Vote Already...Geez!!

There was a Presidential debate last night, I’m told. I’ll assume that the reputations of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas are still intact. For those of you who watched it, especially those with the fortitude to make it through to the end, I salute you. If I were President, I would send each of you a $500 gift card.

There is a storm raging outside, no...not the metaphorical kind, but a real one with howling wind and sideways rain. It’s loud and mysterious and utterly fascinating to watch. There’s a high wind advisory out warning of possible 50 mph gusts. My coffee is hot, my eyes and ears wide open. It’s hard to write serious political commentary when surrounded by the splendor and fury of God’s creation. But if you guys had the stones to sit through a presidential debate, I suppose the least I could do is offer a serious opinion.

So, I didn’t watch the thing. First of all, I’m in Maine. There  may be a law against reckless endangerment of the soul up here. If not, there should be. But, I did a deep dive into the content of what was screamed by each candidate. Then I read some of the reactions of friends and strangers on Facebook. I then glanced through the reactions of various commentators, some of whom I admire, some I detest. Nothing I have read came as a surprise. In fact, anyone who expected a different debate from the one we got hasn’t been paying attention. This is who they are. This is who we have become.

I hope, for the sake of the country, that neither of these candidates agree to another debate. I think we’ve all seen enough. I don’t believe anyone’s mind was changed last night. The only purpose the debate served was to illustrate just how far we have fallen, just how removed from basic decency we have drifted. To all of you people around the world who may have tuned in, let me just say that eventually we will recover our dignity. We will overcome this insanity. Don’t write us off. Every country has episodes of disorder and chaos. We’ve survived far worse than this.

Vote already...geez!

That’ll Do

This morning my eyes opened just a bit before 6 o’clock. I laid in bed and listened. Although there wasn’t any wind and the water wasn’t stirring, I knew I was at the lake. Quantabacook makes a sound. It’s hard to describe. You have to be listening for it but its there, soft and distant. Part of it is the pulse of so much life in the deep woods that surround it and under the depths of the clear cold water. But the other part is the fact that all the competing sounds of civilization have been filtered out. When there are no muffled roars of air conditioning or car engines, even the buzz of electricity, you can hear everything else...finally.

It’s still cloudy. Some might say dreary. But as I write this sitting just inside the sliding door that leads out onto the deck, this is my view...

If it looks like I’m seven steps from the water, that’s because...I’m seven steps from the water. They won’t let you build cabins this close anymore. Thank God for the 1950’s. 

Pam woke up soon after me this morning. She is on vacation and there is nothing that my wife enjoys more than sleeping in. But not here. She never sleeps in unless its pouring down rain. I knew what she was up to the minute she appeared at my side. It was time for her morning kayak run.

She’ll be gone for an hour or so, gliding along, reacquainting herself with each camp, having conversations with all the loons that will follow her around the lake. Breakfast will have to wait. 

We have the next three days to ourselves. Weather doesn’t look great, but the forecast is for sunny skies and cooler temps starting Thursday which is the day when our friends arrive for a visit. They’ve never been to Maine before. Sharing this place with friends is for us like the anticipation of Christmas morning when we were kids! We never tire of showing friends our favorite places. We never tire of seeing the expressions on their faces when they see the lake for the first time.

So, three weeks of this will have to do me until next summer. Hopefully when we return in 2021 it will be to our own place where we will begin a new lifetime of memories.

When Pam returned from her kayak adventure I asked her what it was like. She showed me this picture she took just around the cove from our dock...

Yes. That’ll do.

Decisions

This weekend was not a typical Maine escape. In some ways it doesn’t even feel like I’m in Maine yet. First of all, we’re staying in what the kids are fond of calling a tiny house. When I say “tiny” I mean that its so small I can’t brush my teeth in the tiny bathroom unless the door is open! I have to lower my head to walk out onto the deck, the sliding glass door apparently not made for anyone over 5’8”. No, this weekend has been full of the sorts of things I usually come to Maine to escape...decisions.

It occurs to me that my life has passed through several phases. Yours has too if you think about it. To everything there is a season, is how the old prophets described it. For me, the first phase lasted until I graduated from college. I was a kid, largely dependent upon my parents for guidance, food and shelter. Then I became an adult, a free man, responsible for his own care and feeding. I had to find a job, find a place to live, buy car insurance, learn how to live on a budget. Thankfully, those dreadful years of being a lonely free agent ended when I married the beautiful, and beguiling Pamela Jean White. I was still an adult, doing all those scary adult things, but now I had this amazing women doing it along with me. That lasted for three years, then kids arrived, which launched the two of us into the longest phase of life...parenthood. This phase was spectacularly expensive and exhausting in every possible way, but it was—and remains—the greatest thing we have ever done. However, eventually our living breathing tax deductions transitioned into adults themselves, leaving us empty-nesters...our current life phase. Now, we find ourselves on the cusp of the next stage of life...retirement, or something approximating retirement. In my line of work, it’s complicated.

To that end, we have spent the past two days and nights searching for what we have been dreaming of for the past decade, the perfect lake house in Maine. Our plan has always been to buy a place when we were ready, once we could A. Afford it and B. Have the time to enjoy it. Once we buy the place, life will change for us. Our intention is to live here from the first of June through the end of September every year. That is a significant life change, one which we are very excited to begin. But it comes with more questions than answers. We have found a place that seems almost too good to be true, but is located an hour and forty minutes away from the part of the State of Maine which has our heart, Mid Coast, Camden/Rockland. This place is in the DownEast area of the state, 55 minutes from Bar Harbor/Acadia, 25 minutes from the town of Ellsworth—which is no Camden. 

We know Camden like the back of our hand. We know the best places to eat, we know the sites to see and the best places to shop. Ellsworth might as well be Mars. So the question is, do we wait to find a place in our favorite stomping grounds where the lakes aren’t as plentiful and the houses are more expensive, or do we start this next phase of life in a completely new place, almost two additional hours away from Short Pump?

So, my mind is racing. Whenever big decisions loom on the horizon, I find myself retreating into humor, sometimes dark humor. It has been this way all of my life. Perhaps it’s my way of dealing with pressure and uncertainty, my subconscious strategy for self preservation. Whatever the reason, these cartoons have been quite helpful of late...

Made It

We made it in record time, a breezy, easy 13.5 hours...

We pulled up into the little cottage that will be our home for the weekend while we go cabin-hunting...

Pretty adorable place. Unfortunately, it has the smallest bathroom in the entire history of Western civilization. The lake is a tiny pond by Maine standards, and too murky for our taste, but we won’t be spending much time here as we will be out on adventures all day.

Last night, we drove into Camden and had fish and chips at Sea Dogs. This sign greeted us just inside the front door...

Sooo Maine!! 

Travel Day Jokes

Heading out to Maine this morning. I feel the need to leave my readers with something profound, thoughts that will encourage and inspire during these challenging times. Instead, all I’ve got is this:

Freddie Mercury, Bruno Mars, and Venus Williams all walk into the same bar.

And they didn’t even planet...

Why are most Protestants dog people?

Because they don’t like...cat licks.

I’m writing a new book about the proper way to fall down a staircase.

It’s a step by step guide.

Blue Lights

Last night, Pam and I met our small group over at the new Hope Thrift store in Belgrade for the last time before we head out to Maine. Love those people so much. So, this week we continued this video series we’ve been going through on the subject of Race Relations and the Gospel. In it, two pastors, one black and one white, discuss their different experiences on the matter and try to find common ground centered around what our faith teaches. This week the topic was the very different perspectives whites and blacks often have with regards to the police. A lively discussion was had about this contentious topic, in the midst of which we offered our various experiences of when we have been pulled over by the cops. Jokes were made about how some of us have had much more experience with this than others! How much of what we have all seen in cell phone videos of encounters with the police could have been avoided with following the police officers instructions, hands where he can see them, “yes sir, no sir”, that sort of thing. There was disagreement in our group. That’s ok. We all agreed that when someone winds up dead, shot in the back, this is never an acceptable outcome.

And so...since this is 2020, on my way home, this happened:

As I alluded to earlier, I have had more than my fair share of encounters with the thin blue line in my life. But, its been a while. Let’s just say that I am not the most meticulous rule follower who ever lived when I happen to be behind the wheel. There I was, fully engaged in an in depth conversation about race and the police with my wife who, when she wants to be, is a fascinating conversationalist. Just as I exited the Willey Bridge, I saw the sudden flash of those sinister blue lights from the darkness of the median. In that instant I glanced down at my dash and saw the number 60. Busted!  Pam and I both could not help stifling a laugh. 

I pulled over and rolled down the window, placed my hands on the wheel at 10 and 2 and awaited my fate. It’s interesting that in all the times I have ever been pulled over I have never once wondered why? I have always known that I was guilty of something because...well...I’m me. Anyway, One of Henrico County’s finest walks up to the window, identifies himself and informs me that the reason he has pulled me over is because he clocked me doing 61 in a 45 mile per hour zone and he was going to have to issue me a citation. I handed him my drivers license and car registration. He was wearing a mask, which I thought was ironic. I had to fight the impulse to make a wisecrack like, “Whoa, I thought only bad guys wore masks!”, but the last thing you want to do when pulled over by the police is make jokes at their expense, so I thought better of it. The officer was professional, even courteous. He explained everything about the citation, etc.. and in no time we were on our way. Pam texted the group to fill them all in on the ironic ending to our night. Several cracks were made about my red Cadillac and obvious white privileged etc...hardy har har!

But, you know what? When those blue lights went on, just like every other time they have in my life, it never entered my mind that my life might be in danger. Never once. I have never been pulled over for the crime of driving around in the wrong neighborhood, or being in a car with a woman of another race. I have no experience with the emotions that must race through the minds of some African Americans when they see those blue lights. To the extent that any segment of our society fears that a routine encounter with law enforcement might possible cost them their lives is a tragedy. It’s unacceptable and we have got to figure out a way to stop it from happening.

The police officer on the Willey Bridge was the consummate professional and he was doing his job. I was speeding and he pulled me over because it’s his job to enforce the law. I treated him with respect because he wears a badge and I acknowledge his authority over me on the highway. But, if he had violated his authority in any way in his treatment of me it would have been a different story. I am a citizen endowed by the constitution with certain unalienable rights. Not only am I expected to obey the law, so is that officer. If either of us don’t there should be consequences. That’s not pro-police or anti-police. That’s pro rule of law.

So, I will be sure to pay my speeding ticket fine before January 27, 2021. No, I will NOT appear in court. No, I will NOT attend driver’s school. Puhleeze!!

Other Countries I Like

Lately, it has become fashionable to speak of American decline. It’s hard to scan any news publication these days without seeing some opinion piece about America’s impending crack up. Frankly, much of the talk is well deserved. By almost any measure, we are a hot mess at the moment. Sometimes, I try to imagine what I would think of America if I was from somewhere else, anywhere else. People around the world must look at us and think, what the hell? But, I’m not from somewhere else. For better or for worse, I’m an American. Despite all of the tumult and chaos that comes with my citizenship, I deeply love this place. Whenever I hear people talk about giving up their citizenship and moving to Canada or some such thing I think, what a moron. I mean, for goodness sake, Nancy...man up!! 

Anyway, this blog is not about being an American in 2020. Rather, its about the exact opposite. I feel the need to reassure the rest of the world that we are not, in fact...insane. We are just going through a phase, not unlike a rebellious toddler or a petulant teenager. Compared to most of the rest of the world, we are the equivalent of a teenager...in nation years. 244 years old is quite young for a nation-state these days. My message to the rest of the world is, be patient with us. Soon, we will get our driver’s license and be out of your hair!

No, this blog is about one American’s admiration for other countries out there in the world. I’m not as well travelled as I would like to be. I’ve visited probably a half dozen other countries during my life, a number I hope to at least double before I assume room temperature. But as a history lover and voracious reader, I consider myself more knowledgeable about the nations of the world than the average bear. As a result, I have developed opinions about other places. There are nations of the world which I am kindly disposed to for reasons of language, culture and history. And since everyone loves...lists...I have composed a list of the countries around the world that I admire the most, the places that I hold in the highest regard. These are the nations and the people among whom I would choose to live if I had to for some reason. I present them here in no particular order or rank, along with the reasons for my fondness:

1. Australia

A beautiful place. Stunning, in fact. I love the fact that it is...down under, literally down there at the bottom of the survivable world. I love their accents, the ruggedness and vastness of the land. I love how the entire place was started as a penal colony, a place for British crooks to go to live out their sentences. And now look at them! Amazing.

2. The British Isles

I use this formulation, despite how it would surely rile those who actually live there. Yes, I know that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are four different places with very different traditions etc...but for me they will always be connected. As an American, I feel indebted to this great island, for their rule of law, their language, hell...the Magna Carta for goodness sake. Not to mention Shakespeare! 

3. Canada

Although you couldn’t pay me enough money to actually, you know, live there, if there are nicer people anywhere in the world, I can’t imagine who they would be. The world could use a heavy dose of Canadian manners at the moment. These are easily the best neighbors any modern nation could ask for, educated, prosperous, and unlike their noisy southern neighbors, they never stick their noses in other people’s business! If it just wasn’t so stinking cold!!

4. Italy

Never been, one of greatest personal failings of my life so far. Their history is vast. They once controlled the world for 1500 consecutive years, people! Today, and for most of my lifetime their government has been a feckless mess, they of the 2897 prime ministers in the fifty years after WWII. But, good lord in heaven the food, the scenery, the romance. The fluidity and beauty of their language alone would be worth living there for at least a year! Architecture? History? Are you kidding me? What a country!

5. New Zealand

A country roughly the size of California with the population of Los Angeles...without the smog and celebrity nonsense that comes with the City of Angels. Ruggedly beautiful countryside combined with an educated and productive people, and plenty of room to stretch out. Sign me up!

6. Germany

I know, I know. It’s hard to warm up to Germanic tribes. The Kaiser, Adolph Hitler and the World Wars that flowed from Bismarck's spawn and all that. But still, Germany fascinates me. I’m fascinated by their tenacity, their efficiency and their remarkable ability to regenerate themselves from not one but two devastating humiliations in the past one hundred years, to now once again dominate the European continent. And, of course, there’s the matter of Ludwig Von Beethoven!

There are more on my list, but I’ve got to go to work. 

Trip Guilt

Yesterday was weird. 

With only four days remaining until our trip to Maine, I have been trying my best to recover from this aching hip thing called sacroiliitis, or at least get it to the point where it doesn’t hurt so much. I’ve been taking the meds I was given and refraining from strenuous activity, yada yada yada...There has been some improvement, but not fast enough for my taste. So, yesterday there I was avoiding all strenuous activity, watching the U.S. Open on television, taking hot jacuzzi baths and using a heating pad. What was my wife doing? Rage cleaning!

That’s not entirely fair. She wasn’t actually...mad...or anything, it just seemed like it to me from my view from the couch. She cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom, scrubbed the wood floors, vacuumed the entire house, all the while doing load after load of laundry. Meanwhile, I sat there feeling more and more worthless by the minute. Guilt began to creep in. I started to imagine what she was probably thinking but was too nice to say, “How convenient that your back goes on the fritz just when all this work has to be done!!” Then, just about the time when I was about to offer my limited services to help, she says to me:

...I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m upset with you for laying around the house watching golf while I’m running around like a crazy woman cleaning this house. No. I am not. Your job, right now is to get your back working right so you can drive me to Maine without having to stop every two hours to get out and stretch. So, stop feeling guilty!!

Isn’t it weird how when you’ve been married to someone for 36 years, you start to be able to read each other’s minds? You can tell what’s going on up there just from body language!

This morning, the house is immaculate. My back feels a bit better than it felt yesterday, and we now have three days left until zero hour. Today is packed with business activity, as will be tomorrow for half the day. Then our COVID tests Tuesday afternoon, and packing up Wednesday afternoon.

Poor Lucy will soon discover that she will not be coming along with us...again. She will not be pleased. She already knows something is happening because the staging area for trips to Maine always starts filling the dining room weeks before we leave. She has seen the traveling stuff accumulating in there. Her hopes are high, at this point. But, with some of our time being taken up with lake house hunting on this trip, there will be times when we will be away from the cabin for long periods of time. Having Lucy along will not work well under those circumstances. So, the poor girl will believe with all her heart that she is going to Maine...right up to the moment when when we close the door in her face on Thursday morning. It’s a horrible feeling. I hate leaving her for so long  and I love having her up there with us. She loves the lake more than we do! So, I’ll have guilt weighing down on me until we get to Pennsylvania. Luckily for us, Lucy will have one of her best buddies taking care of her...Bernadette, along with her omnipresent fiancé, Isaac. They will lavish her with love and attention which will hopefully help compensate for our treachery.

Has America Lost Its Mind?

Social media has had a bad week. Truth be told, its had a bad year. The entire past decade hasn’t been that great either, come to think of it. Sometimes it’s great. I’ll see a beautiful picture of someone’s new baby or their hilarious dog doing something adorable and it makes me smile. Other days I’ll come across some bad news about an old friend. I’ll send him a private message or pick up the phone and connect, a very good thing. But most days, social media is the place I go that convinces me that we Americans are losing our minds. What I see on Facebook—I gave up Twitter a year ago—is essentially the Balkanization of my country, the great herding of us into our exclusive enclaves of ethnic, religious and political identities. Once safely there, we feed on only the things that confirm our tribal beliefs. The process has made us dumber, meaner, and uglier.

A couple days ago a story appeared on my feed. There was a picture of dark menacing clouds gathering over the Capital building with the ominous headline...A Storm Is Brewing. The story had been reposted by a friend, who had reposted it from someone else, who had passed it along from a blog written by some other guy with 5000 followers who I had never heard of. The author, it turns out is a semi-obscure blogger, (I know a thing or two about obscure bloggers!), known for writing very conservative opinions for a group called Colorado Republicans. So, like any concerned citizen who learns that there is a storm brewing in my nation’s capital, I read the story. Wow.

According to the writer of the piece, who assures us right away in the very first sentence that he is not an alarmist, proceeds to tell us that there is a massive conspiracy cooking in the highest levels of Washington, the result of which will be violent civil war after the 2020 election, regardless of who wins!! Can you imagine how frightening the story might have been if this guy was an alarmist? Anyway, here’s the scoop: If Donald Trump wins, top officials of the Democratic Party are plotting violent insurrections to punish the citizenry for re-electing Trump. This violence will make the protests since George Floyd’s murder look like child’s play. To protect Americans from this violence, top officials of the Trump administration are drafting up Marshall Law edicts for the entire country. If, on the other hand, Joe Biden wins, equal violence will be unleashed in the streets of every American city—with the active support and assistance of Biden-Harris and the leadership of the Democrat party—to enact retribution against those who elected Trump in 2016. What evidence does the writer offer as proof of these allegations? We are assured that his information comes from a highly placed government official who shared this treasonous information with him personally. The reason he is so certain it is all true is because ordinarily, this friend of his hardly ever talks about what’s going on at his job. That’s it. His one source for this bombshell story is some anonymous guy he knows in some unnamed department of the government.

After reading this story, I rubbed my tired eyes with my fingers and pondered how we have arrived at this point. That so thinly sourced, illogically reasoned claptrap could possibly be believed by rational human beings is quite beyond my comprehension level. But, then I read through the comment section. The unanimous reaction of nearly all those bothering to offer an opinion of this piece was...This is so scary!! Well, of course it is! If it weren’t, you wouldn't be reading it, it never would have been reposted a hundred times. So, why was it reposted so many times, eventually finding its way onto my feed? Two words...confirmation bias. If the story sounds like something you think the other side capable of, then you are more likely to believe it, no matter how obscure the writer may be or how little evidence he offers to confirm his assertions.

After this depressing experience, I asked my wife a hypothetical question that went like this. “How different would you feel about the world right now if you hadn’t read anything on Facebook for the last twelve months?” Suppose our collective consciousness had not absorbed anything from social media. Would we be better off or worse off? My contention is that we would all be smarter, nicer, and better looking...and in much less need of therapy. 

The Dumbest Idea I’ve Ever Had?

One week from today, Pam and I will be in Maine. This time I’ll be packing long pants. High temperatures promise to be in the mid 50’s to mid-60’s, low temperatures mostly in the 40’s. We might get lucky and catch a day or two in the 70’s, but we also might get a day or two in the 40’s. I sure hope not! But, no matter, we will be in Maine for a little over three weeks and that’s just fine with me.

Meanwhile, we have entered an informal lockdown-ish, self imposed, semi-isolation mode leading up to our departure. Pam is somewhat a stickler in this regard, although she is much more relaxed than she was last time we went to Maine. I think we all have relaxed a bit, although COVID is still alive and well,  lurking out there. Our pre-trip COVID tests will be next Tuesday, in compliance with Maine state requirements for incoming travelers. So, my planned trip to Mona’s yesterday had to be scrapped when both my intrepid assistant and my wife had the same reaction to my plan to smoke cigars, inside at a place with no social distance arrangements and no mask requirement, “Ok, this is about the dumbest idea you’ve ever come with.” My defense amounted to the fact that I had honestly never given the COVID implications a second thought, or even a first thought. Going to Mona’s is just something the fellas do every couple a months. Besides, the area of dumbest ideas I have ever come up with is an awfully broad field of study for such an offhand accusation! Doug Greenwood was the first to point this out...”No way. You’ve come up with lots dumber ideas than this!” Yeah, so...we decided that sitting inside, blowing tobacco smoke in each other’s faces for a couple hours probably wasn’t the ideal pre-trip routine. Yet another fine tradition laid upon the alter of this interminable pandemic.

In other news, I have been dealing with a medical issue for the past three-four weeks. It has been quite painful and troubling, and as a result, the mind begins leaping to ridiculous conclusions. Isn’t it funny how our minds so quickly jump to the worst case scenarios? Anyway, I finally went to the doctor yesterday and discovered that all is well. I do not have cancer, tumors, gall stones, kidney stones, or any of the other wild diagnosis I had come up with in my head. Instead, its something called Sacroiliiatis, a fancy term for...sore hip. A course of prednisone, 1000 milligrams of Tylenol, and wet heat for a week or two should do the trick, says my dorky, but gifted family doctor, who also opined that I probably hurt it lifting heavy boxes at Hope Thrift. The very last thing that wonderful place needs is one less volunteer, so my three weeks in Maine comes at the perfect time. I can recuperate from this hip thing while I’m there and be ready to head back to the store when I return.

Finally, I have a buddy named Tom Allen. Cool guy. U of R grad, goes to my church. He occasionally sends me hilarious stuff. Some of it I can even share with the general public! What follows was one of his best submissions. After the Mona’s thing and the collective cluelessness of my guys to it’s implications, it rings especially true!!

I don’t know about you, But I’m thinking that now might be a good time for a woman President...

You Guys Hear About This??

There was a huge blowout bash at the Waldorf-Astoria to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Manhattan Comedy Club recently. Everybody who was anybody in the humor business was there. Mr. Impressions was there, of course, along with Mr. Slapstick, Mr. Improv and Mr. Standup. Then, Mr. Pun walks in and immediately ten people collapse on the floor dead. The next morning’s headline in the New York Times was:

Pun In. Ten Dead.

AWAY, Season One. A Review

There’s a new show that is all the rage on Netflix. It’s called AWAY, and it’s about the first crew of astronauts to attempt to land on Mars. Pam and I were excited to watch anything about space travel and those crazy engineers who run NASA. A couple of nights ago we finished season one. So much for The Right Stuff, or even Apollo 13. This was more like This Is Us in space. It looks like the folks at NASA have gone through sensitivity training and gotten in touch with their feelings. I hated it.

So, the story revolves around the multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-gendered, multi-sexually orientated crew of five, led by an American woman, Emma. We are led to believe that she wouldn't even be on this mission had not her husband, Matt, fallen ill with some genetic disorder that has left him in a wheelchair back in mission control. The rest of the crew checks off all the correct 21st century boxes, there’s the carefree second in command, Rahm—from India, Lu, the Chinese officer who gets outed as a lesbian barely 24 hours into the mission, the surly Russian cosmonaut, Misha, the most experienced guy on the crew and the only one with an old school spaceman personality, who naturally, goes blind during the trip and gets transformed to a fuzzy teddy bear right before our eyes. Finally, there’s the botanist from the Sudan, Kwesi, who has never been in space before, but serves the important purpose of not only representing the African continent, but also the community of faith, when we discover that he is the only crew member who believes in God via his “what are the odds” devout Judaism!! Back in Mission Control, the leader of NASA is a gray haired woman who is hailed as a great leader despite the fact that she shows zero qualities of leadership beyond frowning at people who bring her bad news and suggesting that everyone meet in the conference room immediately! Meanwhile, Matt seems to be the hero of the show since he is constantly coming up with Jerry-rigged solutions to the constant stream of malfunctions that plague the ship, all the while having to deal with his constantly disobedient 15 year old daughter and her Latino boyfriend. If that’s not hard enough, poor Matt has to fend off the growing affections of the stand-in mother, hand picked by NASA, to look after said daughter. Not to be outdone, we discover that Rahm has the hots for his commanding officer, Emma, setting up the question in all viewers minds...Which of them will be unfaithful first??

This show, in only ten episodes has broken the all time tear count set by its inspiration—This Is Us—by a country mile. Every five minutes, these highly skilled, meticulously trained scientists burst into uncontrollable sobbing at the slightest provocation. Emma, the commander, is the leader of these water works, constantly provoked to tears by her daughter, her husband, and her own feelings of inadequacy. Somehow, this woman has been chosen to lead this historic mission, to command the most significant human endeavor ever attempted by man and womankind, despite the fact that she clearly would rather turn the ship around and head back to earth to council her daughter about the dangers of premarital sex. She is a hot mess of regret, indecision, and self doubt...you know...the Right Stuff.

This is the thing I don’t understand about Hollywood. These are the people who are constantly lecturing the rest of us about our intolerance, our racism, our hopelessly provincial misogyny. And yet, this is what they serve up as an example of a strong woman...Emma. It is not possible to overemphasize just how uninspiring she is as a leader and a woman. When her flailing, mutinous  crew desperately needs a firm decisive leader, Emma gives them weakness, indecision and petulance. She is constantly having to be reassured by her husband back home that she’s going to be ok. It’s pathetic. Hollywood, it turns out, doesn’t know a damn thing about what a strong woman looks or acts like. I do. I grew up with a bunch of them. My sisters would have had the crew of Atlas doing their jobs without any belly-aching in five minutes, never mind my mother, who would have mopped the floor up with them the first time she heard any whining. Oh, and try challenging her authority? Good luck with that.

The worst scene in season one comes as the ship is about to be incinerated by what appears to be an unavoidable series of failures. We are treated to Emma and Rahm, sitting side by side in the control room plotting the proper coordinates to try to avoid disaster...and we are asked to believe by the script writers that they have time for a ten minute side bar about their nascent feelings for each other??

Houston, we have a problem!

We won’t be watching season two.

What’s In YOUR Garage?

One of the most significant casualties of COVID has been my gym membership at AMFAM. Although I’m still paying for that membership, I have not felt comfortable going against my doctor’s strong advice to avoid the place like the plague. So, I have adapted and become a road warrior, putting in roughly 18 miles of walk/run a week along with other exercises designed to keep me south of 200 pounds. When you spend this much time on the streets of your neighborhood, you begin to notice things. Then, if you’re like me, you begin to obsess over the things you notice. For example:

There are roughly 80 homes in Wythe Trace. It is very much a typical Short Pump neighborhood, well trimmed lawns (for the most part), nice homes, and decent people. And cars. Lots of cars. Over the past five months I have begun to notice something about these cars. Finally, the other day, I decided to test my hypothesis by actually counting them. My hypothesis was confirmed and now, lucky for you guys, I am here with the fascinating results. The conclusions I have drawn from the data are solely my own.

Either in the driveway or parked on the street, I counted 152 cars in my neighborhood. This was a typical day, so that number is a reliable one. Almost two per house. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose. But, here’s where it gets interesting, (READER: I sure hope so), I counted cars from 16 different manufacturers. We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford. Here they are in no particular order: Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Suburu, Mercedes, Nissan, Hyundai, BMW, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Cooper, Jaguar, Volvo, VW, and Kia. Of the 152 cars I counted, guess how many were made by American car companies? 35. That means that 77% of the cars purchased by the folks in my neighborhood, were bought from foreign companies. Here’s how it breaks down:

Toyota= 38

Honda= 29

Ford= 17

GM= 13

Nissan= 12

Hyundai= 9

Mercedes= 7

Subaru= 5

Chrysler= 5

VW= 3

Volvo= 3

Mazda= 2

Kia= 2

Cooper= 1

Jaguar= 1

There are a thousand conclusions you could draw from these numbers, proving that old adage that statistics can be bent into any shape to tell the story you wish to tell. Some might look at these numbers and say, “Wow, isn’t it amazing the amount of consumer choice we have courtesy of Globalization!” Others will look at these same numbers and say, “Toyota sells more cars to us than the top three American companies combined!! That’s economic suicide.” Some will see these numbers as exhibit A in the case of why we keep losing manufacturing jobs and the support they give to the middle class. Others will see the same numbers and bemoan the stifling effects of union work rules and contracts that have priced American cars out of the marketplace. Others will say that without globalization, we would be stuck with inferior American-made cars, insisting that we buy so many Toyotas and Hondas because they are better cars! 

What about me, you might ask? I live in Wythe Trace. What’s in my garage? Well, so far in the 35+ years of being married I have purchased a total of eleven cars. Three of them were from foreign companies, a Honda Accord, a Volkswagen Scirocco, and Pam’s current Hyundai. The rest have been American cars and/or SUV’s, including my current Cadillac. I must admit that the national origin of the manufacturer never really entered in to my buying decisions. Besides, in the world we live in things can get complicated. For example, my Cadillac XT5 is a General Motors product, but it was assembled in Shanghai, China with a transmission made in France. Pam’s Hyundai SantaFe? Montgomery, Alabama. So, that whole Buy American thing can be confusing as all get out!

But, what about American jobs?? When I bought my first car, I was 20 years old. Back then, the only foreign made cars I knew anything or cared anything about were the Datsun 240-Z and the Mercedes Benz 450-SL, neither of which I could afford. I liked them because they were hot and fast. What did I buy? A used VW Beetle, which I would probably still be driving today if the floorboard hadn't eventually rusted through. But, 40 years ago, the BIG THREE American companies dominated. Now they don’t. I’m not losing any sleep over it. The way I see it, if they want to regain their place of dominance they need to build better cars. What about American jobs? Which ones? The jobs of the guy at the Hyundai dealership who works in the shop? How about the woman on the assembly line in Montgomery, Alabama who helped put Pam’s SantaFe together? Do those jobs count?

Globalization is a complex and sometimes unsettling thing. There are negatives to everything, winners and losers in every economic upheaval. But honestly, would you rather go back to the days of the Chevy Chevette and the Ford Pinto? Those are examples of the total crap that used to roll off Detroit assembly lines before Toyota and Honda came along.

No thanks.

The Death of Optimism?

This morning, a headline from a story from NBC news caught my eye:

Fauci says U.S. must “hunker down” for Fall and Winter

Then the money quote in the first paragraph of the story:

“ Don’t ever, ever underestimate the potential of the pandemic. And don’t try to look at the rosy side of things.”

Somewhere, Norman Vincent Peale is rolling over in his grave.

Apparently, the Era of Optimism is officially over, the power of positive thinking, a thing of the past. All those corny songs from the old days about Accentuating the Positive and walking on the sunny side of the street are relics from a bygone era. Today is all about sober acceptance of the worst case scenarios of life.

Look...I get it. Constantly downplaying the seriousness of COVID is foolish. Breezily dismissing the deaths of nearly 200,000 Americans as some sort of hoax is ignorant and dangerous. But, my experience of 62 years informs me that things seldom if ever turn out as bad as predicted. Maybe this will be the exception, but better than expected outcomes have had an astonishing record of dependability for most of my life. So, with all due respect to Dr. Fauci, I will take COVID seriously, but I will not succumb to pessimistic acceptance of the inevitability of the “potential” of this pandemic. There’s another potential at play here, Doc, and that’s the potential of a vaccine, the potential of better outcomes than the models have suggested. If I have to make a bet on which potential wins, I’ll put my money and my energy on...success, not failure.

The Fall and Winter might very well be dark. But if all of us give ourselves over to the inevitability of the darkness, we guarantee its arrival.

Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Be considerate of others. Practice Social distancing. But remain positive and optimistic as the weather turns colder. Reject pessimism. Hold on fast to hope.

A Brutal Reminder

Every once in a while we humans are confronted with the inexorable passage of time and the debilitating impact it has on us. Most of the time we are too busy to notice. Then suddenly it appears, staring us in the face. We are always surprised, taken aback by the decline and fall. We shouldn’t be, but we are. It was that way with a friend today. He looked at me, straight in the face, as it dawned on him that his memory had completely failed. He had not remembered what we had just been talking about. His eyes became vacant, as if he was seeing someone else beside me, someone he didn’t know at all. He caught himself, realized that I had driven a long way to talk with him about something of which he no longer had any memory. He became embarrassed. His eyes filled with tears. We both fell into a painful silence. 

I had heard rumors of his decline, but until this awkward moment, I had no evidence that it was true. But now there is no ambiguity. He is no longer able to rely on his mind to tell him the truth. I can no longer council him with the confidence that he is comprehending my advice. It is a bitter pill for both of us. The moment when the realization of his diminishment registered on his face will be one that I will never forget.

The slow train of cognition winds its way through the mountains at its own pace, slowly for some, brutally swift for others. But it comes for us all eventually. Unfortunately for me, I get to observe its arrival more so than most because of the nature of my work. I hate it. I hate that its so arbitrary. I hate the unfairness of it all. I leave each of these encounters diminished, drained of something for a while, until life’s momentum sweeps me up again in its mighty current. Tonight, I think about my friend, the terrified look on his face, and the heavy silence that descended in that dark moment, and I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth...”

With Friends Like Me...

So, my friend is having a colonoscopy today. She's had a rough couple of weeks, what with her reconstructive surgery getting cancelled last minute when the surgeon had to quarantine for COVID. Now, she’s been fasting for the last 36 hours leading up to today’s procedure. So, what do I do to encourage her through these dark hours? This:

Does this make me a terrible person? Perhaps. Showing someone images of delicious food when they are fasting and starving to death might be considered thoughtless and cruel to some. However, to others it will be seen for what it is...a fiendishly clever ploy to make the recipient of such photographs simultaneously amused and angry, and temporarily distracted from her hunger. Instead of obsessing over how starved she feels, she is now wondering what she ever did to deserve having a friend like me?! I think her personal favorite was this next one I sent her with the subtitle: You, on the ride home after your colonoscopy...

The Great Lake House Hunt

The Great Lake House hunt of 2020 is in full swing. It is at once exciting and frustrating, exhilarating and disappointing. The problem seems to be there are too many people like us—out of staters—gobbling up real estate in Maine, attempting to flee the big cities of the northeast and COVID. A house will go on the market and have a dozen offers in ten minutes, people perfectly willing to buy the place sight unseen. That’s not our style. So, the search continues.

Here’s the real dilemma. For us, especially Pam, the lake is the thing. Do we want a nice house? Sure. We have requirements of the house that are non-negotiable. But the house could be absolutely perfect but if it’s on a tiny uninteresting lake, no sale. To the contrary, if the house needs lots of work, but sits on the edge of the right lake, we would be all in. We aren’t the type of people who go to the lake to sit on the deck and enjoy the scenery. We spend the majority of our time in Maine either on the dock or on the water. We fish, kayak, paddle board. If it were possible we would take all of our meals on the dock! So far, we haven’t found the right combination of house and lake. But the journey has just begun. Our realtor insists that people will start listing their houses up there after Labor Day. That’s when more opportunities will appear. 

One more thing about this search. We have discovered that the region of Maine that has our heart—MidCoast—is home to the priciest real estate in the state. If we were willing to expand our search to include the Downeast areas of Bar Harbor etc.,we might find more properties at better prices. I’m sure this is true. But, here’s the deal...there’s a reason why we love the Camden/Rockland/Rockport area. It’s beautiful, yes, but it’s also less touristy. There aren’t any cruise ships docking in these waters. It calls itself “Where the Mountains meet the sea.” We have been enchanted for nearly ten years now. So, if it’s been our dream to buy a place here, we need not give up that dream too quickly being in too big a rush to buy a place. Patience is a virtue, or so I’m told. Although I have no first hand experience with the concept, I intend to test the truth of that expression over the next month or so when we return for our second 2020 trip.

Wish us luck!

What Are You Afraid Of?

What are you afraid of? It’s an important question, perhaps the most important question of this moment. It is the Holy Grail of politics because when they find out the answer, they will find a way to exploit it. Politicians know that the quickest and most powerful way to motivate voters is to tap in to their darkest fears. It is a strategy that has worked for years and continues to work today. Resentment, anger and grievance are important, sure...but fear is where the big money has always been. Political consultants, the job that has managed to dislodge used car salesman from the top of the most loathsome profession list, have earned their money by crafting messages intended to exploit our fears. It is the coin of the realm. No Presidential candidate can succeed without this exploitation. When you hear the term motivating the base it actually means...scaring the base. Whoever wins in November will be the candidate who does the best job of scaring you. Remember that on November 3rd.

Here are just a few examples of the ways political parties have tried to scare me over the years. This is not an exhaustive list. There are lots more, but these are the ones that stand out in my memory.

I remember being warned in 1980 that if I voted for Ronald Reagan, he would provoke a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

I remember being warned in 1992 that Bill Clinton was a closet Socialist and wanted to dismantle the military.

In 2008, I was warned that if Barack Obama was elected, private property rights would be eviscerated, the economy would collapse, and my taxes would triple.

In 2016, I was assured that Hillary Clinton was a lesbian who, along with George Soros, would usher in Socialism on a grand scale.

Not to be outdone, I was warned that a vote for Donald Trump would result in homosexuals and all immigrants living in America being rounded up and sent to re-education camps...or something.

Now, the warnings are coming hot and heavy, so fast and furious that I can barely keep up. A Joe Biden Presidency is a carefully orchestrated head fake that will end with him being declared mentally incompetent and being replaced by Kamal Harris, a far left Socialist committed to destroying the economy and ramming slavery reparations down our throats. Even worse, electing Biden/Harris will result in the wholesale raping and pillaging of American suburbs by mobs of Antifa/BLM thugs.

Meanwhile, four more years of Donald Trump will usher in a shooting civil war and the installation of American Nazism, with Donald Trump our 21st century Adolf Hitler.

It’s a wonder any of us have the courage to get out of bed in the morning.

The fact that literally NONE of the horror stories that I have been warned about for the past 40 years actually happened, it doesn’t seem to make any difference. The American voter continues to fall for it, we continue to be manipulated. Nobody votes for anybody out of a sense of hope or joy at the prospect of a brighter future. Instead we vote to stave off some form of Armageddon, to keep the sinister wolves at bay.

I’m sick of it...aren’t you?

Thank You

With regards to yesterday’s blog, an observation. I have always found it fascinating that human beings can observe the same event, examine the same man, yet come away with wildly different conclusions. We see this all the time throughout society, from the very smart men and women on the Supreme Court, to the ordinary men and women who sit on juries, down to the very stupid people who end up in politics. Humans disagree. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who offered an opinion on He Fights. Some of you were in agreement with my views on Donald Trump. Others took the time to voice a contrary viewpoint on the man. But, everyone did so respectfully, without ad hominem attacks on me or each other. It ended up being a forum for people to state their views about a contentious subject without it turning into a dumpster fire of accusation and bad faith. For this I am grateful and encouraged.

Thank You, and have a great weekend.

He Fights

I have done a reasonably good job of staying clear of politics in this space, especially considering that there’s an election going on, but to totally ignore the ugly elephant in the room seems a bit gutless. So, today I will enter that swamp of horrors. In doing so I am fully aware that I will anger, disappoint, frustrate and annoy at least half of you, maybe more. I know this because there are lots of people in my life, people who I love and respect, who support a man who I find to be a loathsome embarrassment. In my desire to understand rather than be understood, I have recently asked many of them a simple question, “What is it about Donald Trump that makes you support his re-election?” The answers I have gotten have been interesting, to say the least.

First of all, almost everyone I have asked begins their answer with a disclaimer that goes something like this: Look, I know he can be a real asshole...or, Sure, he tells a lot of lies, and I wish he would get off Twitter. But then, after acknowledging his deficiencies of character, they invariably say some variation of this, “But Doug, he fights!”

I don’t think that I have ever encountered a simple declarative sentence pregnant with more mischief than...he fights. If ever there was a sentence in greater need of a prepositional phrase, I can’t imagine what it would be. He fights...is begging for clarification such as:

He fights...against what?

He fights...for whom?

He fights...on whose behalf?

He fights...to what end?

When pressed, my friends struggle to finish the sentence. “He just fights. He doesn’t take any s**t from anybody.”

When I follow up with something like, “But, what has all this fighting accomplished? Are we better off because of his fighting? Is he better off ? What has all this combativeness gotten us?”, they usually answer some versions of, “He’s got all the right enemies! He hates the same people I hate!” When I ask, “like who?”, they answer, “For one thing, the press!!” Back and forth we go.

Ok, combativeness, in and of itself, isn’t a flaw. I want a little combativeness in any President or CEO. But when it becomes the defining characteristic of who you are, fighting becomes dysfunctional. In the case of Donald Trump, I concede that my friends are entirely correct. He does fight. But, he fights everyone and everything, even himself. In pursuit of all this fighting he has been willing to demonize even casual opponents. He’s like the drunk who gets loaded and suddenly wants to take on everybody in the entire bar. I fail to see how this makes him an effective President. What it makes him is...a fighter.

As far as having the right enemies, even that is an odd selling point for a President. Do I like the press? That’s a trick question, right? Who likes the press?? Never has a profession grown so loathsome in such a short time than journalism! But is a free press my enemy? No. I might not like them, but I wouldn’t want to live in a country without a free press. Would you? Trump’s “enemy of the people” epitaph sounds like something a communist would say! 

“But Doug, he fights.” 

Yes. Yes he does. It has been the defining theme of his Presidency. Fighting. He fights the press. He fights the Democrats. He fights the Republicans. He fights his own advisors. He fights his cabinet. He fights the liberals. He would fight conservatives if there were any left. But, not surprisingly, all of this fighting hasn’t morphed its way into very much actual...policy. His famous wall remains unbuilt. Obamacare survives. Abortion is still the law of the land.

I give no President credit or blame for the economy because the economy is impossibly complex and largely immune to the small scale tinkering that most Presidents engage in. I also wouldn’t blame any President for a pandemic. Presidents don’t run local police departments, so their behavior is beyond any President’s control. But, I can’t help but think that this President’s fighting personality is now being reflected in the streets. Who, when looking at the chaos and violence in American cities, thinks that what we need as a nation is a President who fights?

I have not here made the case for his challenger. This blog isn’t about Joe Biden. This blog seeks to understand why our current President has made a virtue out of endless anger, resentment and confrontation, and why his supporters love him for it. For me, Donald Trump is exhausting. He promised winning. We got fighting.

Not the same thing.

Don’t Change For Me

Goodbye August. Hello September. 

Ever since COVID happened, the end of one month and the beginning of a new one has brought with it a surge of optimism, a hope that with the mere flipping of a calendar relief would come. Maybe it’s just been me who has felt this way. Nevertheless, month seven of the Age of COVID has begun, and my Facebook feed is still full of people who believe it’s all a conspiracy, nothing more than a bad cold that has been transformed by the press and the deep state into a cudgel with which to destroy Donald Trump. The realization that there is literally nothing I can write to change any of their minds on this matter is profoundly troubling, but it is just one of a great many things about which I am powerless. Such is life.

Now for some good news. Pam and I leave for our second Maine vacation in just 23 days. This one will be jam-packed with all sorts of momentous events. We will be returning to our favorite lake house of all time, the one that convinced us that one day we would have to buy a place of our own...the irreplaceable Loon Landing. During our time there we will be hosting some friends of ours, Chip and Lynn Hewette for five days. They have never travelled to Maine, and there isn’t anything that Pam and I love more than introducing our friends to the joy and beauty of mid-coast Maine. Serving as tour guide to first time guests is a blast and we cant wait! But this trip will be different than all others for us in that we will be setting aside a couple of Saturdays to cabin-hunt with our realtor, Tiffany Ford. She is compiling a list of candidates and setting up tour times for us. Just in case we find...the one...I’ve been told to bring my checkbook! Very exciting.

The other day we had a Facetime appointment with Tiffany to discuss things and she said something that really got my attention. She mentioned that some people from away who buy cabins in Maine immediately set about trying to transform it into something that looks like where they came from. They want Maine to change into something that accommodates them. Ok...full stop.

If I could write a letter to the State of Maine, here’s what I would say:

Dear Maine,

My wife and I have been vacationing in your beautiful State for over 35 years. Long ago, we fell in love with you. Over the years, we have dreamed of buying a place where we could spend our summers, but for much of our lives together were prohibited from doing so by circumstances and stubborn financial realities. Now, the circumstances are right and the financial realities are in agreement, so here we come! But first, I would like to make a request of you. Please don’t change for us!! The last thing I want my cabin to look like is Short Pump, Virginia. Don’t get me wrong, I love Virginia, am proud to live here. But I also love Maine, but for different reasons. I love you exactly the way you are. I don’t want your stores and shops to be the same ones we have in Virginia. I don’t want all the conveniences of home at my fingertips. I don’t want everything in the world to be within five minutes of my front door. I want two lane roads instead of interstate highways. I want roadside lobster roll shacks instead of Burger Kings. I want towns full of nothing but local businesses where I can spend money that never leaves town. I want my cabin to fit in. I want my behavior and customs to be appropriate to my neighbors. because, even though we have been coming to your shores for 35 years, we still consider ourselves...guests. As such, it is our job to conform to you, not the other way around.

Sincerely,

Doug & Pam Dunnevant