A Silver Lining at the DMV

As many of you know, I enjoyed a one hour and fifty eight minute stay at the lovely Hotel DMV yesterday afternoon with 50 plus of my fellow citizens. It was everything anyone could expect from an encounter with the bureaucratic state...maddening, and infuriating . However, all was not hopeless despair. No matter how bad things get in life, there is always a ray of sunshine somewhere in the mess if you look hard enough. At the DMV yesterday afternoon, there were actually two.

The list of things contributing to my bowel stewing frustration yesterday was long and impressive. Despite a nearly full house of customers, only 5 of the 11 customer service windows were open. The little slips of paper we all were handed upon arrival assigning us a queue number were intentionally random, a devious plot hatched by some tenured functionary to keep all of us totally in the dark as to where we stood in the order. When the creepy robot voiced woman came on the loudspeaker to announce who was now being served and at which window, it was always a number which had zero relationship to any of the other numbers recently called. What possible relationship does B-67 have to F-145? Well, about as much as C-16 has to M-297. Whenever a new number was called, half of the customers could be seen shaking their heads from side to side in resigned agitation. But then, out of nowhere something genius happened. The sound system at the DMV started playing this:

When I heard Love Me Do, I thought it was just a random Beatle song slipped in the mix of otherwise horrible elevator music. But when it was followed by From Me To You, then She Loves You, we were on to something. I am here to tell you that the entire mood of the building changed. Customers who had just minutes earlier been on the edge of a nervous breakdown, men and women who were starting to get the attention of the security cop in the corner because of their muted but profane outbursts, were suddenly now humming along to Ticket To Ride. Don’t misunderstand, none of us wanted to be there, and we were all still mightily annoyed, but now suddenly, there was a song on our lips. It was a genius crowd control move.

The second surprise came when my number was finally called. From the vantage point of where I was sitting, I could only see the faces of four of the five customer service technicians, and the view wasn’t pretty. These three women and one man looked like the most miserable people on earth, like they were the only people alive who wanted to be at the DMV less than we all did. The word hemorrhoidal agony came to mind. But when I made my way over to window 3, I was in for a pleasant surprise. My attendant greeted me with a beaming smile and a How are you? What can I help you with today?? I was taken aback and temporarily rattled by this brazen display of kindness, forgetting for a moment why I was there. I quickly recovered and began spilling out my tail of woe, trying to explain the three month ordeal I had been through to obtain a clear title of my son’s vehicle. When I was finished, this woman looked my directly in the eye and said, Mr. Dunnevant, that sounds horrible and I am so sorry for what you have been through, but we are going to get this fixed for you today, ok love?

Again, don’t misunderstand, this woman was no miracle worker. I was still in for another 45 minutes of bureaucratic bungling, but now I was in the hands of a caring, diligent, and strangely happy woman. And I am here to tell you...it made all the difference in the world. I saw first hand how even the most impossible situation can be redeemed by a kind, caring human being. Let this be a lesson to everyone of us who is trying to run a business, all of us who find ourselves in difficult, stressful situations in life, this wonderful woman at the DMV illustrated for me the eternal truth of Proverbs 15:1...A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

An Observation on the 1%

On more than one occasion recently I have run across news stories claiming that the richest 1% of people alive today control something like 50% of the world’s wealth. This story has come in several forms, sometimes expressed as the richest 20 people in the world have more wealth than the 200 million poorest people, or some such thing. I am not here to dispute the truth of these assertions. Matter of fact, I’m absolutely sure that it’s true. What I highly doubt, however, is the contention that this is something new in human history. I’m very suspicious. Unfortunately, since world wide wealth statistics are a relatively new science, getting a grasp of how much wealth there was in the world in say, the 1600’s, is a dicey proposition, that features a lot of guessing. But, here’s what my trick knee tells me...throughout all of recorded history, there have always been and there always will be a small, elite subset of human beings who rise to the top of the heap and consequently gobble up a disproportionate share of the world’s wealth. To “prove” the accuracy of my trick knee, I’ve been doing some digging. Here’s what I’ve found.

Scholars have published lists of the richest men in the history of the world based on available data and best estimates using inflation adjusted numbers. They have not included heads of state since their wealth would have been considered public. (so, Genghis Khan and Joseph Stalin didn’t make the list) No, these are the 20 wealthiest private citizens of all time. The list contains 11 Americans. Only three of the men on this list are alive today. ( Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim, and Bill Gates ) 12 of the 20 lived prior to the Industrial Revolution, 2 of them during the Middle Ages (Rufus the Red, William the Conqueror ). 

But, I decided to drill deeper on this question of wealth concentration at the top of the pyramid. The assumption is that today with the advent of powerful technologies and the dot.com explosion, that mega wealth is somehow newly unprecedented. So, I decided to look at  this a different way. How do the modern high tech billionaires compare to their old school predecessors? Ok, here’s what I found...

There is a list out there of the 20 richest Americans of all time, inflation adjusted to 2015 dollars since that was the year that the list was complied. Exactly one of them made his fortune in tech...Bill Gates, with a net worth of 86 billion, which places him at number 4. The other three living American Billionaires on this list? Warren Buffet at number 10, the dreaded Koch bothers at numbers 17 and 18.

Now, how about the top three richest Americans of all time? 

#3. Cornelius Vanderbilt. Died in 1877, after making a boat load of money in the shipping and railroad business. His fortune comes in at 185 billion dollars.

#2. Andrew Carnegie. Passed away in 1919 after amassing a fortune of a staggering 310 billion dollars in the steel business. To his great credit, he gave virtually all of it away at or near his death, endowing an endless list of public libraries, etc...

#1. John D. Rockefeller. When this dude finally kicked the bucket, it was made out of solid gold. His dominance of the oil business resulted in a fortune that makes modern day tech titans look like pikers. 340 billion dollars...that’s billion with a “B”.

In other words, the top three guys on this list, all long dead, were worth more than the next 12 guys on this list...combined.

All of us, every single one of us suffer from recency bias, that is, whatever we actually experience and know always feels like the best, worst of all time. The most dominating idea in our heads most of the time is simply the most recent idea we have been exposed to. I try to fight this instinct all the time with varying degrees of success. In the arena of income inequality, do I believe that policy makers should try to come up with initiatives that increase incomes at the lowest end of the economic ladder? Of course. Minimum wage laws have sought to effect changes in this area. Discussions of a living wage seek to address this issue as well. Death taxes and estate levies, and the progressive income tax have been enacted to chip away at the other end of the ladder with very limited success, since generally speaking, rich people got rich because they are smarter and more resourceful than policy makers. Still, I am in favor of any remedy that will actually work to narrow the income gap. But, we better disabuse ourselves of the notion that we have the power to do away with the accumulation of wealth at the very top of the pyramid by a small cadre of thieves and achievers. Until we can figure out a way to alter human nature, it’s never going to happen.

There is nothing new under the sun....

A Dream and a Story

A month ago today I started writing a story. I’m still writing it. 

When I was in Maine, on one of the first couple of nights there, I had a rather disturbing dream. It was one of those dreams where the  central action was very graphic and clear, while all of the ancillary stuff leading up to the central action was blurry. It was such a surprising dream to have at such a peaceful and happy place and time. Usually people have dreams like this one when they are dealing with some heavy burden, or under unrelenting stress. The only stress I was under in Maine was having to make the agonizing decision between bacon and eggs or blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Even though I was busy reading five novels during my three weeks in Maine, the dream was always in the back of my mind. I would sit out on the dock and think about it while fishing, thinking that it might make a decent short story. But, as soon as I began writing, the germ of the idea provided by the dream has morphed into a full blown universe of characters with a host of conflict all over the place. I have no idea how it’s going to end, how any of it will ever be resolved. That’s really half the fun of writing. 

I’m probably doing it all wrong. I’m sure that real writers have a story outline already formed before they begin writing. People who actually know what their doing in the writing world would probably laugh at my technique, which basically involves sitting down at my desk, staring off into space for fifteen minutes ruminating, then opening my Word document and typing away in short, intense bursts of clarity, then...nothing for a couple of days. Before I can resume the narrative, I have to go back and read the last five pages to recall where I was in the story. It’s all pretty random and unorganized....but amazing fun.

The weird part is that despite how fun it is, it is mentally exhausting. I can only devote an hour or so at a time to the thing before I just have to stop. It wears you out. What a wimp!

Working title...Saving Jack

Sex Clams, Lizzards, and Roy Moore

Yesterday, I found this photograph of the front page of the Times Daily from none other than Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Soon, like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, the sarcastic, punny comments started rolling in, some of them outstanding!

My wife: Looks like the people in Muscle Shoals have a thing for mollusks.

Facebook Friend: What a world...even the promiscuity of shellfish is divisive nowadays.

Facebook Friend: Actually, Sex Clams sounds like a great name for a band.

Me: I’m relieved there were no accompanying photographs...

Me: What’s so divisive about this? I’m thinking that whatever two consenting clams do in the privacy of their own riverbed is their business.

Family Member: What happens in the ocean, stays in the ocean.

This whole spelling error thing brought to mind this classic from a couple of winters ago:

I don’t know about you, but this hilarious failure of copy editing turned a sordid story into something light hearted and funny, and for that, I am eternally grateful to whoever was responsible for it. Poor guy is probably freshly unemployed, but he did America a great service. Otherwise, I would be forced to comment about yet another high profile man accused of confoundingly stupid and creepy behavior. Thankfully, most reasonable people from both sides of the political aisle have spoken out against the idea of a 32 year old man stripping down to his tighty whiteies in front of a fourteen year old girl for purposes of sexual gratification. But, predictably, many partisans are out there making the exact opposite argument that partisans made when it was Bill Clinton in the cross hairs of women making accusations of sexual misconduct. Back then, these folks claimed that the women must be believed. Their claims needed to be taken seriously, for it had taken great courage to speak up against so powerful a man. Now, these charges are all manufactured by an agenda driven newspaper determined to bring down a Godly man. The excusers have offered up several conflicting explanations for Mr. Moore’s actions:

He didn’t do it, and couldn’t be expected to remember if he did.

What the heck is wrong with a 30 year old man dating teenagers?

Even if he did, he never had sex with them, and whenever they asked him to stop and take them home, he did.

He never got like completely naked, ok? 

I’ve heard rumors that those WaPo reporters paid these woman $1,000!!

Look, he eventually wound up falling in love with a teenage girl and married her and they’ve been married for over 30 years now!

It’s exactly like Mary and Joseph in the Bible. You remember where it says in Matthew that Joseph plied Mary with wine, then stripped down to his tunic? It’s the exact same thing here, and Mary and Joseph turned out just fine!

At this hour, Roy Moore is still a candidate for United States Senate. Meanwhile, one of his future colleagues, Bob Menendez, accused among other things, of cavorting with underage prostitutes in the company of a lobbyist...and on his dime, is probably about to be acquitted. So maybe if Moore wins, he can be seated next to Menendez...so they can talk shop.

Softly and Tenderly

About an hour before the beginning of the CMA awards show last night, my son sent me a picture of a group of protesters outside the Bridgestone Arena carrying a sign warning of the eternal consequences of rejecting the King James Version of the Bible. I thought, Seriously?? That’s what you’re going with on a cold night in Nashville? Then I texted him back...This might be the most embarrassing time in history to be a Christian. That statement probably needs an explanation.

It seems that more and more lately, my faith takes turns getting hijacked by any number of people and movements who claim Jesus Christ as a major inspiration. Slick, telegenic preachers dressed in $3,000 Italian suits claim him as the inspiration for a teaching that promises nothing but wealth and victory. “You can have your best you...today!” People marching under the banner of white nationalism, who bemoan the presence of way too many of them and nowhere near enough of us, claim a middle eastern Jew as theirs. Many on the far left seem to think that Jesus Christ and Che Guevara were separated at birth somehow since Jesus was clearly a committed Marxist. Many on the far right have contorted themselves in theological pretzels trying to justify their devotion to a President famously fond of grabbing women by the pu***, a man who wouldn’t know the difference between Second Corinthians and the second act of Hamilton if his life depended on it. But, they all claim Christianity as their loadstar, their inspiration. For a man who had virtually nothing whatsoever to say about politics and government, he is claimed by practically every crackpot in America with a half baked agenda of hatred and contempt for others. Just about the time I begin to question my own faith, just about the time I’m about to give up...this woman stands up in front of a packed house in Nashville and millions on television and begins singing a hymn from my childhood...

I almost missed it. I had been in the other room writing. I got up to go ask Pam something at the beginning of the song. I couldn’t look away. First of all, Carrie Underwood can flat out sing, no autotune required. But, it had been years since I had heard the song, and I knew every word. It’s not even one of my favorites. In fact, back in the day, it was this sort of song that inspired people to write new stuff. It was usually performed like a funeral dirge, slow and uninspired. But last night it was the lyrics that grabbed me, their simple distillation of the message of Christ, artfully and beautifully rendered...

...Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.

        See, on the portals, He’s waiting and watching;

                Watching for you and for me.

...Come home, come home, Ye who are weary come home;

        Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling;

                 Calling, “O sinner, come home!”

Here, finally, an accurate portrayal of my faith, one that reaches out with love and compassion to a fallen world. Softly. Tenderly. Waiting. Watching. You don’t need to be a member of the right political party. Nobody cares about your money. If you’re weary, come home...

...O for the wonderful love he has promised, promised for you and for me.

        Though we have sinned He has mercy and pardon;

                Pardon for you and for me.

...Come home, come home, Ye who are weary come home;

         Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling;

                Calling, “O sinner, come home!”

It’s love he has promised, not wealth. He brings mercy and pardon, not national renewal. Jesus isn’t a founding father, he’s the Son of God. Jesus isn’t someone we co-opt and his teachings aren’t something we get to shoehorn into the latest political theory. He stands on those portals, waiting, watching and calling to us... come home. 

It took a transcendent performance from a country music star to remind me of this truth.

Thanks, Carrie Underwood.

       

This is What Winning Looks Like

The Democrats had a bigly night in Virginia. Not only did they sweep the big three races, but they picked up over a dozen seats in the House of Delegates. Reliably, President Trump assigned blame on his Twitter account:

...Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before.

All of this winning. So much winning. At some point I may tire of all the winning. 

With this Tweet, Trump is asking his devoted followers one question...Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?

His followers will read about the thrashing the Republican Party took last night in the Commonwealth of Virginia and say, Fake News.

His followers will look at the returns and wonder what might have been if only the voter rolls were purged of illegal immigrants.

His followers will believe that a candidate more enthusiastically committed to the President would have carried the day, Ed Gillespie being far too moderate in his praise of Trump... 

But, make no mistake, Donald Trump will keep on winning. One win after another. He will be the irresistible force of winning, the Babe Ruth of winning. He will be to winning what the 1927 Yankees were to the American League, what the Black Death was to 14th century Europe, what Stevie Ray Vaughan was to a Stratocaster...total domination.

Decision ‘17

Election day is here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I know this because of an avalanche of mail in my mailbox and a torrent of radio, television, and social media ads that have followed me around like a Russian spy for weeks now. Here’s what I know as decision time has arrived:

I must decide among Republican and Democratic Party candidates, (and the always random Libertarian/Green Party odd-ball) for the three statewide offices, Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General. Prior to this campaign season, I had never heard of most of them, but apparently they are each men and women of great accomplishment and skill...at climbing the ladder of their Party’s hierarchy. In addition to these statewide races, I will also be asked to select a Delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates from among two other candidates, one of whom is the only candidate on the ballot this year who actually personally showed up at my door to ask for my vote.

The Attorney General race comes down to a choice between a guy named Mark. R. Herring and another guy named John D. Adams. Advantage Adams. I mean, come on, the dude has an all American, iconic name, bringing to mind our second President and an excellent HBO miniseries. What are we to make of the other guy’s name? What’s the R stand for Mark...Red???

The Lt. Governor’s contest is a tough choice, as it asks the voter to make a decision between a white woman and a black man, clearly a no-win situation. Vote for the woman and it’s because you’re a closet racist and can’t handle a powerful black man in higher office. Vote for the black man and you have latent misogynistic issues, the same sort that contributed so mightily to Hillary Clinton’s upset loss in 2016...according to Hillary Clinton. So, this one is a toss up. Luckily, it doesn’t really matter who wins since the office of Lt. Governor is a toothless, utterly meaningless job with no real world consequence to any Virginian, living or dead. From best I can tell, the actual job of the Lt. Governor is to begin running for Governor as soon as he finishes taking his/her oath. So, whoever wins won’t be able to raise any mischief since he or she will be busy raising money.

The Governor’s contest has been a nasty one, especially these past couple of weeks. As the campaign reached the homestretch, accusations have begun to fly all over the place. If all I knew about either of these guys was what I have heard in commercials for the last two weeks, my choice would boil down to this:

I can vote for a greedy, money grubbing lobbyist who’s supporters are out there tormenting young children with pickup trucks, forcing their parents to comfort them after they wake up from their nightmares to assure them that mean old Candidate X will NOT be the next Governor!! Or, I can vote for the guy who isn’t even a politician, but merely a pediatrician who loves kids, would never, ever run them down with a Confederate flag draped pick up and who has lived his entire life by the VMI Keydet Code of conduct. I mean, seriously...is there even a choice here? How could I possibly bring myself to choose a lobbyist over a pediatrician??

On the other hand, there are troubling issues with regards to the boring doctor. Apparently he disdains ordinary Virginians, (probably because he’s spent half his life trying to collect fees from his cheap, reprobate Virginia patients), preferring the company of effete Northern Virginians and gang members from Central America. That doesn’t sound good. Search through his opponent’s bio and you won’t find a single gang member. What you will find is a series of wholesome waiter jobs he had while working himself through college and then a series of successful businesses he started and ran as an adult, no career politician he. Since he has experience starting companies, who better to create jobs as Governor? And, if we ever need help backing our car into the garage, he’s our guy!

Well, there you have it...Decision ‘17. I honestly haven’t kept up with the polling on any of these races. I have no idea who’s ahead or behind. I would think that the Democrat candidates would be favored since my State has turned bluer with each passing year, it seems. But, if 2016 taught us anything it’s that when it comes to politics and elections, anything is possible. So, I will head over to Short Pump Elementary and do my civic duty. You probably should too.

The Gun Control Act of 1968

The Gun Control Act of 1968 states, among other things, that it is illegal for a dishonorably discharged veteran to possess a firearm. The specifics are as follows:

"d) It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person— 

(6) who [2] has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions" 

"g) It shall be unlawful for any person— 

(6) who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; 

to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce" 

Here’s a suggestion. How about all of these investigative bodies descending on Texas find out who sold Devin Patrick Kelley this:

He was quite proud of his purchase, sharing this photo of it on his Facebook page a mere week ago. She’s a bad bitch, he crowed. So, apparently, despite the clear, unambiguous intent of the Gun Control Act of 1968, Mr. Kelley was able to get his hands on this weapon. The natural human plea when something like this happens is, We have to pass a law that would prevent this sort of insanity. Well, we already did...in 1968. It either didn’t work, or was not followed in the case of this particular purchase. If it is discovered that Mr. Kelley purchased this gun from a registered dealer who simply didn’t obey the law prohibiting this purchase, the dealer would be thrown in jail for the rest of his life since his negligence makes him complicit in this heinous crime. If, on the other hand, the killer got his hands on the rifle via the black market, or some other criminal...then we’re screwed. Short of government confiscation of 300 million firearms from the homes of Americans, I see no remedy. Perhaps instead of passing new laws, we devote more energy and attention to enforcing the ones already on the books...like the Gun Control Act of 1968.

With each new mass shooting, I see more and more people coming out in favor of full confiscation. The ironic thing is, many of those who are the most likely to accuse Donald Trump of being a fascist authoritarian, are the same people who are willing to empower the government with the authority to confiscate 300 million guns from the American people. I suppose “authoritarian” is in the eye of the beholder. But, most people I know who are in favor of more gun control legislation are not proposing confiscation. Frankly, most of them consider themselves supporters of the 2nd Amendment. They just look at what has happened with gun violence in their country over the past ten years or so and, in exasperation, search for some new legal remedy. I have great sympathy for that view. I too am frustrated. I simply don’t see how any new law will work any better than existing law. Even if a complete ban of gun purchases could be passed and even enforced...what of the 300 million guns in the system? And what about the fact that people with ill intent and no respect for our laws will still have access to all the guns in the world, while the rest of us will not? Maybe we could prohibit the manufacture of ammunition. Then once all the available ammo was exhausted all those guns would be useless. Or, we could mandate that every box of ammo contain one exploding bullet that will kill the shooter making the use of a firearm a Russian Roulette sort of thing?

I’m not trying to be flippant about so serious a subject. I’m just trying to point out that this is a deadly serious problem for which there is no easy remedy. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to fashion some solution, but we need to be realistic and clear eyed about what is possible.

...Again

I woke up from my Sunday nap and opened my iPad. A news flash scrolled across the screen...27 Dead, 30 Wounded in Church Shooting in Texas.

At that point I didn’t know any of the specifics, just the broad outlines of a familiar story in my country. Someone had walked into a church, and started killing people. Before I clicked on the headline to hear the details I began to wonder...

I wondered if it was a black church, a white church, a synagogue, mosque or temple.

I wondered if the shooter was a black man, a white man, or a Muslim.

The reason why I wondered these things is because it would make a difference in how my fellow Americans would react.

If the shooter were a Muslim man shouting Allahu Akbar!, we would more or less be united in our outrage. 

If the shooter were a white man and the victims black, a different kind of outrage.

If the shooter were a black man and the victims white, different still.

No matter who the shooter is and who the dead are, all of us will do the national gun control dance, charges flying around like so many stray bullets.

Then I clicked on the story. At this point all that is known is, some guy dressed in combat regalia, walked into a small Baptist church attended by less than a hundred people, began shooting and when it was over, nearly everyone in the congregation was either dead or injured, including one five year old child. In the ensuing chase, the shooter was either killed or killed himself. The victims and the shooter are white. At this hour, no claims of terrorism, no claims by ISIS that this shooter was their’s. 

For me, the only thing that matters is that 27 souls have perished at the hands of an evil person, bringing the total number of such deaths to over 350 so far this year. That’s over 350 people who have been killed in a “mass shooting” event in America in 2017, a mass shooting event being here described as a single incident where 4 or more people are killed by a single gunman. No other country in the western world comes close to that number. In this regard, we are in a class by ourselves.

What the hell is wrong with us?

My Mother’s Voice

My niece, Christina Garland, posted a very special video on her Facebook wall yesterday. It was filmed on October 31, 2010. It featured my mother, holding Christina’s infant son Ezra in her arms, singing to him in her beautiful alto voice, a song of unknown origin. Part of it was vaguely familiar, but most of it was my Mother playing fast and loose with the original lyrics, and making stuff up as she went along. At one point, whoever was filming moved closer to Mom, and this new angle revealed my Dad sitting next to my sister Linda, the proud grandmother of the infant child. They were talking and laughing with each other. Dad looked happy and healthy. So did Mom. She had less than three years to live.

There’s another one of these videos around somewhere, one of Mom and Dad sitting on the sofa in our old house holding Kaitlin in exactly the same way, Mom singing some diddy claiming that Kaitlin was the most beautiful girl in the world. In that video they were both younger, less gray in their hair, thinner, more robust. I searched for it, but couldn’t find it, so I settled in and listened to Mom serenade Ezra...over and over again.

It’s funny what the sound of the human voice does to a person. Shortly after Mom passed away, Pam and I found a message that she had  left on our old land line. She needed for one of us to take her to a doctor’s appointment. Her voice was filled with sorrow and frustration. There were times towards the end when she would fall into despair, and this was one of those times. After listening to the message, I immediately regretted doing so. I didn’t want to remember her voice this way. The day I had listened to it, I had left for a four day business meeting in Chicago. It had only been a month or two since her death, and I hadn’t up to that point shed a single tear. Two days later, while on a treadmill in the gym of the Marriot Hotel, overlooking Michigan Avenue, the sound of her defeated voice from that phone message came back to me, and I immediately began to cry.

But, yesterday, thanks to Christina, I finally have a new voice from my mother to remember, a generous, loving, melodious alto spent doting on one of her great grandchildren. Much better.

Thanks, Chrissy...

Build Your McMansion With Your Own Money

Yesterday, Republican lawmakers rolled out their tax reform plan. It’s a complicated, multi-faceted bill with many moving parts, about which I haven’t yet formed an opinion. But there was one particular item that caught my attention, the limitation of the home interest deduction to $500,000. 

Question: How many people do you know who have a mortgage in excess of $500,000? Not very many, I bet. Someone with a mortgage that big would be someone quite wealthy. The payment on a mortgage of say, $750,000 would run somewhere around $3500 a month. I say, more power to ‘em. If someone has done well enough to want to build a big old house in the country somewhere and borrow that kind of money to do it, God Bless. This is America. Building big old houses is kinda what we do! 

But, let me ask you another question...why should the tax payer be forced to subsidize someone’s multi-million dollar McMansion? Why is Uncle Sam in the business of helping someone build their ten bedroom dream house? Why does someone wealthy and successful enough to build that ten bedroom house need the government’s help in the first place? These questions answer themselves. No reasonable person can justify this sort of tax giveaway with a straight face...but brace yourselves, the justifications are about to begin, and they will be loud, long and bipartisan.

First of all, the Home Builders and Realtor lobby groups will be apoplectic that this particular form of corporate welfare might disappear, for reasons that should be obvious. When the tax code provides subsidies to anyone and everyone who buys your product, with no limits, that’s a pretty sweet gig. But what is going to be hilarious will be the howls of protests coming from the Uber-wealthy status-home owners...from both ends of the political spectrum...who will be impacted by the loss of this freebie. All of those California Progressives who constantly lecture the rest of us for our opposition to out of control government spending, will scream like stuck pigs if they can no longer divert millions of tax payer funds away from poverty programs in order to provide them with their mortgage interest subsidy. Millionaire conservatives who ordinarily spend all their time extolling the virtues of self reliance, will wail like spoiled children if it looks like their mortgage interest free ride might end.

Listen, anyone who reads this blog knows my views on our tax code. What the Republican Party rolled out yesterday doesn’t even come close to my preferred reforms. Still,  I can understand the basic idea for the mortgage interest deduction..in theory. Originally, the notion was...home ownership is a net positive for people and the economy for a whole host of reasons. If the government can encourage home ownership by providing tax incentives, that would also be a net positive. Fine. But, somewhere along the line, like so many other government attempts at dogoodery, it went off the rails. A tax incentive designed to encourage first time home buyers and others for whom the purchase of a home was a colossal undertaking is one thing, allowing the likes of Barbara Streisand to stick the tax payers with the bill for her California dream home and the 10 million dollar mortgage that comes with it...is something else altogether.

Far be it from me to criticize anyone’s desire to build a mansion. But, if you’re wealthy enough to do so...do it with your own money.

Hollywood’s Comeuppance

First, it was the news media. Fox News titans Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, seemingly overnight brought low by women coming forward with charges of sexual harassment. The left coast elites were publically apoplectic with outrage, and privately overjoyed that these two high profile conservative stars were getting exposed for being scumbags. But, over the past couple of weeks, the worm has turned. Now, high profile liberal stars are are being ratted out by suddenly emboldened female accusers. Mark Halperin, of NBC News, Hamilton Fish from the New Republic, Lockhart Steele from Vox, and even Michael Oreskes from the sainted NPR, find themselves under a cloud of suspicion. Apparently, piggish sexual perverts are a bipartisan lot.

Then, Hollywood found itself in the embarrassing position of having one of its premier kingmakers, exposed as a serial rapist. Harvey Weinstein went from literally being referred to as God from the stage at the Academy Awards more times than the ...actual God, to being banned for Life in less time than it normally takes for a George Clooney movie to bomb. Speaking of Clooney, his name now appears on a growing list of hot shot Hollywood A-listers being accused of sexual harassment or worse. Along with Clooney, there’s Ben Affleck, Dustin Hoffman, and Kevin Spacey. Andy Dick, and Casey Affleck are on the list too, although describing them as A-listers might be a stretch. When I say that this list is growing what I mean is that it’s growing like a wild fire in the hills of Santa Monica. Now that it suddenly appears that public opinion is squarely in the corner of the accuser in the sexual harassment business, it’s become a seller’s market. Next week this time, I’d be willing to lay odds that the list will have doubled in size. Practically since I sat down to write this, two more big wig Hollywood producer types have been forced to hire a crack team of lawyers. Chris Savino of Nickelodeon fame, along with Amazon Studios head honcho, Roy Price are now in the sexual harassment crosshairs. What in the name of Cecil B Demille is going on here??

I don’t know. I’m not sure why now, of all times, the scumbags that have always ruled Hollywood are being exposed. Make no mistake, men behaving badly isn’t exactly a news flash. Hollywood men behaving badly is practically a proverb, something that has always been. The fact that suddenly it’s all blowing up in their faces is a mystery. But, frankly, it couldn’t possibly have happened to a better group of guys! Honestly, there’s nothing in this world quite so satisfying as watching a pompous, arrogant, elitist, entitled Hollywood gasbag get their comeuppance. These stars presume to lecture the hicks out in flyover country every chance they get about everything from global warming to tax policy, from foreign policy to the 2nd amendment. To them, we are all a bunch of provincial rubes, hopelessly clinging to our guns and the square, outdated morality we inherited from our even more square and outdated parents and grandparents. They look down their perfectly sculpted, libertine noses at our quaint little monogamous lifestyles and think, Oh, how perfectly adorable. And now the empty husk of their squalid existence is being laid bare by the women they oppressed on their way up the mountain. This is the very definition of poetic justice. Pass the popcorn.

Will there ultimately be some liars among the female accusers? Absolutely. Are some of these accusers simply jumping on the bandwagon for attention? Maybe. But my trick knee tells me that most of these women are telling the truth. Men hold the power, especially in Hollywood. The sort of men who have risen to prominence in the long history of that town suggests that these accusers are probably not even telling the half of it. I say, believe the woman, no matter how many men they take down. 

I can’t wait until the Academy Awards show next year. I can’t wait for the self righteous speeches, and the political lectures. But mostly, I can’t wait to see how many men will be left to hand out Awards or even to receive any. Maybe we will have all female winners. How cool would that be?

Halloween, Then and Now

Tonight is Halloween. I hate Halloween. I hate it because it makes me feel old. It reminds me of what my Halloween nights used to be like, when Pam and I took turns walking these adorable pups around the neighborhood. Now, we sit on the front steps trying to keep Lucy contained behind us, while a parade of other people's adorable kids troop by. Most of them are the sweetest things you've ever seen, but there's always a few knuckleheads, kids who cant be bothered with actually saying, Trick or Treat!! They just stand there, with bags thrust towards us making their silent little demands. Then there's always the older teenagers, shameless leaches, who throw some lame excuse for a costume on at the last minute to horn in on the free candy action. Some dork will come up wearing a t-shirt with a giant vegetable on the front and when you ask this interloper what they're dressed as, they'll say, I'm supposed to be, like...irony. Then you smile and say, Well, ironically enough,....no candy for you, moron!

It's not really that I hate Halloween. It's more accurate to say that I miss it. I miss the days when the little ones were my little ones. Reason number 117 why I need grandchildren!!

But, there's one other thing about Halloween that gets in my craw a bit. When I was a kid, and even when my children were kids, Halloween was exclusively a kids thing. But, like so many other great things in this world that were made for kids, grownups have appeared out of nowhere to ruin everything. It seems like all of a sudden everywhere I look there are fully grown men and women running around dressed in extravagant costumes, throwing their own adult-themed Halloween parties. Men caked up with makeup and glitter, dressed like their favorite Star Wars character, women dressed as slutty versions of otherwise innocuous characters. Oh, look...its Jill from accounting dressed like what Hillary Clinton would look like if she were a hooker! Its one thing when college kids do stuff like this. That's to be expected, I suppose. But when you see some 50 year old suburbanite walking down the street, dressed like Donald Trump with an inflatable likeness of Sean Hannity with his lips attached to Trump's ample backside, well...(actually, that's a bad example since that would be hysterical).

...wait a minute, I wonder if I've got time to throw something together....

A Beautiful Paradox

When Brian McCann hit a home run in the bottom of the 8th inning to put the Astros up 12-9, I finally gave in to sleep. I had a long day ahead of me. It was midnight. Besides, I reasoned, how much more gut wrenching drama could one ball game possibly produce? This will go down as one of the dumbest rhetorical questions I have ever asked myself. How much more gut wrenching drama, you ask?

So, the Dodgers, who had already blown one 4 run lead and one 3 run lead, calmly went out in the 9th inning and scored 3 runs to tie the game. By the time the bottom of the 10th inning rolled around, and despite having already stormed back from being 4 down against Clayton Kershaw, a mortal lock for the Hall Of Fame once his career is over, and having already stormed back a second time courtesy of a 3 run homer off the bat of the Mighty Mouse Of Baseball...5’6” Jose Altuve, now in order to win this game, they would have to do it against the best closer in the game, Kenley Jansen. Enter Alex Bregman, a rookie who laced a single to center field to score a pinch runner from second to put an end to this video game style World Series game. The first time these two starting pitchers went out there in game one, the whole thing was over in 2 hours and 28 minutes. This time, the issue was decided 5 hours and 17 minutes after the first pitch. Nobody in the raucous arena they call Minute Maid Park was complaining.

If either one of these teams were my team, I would have watched every second of it, no matter how long it took. The fact that I went to bed and missed the crazy finish is something I’m not proud of, as a baseball fan. But, whatcha gonna do? This World Series has already been about as good as this game gets...and it’s not over. If the Dodgers manage somehow to pull themselves up off the mat to win Tuesday night to force a game seven...I’ll watch to the bitter end. I’m not a fan of either team, but I wouldn’t dream of missing it. It’s baseball, the most dramatic, pressurized team sport ever created, a sport where no individual player is indispensable, yet this thouroughly team game ultimately comes down to a series of individual battles...pitcher vs. hitter. It’s a paradox, but a beautiful one.

What Type Are You?

Every five years or so the geeks over at the Pew Research Center come out with their survey of American political thought or, to use their preferred phraseology...typology. This is an expensive undertaking and their methodology is strong, as it involves extensive interviews with over 5,000 of us on a wide variety of subjects. According to their findings, Americans are now divided into nine distinct camps or factions as follows:

Democrats:

16%...Solid Liberals

12%...Opportunity Democrats

14%...Disaffected Democrats

9%.....Devout and Diverse

Republicans:

13%...Core Conservatives

6%.....Country First Conservatives

12%...Market Skeptic Republicans

11%...New Era Enterprisers

If you’re doing the math, you’ll notice that these percentages do not add up to 100%. That’s because the people at Pew had a hard time coming up with a snappy name for the remaining misfits and their widely diverse views. So, they added one catch all category:

8%...Bystanders

You’ll need to read their 152 page summation to learn what constitutes each of these categories, what makes someone Devoutly Diverse, or a New Era Enterpriser I’m sure would make for fascinating reading. But, I’m more interested in this Bystander group, which from their brief description sounds like a smorgasbord of political crackpottery. They go into zero detail, unfortunately, which leaves me free to spectulate. What kind of people make up this 8% of the American population at this tumultuous time in our history? 

7%.....Those holding out for the Return of Elvis so he can take his rightful place as President of the Trilateral Commission

13%...Patriots So Thoroughly Embarassed By Politics They Have Withdrawn From The Public Square In Horror

9%.....Law Abiding, Tax Paying Citizens Who Desperately Want To Be Left Alone

16%...People Not In To Politics Because Christ Will Return Any Second Now

11%...People Who Will, like...Totally Support Whichever Candidate Who Promises To Legalize Marijuana

17%...Guns

14%...People Who Want Some Politician To Demand That Churches Go Back To Singing The Old Hymns

13%...People Who Think It Would Be Better For Everybody If The Gays Were All Forced To Move To Vermont

Why Did I Leave Maine?

The month of October is nearly over. For me, the 2017 version has been a miserable slog, made infinitely worse by the fact that it followed a sublime September spent in Maine. As I have weathered each absurd storm which has blown through our lives these past four weeks I have often asked myself, Why did you ever leave Maine? Of course, this question is only rhetorical, since it’s answer is obvious...I don’t live in Maine, I only vacation there. My house, my job, and my life is here. Still, consider the series of disasters which have befallen me and my family since I arrived back in Short Pump on September 30, 2017:

September 30...Our dishwasher flooded the kitchen, kicking off a whirlwind couple of weeks which featured loud machines running 24/7, the ripping out of hard wood flooring, a deluge of contractors and claims adjusters fighting out the details of our claim, and a promise that all will be well before Thanksgiving...if there are no complications.

October 2...One man, armed with nearly thirty weapons, unleashed a rain of fire from his hotel room on a crowd in Las Vegas gathered at a country music concert. 58 souls perished and over 500 were wounded. And now, just three weeks later, nobody, and I mean nobody, is even talking about it anymore.

October 9...A mere 60 Days after the fact, I receive the final bill from Henrico Doctor’s Hospital for my 24 hour stay in their facility. The total bill came in a ham sandwich shy of $30,000. At the bottom of the bill in cheerful green type was the happy sum of $3,450 right next to the words, Patient’s responsibility. 

October 19...I spent a delightful afternoon waging a losing battle with a bank and an out of state bureaucracy over a lost car title, which resulted in me having to pay off my son’s car in order to obtain a clear title which I will then have to transfer to his name, and send it to him via some as yet uninvented teleportation device which can insure actual delivery without getting lost by some state government employee. In the meantime, my son gets pulled over again for driving on expired tags.

October 25...My daughter’s beloved dog came down with a high fever and other troubling symptoms which required a multi-night stay at a specialty care facility. In said facility it was determined that poor Jackson had food poisoning. The good news seems to be that he will be ok. The bad news is the bill is a ridiculous amount of money, and since I don’t have their permission to reveal just how ridiculous, let me just say that what they are having to pay for Jackson’s care was only a ham sandwich less than I paid for my first semester’s tuition at Universaity of Richmond in 1977.

There you have it. In the first 26 Days since I returned from Maine, we have been hit with one thing after another. Money has been flying out of my wallet faster than starlets out of Harvey Weinstein’s hotel suite....faster than Trump types out Tweets with his tiny little fingers...faster than a post season appearance by the Washington Nationals.

Tell me again...why did I leave Maine?

A Sick Dog Is The Worst...

Meet my Grandpup, Jackson. He belongs to my daughter and her husband. He is 2 and a half, a big, clumsy, lovable English Creme Golden Retriever. Almost every week they send us pictures of this crazy dog doing some dorky thing or another. He and Lucy are great pals. To know Jackie-Jack is to love him. My daughter and her husband are smitten.

And now, he is sick.

A few days ago he suddenly became listless, uninterested in his food, and began to run a fever. Once the drooling began and the fever got worse, they took him to the Vet. Antibiotics were given and he was kept overnight for observation. No improvement. $800.

Now, several tests are being administered at an emergency center for pets where more specialized care is brought to bear. $1500.

Still no dependable diagnosis. Fever still high. Still not eating. Next steps are uncertain at this hour. $ ????

Here’s the thing. Everyone wants a dog, and why not? They are amazing animals which offer the type of loving companionship that we all desire. They are adorable. They make your life better, happier, more fulfilled. They offer hours of entertainment, unshakable loyalty, and unconditional devotion. But, they are expensive.

Heartworm medication. Flea and tick control. Shots. Checkups. More shots. Kennels. Food. Toys. Allergy shots. 

In the eleven years that we had our beloved Molly, we spend more on her ongoing care than we spent on medical bills for our two human children...combined. Molly was probably the finest dog in the history of that species, but she had a host of allergy issues that wound up costing us a small fortune. But, we paid it, gladly, because she became a cherished member of our family and I never could have denied her the best care. Of course, I could afford it. Younger couples trying to establish themselves in the world? Not so much. But, what do you do? Your beautiful, loyal friend gets sick, you look into their eyes, feel their anguish...then you pay what needs to be paid to make her well again.

When I hear people say, But, it’s just a dog, part of me,(a very small part), understands. When I was growing up, I had a long list of dogs: Roman, Prince Abbiba, Lassie, and Zach, none of which ever made a trip to a Vet. Most were outdoor dogs. Whenever they got sick, they either got over it on their own or wandered off into the woods and died. That sounds brutal to write but it’s just the way it was when I was a kid. Of course, we didn’t live in the suburbs then, and they did get rabies shots,(I think), but it was a different world. So I get it when people shrug and say, it’s just a dog. But, have you ever noticed that the people who say that sort of thing almost never have dogs? 

So, I am on pins and needles today, waiting for news from Columbia about Jackson. For Kaitlin and Jon, and us, he’s not just a dog. He’s a cherished member of our family who spreads joy and happiness to everyone he meets. Our family picture albums are chocked full of pictures of him and Lucy precisely because they are both part of what makes us a family.

The Stuff of Memories

The World Series begins tonight. The Houston Astros v Los Angeles Dodgers. Game one in the City of Angels.

Unfortunately, with that opening sentence, I have probably lost half of you. Such is the state of my favorite game in 2017. When it comes to sports, Americans would rather watch protesting football players, or the tattoo-covered freaks who prowl the courts of the NBA. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. As a proponent of the free market, I must respect the decisions of my fellow citizens and admit that my game is no longer the national pastime. Fine. I will watch, with the same fevered anticipation I brought to the first fall classic I ever watched, the 1968 matchup between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals. That’s the one where Mickey Lolitch won 3 games and outdueled Bob Gibson. By the time the 1969 Series was over and I had witnessed the New York Mets upset the Baltimore Orioles, I was good and hooked. Haven’t missed one since.

But for me it goes further than the World Series. When I was a kid, I hated being inside...more than practically anything. Winter was the worst. Sure, snow was cool, but only for a while. By the time the end of March came around, I was about to lose my mind which meant that my Mother was down to her very last nerve. What always saved my life was the beginning of baseball.

Baseball meant that it was warm enough to be outside again. Baseball meant that me and my friends could gather in the field behind Elmont Elementary and play all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoons after church. Baseball meant collecting baseball cards and snapping off a slug of that hard slab of bubble gum inside each pack. Baseball meant that my big brother and I would set the old green radio in the window sill and reenact the Richmond Braves games from Frank Soden’s play by play call. When they were on the road old Frank would get the plays fed to him on a ticker, then recreate the action with the help of truly horrible sound effects in a studio in Richmond....

Yes fans, the pressure is mounting here in Rochester, New York on this humid night as Hal Breeden bats with the bases full of Braves. There’s nowhere to put the big guy and there’s a full count. Just listen to the roar of that crowd...(cue the pathetic crowd noise sound that sounded more like some guy trying to hawk popcorn in a wind tunnel). 

I would toe the imaginary rubber in the my back yard, then kick and deliver the 3-2 pitch to my brother who was waiting at the plate(which was the lid to the trash can), Hal Breeden’s capable stand-in. 

The Rochester hurler peers in for the sign, gets the one he wants, rocks and deals...(cue the sound of the cracking of a bat which was actually Frank tapping the base of the microphone with a number 2 pencil). Breeden swings and lifts a high fly ball deep to left field! That’s got a chance...it’s going...going...Gone!!!

Every now and then a magical moment would happen when whatever Frank had just described was exactly what happened in my back yard...my brother would swing and lift a high fly ball over the roof of our house, across the street out front and into the marshy hollow where Mrs. Lawrence’s natural spring was, a prodigious blast of over 300 feet! Of course, that marked the end of the festivities, since that property was well guarded by Mrs. Lawrence herself and her ever present 12 gauge shot gun which she would shoot every once in a while at nothing in particular, just to scare us pesky kids away. It worked. That just meant I would have to get Dad to drive us into Ashland to buy a new baseball.

So, I’ll be watching tonight, and I’ll be recalling a thousand such memories that are swimming around in my head, each of them wonderful, and oddly calming.

Play ball!

"What Does Your Wife Do?"

Today was my wife's first day back at school after her long summer break. It's as good a time as any to answer a question I get asked a lot pertaining to her employment...What does your wife do?

Setting aside for a moment my often suggested alternative question, (What doesn't she do?), she works at an elementary school here in the west end of Henrico County as an Interventionist. Whenever I use that descriptor I get puzzled looks. Actually, whenever I hear the term "interventionist" I think it should be a new Cabinet level post in the Trump White House.(but that's another story). In Pam's case it describes someone who takes small groups of K thru 5th grade students who are struggling in math and reading for specialized extra instruction in short, thirty minute sessions. I probably just made a hash of the proper description, but it's the best I can do, having not been schooled in the esoteric language of the modern education bureaucracy. However you describe the job, she is unbelievably good at it...so good, in fact, that when her students learn that they have improved so much in their reading and math skills that they no longer need to be in Mrs. Dunnevant's class, many of them burst into tears!

Generally speaking, here's how it works:

Four second graders who are all horrible at math are marched down to her class for a thirty minute session with Mrs. Dunnevant. They walk into the most colorful, crazy, fun looking class in the entire school. They meet this energetic, beautiful blonde woman who makes them all feel like they are the coolest kids in the history of elementary education and she is the luckiest teacher in America for getting to teach them! What a coincidence, right?! Then she introduces them all to the thousand ways that they can earn a stunning variety of stickers, gadgets and gizmos that she has picked out just for them! Some kids warm up to her immediately, others take longer, but eventually they all eventually fall in love with Mrs. Dunnevant.

What makes this all the more remarkable is the fact that many of her students can barely speak English. See, along with her regular, garden variety west end kids, Pam has had kids from Russia, Pakistan, India, Jordan, Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Vietnam. Occasionally, I'll surprise her with an iced coffee from Starbucks, and when I walk into her class it looks like a summer camp meeting at the United Nations.

But, no matter where these kids come from, by the time they finish a year with my wife a couple of things are true: #1 they are measurably better at math and reading and #2 they know that Mrs. Dunnevant loves them.

It's a part time job. She has no benefits and she gets paid by the hour, which is officially 4 and a half per day, although her actually time spent working is closer to 6 or 7. It's at times overwhelming, at other times frustrating. But, when she reports for work at the beginning of a year and hardly any of last year's students are back, she gets the incredible thrill of knowing she has made a difference.

So yeah, that's what my wife does.

The Triumph of the Id

For close to fifty years now our world has been committed to the pursuit of self expression. While our parents had been taught to keep their emotions in check and a tight throttle on their tongue, my generation and generations after mine have kicked self restraint to the curb with characteristically reckless abondon. In this new world, express yourself, has been the mantra. Don't keep your emotions bottled up inside! You be you! Cry, weep and wail, gnash those teeth, and by all means...do it in public.

Nowhere is this new brand of comportment more on display than in the sporting world. When I was growing up, I used to watch guys like Walter Payton score touchdown after touchdown, then stoically flip the ball to the referee, with not even a stifled fistpump. I would watch Bob Gibson blowing hitters away in high pressure games with a facial expression which would convince the casual observer that the man was engaged in an activity no more stressful than mowing the lawn. 

All of this changed during the 1960's, (didn't everything?), when Homer Jones performed the very first touchdown celebrating spike of a football. Soon after, Billy "white shoes" Johnson performed the funky chicken after a touchdown reception, and it was off to the races. Baseball was slow to adapt to these self congratulatory demonstrations, primarily because baseball has always been slow to adapt to anything, really. But adapt they have.

If you've watched any of this year's baseball post season you have witnessed the overwhelming triumph of the Id. When a pitcher gets out of a tight jam, he practically goes berserk in an orgy of guttural screams and fist pumping. When a batter gets a hit, even an inconsequential one, he can be counted on to gesticulate wildly to his teammates in the dugout, as if he had just won the powerball lottery or split the freaking atom or something. I'm told by all of the smart people that baseball needs more, not less, of this sort of spleen venting. More drama is what people want, more pathos, less circumspection. After all, I'm advised, sports is entertainment, and what is entertainment without emotion?

I can practically feel the eye rolling going on out there among readers thirty and younger. I get it. My day is past, your day is ascendant. But, as I have watched baseball these past couple of weeks I've had a nagging feeling that the antics I'm seeing are merely a reflection of the greater society. Everything has turned into entertainment, even our politics. And what is entertainment without emotion? It's like, fifty years ago somebody made the decision that manners and decorum were somehow bourgeois. Keeping a lid on your emotions was suddenly soul crushing. Courtesy, class and sportsmanship were vestiges of a bygone era inhabited by a generation of repressed suckers.

Then we wake up one day, and Donald Trump is President.

I don't know about you, but I could do with a little self restraint in America about now, a little less drama.  A bit of class, grace and decorum would feel like  a godsend in 2017. A touch of humility in my public officials would feel like a cool breeze on a hot summer day, wouldn't it?

Missing This...

I haven't seen my kids since this picture was taken back in July. I've talked to them on the phone, texted them, shared goofy dog pictures with them, even Facetimed them...but I haven't been able to give them a hug in three months. Some might not think this is that big of a deal. I know people whose children live on the west coast or even out of the country all together. For them, three months would be nothing. But, many of my friends get to see their kids all the time because they live on the other side of town or even down the street. When they move out of state, this is how it has to be. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I suppose I'm missing them more right now because for the last four years, October was the month when I would rent a cabin down in Gatlinburg for five days. Patrick and Sarah would drive the 4 hours up from Nashville, and Kaitlin and Jon the 6 hours from Columbia. We would have a blast. The air was chilly, the views of the Smoky Mountains from the hot tub on the deck were sensational, and Pam would make all sorts of insanely delicious fall dishes that we would all make pigs of ourselves eating. One such trip served as one of our  first opportunities to observe the new girl, Sarah, up close. We put that poor thing through the ringer, even insisting that she zip-line over a 300 foot gorge for our amusement. She was game, though, and we came away impressed with her willingness to do any stupid thing we planned for her that weekend.

But this year, our Gatlinburg trip was derailed for a multitude of reasons that are too boring to chronicle. We were planning on making up for it by making a road trip visit to both Nashville and Columbia after we returned from Maine. Alas, that plan has been sacrificed on the alter of the Great Exploding Dishwasher Disaster of '17, whereby we are being held hostage by a gang of contractors who may or may not show up at our home any minute to begin hauling our furniture away, kicking us into a hotel for a week and ripping up and replacing our hard wood floors. So, no fall trip for us.

What this all means is that the next time I will get to see my kids won't be until Thanksgiving, and even that might be weird since, our luck, we'll be staying in a Holiday 
Inn somewhere when they all get here. I'm sure everything will work out fine. It's just that whenever we are separated from these guys for significant periods of time, I get a little squirrelly. Besides, I haven't seen my Grand-dog in at least six months. Oh, the humanity!!!!

I'll get over it. Thank goodness for cell phones and FaceTime, right? But, I still miss this...