Tired of Being a Coward

When I first saw the news from Uvalde, Texas I decided that there wasn’t anything else to say about school shootings in this space since I had written over a dozen posts after similar carnage. Instead, I reposted two of the more detailed posts on the subject and let it go at that. 

Ever since I’ve felt like a coward.

The truth is that I can’t get the images of those children out of my head. I can never unsee the pictures of those two teachers who died trying to protect them. I can never shake the panic that wells up in me the instant I hear or read the words school shooting, that moment when the unimaginable enters my head…could it be Pam’s school, Kaitlin’s, or the classrooms of the half dozen other teachers I know and love? Then I immediately think of my nieces and nephews, the children of my friends and neighbors. When I hear that its some school in west Texas, I begin to breathe again. But, what about those west Texas kids? What about their parents? Those kids will never draw another breath, and those parents will never breathe again without the heavy weight of grief grinding away at their souls.

I’ve spent the last couple of days skimming through all the stale arguments about guns. I’ve read of statistics that suggest that this or that might work, others that draw the opposite conclusion. I’ve read passionate defenses of an unfettered 2nd Amendment, equally passionate pleas for banning assault rifles. 

On my Facebook feed, that hardy perennial—the calligraphy lettering against baby blue background which reminds us that guns are not the problem, just the people who use them—has made many appearances. I read the words and part of me agrees with the sentiment. Guns are inanimate objects, neither evil or good until put to use for either evil or good purposes. I get it. But the notion that a weapon designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time is irrelevant to what happened in Uvalde, Texas is patently absurd. The fact that the particular weapon involved was purchased by a boy on his 18th birthday, even though that boy had a history of making unhinged claims on social media that he had big plans to shoot up an elementary school, is certainly not irrelevant…is it?

What disturbs me the most about this conversation is the fatalism of it all, the notion that at the end of the day we are powerless to prevent these horrors. There are 300 million deadly weapons in the United States, 17 million of them AR-15’s. Any attempt at confiscation would be a fool’s errand. Actually, I have made a similar argument in this space on more than one occasion and part of me still believes it.

But, as a citizen of a nation where school shootings are as ordinary as the common cold, to remain true to the proposition that there is nothing we can do to stop the killing is to give up, admit defeat, and get back to binging the Johnny Depp trial.

No. Not this time.

I am not at all convinced that any particular action we might take as a country would be a “solution”. I am equally unconvinced that any change in law we might enact would stop all such crimes. Preventing mass shootings will be a generational effort requiring many attempts at solutions. But I’ve grown weary of the defeatist attitude that has rendered us powerless to stop the mass murder of school children. 

I see this chart and I want to punch someone in the face:

Since the beginning of The Tempest in 2011 there have been the following number of school shootings:

Canada—2

France—2

Germany—2

Japan—-0

Italy—-0

Britain—0

The United States of America—-288

I refuse to accept this horrifying statistic as something that Americans simply have to endure. If this is the price we all are forced to pay so anyone anywhere at any time can purchase an automatic rifle, then I submit to you that the price is too damn high.

So, I am open to trying to stop it. Let’s try some reasonable restrictions designed to prevent crazy people from getting their hands on weapons of mass killing intent. At least make it harder, right? I’m tired of hearing how easy it was for some lunatic to buy an AR-15, how insanely simple it was for them to arm themselves with such deadly tools. If we enact a law that doesn’t work, we’ll have to try something else. It will be a process, a crucible we all will have to endure to make our nation less dangerous for our school children. But whatever you do, don’t tell me there’s nothing we can do. That is defeatist bullshit of the highest order and frankly, un-American. We put a man on the moon for God’s sake. What we truly can no longer afford to do is…nothing.

Patrick’s Day

This boy was born on May 25th. He was and is the son I had always wanted. Every time I get into a debate with him about politics, it occurs to me that he is, indeed, my boy. When he makes a better case than I do, I’m so proud of him I can hardly stand it. He has the sensitive, discerning heart of an artist, a natural musical gift that cannot be taught, and a blistering, sarcastic wit...my one lasting contribution to his DNA. His mother would probably say that his only fault is the fact that the lenses of his glasses are always filthy.

Poor Lucy and Her Traumatic Beauty Shop Experience

Every so often I have to take Lucy to the groomers for a haircut. I don’t like to do it, mostly because I hate leaving her with strangers anywhere for half the day, but also because she never looks right when I get her back. First of all, she’s a Golden. She’s supposed to have frills, fringes and a poof of a tail. She’s not a lab, for heavens sake. But eventually Goldens can get a bit out of control with the fringes and what not, so you take her over to Petsmart and drop her off at 10:00 in the morning and await the text informing you that she is ready.

They promise you that she will get a luxurious bath complete with some sort of milk conditioner, a thorough teeth brushing, and a nail grinding, plus a fresh haircut. When you drop her off, the stylist points out that Lucy has several mats on her belly which must be dealt with first. I was aware of the existence of these mats, a rarity for Lucy, but the primary reason I have her at the groomers in the first place. I’m figuring that if her hair has gotten long and shaggy enough to develop mats, its time for a cut. No need to worry, I am assured by the perky stylist, she will take care of everything.

The text comes at 1:45. I drop everything and dash over to Petsmart full of nervous apprehension. Poor Lucy has been cooped up over there for nearly 4 hours. What the heck were they doing for four hours? I pull into the parking lot and kill the engine.

Ok. When they bring her out the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “Um..why did you cut her hair so SHORT?” 

Immediately, the stylist launches into a long and unnecessarily technical dissertation about how tricky mat-shaving can be, how to make everything blend in she was forced to cut her hair “a little” shorter than usual. I was so distracted by her absence of frills and fringes that I completely missed the total hack job that was done on her ears. Poor Lucy was mortified with the shame of it all, refusing to perk her ears up no matter what the provocation happened to be on the ride home. Its as if she knew that her ears were a train wreck and the poor girl didn’t want to draw any attention to them!

Normally, this is what frilly, fringy Lucy looks like:

Here she is post hack job:

The good news is that we don’t leave for Maine for 44 more days. Maybe she will look like her old self by then. But for now, she is quite upset with her grooming experience. Any condolence comments you all can offer up will be read aloud to her in an attempt to cheer the poor girl up. 

Thank You!

Max and Patron

Got back home yesterday afternoon after a fabulous few days away only to discover that I now have a new deadly virus to lose my mind over…Monkeypox. If that wasn’t bad enough I then see a headline about how Southern Baptist leaders have been stonewalling and denigrating sex abuse victims within the denomination for years, according to some third party investigative report. The trifecta of horribleness took the form of a recent poll that states that more Americans care about the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial than care about abortion or the war in Ukraine…combined.

Impossible as it might seem for things to get any worse, I then discover a story about a new low to which the Russian armed forces have fallen…

Meet “Max”, the Belgian Malinois special forces dog who was abandoned by the Russian army and left to starve. Ukrainian forces found Max and nursed him back to health, taught the super smart dog to understand Ukrainian commands and have now redeployed him as a bomb sniffer where he is doing great work and has become a soldier favorite. In doing so, Max has joined the ranks of many medal-winning canines in service to Ukraine, none more famous than this guy:

This is “Patron”, a Jack Russell terrier who was recently awarded a medal for meritorious service to the Ukrainian nation by his heroic and tireless efforts to find Russian land mines. Patron—who’s name translates in English to “bullet”— weighs in at a mere 4K which means that his weight does not trigger the mines. However, this also means that his handlers have to be careful giving him treats. The picture of Patron receiving his medal has been one of the most popular photographs of the entire war in Ukraine…

One more thing…a shoutout has to go out to my sweet cousin Peggy. When I got back home there was an envelope addressed to me in her handwriting. When I opened it there was a note from Peggy who had been going through some old things belonging to her mother, my aunt, Mary. One of the things she found was our wedding invitation from 1984. She had enclosed it in the envelope and sent it to us to fondly remember during our anniversary. One of the sweetest, most thoughtful things anyone has done for us in a long time. Love you, Cousin.

What We’ve Been Up To

So, today was amazing and fun. We decided to rent a couple of bikes and ride over to Assateague Island and do the wildlife loop trail. It was a delightful 74 degrees and sunny at 9:00 am when we peddled out of the Bike Depot on Chincoteague. We hadn’t made it a quarter mile before I got my first reprimand from Pam who was behind me. She took exception to me showing her how I could ride with no hands. The woman has zero sense of humor when it comes to my brand of high jinx, something that has caused her 38 years of indigestion. She probably wasn’t thrilled when she saw me attempt this selfie while we were on the trail, but it just had to be done…

It should be pointed out that numerous times I offered to surrender the point to her, but each time she refused, while muttering something like, “no, no…you go ahead. Just try a little harder not to give me a heart attack”

Anyway, about halfway through the loop trail there was a brief detour that took you close to the beach. Once there, you were asked to park your bike and walk the hundred yards or so over the dunes to see the view. When we crested the dunes, this is what we saw:

As far as the eye could see in both directions, untouched, unspoiled beach. Way off in the distance to the north we spotted one human being. It was breathtaking. We just walked around for a while taking pictures and smiling…

I finally got Pam to take the point on the home stretch…

One of the themes of this trip has been, down here, we eat kinda what we want, when we want it. Since Pam had eaten no breakfast before our 7.5 mile bike ride she was psyched to get back to the condo for a cup of fat-free yogurt sprinkled with all-bran that had her name on it. But in a surprising development opted for Mister Whippy instead…

…where haute cuisine meets island shabby.

As soon as we woofed these guys down we turned in our bikes, then drove back to the condo to apply some sunscreen, and headed back to the beach where all the human beings are. Once there we lunched on some really high quality kettle corn, Cheetos and washed it all down with Mountain Dew. Tonight we have reservations at AJ’s on the Creek, a nice restaurant, which we are assured, serves real food. It is pour intention to order an appetizer of questionable nutritional value, a couple of calorie-drenched entree’s which come with a 25% off coupon for your first by-pass operation, then indulge our sweet tooth with ice cream from the Island Creamery, who’s slogan reads, “Well, you’ve gotta die of something!”

Day One

There is an estuary just off the back of our condo in Chincoteague which is filled and emptied by the tides. When we arrived yesterday it had been reduced to a thin and shallow stream and a wide bed of mud teaming with life. When we got back from dinner it was three feet deep, reflecting moonbeams that lit up the grassy marsh. Now at 5:30 in the morning, it is emptying out again, the starlings flitting this way and that all along the water’s surface, while the sun lights up the eastern sky in the distance…

Speaking of dinner, our’s was delightful. We had the Bada Bing Shrimp appetizer at the Ropewalk Restaurant and could have left happy after that alone. Then they brought us the entree, a scallop feast on a bed of rice with lump crab meat and tomatoes…

Of course, after dinner we were obligated by the forces of nature and nature’s God to visit the Island Creamery for prodigious helpings of ice cream served on home made waffle cones.

Consequently, today will feature much outdoor exercise to make restitution for last night’s epicurean delights. A good thing since I feel certain that tonight will feature similar deliciousness.

I hate to mention this considering what our Short Pump friends will have to endure today, but today the forecast is for partly sunny skies and 72 degrees.

In a World Where You Can Be Anything…Be Kind

A word about my Aunt’s funeral today.

My brother Donnie was asked by the family to perform the service. He drove down from Maryland and did a wonderful job. Over the last several years since he retired, my brother has taken up being a professional encourager. I only recently leaned that he would call Emma every Monday morning to talk. She had been battling cancer for four years, perhaps that was why he called her so faithfully. At the service he deadpanned, “Hey, I’m retired now, I’ve got nothing else to do.” But I’m sure it meant the world to her. Because he and Emma had music in common, he would often play her his latest composition over the phone. So, at the funeral he played and sang a couple of her favorite hymns, then closed the service out with a wonderful, haunting arrangement of Wayfaring Stranger. In between the music, he retold some of Emma’s favorite stories from when she was growing up on the farm with my Dad. It was a lovely time spent with cousins and my brother and sisters.

But perhaps the most incredible thing about the funeral was what I learned about Aunt Emma that I was clueless about. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that she was in a semi-famous country and western band back in the late 50’s and early 60’s called the Country Cavaliers. What I learned today at her funeral was just how much of a freaking big deal she was!! I walked in to the Bliley’s chapel over on Hull Street road and saw a big screen right above her casket upon which  a series of photographs were scrolling by, shots of Emma as a teenager, pictures of her and her sister and my Dad when they were just kids. But then, out of the blue, I see a picture of Emma looking movie-star gorgeous standing next to a smiling…Willie Nelson!! It was back when he had short hair and no beard, but it was Willie Nelson, or at least I thought it was. Then the next shot goes up. This one has Emma cozied up with Johnny Cash. The next thing I know, a succession of pictures of my beautiful Aunt Emma with a cavalcade of country music legends…Buck Owens, Porter Wagoner, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs. It was only then that I discovered that the Country Cavaliers served as the house band for the New Dominion Barn Dance which aired every Saturday night of WTVR for eleven years. In those years Emma’s band often played and sang backup for these stars whenever they came through town. Amazing.

But, here’s the best thing about the service. Everyone who spoke kept saying the same thing, using the exact same word to sum up who Emma was. that word was…Kind. That’s the word I think of when remembering her, but I knew her well when I was just a child. But apparently, it was no act because that’s all anyone could talk about today, how kind she was. What a glorious legacy for any human being.

My daughter probably doesn’t remember Emma, but as a teacher down in Columbia, South Carolina she has a slogan of sorts and she keeps it on display in her classroom and on her social media pages. Here’s what it says…

“In a World Where You Can Be Anything…Be Kind.”

Thanks, Aunt Emma for leading the way.

Attending a Funeral

I’ll be attending a funeral on Tuesday. My Dad’s youngest sister passed away last week. Most of my interactions with Emma were during my childhood, our lives having gone in different directions since the early 60’s. But she made a big impression on me back then that I have never forgotten.

I was four or five years old. My Dad was attending the University of Richmond full time during the day while working at Reynolds Metals on the graveyard shift. Every morning I would sit in the backseat of my Dad’s Plymouth with a guy named Jan LaPierre who was also a student at UofR, as we drove to Emma’s house, where Dad would drop me off to spend the day with Aunt Emma and my cousin Danny. As a bonus, my grandparents lived in a trailer in the back yard of Emma’s house. This went on for many months and years until I became old enough to attend school. Here’s what I remember from the experience.

For a five year old boy, Aunt Emma was the closest thing to a movie star that I knew. First of all, she was beautiful. Secondly, she was an actual star, the lead singer of the Country Cavaliers, a semi-famous country band in Richmond in the late 50’s and early 60’s. (Think Patsy Cline, only prettier). But the thing I remember most about Emma was her big smile and how incredibly kind she was. Every morning I was greeted with a warm hug and a kiss on the top of my head. Then after she had made sure that Danny and I had eaten a decent breakfast, the two of us were let loose to terrorize the neighborhood unsupervised with the only instructions being, “Make sure you are both back here for lunch!” Ahh yes, the early 60’s—when the most popular parenting style was benign neglect. Danny and I had great fun outside all day. Lunch was always delicious. Since Danny was an only child I remember he always had super cool toys and playing at his house was like an Adventureland. Then late in the afternoon, right before Dad would pull into the driveway to pick me up, Danny and I would gather around my grandmother’s kitchen table for our afternoon snack—peanut butter graham crackers and cold milk.

But it was Aunt Emma who always made us feel safe. I could always sense, even as a five year old that she loved me. Nothing bad would happen to me at Aunt Emma’s. She wouldn’t allow it.

So, I will attend the funeral today. I will reunite briefly with Danny and many of my other cousins from the Dunnevant side of the family. I will not be sad. There is no reason for sadness. Emma was a lovely woman, someone worth celebrating.

Friday the 13th

Whenever you’ve endured a truly terrible week, then wake up to the realization that it’s Friday the 13th, the sensation churning in your stomach is not a pleasant one! In my line of work, there aren’t many weeks as difficult as this one has been. The sell-off in the stock markets has been unrelenting and nerve-wracking. Your forty years of experience assures you that it’s temporary. History, not to mention the actual record, promises a full and complete recovery in time. Still, because we are human beings with beating hearts and not soulless machines, our stomachs churn. “In time, you say? How much time??” The answer is unknowable. But, that unknowability is the reason why long term investors in stock markets are so highly compensated. The price you pay for high returns is that churning stomach.

Friday the 13th is the least of my worries. It’s just another day on the calendar. Aside from the alleged bad luck assigned to it by the poets, it is a Friday which for me brings relief since after 4:00 this afternoon the world’s stock markets will take a 65 hour break. We all will stop obsessing over it, turning our attention elsewhere to more fulfilling projects. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to watch a beautiful sunset while we ponder how it is that a fluctuating number on our balance sheet has such power over our sense of well being. I will spend some time planning for my wedding anniversary weekend getaway next week. We will have been together for 38 years. I think we will spend some time over in Chincoteague. One of the great things about her is that she fell in love with me when my balance sheet was zero. She stayed in love with me during the six years when every spare dime we had went to educate our kids. Now that the coffers are full—although not as much as they were 5 months ago!—she loves me no less than she ever has.

Kaitlin’s Day

This girl was born on May 11th. She made me a parent for the first time. She is irreplaceable, impossible to duplicate. It’s as if she grabbed every good and decent trait from both of her parents and never let go of them. Somehow, she was able to pass on our baser qualities, with the possible exception of her father’s ultra-competitiveness and her mother’s perfectionist streak. She is impossibly bright, a supremely gifted teacher, a loyal and devoted friend, and knows how to pick a husband. If I had fewer fingers, I could count her failings on one hand. At the moment I can only think of a couple...her inability to promptly reply to my texts, and her lack of appropriate enthusiasm for baseball.

Building a Brand and Other Foolishness

Today is packed with busyness, so not much time. However, on occasion this blog has served as an outlet for getting things off my chest, so I will indulge myself this morning. There is a term and philosophy that seems to be taking over the American landscape that annoys the hell out of me and it is this…branding. It manifests itself among athletes, actors and even politicians, and what it amounts to is the monetization of human personality. We hear phrases like, He’s building his brand, or that move was very off-brand. It’s also infecting the business world. Anyone who owns a business is advised to create, enhance, and maintain your brand at any cost. It is the differentiator, we are told. It should serve as a cautionary tale that the patron saints of this branding craze are the Kardashians.

Look, I have nothing against either making money or self-promotion, but viewing life as nothing more than one giant cosmic marketing opportunity is a colossal waste of a life. Human beings are not a brand. We are far more than a marketing scheme. Our purposes on this planet cannot be reduced to a slogan that can be market-tested for the widest acceptance. If being off-brand means anything like acting out of character, then some of the finest hours in my life have come when I have been decidedly off brand. Discovering new things, acting on whims, trying out new experiences that stretch you and challenge you might be off brand, but they constitute personal growth and provide opportunities for learning that following a brand building rubric could never provide.

So, all you people out there desperate to build your brand…get over yourselves. Build a life instead.

Keeping an eye out for Zombie-teachers

Ok, so last night my daughter and her husband FaceTimed their mother. This has become customary on Mother’s Day. Both of our kids place a call to their mother at some point during the day, their faces pop up on the screen and Pam makes do with this weary technological substitute. Earlier in the day, my son and daughter-in-law called from the front porch of their new home, still in their church clothes on a gorgeous sunny day in Nashville. By the time we got the call from Kaitlin and Jon, the family which had been gathered at our house for lunch had gone home, and we had just sat down for a snack supper. Her timing was impeccable.

Anyway, during our thirty minute conversation, Kaitlin casually mentioned that she had recently gone to Target to buy a pair of sunglasses. Now, ordinarily, this bit of news would have been unremarkable, but when she shared what had precipitated the purchase of new sunglasses, it became quite hilarious. My daughter, the one with the master’s degree in English Literature, master teacher, and official smarty-pants, had been astonished to learn upon looking into a random mirror that she had been walking around wearing a pair of sunglasses with only…one lense. She wasn’t sure how long she had been wearing these sunglasses but her best guess was weeks rather than days. Now, at this point I should point out that it is May, teachers everywhere are frantic, bedraggled, and have come to resemble the zombies of the apocalypse. But still…we found it unbelievable that she could have worn such defective sunglasses and not been aware of their defectiveness. Furthermore, how could her fellow teachers not have noticed and said something like, “Yo, Manchester. Your sunglasses are like, missing a lens. you look stupid.” Then, she sent us photographic proof…

Of course, because she has me for a father, I couldn’t let it go. After she had ended the FaceTime call, I started a text back and forth…

The lesson here is for all of you parents of school aged children out there. During the waning days of the school year be especially sensitive to the emotional and physical well being of the teachers in your life. If you see one of them staggering around at the grocery store bumping into things or see one of them trying to get in to the wrong car in a parking lot…or wearing pirate sunglasses, come along side them and offer some encouragement.

Pre-Dawn Dad Jokes

Sometimes when you wake up at 4:22 in the morning, open your iPad and see your country ripping itself apart over yet another contentious social issue it makes you want to write a long impassioned plea for clarity and understanding, hoping to build consensus and foster accommodation and compromise between your countrymen. This is not one of those times.

My friend tried to annoy me with bird puns when I realized…toucan play that game.

What’s the world’s best invention? Window blinds—without them it would be curtains for everyone.

Teacher: How much room is needed for fifteen grams of fungi to grow?

Student: As mushroom as possible.

Teacher: What did the completion of the $3 billion Palace of Versailles make King Louis XIV?

Student: Baroque.

A woman got on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says, “Why, that’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen!” The stunned woman went to the back of the bus fuming. She turns to the man sitting next to her and says, “I can’t believe it! That bus driver just insulted me!” The man replied, “You go right back up there and tell him off—go ahead, I’ll hold your dog for you.”

A defense attorney was speaking to his client, who was accused of murder. The attorney says, “I have some good news and some bad news.” “What’s the bad news?” Asked the accused. “The bad news is, your fingerprints are all over the crime scene, and the DNA tests prove you did it.” “What’s the good news?” “Well, your cholesterol is 130.”

One morning at a bank, a robber pulled out a gun, pointed it at the teller and says, “Give me your money or you’re…geography!!” The confused teller asks, “Did you mean to say, ‘or you’re history’?” The robber replied, “Don’t change the subject!”

A women was sitting at the funeral of her recently deceased husband. A man leaned toward her and asked, “Do you mind if I say a word?”

The woman replied, “No, go right ahead.”

The man then stands up and clears his throat and says, “PLETHORA.” Then sits back down.

“Thanks,” the woman says. “that means a lot.”

Professor Kirke: What are you doing in that wardrobe?

Lucy: Narnia business.

Florence: I was so unpopular in school that they used to call me “Batteries”.

Larry: What was that?

Florence: Because I was never included…

A thief comes upon a well dressed man, jabs a pistol in his ribs and says, “Give me your money!”

The gentlemen says, “You can’t do this,. I’m a United States Congressman!”

The thief says, “Well, in that case, give me my money.”

Teacher: Did you copy this essay about the Black Death off of the internet?

Student: Yes. I’m sorry. I am a bubonic plague-a-rist….

My ex-wife still misses me…

But her aim is getting better.

Congressman: I think I’m going to try the charm offensive

Constituent: Well,. I think you’re already halfway there.

Oh boy….

This morning brought terrible news to anyone who has grown weary of the factionalism, discord and division that has overtaken life in America over the past several years. With the overnight leak of a first draft of a pending Supreme Court decision which would overturn Roe v. Wade, we are about to enter in to the mother of all culture war battles that will make the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd look like a walk in the park. If you, on the other hand, love shrieking, unhinged invective, absurd street theatrics, spittle spewing diatribes on cable television, weeping news anchors and traffic clogging demonstrations…you are in for the time of your life!

Then there’s this…

I’m not sure I have ever seen a more telling, ironic, and hilariously absurd photograph than this one. Whoever snapped this deserves a Pulitzer. (Do they give Pulitzers for photography?). This is our former Secretary of State attending the 2022 Met Gala. She looks absolutely radiant, beaming from ear to ear wearing a stunning gown that no doubt cost a zillion dollars. In the background, a line of photographers are capturing the moment, while an African American attendant is busy spreading out the train of her dress—all fully masked—while Mrs. Clinton flashes her perfect white teeth for the cameras.

I’ll just leave this here…

The Month of May

May has arrived and I couldn’t be happier. For me this month represents several important things, all of them good. First of all, its the month when my work load begins to lighten. Through the first four months of the year I will have conducted 60 client reviews and everything that goes along with that responsibility. No, its not splitting the atom difficult or stonemason hard, but its no walk in the park either, especially during a time of stock market volatility. In May that tight coil in my stomach begins to contract a bit and I am grateful for the relief.

But in my family May is something else. Its the month of celebration. My daughter was born on the 11th. Thirty eight years ago on the 19th, I married her mother. My son was born on the 25th. Three of the greatest days of my life, crammed into two short weeks. As a bonus there’s Mother’s Day and Memorial Day. The weather becomes dependably warm in May allowing us to set out plants and vegetables. May marks the renewal of hostilities between myself and the squirrel population of Wythe Trace, an event marked with great pageantry in my backyard, and the sight of Jamie gathering her kids close next door…Be careful, kids. Mister Doug is at it with the squirrels again!!

The baseball season kicks into high gear during the month of May. The flashes in the pan of April get exposed and we find out who can play and who can’t. The 2022 season will for me be a long one, with my Red Sox looking to be the fourth best team in their division, while my Nationals will be competing with the Reds and Orioles for the coveted title of Major League baseball’s worst team. But sometimes being the fan of a bad team has its own rewards—the camaraderie of misery.

May is also the month where I begin referring to my escape to Maine being, just around the corner. By May the first I’ve paid both halves of the rent, I’ve booked the kayaks and I start sending giddy texts to Tif at On The Water In Maine, warning her of our impending arrival. She tries her best to calm me down, Geez Doug, its eight weeks from now!! Settle down, cowboy!”

Mother’s Day is hard for me. Ever since Mom passed away ten years ago, the day brings a touch of melancholy…after ten years. 

Memorial Day is nice in that it heralds the beginning of summer.

So, yeah, the month of May is a delightful one around here with much to look forward to.

What’s in it for you?