This is Lafe jr. heatin' up the piano at the Art Festival

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opRrcVLd_V0   This song is called Corazon de Nino (A child's heart)

Brooke singing No Me Queda Mas at the 5th annual Art Festival

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opRrcVLd_V0 Original song No Me Queda Mas by Selena (I'm Not Staying Any Longer)

From my book, Kids Who Tell It Like It Is. Something to keep you smiling for the holidays.

More accurate a true words have never been written.

   Jeffery's mother was teaching school and today she had a special assignment for her students.
From their several spelling words, she wanted them to use their imagination and write sentences with them. Jeffery bent over and carefully studied his words. Two of them, "born" and "ouch" stood  out like a skinned knee.
    "This is a cinch," he thought, as he penned this stark reality.
    "When I was born, my mom said ouch!"

Into the Abyss. Continued.

To our immense relief, there he was, laying on a huge boulder about twenty feet away from us! The massive rock was about ten feet below from where we stood. Between him and us and beyond, was the Abyss! The boulder had fallen from somewhere above and wedged itself between the two vertical walls, just hanging there in what looked like midair. It was about six feet in diameter and somehow, or better said, someone had pushed Brent across the twenty foot chasm exactly hard enough to make him land on this comparably small area. One step forward or backward and he would certainly fall to his death! He was moaning slightly and of course in shock at what had just transpired.
    "Are you hurt badly?" my frightened voice echoed off the cavern walls. Brent said nothing. He seemed dazed and unaware of his surroundings. And then to our utter horror, he jumped up and began to straddle the two sides of the cavern with his feet and slowly started inching his way up toward us!
    "Brent, stop right now, you are in shock and we're sending for a rope to pull you up!" I hollered frantically as my son Clarence raced back out of the cavern to get one.
Brent paid no attention to our demands and continued inching his way up toward us with nothing below him but blackness. Now dear reader, just imagine two vertical nearly smooth rock walls from four to five feet apart and this totally psyched out individual leveraging himself up the walls with no apparent footholds and just empty space below him. Nothing to hold on to, except the rock walls and yet somehow he was climbing up towards us. Absolute insanity! 
At least fifteen to twenty feet he climbed before reaching our outstretched arms to pull him to safety. As soon as he reached the solid footing where we stood, his knees buckled and he slumped to the cavern floor and began sobbing. We all sat there in the darkness contemplating on what had just happened. Back outside my brother Kenny had called Brent's Dad and told him his son had fallen down a bottomless mineshaft and then his phone lost signal before he could explain any further.
     A half hour passed before we could gather our senses and then after quietly thanking the Lord, we slowly made our way out of the Abyss. Brent was mighty shook up, but incredibly, other then a few scrapes and bruises, he was grateful to be alive. To this day, he will attest to the fact that he felt some unknown being push him over the chasm, it being impossible to get there otherwise.
Thus ended our quest for untold riches!

Into the Abyss. A true story. Page 42

    In all reality, the quad ride was just a means of getting to our destination. We had been planning this for a long time. There were untold riches in the El Tigre mine just waiting for us to pick it right off the cavern walls. To help us in our efforts to get rich, we brought three of the worlds best metal detectors in high hopes of sneaking into the dark mine shafts and searching out the mountains of gold! We quickly set up our tents and soon everyone was exploring the many caverns and interesting things to see. Eventually I headed into the biggest mineshaft I could find with metal detector in hand and visions of gold in my mind. I had read a book long ago about this mine. At the time of its operation, it was the richest gold mine in North America. During its peak operation, a twenty mule train of gold bullion would leave the mine every month! As I wandered into the darkening shaft, I noticed several of the gang following me in. As the sparse light from the entrance faded into blackness, a few of the guys pulled out their flashlights and aimed the murky beams deeper into the mine. There were a total of only three flashlights among the whole group, so we had to be careful and stay together. Upon entering the mine cavern, I knew right away this was a very perilous  adventure. In some areas, the shaft dropped hundreds of feet below us and there was only a small trail on one side for us to walk on. One misplaced step would send you into hell somewhere below in the deep. The cave was about four feet wide most of the way and hundreds of feet high. We would slowly inch our way, hugging the wall and placing every foot carefully as we made our way past the dangerous areas.
The blackness was so thick you could almost reach out and touch it but the thrill of adventure and excitement drove us deeper and deeper into the mountain. Eventually, I began sweeping the walls of the shaft with my metal detector. Every few minutes it would start beeping and we would get excited and vigorously chip a piece of ore off the wall. I was paying way to much attention to the walls and not to where I was stepping when I nearly fell off into what I call, The Abyss. This was a vertical mine shaft about five feet wide and hundreds of feet long that went straight down into an abyss! Right about this time, the detector began beeping as I swept it over the wall above my head at the edge of the chasm. In his excitement and without thinking, my 24 year-old nephew Brent shimmied up the cavern walls using one leg on each side. He had a flashlight in his mouth and a small pick in his hand and with the other, he was hanging onto the ledge. I was almost directly below him right at the rim of the precipice. What happened next was not mere chance or coincidental. As Brent began to chip at the ore with his pick, his back foot slipped and instantly his flashlight fell into the abyss and left us in the pitch black darkness! In the next few seconds a million thoughts raced through my mind. Why did this happen? Was it my fault? Why were we so damn stupid to do something like this? How are we going to tell his parents? How are we going to get his body out of the chasm? 
    As these and many other horrible thoughts raced through my mind, I heard Brent falling with a few loud groans  and the sound of him slamming against the rocks, and then all was silent. Eternity passed in the deadly stillness and no one breathed as I fumbled in my pocket to extract my flashlight. My trembling fingers could hardly locate the button to turn it on. I directed the beam down into the abyss and peered down with my heart in my throat, dreading what I should have seen. The powerful beam penetrated the murky darkness faintly illuminated the rocky floor of the deep chasm. Brent was not there! "What in the hell just happened," I wondered aloud. Suddenly we heard a noise somewhere below us and I quickly brought the beam up and pointed in the direction of the sound.....

A history lesson

    OK here goes. In my last post, I pinned the blame for Mexico's corruption on the Catholic Church and now I must explain why.
    Before Mexico's  greatest president, Benito Juarez dethroned the Pope by separating Church and State, the Pope had complete and unhindered control of the government of Mexico. The Pope's deceptive teaching of indulgences; of paying money to absolve ones sins, is the root cause of all this corruption! This is a form of bribery in the strictest sense of the word. If one is brought up all his or her life bribing "God" for their spiritual and temporal sins, then of course one can also bribe the government to not apply the law on their behalf. Or, if you have enough money, you can bribe the law to support you in any endeavor be it illegal or criminal because they, like you, have been brought up with the same convictions; commit sin, pay money to "God" and get forgiven. In other words, murder to get gain, rape, assassinations, dealing drugs, adultery or any form of criminality is OK in a criminal's state of mind as long as he can go to the great Church and pay "God" to absolve him of his crimes! This is what it eventually evolves into. Dear reader, can you see how this has happened? If one can commit a little sin with little or no punishment from either government or church then one soon becomes addicted to his habits and they only get worse. If you tell a child all his life the sky is purple, he will believe it with all his heart and mind. To this day, a Catholic person in Mexico can pay money to be forgiven of his sins. He or she isn't required to repent and sin no more, they are just free to do as they please. I have witnessed it. And now that's the end of my rant.
    Don't take this wrong and  assume I am grouping all Catholic people in this category. Everyone has a conscience, and most people let their conscience be the guide in this matter. There are many millions of good Catholics who abhor and fight the corruption all over the world.  

My turn to rant!

Of Murder, Mayhem and Mexico.
Mexico does not have the  death penalty. The vilest of criminals, if caught, go to jail for a maximum of only 50 years; if they don't have money that is. With money, there is usually a way out of jail and back to whatever put them there in the first place. Due to the extremely low wages for law enforcement, many police officers and military are bribed or in some ways forced into joining the drug cartels. Here they make mega dollars for protecting the drug shipment routes and defending their territory. This is why most of the assassins that work for the drug cartels are professionally trained ex-police or ex-military-turned violent criminal. These murderers have no conscience whatsoever. They glory in their crimes and live for the next kill. Also, since it is such easy money and there are little or no consequences for their actions. Many ex-police officers are getting into the "sport" of kidnapping and extortion.
Due to the avaricious appetite for drugs in the USA, it is only going to get worse in Mexico. All of this could be solved if (1) Mexico would reinstate the death penalty for any politician or government employee or ex-employee convicted of accepting a bribe that results in someones death. Or, other crimes like treason, murder, kidnapping and all heinous crimes against humanity. And (2) if the USA would legalize drugs, just like they did alcohol. I believe this would eventually eradicate the whole problem. If a derelict wants to do drugs, he will get them some way or another. There is no law that will stop him. And now because of the laws made to benefit the drug dealer, he is a criminal. But the Congress of the United States will not legalize this vile business, because it is just that, big business!
    In 2008-2009 there were over 2 kidnappings per day in Mexico! The victims will not go to the law because they get threatened with unconstrained retribution. And, the law is usually involved in the crime! Also, the law rarely solves the crime or arrests the perpetrator, resulting in the loss of their loved ones. Mexico is now the country with the highest rate of abductions in the world!
    On a personal note. I pin the blame for this corruption entirely on the Catholic Church and in my next post I will explain why....so don't get offended.....yet.