We had the great opportunity to visit with the Lafayette County Democrats at their annual Dinner and Pie Auction tonight. We met lots of great people and had a very nice welcome in Higginsville. I didn't get the pie I really wanted but came home with some awesome Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes! I want to thank the Lafayette County Democrats for giving me a couple of minutes to speak and introduce myself. I appreciate the welcome and the comments I received after.
   The main speaker for the night was Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver. I was fortunate enough several years ago to hear him speak when he was Mayor of Kansas City at a Missouri School Counselor's Association Conference at TanTarA and was very taken with him. Tonight was just as inspiring. He is a man of wisdom and faith and very much a people person. If you ever have a chance to hear him you will not be disappointed! On a side note, I would say gooseberry is his favorite pie since he bought two! We will be at the Odessa Puddle Jumpers Days next weekend. Come out and see me and tell me what you would like to see Missouri do for you!
  

We had such a great day Saturday in Mayview! I appreciate all of the people who stopped by and introduced themselves. It was great talking to you and finding out what is important to you. I took some notes, put October 13 on my calendar to come back and praised God when it started raining. I told people I wouldn't care if we got rained out and all my things got ruined if it would just rain, and it did! Although we packed up early because of the rain, we thoroughly enjoyed the time we were there. My husband, Fred, entered his Model T (Henry) in the car show and he won a trophy. You would not believe how excited he was! It was the first time he had ever won anything like that in his life. He is still smiling about it and the trophy is in my Dining Room on the sideboard. I wonder if he expects me to keep it there?
Regardless, I am not sure I can wait til October to come visit again. I need to check out the new store and the restaurant and I think I may have to go back to talk Sadie into baking me a pie one day soon! Coconut cream?

on a sad note, when we got south toward my house the dust wasn't even settled by the rain...

I had a young man ask me the other day what was wrong with Right to Work. He said he knows it is supposed to be bad, but no one ever says why. I answered him and later got to looking at the signs and ads. He was right, none of them said why. So here is my uneducated, but very personal, take on why Right to Work is Wrong. I've looked at Right to Work states and my husband was employed in the state of Kansas for many years. Just last year he was injured on the job performing a running maintenance procedure, which means that the machine is kept running so that there is no down time in the production of the product. These can be dangerous machines but some companies value production over people. His shirt sleeve was caught in the machine and he was pulled in and almost lost his arm. He was taken to the hospital, ambulances cost too much, was cleaned up and sewn up and asked to see the company's Workman's comp doctor the next day. He went to the company's doctor who said he didn't think he should return to work yet but had to check with the HR person at the company first. Long story short, as soon as he was off workman's comp, he was fired. He tried to ask why, the company said he was careless doing his job. He filed for unemployment  (he'd worked there for over 5 years. 7 days a week, mandatory and most days over 8 hour days, again mandatory) The company denied his unemployment. Right to Work meant he had to work those 7 day weeks and when he was fired, basically for getting hurt, there was nothing he could do about it.
    I don't care if you are Union or non Union, but years ago in US History, Unions organized to get 5 day, 40 hour work weeks, decent pay, lunch breaks, vacations and paid holidays, recourse if you are unjustly fired and as you can see from my husband's example, Right to Work can allow a company to take a lot of that away.