence over their
fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their
blazing speeches elevated their admirers' souls, filled their hearts with
enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope!
They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their
doom. When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until
it is too late.

One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse.
"Obama's early life was decidedly chaotic and replete with traumatic and mentally
bruising dislocations," says Vaknin "Mixed-race marriages were even less common
then. His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years
old). Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident.
Then, his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia : a foreign
land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the
age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white)
grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then
she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995."

One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological
narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those
around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay
in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service.
The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own
inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his
co-dependents.

Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their
personal objective. They are focused on one thing alone and that is power.
All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their
precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them
and do not deserve their attention. If an issue raised in the Senate does
not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present"
vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Why should
he implicate himself in issues that may become controversial when they don't
help him personally? Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because
they are not about him.

Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led
to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations. The
University of Chicago Law School provided him with a fellowship and an office to work
on his book. The book took him a lot longer than expected and at the end it
devolved into guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a
scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could
not resist writing about his most sublime self. He entitled the book Dreams
from My Father ..

Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was
still nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as
his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about
insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself?
Narcissists are often callous and even ruthless. As the norm, they lack
conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who
lives on only one dollar per month. A man who lives in luxury, who takes a
private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who has raised nearly half a billion
dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in
the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for
his ascent to power. A narcissist cares for no one but himself.

This election is like no other in the history of America . The issues are
insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than
having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish
his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world?

I hate to sound alarmist, but one must be a fool if one is not alarmed. Many
politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others. They are simply
self serving and selfish. Obama evinces symptoms of pathological narcissism,
which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or
a Bill Clinton, for example. To him reality and fantasy are intertwined. This
is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological
narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent. It is this
disguise that makes them treacherous.

Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama. But this man could
put an end to their party. The great majority of blacks have also decided to
vote for Obama. Only a fool does not know that their support for him is
racially driven.
Let us call a spade a spade. This is racism, pure and simple. The truth is
that while everyone carries a misconceived collective guilt towards the blacks
for wrongs done centuries ago by a bygone people to a bygone people, the
blacks carry a collective rancor, enmity or vendetta towards non-blacks and to
this day want to "stand up" to the white man.. They seem to be stuck in 19th
century.

The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I
predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites. The blacks are
unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and
unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's
detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites. The white
supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive
widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will
increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960s. Obama will set the
clock back decades… America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world
depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the
triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations. It is no wonder that
Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castrists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the
Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so
thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge
of destruction. There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological
narcissist as president.

Studs Terkel dies at 96, 10-31-08

Studs Terkel died Friday at 96 years of age, after a full and courageous life. He was a devoted liberal thinker in the best sense of the word, which, to me, has become so sadly twisted during his lifetime. Studs was for the "little man" and wanted that man to be heard as well. He believed that the "little person" had contributions to make which were equally important, if not moreso, than the person always seen in the finely tailored garbs.

I believe that my sainted mother, Mary Kegley, no doubt listened to Studs in his soap opera days during the early first half of the twentieth century. He interviewed far more than nine thousand people and had many books published. He also interviewed the famous and non-famous of this world in his Chicago radio programs. Studs sought the perspective of his interviewees on whatever topic he visited.

Although charged as a communist during the McCarthy era, I choose to believe that he would not be bullied to give in to "thought police" when investigated. He stuck to his liberal thought.

I, with my six books to date, am a minor emulator of the great Studs Terkel. I have been privileged to interview outstanding people. I admit that I have more interest in the earnest Christian's perspective above all of the others.

I wanted so much to meet with my friend from my back row seat, but his health turned down in his last couple of years and I was not so allowed. I have prayed for Studs Terkel and I hope that Jesus Christ, the Advocator for each of us before His Father, can make a case for him to enter Heaven. I don't believe the great man, Studs, would resent my prayers on his behalf.