From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik )
Subject: Food and Shelter
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 21:06:00 GMT
Organization: (Evil Eye Creature from Mars, Inc.)
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc

Hi, seems companies this time of the year are full of chocolate,
donouts, cakes, brandy and cookies. Meanwhile, let's tell you
a real life story about an infamous even that happened in California
years ago -- the Donner party incident:

DONNER PARTY

In the spring of 1846 a large wagon train started from Independence,
Missouri, for California, then regarded as another Eden, a land where
anyone could be rich and happy. Even if most of the group chose to take the
safe, slower route which would wound up in Oregon, at Fort Bridger a group
of seventy people in twenty covered wagons elected to take the mythical
"Hasting's cutoff" in hopes of getting to California a month earlier. The
nominal head of the band was an ineffectual man named Donner.

No one at Forth Bridger could have known that the Hasting's cutoff did not
exist. But as the Donner Party was soon to discover, Hastings in his guide
to California had described a short cut which he had never seen. Stalled in
a series of terrible canyons, the party fought their way inch by inch only
to emerge into a 500 mile desert, alive with Indians.

There was no food or water; oxen and cattle died of starvation and Indians
continued to snipe at the caravan. More dead than alive, the party at last
emerged from the long desert.

Before them stood the Sierra Mountains. They struggled on, but with winter
settling in, they finally bogged down under the snow and were forced to
make camp. 

Then the real ordeal began. With no food at all, the animals were eaten.
Finally, driven mad by hunger, the party was reduced to murder and
cannibalism. Of the seventy original members, only 41 reached California
alive.

From the book "For Fear We Shall Perish" by Joseph Pigney, Page 147:

Two days after Elliot's return from Alder Creek, Mrs. Reed sent him to the
Breen cabin for more of Dolan's meat. It was the day Pat began reading the
Thirty Day's prayer. "Almighty God, grant the requests of unworthy
sinners". The wind shifted into the west and it rained all night, turning
into a hard snow the day before Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Breen, full of anguish and his prayers unanswered, felt
the terror of the storm gnawing at his courage. "Poor prospect", he wrote,
"for any kind of comfort, spiritual or temporal".

Anyway, my point is that we all should try to help people in need this
Christmas/holiday season, and this is something that is independent of
belief in theistic systems or any other world views. We have people
starving
in California still today, as well as in the rest of the world, and it
should
not take much time and effort to provide food for the needy during this
holiday time. It's time to act today, at this moment.

Have a splendid holiday season,
wishes Kent
... who's hurrying away with his son Jeff (age 20 months) for shopping
food for the needy.

-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
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"Don't just do something!  Stand there!"  -- Mystery Science Theater 3000
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc