When I fell in Love...

First of all I have to be frank, This is all about me... So , I must let you know who I was at the time. Hardly five years before that, in the summer of '63, I had been let loose from four long years in the USAF. I had served as a Medic as my chosen career path. Of course in those days , I had never heard of the phrase "Career Path...". For most of three years , I worked as a practical nurse, albeit at times I did more than a Registered Nurse is licensed to do. But that's a tale for another time...
As I had signed a paper saying I volunteered to go any where in the World ( and that included Viet Nam... ) My superiors asked me if I would like to go to Italy for a few months? No, it's true ; They actually asked me if I wanted to go !
I have to tell you that at the same time,coincidentally? My gang of five was broken up, and the guy that ran the gambling in the barracks ( a four story concrete block edifice), was assigned to Alaska. I figured John Sevistak would own half of Alaska before long, but Wayne Sayer was sent to Istanbul Turkey ( He called it "The Arm Pitt of The World !") . So I realized much later that I got "The Plumb". I think Paul what's his name , who also was decorated for his save the General actions,was sent to "France", but then he was not in"The Gang of Five...". And that's how Executive decisions are made I suppose.....
Once at Aviano, working as a sort of very junior Doctor, in a Class "A" Dispensary, I learned The Air force mantra of " You see one , You do one , You teach one..."
Upon arrival at Aviano, The First Sargent,and all of the Enlisted Men were very suspicious and unwelcoming of me. They apparently had had some personnel problems a couple of months before I arrived with my Top Secret Security Clearance , my orders to leave in just four months,my sudden midnight arrival from who knew where, all under the heading of " Operation Short Spurt ". And I didn't seem to know exactly how to be a " Junior Doctor " !!! Their Suspicion grew when after a week of menial jobs, I got orders in the Mail promoting me to NCO status... So, then while getting some training in how to take and develop X-Ray plates , I offhandedly said "Howdy!" to a Bird Colonel, who was travelling in mufti ( civilian clothes, speaking Italian). The Crew suspected I was from the Inspector Generals Office,trying to nail someone?!!
As I was already severely clinically depressed upon arrival, The Crews shunning me entirely for the first month led me to stop abusing beer, and to start abusing whiskey;it was cheaper anyway...
Somewhere in the first few days of the shortest month,after far too many whiskey and sodas, I found my way back to my room , with the real Italian marble floors. The whiskey had slid my twenty three year old brain from depressed mode , over to angry mode... Emanating from three doors down, I heard too loud laughter and expressions of amusement ! Like a hot blanket , the concept enveloped me! Then I was there , barging in!They continued to not see me ! They had the Audacity to be talking about who was the baddest ? The guys from the West Coast, or The Guys from the East Coast?!! Well after the semiprofessional beat the crap out of me, they must have put me in my bed to sleep it off, because when I woke up in the morning, all of the lumps on my head were under the hair, but it was hard to keep my head on the pillow...
As I kept my mouth shut at work the next day, The Crew let me know I finally had one acceptance, by ceremonially ambushing me after work and ripping my pants off! All the while laughing with the glee that comes of doing to someone else , what had been done to you! But that's another story...
The depression did not stop, but the shunning did.My psychological state at the time was way to often expressed by inappropriate laughter. My loud guffaws were no joke, and often got me in trouble in and out of the military. Much later I learned the raucous annoyance to many is called a defence mechanism. Lucky as I always have been , early on at the Dispensary, I was able to out diagnose the Head Doctor ( " Oh, that's epididimytis !" ) . When he realized I was correct , he offered me a deal... Tell no one , and I could laugh whenever, and however I wanted to!In no time at all my superiors stopped nagging me.

In the last three months of my service time the Executive officer kept trying to get me to re-up.He kept asking me things like "Well what are you going to do when you get out? I didn't have a clue, but I knew one thing. Someday I wanted to have a wife and family...Maybe a job at the Bud plant, and a nice cozy row home......
When I got home to my elderly parents, I was scared. It was just like getting out of High School all over again. No plans, no direction, no idea about the real world. I had been running away from home for the last four years! Now I had become The Prodigal Son Unrepentant!!!

After about a week of trying to be the ass of the year, I saw an add for entry level linemen over at Bell Telephone in Jenkintown. While filling out the questionnaire, I saw four or five guys with obvious hangovers( it was Monday), that I was sure I went to Cardinal Dougherty with. What surprised me was how dissipated they looked... I was a frequent flyer in front of the mirror in those days, and I was sure I looked much healthier than those guys! Wow!!
By mid September, it was still hot, I had gained employment in the press shop at Standard Pressed Steel. It was some of the dirtiest most dangerous jobs they had, but the work made my arms very strong... To get the job, one had to be able to read and write at an eighth grade level, and be able to lift 75 pounds. It turned out that the latter portion of the equation was the most important, because mostly what you did all day was to lift 75 pounds. Over and over, again and again for eight hours... No union at SPS, but they were a world famous Quaker Family company.
In Horatio Alger fashion? It's true , I found my self in white shirt and tie,working in the Drafting Room at SPS, when the announcement came over the loud speaker.
" The Governor of Texas and The President have been shot...". In a moment a guy in a white shirt came in and asked me to follow him. It seemed that 300 guys and I were laid off...

Bob and I drove down to D.C., and we experienced the funeral very personally. With JFK gone the impending Winter seemed truly bleak.And so looking for a job seemed ethereal , and with unemployment insurance keeping me in cigarettes and gas money, somewhat pointless ? But then Mom saw an add in the Bulletin for an Oxygen Therapist at Lankenau Hospital. She suggested that I get off my lazy behind and see if I could qualify.
Well one thing I learned in the service was how to be a con-man. So by using my well honed skills at getting people to believe that they wanted whatever was best for me, I got this Doctor with the Greek sounding name to hire me over the protestations of the Director of Inhalation therapy.
I used what little knowledge I had, and the See one , do one mantra to catch on fully in a couple of months . Then I heard about a school for Inhalation Therapy at The Hospital of The U.of P. And they actually forked over a stipend for the year! On the way to the interview, I almost blew a high speed turn off the Sure Kill Crawl way, because I was hysterically desperate to not be late for the interview!
As usual my path had a few pot holes, fits and starts, but in the end I got the Diploma...As you may have heard pride comes before a fall. I had to learn that every year or so until I left the work world. After a couple of years, and a couple of jobs , I managed to come back to H.U.P. as a supervisor in Respiratory Therapy, and I was proud...
Infatuations came and went, just like the years...After a while I no longer sought relationships, because like pride there comes the inevitable fall.Falls hurt. Then we hired Clark. Bill was immensely successful in getting dates and invites to parties at high rises down by the river. He had one problem. The girls did not trust him much so they usually wanted him to double date. I think Bill Clark was from Chicago or some place like that. So , I was one of the few single guys he knew, and who had a car...For a week or ten days, leading up to Christmas, Bill was the point man for a blinding social onslaught for me. So, a day or so after Christmas, I think it was a Saturday evening , we were both off. And I said to him on the phone , let's just hang out at Smokey's , and maybe get in a fight tonight ?Now Bill did some bar tending at Smokey Joe's and he had a small apartment above it. So after he gave me a few free drinks, he knocked off work there, and he went upstairs to change . I stepped out front to get some fresh air with my cigarette , and to see if the weather was still mild for December...Chie Wa Wa! Here comes a couple of young ladies! Both blond !! Heres my chance to show Bill I can get Girls too! If memory serves, I had the temerity to speak to them at the door, and then I ushered them to a booth...
Zip I went to alert Bill to The two target's I had found. Bill was coming his thinning hair. He was the first guy I ever saw that used hair spray! But what the Hay! It worked for him.As my patience ran out , he was ready to meet the "Girls". Even though I was intoxicated one gave me her phone number...It must have been my Elvis imitation.
I think she couldn't believe I would call, and I didn't believe it was really her phone number.But it was and I did.Our first date was on New Years Eve. She was my Blond of The Year at a friends party, I always made an appearance at. I dressed for success in my three piece suit,and brought a corsage for her to ware, when I showed up at her end of the world house. I thought I drove so far following her directions that I must have missed her street?!!But lucky me , I turned into her street to make a U-Turn, and there was Windsor Circle , plain as mud... On our second date we saw a new movie at a downtown theater. Don't you know it was "Romeo and Juliet". Margie set up a kind of birthday dinner party(my 28th), with Bill and the other girl at a fancy Sky Line Restaurant in center city . It was fun along the lines of " La Dulce Vita ".
As we both worked the evening shift, it was not easy to see each other as often as I began to want to. I have to tell you we had shared a small kiss only on New Years Eve to this time...One day I got this bright Idea . I could pick her up drive her to work,and then take her home after work? Well Margie thought it was a great idea at the time.I think we were going to watch Johny Carson at her parents house or something...I cant remember exactly... Okay, So I dropped her off out side of Jefferson Hospital , right where I was to retrieve her at 11:15 or so.
As I left her on the side walk, the Winter sun was making vision difficult through the messy windshield . But I definitely remembered the three brass pawn shop balls , over head to my left, and I knew the name of the street...
It all looked so different with the drizzly rain trickling down the buildings ,and these glasses seem to have been prescribed for some one else, because I can't see what I'm looking for... Brass balls aren't so visible without sunshine! No wonder that Cops looking at me funny , I've circled these couple of blocks more than a dozen times ! Where can that entrance be?!!The only thing I can do is get out and walk, if I can just find a place to park! At least it's not raining hard now that I have circled twice around the two or three blocks of Jeff. Look at the time ! She must have called her father to pick her up by now , and she's probably at home now cussing me out... Theres a phone booth, I'll call and try to explain...As her father answered , I put the phone down gently,all at once realizing I wasn't brave enough to tell Margie's father I had failed her ... I can't give up , I'll go around again. Say is that a real Gypsy woman in a night gown gesturing for me to come inside? Wait, I did not see this indentation area of the buildings before, did I ? Theres glass doors! And theres Margie !! But she is smiling! Smiling with bright happy eyes ! She is smiling with the eyes of trust!! Yes, I can see that she believes in me!
That's when I fell in love ! For sure and forever !!

Margie & Ray

What about the " S " Word ?

Everyone knows you can't use the " N " word with out risking riots in response or at the very least, a bad outcome. And of course the use of coarse language in a hurtful manor is always uncivilized.Personally since becoming an adult , I try to avoid crude language as a matter of self respect.
I am fond of language, especially the semantics of the English Language, as spoken in America. Portuguese Navigators of The Fifteenth Century purchased slaves from Islamic dealers in Nigeria. The people so sold were Niger's from inland Nigeria. So it would seem that that's where The " N " Word stems from.
The latest hullabaloo,that has come to my attention is all about The " B " Word ! Some women are more sensitive to it than others. And their ire, or lack there of seems to be predicated on two indicators. They are which gender is doing the talking , and is the race and speaker the same , or different?
Now we all know it's perfectly fine to use the " B " word, as long as your talking about the better half of the Canine World. But even then, one usually is very careful in polite company.....
Then there's the " F " Word. No! Not that one!! No, I'm talking about the one I cautiously looked up in my older brother's dictionary,when I was around twelve years old. Low and behold, there it was! The Dictionary's given meaning mystified me... I couldn't figure out why the guys at my newly attended public middle school, would throw the word out with such knowing bravado? The Dictionary said it meant" A bundle of dried sticks prepared for burning. " What?!!
Now days I am mystified by a new derogatory word . Apparently it can be used to malign any person, place,thing or situation...The "S"Word is " S U C K S " . As in " Well that sucks . " I know I started hearing it used in common language a few years ago. I think? But now I hear it used on sit-comms on TV prime time. As an amateur semanticist it unnerves me mightily, to not have a complete understanding of the word as used in the English Language.
As one that shays away from crude language, except in very unusual circumstances, I don't know if I want to use this derogatory word ; or is it a euphemism ? After all, Sucks What ?!! Is it now bad, for instance to suck on a soda straw?If the vacuum cleaner sucks up the dirt, is that not good? I guess if a white tornado came into my laundry and sucked the dirt out of my clothes...Or was that Mr. Clean ? Well anyway you must catch my drift.....

Say next time let's talk about The " G " Word ! You know the one. It used to have a very pleasant connotation...I can think of at least one very popular Christmas song that it was contained in, and it's a synonym for happiness, right? I really strongly resent it being co opted in modern times.....

" I'm smart ! I can think of something !! "

It was a bleak, Saturday night in February.The kind of night you think about thanking God,for your cozy home, be it ever so humble. But then you forget about it and just see what's on the tube,after you light up a Winston,"Tastes good, like a cigarette should!" I know it's late,but the baby is finally sleeping good and I don't have to work Sunday... Let me just look out front first,to see how much snow has come down so far? Boy! It looks like 3 or 4 inches already... I hope Marge doesn't have a terrible time getting home in the morning. Well this must be " Casa Blanca ". Humphrey Bogart Movies are always good, even if you only have a black and white T.V. It always seems odd, how in those heroic times everybody and their brother smoked at least three packs of non-filtered a day! Like now, as I'm watching the last half hour of the North African White House, he's got his " Zippo " fired up again! And that reminds me it's " Light up Time " for Ray too...The shirt I have on has two breast pockets, Pretty fancy eh? So with the flat of each hand I slap each one three times in staccato fashion.No crinkly lump greets my sensitive 32 year old fingers? Oh theres my smokes over there on the coffee table.Phew! For a moment there, panic had griped my spine.Okay, I'll just get one...Thunderation!!! This package is empty! Regret swept over me for coming up with the plan to limit my smoking by, buying one pack at a time.But after all,I was a supervisor of Respiratory Therapy at The University of Pennsylvania Hospital.And of course I was witness every day to the long list of horrors that smoking led to... But I need a cigarette Now!!! I know there must be a butt,or two around the house somewhere?It was true...Only Marge had dumped the ash trays, before she went to work, in the garbage!Come on! I'm smart, I can think of something? ..... I can't go anywhere because of the baby...Think! Wait , out in the car... I remember;last Summer Margie was driving, and I was in the back seat, I can't remember why, but I think I put out almost a whole one in the rear ash tray!Wow! Coat and boots will be needed to wade through that 5 or 6 inches of snow...I better bring a broom to,to push the accumulation off the top of the rear door...Now,to ease that metal hatch open,and see if I'm saved? Yes!It is a long one !! Now to carefully,tenderly place it into my flapped coat pocket,and make my way back to the warmth of The White House on Redford Road. Once inside breathing on and through my only avenue of a return to calm, re humidified it enough to almost straighten it out... As I gratefully lit up,the thought crashed through my mind that "I better go right to bed now, and then I can get some more in the morning..." Looking back on my panic on Monday morning, I came to the realization that smoking was not a habit for me. No! It was an addiction...Nine months later my wonderful son was five months old, and I realized if I didn't quit smoking, I would never see him grow up. After all I had my first Heart Attack at twenty six! And after five months of No Smoking I had felt like Superman! So, for a couple of reasons I started again...But this time I'm going on"The Five year Plan". That's right!I would be lying to myself if I just said " I'm never going to smoke again!".So I won't do that. What I'll do is stop smoking for five finite years. And then my body will have healed enough to smoke again! And Live!So Monday morning I did not light up before I started the car, on the way to work.That was the beginning of the Thanks Giving Holiday week.I was off on the holiday and with the In Laws over and all, I almost relapsed. By the Next Monday though,people at work started saying that they weren't sure it was me, because there was no cigarette in the middle of my face...For the next three or four months I simply went crazy for a time , and then I discovered I had a whole new personality inside, that I didn't know...After just one year I stopped dreaming about cigarettes, and I found I could even have a couple of beers without looking for one.The truth is though once an Addict always an Addict. Say, is that your Zippo ?

" Oh , I'll just have a salad..."

A salad?!! In 1950 I was ten years old.My sainted mother had reached her fiftieth year and she was raising her seventh child, an after thought, a replacement son? She and my strong,stoic father had lost their blond, blue eyed wonder kind to Carcinoma amidst the Great Depression of the 1930's... Although I was not blond , or for that matter perfect at birth,they gave me love and sustenance enough to grow to average height for the age.....Our family was the kind of "Meat and potatoes" type , you may have heard of in the past. And as I recall,a lot of it was boiled... Even Chicken! In the summer of 1956,I tasted " Southern Fried Chicken" for the first time.My girl friends mother didn't seem to mind that I was such a pig!...My Mom liked to grow vegetables and one year strawberries,in our swath of green behind our post WWII tiny tract house.I had the honor of making sure that all were well watered as needed.She grew some mighty fine tomatoes , as well as String Beans, ( and in those days , they really had strings...).String Beans are a green vegetable that I loved then and now,albeit I detested Tomatoes then,and still do.Everyone else on the face of the earth loved tomatoes!Or, so I thought for many years...As a young boy,in a world of tomato worshipers,I dreamed of fitting in.So, toward each summers swan song, usually in the evening after diner, I would hide with a big red tomato!After gathering the courage of my convictions, I would take a big bite! And Wow!! It was always the same! Ugh!! Pew ! Spit! Spit!! No more of that!Ever!! Once in awhile I recall my parents having Lettuce,and maybe some fresh sliced onion in a sand which, and I shied away from onions too.What I don't remember at our dinner table was a salad bowl.....When I was sixteen my best friend was Bob. Bob was the eldest son of in retrospect , a classic Southern Italian family.His father was the best Carpenter since Joseph.But I learned he was a person who was a master of all construction trades and skills .In the summer I spent so much time in and around Bob's house you would have thought that I had rented a room there.Consequently, on one very hot August evening , I saw Bob's Father( Yes, his name was Anthony, and no one called him "Tony", ever!)without his shirt on. I was shocked!I could not believe my young, myopic eyes! His 40 something year old chest and arm's looked like an Anatomical Figure in a Biology book I had gotten a hold of !! He was wiry of course, a man of small stature,but every single muscle group could have been pointed to by an Anatomist,without lifting the skin off! The real surprise was to come when he set about fixing himself a little dinner... You must know it had to start with a salad, or at least now I know it was a salad.He started by putting what seemed like a half a head of lettuce in a commodious bowl.Then a couple of tomatoes,pieces of onion,and sliced cucumbers. At least that's all I can remember. After that came a half of a roasted chicken, some sausage, and I don't know what all, but there must have been bread too.Strangely enough , he did not wash it down with wine, but instead Rolling Rock beer...Tempis fugit,I awoke with my nose in something cool and wet? I was to come to find out it was French dressing.Apparently a night of under age drinking had wound up in a restaurant that was open until Three... Sunny Miller, The Golden Gloves Champ from Kentucky,remembered that just as the harried waitress slid the wooden bowl in front of me,I was suddenly not awake! Memory fails me , but I don't think I ate the lettuce.Even though in later years I came to enjoy Americas favorite " French Dressing ". Still immature in many ways that kept me an adolescent at twenty six,I found myself on a "blind date".An older woman ( maybe 45 )was a neighbor who I exchanged an occasional anecdote with and comments on the weather, Told me more than once that I should meet Rachelle...My small friendship with the neighbor lady was such a bright spot in my lonely life that reinforcement of the relationship was a prime goal for me.She was a school teacher and had also done extensive volunteer work with The Red Cross,which she was very proud of.So a date was planned.Her sister met me at the door and as red flags waved in my head,I thought "Whoa!! Way too young!".Then Rachelle pranced into the room Ala Loretta Young! I was relieved and stunned at the same time!She was the picture of youth full confidence and poise , not to mention her red hair.On the way to the restaurant she spoke of studying the Real Estate field, and how she was soon to be off to California to make her fortune.The word sophisticate rolled around my mind as we were seated in the best restaurant in Asburry Park,New Jersey.As she scanned the menu,I prayed she would not order something to break my bank.So I almost sighed aloud when she said " Oh! I'll just have a salad ".And I thought a salad?! That must be how she keeps such a pert and dandy figure...Yes,she told the waiter"I'll just have the Turkey Salad." When we were served, for the first time in my life I became aware of what the modern salad had become! First off it arrived on an eight inch platter, such as you might see displayed with pride in someones home at Thanks Giving!And nestled in the midst of three kinds of lettuce,sliced radishes,onions,green and red peppers,mushrooms, sliced tomato's,and I don't know what all, was half of a chopped up turkey!!! Just a salad?!!

The Battle Hymn of The Republc !!!

Spain was interesting and at times wondrous, however as Marge and I lifted off from Madrid, I thought "well okay, but once will be enough." As I recall we shared two window seats , and there was no one to our right, even though the plane seemed a little more than half full. I mused that more than half of the passengers were foreigners... Then I vaguely remembered that I was at present"The Foreigner". Marge was feeling what I assumed was a petite malaise due to a poor night's sleep and her usual onus of getting the two of us on the plane... Thanks to my special flying ear plugs, my ears seemed okay at our traveling altitude , and I took them out. I found that I could hear unusually well under the circumstances. While in Spain , I had purchased a slim paperback book on Spain's History, from Roman Iberian times , up to 1999 . In about two and a half hours, I had consumed it, and I was settling into the boredom of plane travel..... As we were no where near land, I was amazed to hear The Pilot's strangely pitched, solemn voice speaking directly to me... He was saying something about an attack on The World Trade Center in New York ! And that we would be returning to Madrid !! What he said woke me from my air plane dullness , and Marge and I began to try to comprehend what was happening. Of course our first thoughts were for the safety of each other, and how our immediate future would play out ?!! Then in about twenty minutes a stewardess, who seemed to be about Marge's age, approached us with some long pieces of paper that at first glance looked like inked toilette paper. She explained that they were faxes, from New York . They actually showed the buildings in smoke and one in the falling down process. It was then that the enormity of what was taking place struck me like a knife in the guts! A blind rage , such as I had never experienced , filled my entire being. Vengeance !!! What ever country that did this should have a terrible storm of Neutron weapons rain down on them now!!! They should all die quickly! A middle aged, American, female passenger called out that maybe we should pray? In a loud voice I responded," We ought to sing "The Battle Hymn of The Republic!" Of course I was thinking of the lines " He is trampling out the grapes of wrath..." and something about " His terrible swift sword !"; The sword being The U.S. Air Force! ...... After what seemed like a half day,we landed under the gloomy , evening sky of Madrid's air port. While still on the plane, I had felt very far removed from the turmoil at home, That all changed as we came down the stairs to the tarmac, and microphones were shoved at us. For the question "How do you feel ?"I had one reply; It was " Angry !!! " Then we were loaded onto a bus for a trip to a suburban Madrid Hotel. The Hotel personnel received us in a professional manor , albeit they seemed vaguely ambivalent as to how they should respond to our presence...The Hotel seemed to be attached to a golf course and it was like a place to have a wedding reception, a gala, or maybe a nice long weekend getaway with your Honey . After we and our bags got into our room, we freshened up a little and Marge tried to call home . That wasn't working , so we went down to the very nice buffet ( Free) in the Hotel Dining room. We spoke to two or three people from the plane , and no one really knew much... Exhausted by the days events, we went to bed early murmuring comforting supportive words to each other, and soon enough the dawn awakened each of us. A sheet of paper had been pushed under the door . The Hotel informed us that breakfast had been paid for , but after check out time , The Air Line would be paying no further cost of our stay..... Marge was suffering obvious flu like symptoms by then, but that did not stop her from securing our room, and finally communicating with Stephanie at home.The T.V. in Our room got the BBC station on it and for at least 24 hours , all that seemed to be were planes flying into buildings and buildings falling down ... On the plane there was very little sympathy expressed for America , and only a little was extant in Spain . In retrospect when the Airline stopped paying our hotel bill, it would have been better if we had dragged our bags back to the nice center city hotel that we had occupied before. Because I believe the phone service , Air port Limo , and other amenities would have been much better for our needs there. As in when I drank all of the orange juice and so did not get sick( It was Sunday afternoon and the store where I got was closed), and Marge got sicker! In center city, I remember a 7/11 type place, where I could have gotten enough for a swim.So, each day hence, Marge struggled with bad phone connections , when she could get through to see when we could get a flight home . For a few days it was uncertain if any U.S.Air would ever fly again, or for that matter any Air Line.....After about the fifth day , Marge felt a little better, and as she saw I was going stir crazy, she suggested we tour The Prado Museum? Almost reluctantly , I agreed, and we got a cab. Marge seemed to enjoy the museum as did I. However I think she grew faint towards the end from her cold and the cold remedies... I think it was the next day that we struggled to The Madrid Airport once again to find that a flight to America was not going to be as easy as in the past... Our first clue was in the attitude of the female clerk at the check in counter... Gone was the cheery Hello ! Now it was a don't dare push me tone , after they opened up late ! After at least a three hour wait we were able to get packed in like the proverbial sardines... The worst part of our second time in Spain was the thought that I was not at home in my beloved country to help bind it's fresh wounds, and to have my neighbors unable to hear my call for justice !!! ...... I will never return to Spain ...

Capricorn Rite: The Blog of Raymond D. Franke

Capricorn Rite: The Blog of Raymond D. Franke

George Washington wouldn't do it ...

The great man who was our real first President of the U.S.A.,did not want to be king, nor did he want to be President for life.History says that he declined both scenarios...After The President Roosevelt of Dime fame passed on to his glory, our nation decided " Two Terms in Office and your done ( for The President )". And it seems fair,that a person should be able to get some good done in eight years, or give someone else a turn at bat... From what little American History I know , it seems to me that the founding fathers never figured on anyone becoming a Senator , or Congressman for the rest of their unnatural life ! Like the 100 year old Strom Thurmond still in the Senate! Now,I have nothing bad to say about Old People, because I am one;But let"s say you became a Senator at the dynamic age of 50 , by 60 years of age One should have been able to accomplish something for your Nation. And then it would be a good time to return to running your business, or maybe running for Governor of your state,et cetera. The same idea would bring a strong wind of fresh air to congress.Perhaps no more than four years at a time.I'm sure a great deal of boondoggle spending could be avoided,if all of The federal elect tees weren't worried first and foremost about getting reelected 24/7! Also , there is the concept that it some how seems worse that when some one gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar, that you have to admit that you voted for them seven times!!! Not just once or twice! When this Great Nation got off the ground , the Only Federal branch Officers who were supposed to be in office for life were The supreme court justices !!!