Oh for goodness sake. I was reading an article about the completely admirable organizaton, Heifer(they do completely admirable economic development in third world countries), and what should intrude on my train of thought but my Dad's dismissive reference to our local, busy, church lady as "that old heifer".

Come to think of it, he refered to many of the sociable and social ladies of "a certain age" as heifers. Apart from the usual mild misogyny common to men who were farmers and ranchers during that part of the 1960s, what made these particular people worthy of dismissal?

I'm wondering because I am now of "a certain age" and am quite content to resemble those energetic and earnest gals. Of course I'd never refer to myself or anyone else as a gal and I certainly wouldn't ever wear those pointy-eyed, rhinestone trimmed glasses. You know, the 4H leader, precinct chairman, neighborhood association treasurer type of women.

Since I refer to myself as a general busybody I guess it is time to claim my own heiferdom. We heifers are certainly not at the head of the herd leading the charge. There are some pretty amazing women who are these days and good on them. No, we're pretty evenly distributed throughout the herd. We may not be the leaders but we're going to make dang sure that the herd keeps moving apace as we fill in, take up and start new civic enterprises; the budget committee sign-up sheet never has enough names on it. You'll add yours if you're really a heifer. You will, however, be hard pressed to get the whole motley assortment that makes up our society to your goal if us heifers get our heads down and refuse to go along.

It is not impossible to move right on past us and leave all us middling and careful examiners of position papers and voting records behind in the dust but you want to be especially careful of anyone who wants you to go there. Many of us heifers have been there and done that. At "a certain age" you've been you've been down some long dry trails. Remember Consciousness Raising? The very fact that we're here- we're participating, means we haven't been led over those cliffs of religious extremism, political extremism, apathy and self absorption. Go heifers. And Heifers.

I have two of four grandparents who came over on the boat. That should moderate my response to the waves of immigration which are forming the economy that I and my children must wrest a living from. It doesn't.

We have 8 million undocumented workers now and the president's proposal will remove whatever legal barriers there are to a huge increase in those numbers. Other barriers to immigration which kept wholesale exchanges of populations between every corner of this globe and our nation have also disappeared.

When the last large wave of immigration occured, during the turn of the century, contemporaries of my Grandma Amelia (from Germany) and Grandpa Joe (from Ireland) made the decision to emmigrate as a permanent committment. There are commuter illegals now, who divide their time, loyalty and homeland between two countries, and one characteristic of the illegals whom I know personally is an almost complete lack of civic involvement in US public life. It is very difficult to get undocumented residents of the community in which I live to report criminal activity, move to correct inequitable actions by community leaders and make an investment in the neighborhood when their residence in Mexico, their church and community are all hundreds of miles away and their primary interest is in that identity rather that the civic life of this place where they spend the large majority of their time.