Dear Mr. President.

Dear Mr. President, I heard you say you will not guarantee SS checks if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Why is it the scare always has to do with SS, Medicare, & our Soldiers pay? Why not stop your pay or all of Congress, Senate, Governors to save more money for our country? Why use Seniors, Soldiers, & our Needy as examples? Take the money from those who take no risks and reap the benefits?

 

You could have heard a pin drop.

Here's a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our country.

JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when DeGaule decided to pull out of NATO.  DeGaule said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk responded, "Does that include those who are buried here?"

DeGuale did not respond.

You could have heard a pin drop.

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When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.

He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders.  The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."

You could have heard a pin drop.

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There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American.  During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims.  What does he intend to do, bomb them?"

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly:  "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.  We have eleven such ships.
How many does France have?"

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies  At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?"

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.  At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.

"You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

"Then you should know enough to have your passport ready."

The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it."

"Impossible, Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!"

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look.  Then he quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to."

You could have heard a pin drop.

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July 2, 2011 weekend Ride Report

This is just for those who couldn't make the ride yesterday. A totally non-STAR related ride. As most of you know, Debra and I tend to get the bikes out pretty much every weekend that we can and go for short scoots through the back country of San Diego and surrounding areas. This time we made it a little more "public" by posting a notice to Face Book. Several friends commented back wanting ride along with us so we asked for suggestions as to a destination. Our friends Dain and Diana Wadley suggested heading up to Idyllwild and on to Oak Glen so we all agreed that would be a lot of fun and the ride was set.

We all met up at the Chevron station in Ramona. Debra and I were quite surprised by the turn out for this "event".  We had 10 friends show up on 8 bikes all together. Of course Debra and I along with my brother Todd. Guy Anastasia and his brother in law Gale (sp?), Dain and Diana Wadley, Daryl and Chris Elmer and Robert Phillips. Pretty good turnout for just a "let's go have some fun" ride.

We decided that since it was going to be so HOT that day to make plenty of hydration stops along the way. We headed out of Ramona on Highway 78 towards Santa Isabel. Headed north on Highway 79 to our first stop in Warner Springs. After downing some drinks and chatting again we headed on up to the Indio Turn-Out (Highway 371) to our next panned stop at the Dairy Queen in Anza. Unfortunately there was some kind of event going on in town and the entire road was closed off so we ended up on a detour around the west side of town and ending up back on the 371 way north of the Dairy Queen. We stopped at the last gas station on the north side of town where we had a few more drinks, restroom breaks and more chatting.

Once everyone was re-hydrated, we all got back on the bikes and continued north to pick up the 74 towards Idyllwild. Our first fuel stop was at the Shell station on the south side of town where once again everyone hydrated up, topped off the tanks and took another chat break. Daryl and Chris decided to break off from the group at this point and head on back home as he was having some problems with his neck and back. We were sad to them go but trust that they made the trip home safely and without any problems.

Back on the road heading north out of Idyllwild we took a nice slow pace back down to the floor of the desert and into Banning. Talk about HOT! By the time we got into Banning everyone was pretty much nicely toasted so we stopped at the IHOP to cool down and have some lunch. We spent about two hours sitting there laughing and chatting and having a good time all around. At this point pretty much the entire group decided to forgo the ride on up to Oak Glen with the exception being Dain and Diana. Dain really had his heart set on seeing the place since it had been at least 20 years since the last time he had been there. We hope that they succeeded and had a good ride out there. The rest of us decided to just pick up the Interstate 10 over to the Interstate 60, on down to the 215 and ultimately the 15 and to our respective homes.

Debra, Todd and I made it home by 5:00 PM and had covered 250 miles of some beautiful riding. It had been a long time since Todd had done anything like that so I suspect he's going to be a little sore today.

But overall it was a wonderful day! It was really great to see everyone that made the ride.

 

STAR TOURING AND RIDING ASSOCIATION

13th Annual STAR-BQ Ride Report

The 13th Annual Southwest STAR-BQ event has now come and gone. The turnout for Chapter #224 was a bit small this year as several members that had planned on going had to cancel at the last minute due to personal matters. The weather forecast for the weekend wasn’t all that great either, most of the major weather sources were all predicting rain for each day of the event. The members that did attended opted to go in cages rather than risk riding in the rain. We were a bit surprised though in the end as the only real rain we would have been in was on the way back down the coast from Ventura. The members that did attend were:

Ken and Kathy Moen

Debra Melanson

David Whitehead

Richard and Toni Woodward

Overall it was really good time for everyone that did make it. We got to some areas that we had never been through before. Ken, Kathy, Debra and myself all road up together taking the I-15 route to the 138 that Richard had proposed, up over the hills coming into Ventura from the north side of Los Angeles rather than dealing with the typical LA traffic. It would have been a great motorcycle ride after all as there wasn’t any precipitation at all during the entire drive.

On Friday (3-25-2011) Ken, Kathy, Debra and I all decided to take a drive up to Solvang and spend the day walking around and looking in all the shops. Kathy especially enjoyed the trip as the last few times she had been there she didn’t have as much time to look and see everything. On the way back down we all decided to make a stop at the old Cold Creek Stagecoach stop. If you’ve never been to this place, it’s a great ride destination for sure. A lot of history and just a beautiful place to visit. We made it back to the motel with plenty of time to take a quick nap in preparation for the evening’s Meet-N-Greet. We got to meet quite a few folks who’s names we have heard over the years but have never met. Also meet two new STAR members, Mike and Sharri who weren’t quite sure what they had gotten themselves into. They ended up having a great time though and decided that the STAR organization was definitely for them so we expect we’ll be seeing more of them in the future.

Saturday (3-26-2011) morning we spent looking around at what the vendors had for sale, took a look at some of the new bikes on display and bought a few trinkets and t-shirts. We then decided to head up to Ojai to find a steakhouse that Bob Barbano had told us about. If I recall, the place is called the Deer Valley Lodge. We did indeed find it and had lunch and we were not at all disappointed. This is another great motorcycle ride destination for anyone inclined to do so. Good roads, good food and excellent scenery along the way.

The evening ended with the dinner meeting and several emotional speeches from some of STAR’s top ranking members. We also enjoyed a special comedy act by Allen Cease’s son Kyle. Absolutely hilarious. Everyone’s dear friend Shark was also in attendance and conducted the annual action. Unfortunately I still don’t have any of the numbers but hopefully we’ll hear how well it went soon. The last estimate we did hear from Sam Laughlin though, was that there over 300 attendees this year. A really good turnout for what was supposed to be a rainy weekend.

A few photos have been posted to the chapter’s Face Book site and will also be posted on the chapter web server. Make sure and stop by for a look.

David Lee Whitehead

Chapter Secretary / Web Master