Governments's Inabilities Proven

I am a concerned American. I am dissatisfied with our government.

I don't like the large deficit spending of our taxes. Our government has bankrupted Medicare, Social Security, and now they want to give away more of our taxes by taking over private industry health care in exchange for government health care to provide for some 40 million uninsured Americans.

We Americans already have been voicing our objections. It will mean more freebies for uninsured people who can't pay for insurance - so we taxpayers will end paying the cost. The unisured are already getting freebies, receiving health care by using the hospital emergency room, which is paid for mostly with indigent funds, which come from working people's taxes.

I understand that our present Medicare system will go broke in the next few years. This is caused by greedy excessive charges exercised by doctors and hospitals. However, our government regulations contributes to the cause by requiring excessive paperwork, laws, and allowing freely public lawsuits against the medical industry.

These are the problems that need reforming, along with finding ways that will lower the cost for medical care. We don't need the government to run the system. The government has shown its inability to run it by the way it spends, spends and establishes the huge deficit weare now experiencing.

Let's take our country back. The Constitution provides to the people, not to our government. Government officials work for us. It's our money they are using.

Len Santi

Pulblished September 4, 2009 in the Clovis News Journal located in Clovis New Mexico

The Clovis Pioneers

At age 10 through 12, I was selling the Brooklyn Daily Citizen Newspaper (25copies) at Ebbetts Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. They allowed us kids to enter the ball park in the 6th inning.

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At age 12 to 16 I joined the Plaza Cubs to play sandlot amateur baseball. We played at a ball park that had 21 baseball fields on one plot of ground. I was their catcher behind the plate.

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At age 18-24 I was playing semi professional baseball for the Rheingold Beer Company traveling throughout the state of New York. At age 25 Wiley Moore, a retired major league pitcher signed me to a contract to the New York Giants in October, 1941 to report to their farm team, a class D minor league team, in Oswego, New York. I was to report on March 15th, 1942. However I was drafted on February 26, 1942 and never got there.

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In the military, I was eventually assigned to Clovis Army Air Force Base, later renamed Cannon AFB. I played for the base team traveling to many Air Force bases in the United States. After leaving the military in 1946, I was out of baseball for a few years, and farmed in the Grier, New Mexico area. While farming in 1947 I decided to tryout for the Clovis Pioneers Baseball team at age 31 and made it, playing two full seasons in 1947/48. Joe Dotlich was my first manager and later Grover Seitz a former Pampa manager became my manager. I was their catcher. My batting average was 290 and was good enough to play in the regular lineup. The Clovis Pioneers were a member of the West Texas/New Mexico League. We visited Borger, Pampa, Lamesa, Amarillo, and Albuquerque, all members of the same League.

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At one point Dizzy Dean, the great pitcher of the St. Louis Cardinals bought the Clovis club and his brother Paul Dean became their manager. This was after I left the club being replaced by another younger catcher, Frank Benitos.

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My family left the farm in 1960 and moved to Victorville, California, taking a Civil Service job at George AFB, where we stayed until retirement in 1979. We returned to Clovis in 1979 and have resided here until the present time.

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For your information I am 93 years old as of my birthday in April.

Play Ball

Dear God;

Help me to be a good sport in this game of life. I don't ask for an easy place in the lineup. Put me anywhere you need me. I only ask that I can give you 100% of everything I have. If all the hard drives seem to come my way, I thank you for the compliment. Help me to remember that you never send a player more trouble than he can handle.

And, help me, Lord, to accept the bad breaks as a part of the game. May I always play on the square no matter what others do. Help me to study the Book so I'll know the rules.

Finally, God, if the natural turn of events goes against me and I'm benched for sickness or old age, help me to accept that as part of the game, too. Keep me from whimpering that I was framed or that I got a raw deal. And when I finish the final inning, I ask for no laurels. All I want is to believe in my heart that I played as well as I could and that I didn't let you down."

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I share this inspirational thought so you may enjoy its simple message and so we may be reminded once again that we are the players and God is the Coach. Or, in the words of the hymn writer, "Thou art the Potter, I am the clay! (Ephesians 6:10-20)