The Latest College Scam

These two pretty women are TV stars. That’s what every headline I read yesterday called them. One is Felicity Huffman, the other Lori Loughlin. The one on the left used to be on Full House, I think. The one on the right has been on a bunch of shows. If I search hard enough I’m sure that I can find footage of both of them lecturing middle America about our manifold failings in the area of either gun control, LBGT rights, abortion or immigration. Chances are very good that they would both qualify as woke. Or maybe not...maybe they are just two apolitical empty suits. Until yesterday neither of these two women had entered my consciousness in over a decade. Now, i can’t get either of them out of there!

So, these two actresses were among over 50 wealthy, well-connected parents, administrators and coaches caught up in an FBI dragnet of illegal college admissions activity, whereby rich people sought to bypass the normal admissions proceedure (which was screwed up to begin with), by falsifying test scores and impersonating athletes for the benefit of their non-athletic, not bright enough children. In other words...what rich, entitled parents have been attempting to do for their worthless pea-brained kids since Christ was a corporal. Talk about your dog-bites-man story...I mean, where’s the fire?

Anyway, this story got me to thinking about how I got in to University of Richmond back in the day. My parents were completely disengaged about my future plans. They were the type of parents who today would be considered negligent, almost to the point of disinterest. My first couple of years in high school were spent adrift from academics...I had decided to become a carpenter who wrote stories on the side. College wasn’t on my radar screen. Suddenly at the dawn of my junior year, I realized that if I wanted to even consider college I had to actually buckle down and open a book once in a while. All of these decisions came about with virtually no input  from Mom or Dad, who were apparently preoccupied with putting food on the table to concern themselves with what Junior was going to be when he grew up. Anyway, my last two years of high school featured straight A’s, which was fine...but only partially fixed my GPA. If I was going to get in to UofR I was going to have to do well on the SAT test. My guidance counselor handed me a test preparation book with two sample tests and a piece of paper with all the exam dates and sites and said...Good Luck, kid.

I took the thing twice, scored quite well on it, then wrote a snappy essay and fired off my application to UofR. When I got my acceptance letter, Dad looked up from his News Leader Green Section to say, Congratulations, Son, and that was that. Later that year when I informed him that I wouldn’t be matriculating until I returned back from my planned two month backpacking trip out west, his answer was typical of my Dad. I paraphrase:

I think that’s a dumb idea. But if that’s what you’re determined to do, here’s the deal. You better get a job when you get back and save up your money, because your spring semester tuition is coming out of YOUR pocket.

That’s exactly what happened too. When I finally ran out of cash out west, I made it home and immediately went to work for a guy named H.G. Lanier installing lockers and shelving in high schools in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. I will never forget how horrible it felt to write a check to the admissions office for $1800 in 1977.

But, back to the two lovely ladies above. The thing about the story that infuriates me is this. To make room for their pampered, privileged spawn, somebody else had to be denied. Chances are, that someone was some incredibly bright, hard working kid who busted his or her butt compiling a 4.0, piled up hours and hours of extra curricular activities over four years, stayed up late studying and practicing for their SAT tests, while their parents worked three jobs saving up to be able to put them through if they were fortunate enough to get accepted. That kid also opened an acceptance letter. But, his or her dreams were crushed...to make room for Constance Elizabeth Huffman with her 1600 SAT score and four year career as a champion pole vaulter, field hockey captain and point guard of the basketball team.

Makes me want to throw up...

April Fools From Afar?

So far in 2019, I have been distracted by the constant demands of my chosen profession. This is by design. After 36 years, my work year has become deliberately front loaded into the first 5 months of the year, and heavily backloaded into October and November, leaving the majority of the summer lightly scheduled, leaving me free to decompress in Maine. One of the highlights of these first five months of hard work is April Fool’s Day. I circle it on my calendar every year. I begin the plotting and scheming in February. By Mid March, my plans are operational and the required props have been purchased. Only somehow this year I have made a major strategic error from which I may not be able to recover. For reasons I cannot possibly imagine, I have scheduled a week in Myrtle Beach with my wife which includes Monday, April 1st. It is not all rest and relaxation...I also have reviews with two clients who both live on Pawleys Island for that day, but still, a major scheduling mistake.

But, just because I will be 5 hours away from Short Pump on the big day does not mean that I cannot visit havoc on my office-mates. It will take extra planning, attention to detail, and a devious imagination, and as luck would have it, I am highly skilled at all three. My plan is already taking shape in the fevered swamps of my mind. Since I will be leaving for the beach sometime on Saturday, I will have to lay the trap either late on Friday night, or in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Then, on Monday morning at roughly 8:30, I will sit back on the deck of the condo drinking my coffee as the texts start pouring in. They will all begin with feigned outrage and accusations of childishness. Something like this...

Blaire: Seriously Doug??!! Cloves of garlic embedded inside the mouthpiece of my phone? Are you like 5 years old??

Allison: Don’t even bother coming back! I’m serious Doug, this is inexcusable. I’m not cleaning any of this up!

Lindsey: How come every key on my keyboard types the letter “M”???

Lynwood: I swear to you that if my truck cab is crammed full of orange ping pong balls again, I’m gonna kill you, man.

This is what they will threaten, but what they are really saying is “How lucky are we to get to experience this every year?!”

You may be saying to yourself, If they all know what’s going to happen every year, why do they even come into the office? That’s an excellent question actually, the answer to which strikes at the very heart of the eternal appeal of the practical joke. See, deep down inside of the human heart there is a longing for mischief. We all desperately try to be all buttoned-up and proper. We try our best to promote a professional exterior facade. But, everyone of us, whether or not we care to admit it, are amused by the pratfall, fascinated by slapstick and amused by juvenile tomfoolery. How else to explain the enduring popularity of Blazing Saddles and Animal House among the male species? How else to explain the decades long popularity of the whoopie cushion? It is one of the basic needs of human beings, right up there with food, clothing and shelter...the innate desire to playfully humiliate your co-worker.

So, I will put my devious plan into motion remotely this year. It’s gonna be great!

Life In My 60’s

Considering the alternative, I am quite fond of being alive three weeks shy of my 61st birthday. I have been blessed with a healthy and happy family, a wealth of good friends and a thriving and prosperous business. However, there is something about life in my 60’s that is annoying, that is...the propensity the body developes towards falling apart. A few examples:

# While many men complain about losing their hair later in life, my experience has been different. I not only maintain a thick head of hair, I am now growing hair in places I wouldn’t think it possible for hair to grow. It’s like all of a sudden somebody has slipped Rogaine in my shower water. I’m like a giant Chia-pet!

# Despite having established and maintaining a workout regime that has had me at the gym every other day for the past 15 years, my body betrays me in new and bizarre ways on nearly a weekly basis. The following are just a few of the discussions I have had to have with Patient First doctors of late...

Doc: So, Mr. Dunnevant, what brings you in today?

Me: I’ve thrown my back out.

Doc: Oh Dear...what were you doing? Lifting something without bending your knees? Trying to do too much yard work in one day? Moving a piano upstairs?

Me: No...I was plugging in the blow dryer.

Me: No...I was brushing my teeth.

Me: No...I was retrieving a coffee mug from the cabinet.

The latest bizarreness occurred yesterday...at church. I was in my customary aisle seat, and had just settled in to listen to a sermon from our new Youth pastor. I should emphasize at this point that I was...sitting in a chair...perhaps the least strenuous activity on the day’s agenda. As is often the case with those of us who have difficulty with the whole sitting down thing, I almost instinctively began to cross my legs by lifting my right leg off the ground and resting it over my left leg, a move that men have been executing flawlessly for roughly 4,000 years of recorded history. Suddenly, an excruciating pain shot up my right leg from my ankle to my knee, complete with heat. At first I actually thought I had severed a tendon, it hurt so bad. I grabbed it with both hands right after the offering plate had passed and pondered what the conservation was going to be like with the Patient First doctor...

Doc: So, Mr. Dunnevant, what brings you in today?

Me: I think I’ve blown out my knee.

Doc: Oh My...how did it happen? You training for a marathon? Were you doing wind sprints at the gym? Trying to do squats with too much weight?

Me: No...I was crossing my legs...at church.

After ten minutes of extreme discomfort, during which time I completely missed the sermon intro, the shooting pain stopped...completely and totally vanished. Twenty minutes later when it was time to stand up for the closing song, I cautiously applied weight to the leg...100% pain free.

It’s this sort of thing that is disconcerting about turning 60. You feel good, even look good (if grading on a curve), but you never know when your body is going to start screwing with you. Out of the blue, you will develope an irritating eye twitch, break out in a 24 hour rash, suddenly not be able to eat pizza after 9 o’clock at night with Pepcid, or all of a sudden, every time you blow your nose, tears start shooting out of your left eye. I mean, seriously? Tears shooting out of your left eye when you blow your nose? In the name of all that is holy, what in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here??(asking for a friend)??

50 Years is Probably Enough

Ever since I was a ten year old sitting on the floor of my grandmother’s trailer watching Bobby Kennedy get assassinated, I have been interested in politics and politicians. That event was so traumatic, it convinced me, even as a kid, that I should be paying attention to the world more. Strange, eventful things were happening and I needed to get in on it. Thus began a lifelong fascination with the political processes of our Republic, born out of a violent tragedy. There, right there on my bio for this blog, politics is listed as one of the things I enjoy blogging about!

But, no more.

Honestly, the past few years have managed to destroy any vestige of interest I have had about politics and politicians. Part of the blame for my condition is the complete capitulation of the Republican Party to Donald Trump, the sacrificing of every core principle they ever claimed to hold dear for the purposes of loyalty to the current occupant of the White House. To witness a great and storied political party transformed into a tribe of sycophants virtually overnight has been a colossal disappointment. But, it’s not just the GOP which has been transformed. Suddenly, as if someone has managed to slip hallucinogens into their communal coffee, the Democratic Party seems hellbent on out-Socializing each other. All of a sudden, practically every prominent leader of the Party commits to some new collectivist scheme or another. The new telegenic freshman from Brooklyn sucks all the oxygen from the room when she calls both Reagan and FDR racists, to the squealing delight of her starstruck sycophants...another great and storied political party transformed into something radically unrecognizable to someone who has been paying close attention from fifty years.

Every other party available to me in this famously restrictive two-party system are worthless whiners, forever complaining about how unfair the world is...Libertarians, The Green Party, The Constitution Party...are they still a thing? So, yeah...I got nothing.

Purists out there will lecture me about pragmatism, about how I should work within one of these two parties to bring about the change I desire. I should either hold my nose and work to pry the Republicans away from their jock-sniffing worship of Donald Trump...or I should endeavor to pull the Democratic Party away from the cliff of Socialism they seemed determined to launch themselves from. My answer to these two suggestions is simple...nope. I’m almost 61. Fifty years of politics is enough. I’ll let the kids figure it out.

Of course, if I decide to more or less withdraw from the scrum, I suppose I should stop writing about it too. Everyone who reads this blog already knows my feelings on the subject. I will never change anyone’s mind. Nobody in politics changes anyone’s mind anymore. We all have everything figured out already. We’re right and the other guy hates America, right? So, I should probably stick to Dad Jokes, sports, family, and fiction. That should be enough to keep me busy.

Healthy Living...Without Doritos?

So, I have lost 10.4 pounds since my wife informed me that the Dunnevant house was going on a diet right after the first of the year. No, it wasn’t my idea, and no, I wasn’t exactly enamored with the news. But, truth be told, I had added several unwanted pounds over the holidays and had inched up to nearly an all time high for poundage, so I went along with the plan. Besides, when it comes to eating here at Chez Dunnevant, my wife does 90% of the cooking, so if she decides to go on a liver and onions kick, then I either have to develope a taste for liver and onions, or go hungry.

The diet is some sort of online thing that I don’t entirely understand. It basically involves eating a lot of fish and chicken, vegetables and fruit, not eating a lot of bread and beef, and substituting salty snacking with carrot sticks dipped into homemade hummus. Oh, and also smaller portion sizes. In other words, like my wife observed last night, We are finally eating the way everyone else we know eats.

In this endeavor, we have been aided greatly by the new Insta-Pot I got Pam for Christmas. She has prepared probably at least a dozen new recipes, many of which were ideally suited for this new age pressure cooker. The very best thing about this diet is the one thing that I never expected...the meals Pam makes are absolutely delicious. 

There is one thing I miss. I’m not a big sweets guy. I mean, I’ll wolf down chocolate if it’s available as quickly as the next guy, and I love ice cream and doughnuts. But, when push comes to shove and it’s 9 o’clock at night, what I want is a bowl of the saltiest, chip-iest thing you got, with a half dozen slices of block cheddar cheese. Well, under this new regime, that ship has sailed. It’s replacement has been either a couple of clementines, or the aforementioned carrot sticks and hummus. The expression, kissing your sister, fairly leaps off the page!

Now, we’re not nuts about this dieting business. We haven’t turned into a couple of walking buzz-kills when we go out with friends. There’s nothing worse than going out to dinner with a couple who spend the entire meal bemoaning how many calories are in the chili-cheese fries, and how they will have to fast for three days afterwards. Nobody cares about your diet. The only thing I do differently when we eat out is I’ve substituted water for beer, and I look for an entree that isn’t a 16 oz T-Bone. Moderation in all things, my friends...moderation in all things.

The net result of all of my wife’s hard work and diligence is that I am now within 4 pounds of what I weighed when I was lucky enough to marry the gorgeous and talented Pamela Jean White 35 years ago.

....but I still would give an appendage for a bag of Doritos.

Finished!!

A couple of days ago, I finished writing my third novel. It’s a story about guilt and grief centered round Jack Rigsby and the brutal and random murder of his wife. Jack blames himself for all of the seemingly inconsequential decisions he made leading up to the murder, and once he discovers that he has a 25 year old connection to the killer, his guilt kicks in to high gear. It’s called Saving Jack, and it is one of the best things I’ve ever written.

But, there’s a problem. It took me eight months to write, including two months when I hit a wall and was unable to type a single word. In all of that time, the characters were never far from my mind. If I wasn’t writing about them, I was thinking about them, trying to imagine what their next move should be. Then I would alternate between cheering them on and being terribly disappointed in their behavior. I know this sounds crazy, since my writing was the source of their bad decisions, but when one of them would make a poor choice, I found myself terribly put out with them for it...a strange mess, I know! So, now that it’s finished...I miss them. It’s like I abandoned all of them, left them in suspended animation, frozen in space and time.

I will now send the manuscript to my whip smart, Master’s Degree in English Literature daughter for a full audit where she will comb over the thing, eliminating balky sentences, correcting clumsy formulations, and searching for plot errors and contradictions. I’m sure that during that process, I will receive several texts which will begin...Dad, on page 87...what the heck? And yes, she will be compensated for this work. It’s a difficult job, and if you want it done right, you have to pay. For those of you who might be wondering whether of not my daughter would be willing to criticize her father’s writing, fear not. Nothing riles my girl up more than bad writing, and sloppy grammar!!

Once she finishes her work, and if I still have a novel left, I will need to decide what to do with it. Since I don’t write for a living, I will not be under any starving writer pressure to get it published. I write for fun, not for profit. But, if it’s as good as I think it is, I may actually try to this time. If that isn’t possible, I may go to the time, trouble and expense of self publishing it as an e-book. Either way, it was a blast writing the thing, incredibly challenging and terrific fun. 

I Miss You, Pop

Recently, for some unknown reason, things my Dad used to say have started popping into my head. Normally, I can go weeks, even months without any Dad-wisdom visitations. But lately they have been coming fast and furious.

Here’s the thing about my Pop. He was not, by any of the tortured definitions of this horribly chunky phrase...woke. No one, living or dead would ever have confused him with the political activists, Neo-marxists who populate so many American pulpits these days. Dad had no political heros of any kind, feeling as he did that too often the goals of the State were at cross purposes with the goals of the Gospel, properly understood. But, this is not to say that he wasn’t critical of the church, or church people. In fact, the general worthlessness of many religious people was one of his life long annoyances. In that regard, two things he used to say have recently come to mind...one an oft repeated phrase, the other an awesome joke...

Dad’s problem with many church people was his perception that they wore their holiness like a crown, and their head in the clouds religiosity rendered them impractical and useless. This sentiment was neatly summed up in the phrase...

Some people are so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good.

It was hard to argue with back then, and doubly so today, don’t ya think?

To illustrate what he meant by this he would tell what amounted to a great joke, which dad wouldn’t have characterized as such. He would have preferred the term...illustration. I’ll let you be the judge...

There was a very Godly and religious man who lived in a lovely house in the country right next door to a very ill-kept house with a back yard overgrown with weeds and abandoned by neglect. One day someone bought the run down place and immediately set about clearing the back yard of the mess. Every weekend the man could be seen hacking at the weeds and hauling away trash. The religious man was particularly irked that he did much of this work on Sunday, and complained to him often about his Sabbath violation over the fence as the man worked. After three years of back breaking toil, the man had produced a lush, beautiful garden filled with fruit trees, flowers and vegetables. One day, the sanctimonious man stood at the fence and observed loudly, Isn’t it a wonderful thing what God has done with his magnificent creation? His neighbor, looked up from his work and answered, Sure is. But you should have seen this place three year ago when God had it by himself!

I miss you, Pop.

A Wedding Weekend

Both of my kids moved away from Richmond years ago. Pam and I have become accustomed to this unfortunate fact and have learned how to live with their absence from our daily lives. We look at our friends whose kids live down the street and we are envious. But, our kids are happy and well adjusted and have many good friends in Columbia and Nashville. Both are gainfully employed, healthy, and as of this moment, neither has a prison record. What do we have to complain about? Nothing!

So, this past weekend was a treat. My son and his wife were in Richmond for a wedding. They arrived, after a 10 hour drive through a rainstorm around eleven o’clock Friday night. We had a wonderful day with them Saturday, attended the brunch wedding with them yesterday from eleven until around three in the afternoon, then watched them drive away in another rainstorm an hour later. 36 hours with our kids...

Two weeks ago, I told you all about a dear friend who had abruptly and shockingly passed away. One week ago today, I described for you the jarring mixture of grief and grace that was her funeral. Today, I will tell you about a wedding.

Patrick has been friends with Sam since they were both in middle school. I’ve always had a soft spot for Sam, an off-beat, loveable goof ball of a kid. Watching him grow up, I always thought that it was going to be vital for him to find the right woman, someone who gets him, someone who can appreciate his idiosyncrasies and deadpan humor. In Stephanie, he has found such a woman.

The wedding was like an old home week for Grovers. We arrived at the venue, some hip, ironic, industrial space down on Clay Street...the kind of place so beloved by millennials, and immediately recognized several couples that we spent a lifetime with at our old church...Hope and Steve Chapel, Rod and Betty Hudson, Jeff and Cheryl Chadwick, and of course, Sam’s parents, Garland and Martha Isaacs. Catching up with all of them felt soothing, like we were hitting the refresh button on our lives.

It was a lovely service which featured Sam’s beloved dog, Ru in a doggy tuxedo as one of the groomsman. Did I mention that Sam is off-beat? Actually, Ru was far more composed and well behaved than the groom throughout the twenty minute service, who was fidgeting worse than Johnny Depp at a prayer meeting. Stephanie was a stunning bride in a classically beautiful dress. The brunch food was delicious, if you can find something to 
complain about when there’s chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits and mimosas around, 
you complain too much.

But, the highlight of the event was the toast delivered by the groom. In typical Sam fashion it started out as an Eyore-like sob story about all the things he had failed at over the years, but then, in a beautiful and profound twist he pointed out that if he had achieved his earlier dreams of being a baseball player, or actor or musician, chances are that he would have missed out on finding the best dream of all...Stephanie. It was a beautiful moment. I was very proud of him.

So, a tumultuous two weeks ends with a wedding. I prefer weddings to funerals. I prefer seeing my son’s car arriving at the curb in front of my house rather than watching its taillights as it leaves. I prefer hello to goodbye. But, I’m thankful for all of it.

Perjurypalooza

I haven’t watched one second of the Michael Cohen Show in real time because...well, because I have a life. But, I have watched highlight clips and have read at least parts of the transcripts. From what I am able to gather, it has been quite an event, about which people are either repulsed or enthralled. A regular perjurypalooza!! What’s my take?

1. If Michael Cohen had been a Democratic Party fixer for the past fifteen years, then suddenly turned against a Democratic Party President, the Republicans on this committee would be hailing him for his willingness to speak truth to power, while the Democrats would be thrashing about in sackcloth and ashes, appalled...appalled that a convicted liar had been called to testify at a Congressional hearing. Since its the other way around, the rolls are predictably reversed.

2. I have noticed that not a single Republican on this committee has actually offered a rigorous defense of the President’s character. Instead of preening, How dare you sir, impugn the integrity of the President of the United States!!...Its been more like, Yeah, well, you’re a convicted liar, liar pants on fire. 

3. But what of the substance? Thats tricky. Michael Cohen has been Donald Trump’s personal attorney for ten years. Neither of them have demonstrated a firm grasp of the concept of truth, even as a laudable goal. The two of them have made their bones by treating truth telling as a transaction-based value. So, its very hard for me to believe anything that comes out of the guy’s mouth. I would, however be willing to say that there is probably a 50/50 chance that half of what Cohen is saying is true, along with a 50/50 chance that he is lying about the other half. Or maybe its the other way around. Whatever.

4. What difference will any of this make? Don’t know. Since the President’s relationship with the truth has always been tenuous, hearing his ex-lawyer accuse him of being a liar doesn’t exactly strike me as breaking news. But, it sure makes for great cable news ratings.

That’s all I got.

Oh, one more thing...If they dont cast Nicolas Cage to play Cohen in the upcoming Netflix movie about this, it will be the worst casting mistake since Ben Afflack as Batman.

I Went To a Funeral Today

I went to a funeral today. The viewing was Sunday afternoon. I went to that too. There was a long, slow moving line, at the end of which was the family and the open casket. As I got closer, I couldn’t bring myself to look at my friend. She was two years younger than me. I had never seen someone in a casket who was younger than me, so I didn’t look. I didn’t want to remember her like that. But I did want to see her husband and the kids, all dear to me and all grieving an unspeakable loss. So I stood in line and struck up conversations with strangers with whom I shared nothing other than our common love for the departed. After we made it through the line, we gathered around a television screen and watched a slide show of photographs, our beautiful friend’s shining face beaming back at us. Here she was holding a grandchild. There she was holding her middle son as an infant, looking tanned in the warm South African sun. It all seemed so unfair.

I had not been looking forward to the funeral. Whenever I hear them called celebrations, I cringe. It’s like we are trying too hard to deny the fact that we have all suffered a crushing loss. As people of faith, we believe in an afterlife, we believe that we will one day be reunited with those we love. But, to call a funeral a celebration lands rudely on my ears, trite and disrespectful. Putting aside the theological ramifications for a moment, here’s what I know...the world I live in was a better place before my friend left it, and now that she is gone, it has been reduced, there is less love, less empathy, and less selflessness. I will not pretend to celebrate that.

We arrived thirty minutes early, and still had to park somewhere in the surrounding neighborhood. The church was packed to overflowing. The service was simulcast on the internet and watched by hundreds of other people in half a dozen countries around the world. My friend was once a missionary in South Africa. The friends she forged throughout Sub-Saharan Africa were the life long kind. They stopped whatever they were doing at whatever time it was over there to listen to the service.

We sat close to the front, very close to the row where the family was seated. To be seated so close to them was to feel the immediacy of their loss. Part of me wished I were in the back, far away from the pain. We watched them cling to one another. We could barely abide watching our friend’s parents, wondering what they must have been feeling as they prepared to bury their second child.

A man at a keyboard asked us all to stand and sing a song. The words were on the screen at the back of the stage. We all sang the words from memory. It was a familiar song, and these people were church people. We could have sung it with our eyes closed. Many people did, including me.

Then I watched my friend’s husband and her three adult children rise from the front row and make their way to the podium. My heart was in my throat. A hush fell over the assembly. The kids were holding on, being resolute and strong for their very brave dad who read aloud from Proverbs 31. The fact that he made it through felt like a miracle of grace. He then looked down at his bereaved in-laws on the front row and thanked each of them for allowing him the privilege of 35 years as their daughter’s husband. When they made it back to their seat, the atmosphere of the building was drenched with sorrow. Then something amazing happened...

Our dear friend, Gordon Fort rose to give the eulogy. For nearly thirty minutes, his words redeemed the day. He spoke with the perfect mixture of compelling biography, humor and the unique insights that can only be provided by intimate friends. He didn’t try to hide the shock of such a loss, even justifiably lamented that she only lived 58 years on this earth. But at the end, he looked at the family, each of them, and called them by name...Did not Kim love you well? Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that Gordon Fort is clutch.

The man at the keyboard again. This time a familiar hymn, the words, powerful and sobering...

When peace, like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll,

What ever my lot, thou hath taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul...

Pam and I mingled within the mass of people slowly making their way out of the church. We saw people we hadn’t seen in months, some in years. All of us united in grief and overcome with love for such an amazing, selfless woman. We drove home in quiet reflection, praying for the family. We thought of how exhausted they all must be, how thoroughly worn out from all the hugging, the tears and condolences which probably all started sounding the same after a while. Now the family must find their way to Atlanta to lay her to rest. More tears, more embraces.

Tonight, we went to dinner with friends. It felt like the kind of night where we needed to be around friends. We ate a meal together at Brio’s, and talked about our friend. We will miss her. In a few weeks, maybe a couple months, we will recall our friend with nothing but smiles and fondness. For now, its mostly sadness and loss. But thats ok, I think. How could we not?

In the meantime, I will say a quick prayer every time D. Ray comes to my mind. I will keep Paul and Trevor and Emily in my thoughts. And I will hold on to Pam and my four adult children ever tighter, and be grateful for every day that I have them.

Fighting Back

It’s 40 degrees and raining in Short Pump for like the 28th day in a row. Practically everyone I know is grieving a dear friend who’s  viewing is coming up tomorrow, with the funeral service on Monday. In other words, this weekend promises to be the low point of 2019. Accordingly, I am forced to fight back with one of the few weapons at my disposal...cringe-inducing Dad Jokes:

1. I started a company selling land mines disguised as prayer mats.

    Prophets are going through the roof.

2. Need an ark?

    I Noah guy.

3. I’m positive I just lost an electron.

    Better keep an ion that.

4. How does an attorney sleep?

    First he lies and on side, then he lies on the other.

5. What do you call a super articulate dinosaur?

     A Thesaurus.

6. What superlative did Robert E. Lee win in high school?

     Most Likely to Secede.

7. How did the Native Americans get to America first?

    They had reservations.

8. I have a phobia about over-engineered buildings.

    It’s called a complex complex complex.

9. Napoleon may not have designed the coat he wore..,

    But he certainly had a hand in it.

10. What do you call children who are born in whorehouses?

      Brothel sprouts.

11. The guy who invented throat lozenges died last week.

      There was no coffin at the funeral.

12. What happened when the semi-colon violated grammar laws?

      He was given two consecutive sentenses.

How Come the Chemistry Program Always Gets a Pass?

It’s 4 am. Its raining. My weather app informs me that it will be raining for the next three days. In a couple more hours Lucy will insist on being preambulated in the muck. There are seven more days left in February. If I were a Frenchman, this would Le suck. But, as it is, I am an American. Therefore, I blame it all on an unholy alliance between systemic racism and global warming. In exchange for this observation, I will earn valuable virtue points, and be hailed in some quarters as woke. Others will conclude that I am a moron. In America in 2019, it is very much a mixed bag to express an opinion. 

While the rest of the country is obsessed with one of two stories right now, I would like to discuss a third. If you watch Fox News the only story that matters at the moment concerns an obscure black, gay actor who conspired to stage a racist/homophobic assault on himself by a couple of MAGA hat-wearing thugs, ostensibly to highlight how hateful that crowd is and also to earn himself even greater levels of fawning adulation than he already enjoys as a black, gay actor. If you watch MSNBC, you are horrified by a 30 year Coast Guard veteran who was arrested with a huge cache of weaponry, a hit list of liberal politicians and journalists, and a computer trail of White Nationalist sympathies. But, neither one of these stories interest me. What concerns me this morning is this...

For those of you who might not know. My alma mater is a small, liberal arts university with less than 1,500 male students. Despite this, we compete on the highest level of college athletics for basketball. Our team has had great success over the past thirty years or so, making it to many NCAA tournaments. Etc. But, we aren’t even the best team in our own city. That title has been held by crosstown rival VCU for the past ten years or so. They not only have the better team and program, but measured by fan enthusiasm and buzz, University of Richmond is like Barry Manilow to VCU’s Drake. Anyway...this billboard has popped up in recent days, giving me a shiny, gleaming new reason to be embarrassed as a Spider fan. Chris Mooney has been the head basketball coach for ten years or so. I’ve never been crazy about him, but he’s fine. But some outfit called the UR Alumni & Spider Fans has decided that the only way to “SAVE” Richmond basketball is to fire the coach. To this end, they thought it wise and worth the considerable expense involved in having this eye sore erected along Interstate 95 so that the 25,000 people who pass everyday can witness our dysfunction. To whoever is responsible for this moronic stunt, a few words...

1. It’s the University of Richmond. We have 1500 male students. We’re lucky we even have a basketball team.

2. You guys need to get a life. I’m thinking that the odds that the guy who came up with this idea has had a date in the last year are about as high as the likelihood that our next home game will be a sellout.

3. This is basketball we’re talking about here. You guys just paid God knows what for a billboard to gin up support for firing a guy who coaches teenagers to play...basketball.

4. How about a billboard that addresses the real problem at UR...Save Richmond Chemistry...Fire Professor Dunnblat.

A Special Memory

So, tonight we will bring dinner to the Davis family. Pam is grateful for the snow day off from school so she can bring all of her energy to the task. I have no idea who took the initiative to set up this meal schedule...since in our circle of friends it’s always Kim who organizes this sort of thing. Nevertheless, we have been honored with the job tonight.

Before my Mother died seven years ago, followed by my Dad two years later, I had been largely unexposed to death. I had made it through over fifty years without losing someone very close to me. I learned a lot about how community works, about just how invaluable friends are. People who you would have least expected would show up big time in the clutch to provide exactly the thing you needed most. It was uncanny, and served as reassurance that you were going to make it through the darkness after all. All of this brings to mind two memories of Kim Davis.

When Mom died in her sleep in June of 2012, all of us were devastated. The first 48 hours were a horrifying maze of funeral home decisions, worrying about and attending to Dad and no sleep. Looking back at it now I can hardly believe we made it through. Right in the middle of all the craziness and grief, Pam got a call from Kim. Kim barely knew my mother, mostly knew her by reputation. So what words or wisdom and advice did Kim share with Pam?...Pam, I know it must be crazy with everything you guys have going on...I was just wondering if I could maybe drop by your house and let Molly out to go to the bathroom.

Every time Pam tells the story it chokes me up. Such a simple, unobtrusive gift of thoughtfulness and care. Kim Davis doing what she did...the basic, behind the scenes essential things that must be done.

A couple of days after the funeral, Kim showed up at our front door with a knockout rose bush in her hand...Sometimes its nice to plant a bush or a tree when someone we love passes away to remind us of them, she said.

One of the many reasons she will be missed.

Mourning With Those Who Mourn

I walked in the door of my home last night at 6:30 after a long and tiring day. There was an odd stillness and quiet, the smell of dinner wasn’t in the air. Pam ran to me with tears in her eyes and told me the awful news about a dear friend who had passed away earlier in the afternoon from a massive heart attack. Life has moved along in slow motion ever since.

She was 58 years old. She was one of the healthiest people I’ve ever known. She leaves behind a husband, three children, and five grandchildren. She also leaves behind a grieving community of people lucky enough to be counted as her friends. One of the reasons we grieve is because Kim Davis taught all of us what being a friend really means. Almost a year ago to the day it was Kim who saved our friend Leigh Ann’s life when she found her collapsed at home. It was her calm, quick action that saved her life. For the next month it was Kim who took charge of all of the details of caring for Leigh Ann and her devastated family. It was Kim who poured out every ounce of strength she possessed to make the intolerable tolerable for her best friend. Now, in an irony that is almost impossible to comprehend, this time...it was Leigh Ann who found Kim.

Life is full of disappointments. Each of us must endure news that stings and shocks the system. When one so dear, so vibrant, healthy and full of life dies so suddenly, it serves as a bitter reminder that we all exist on borrowed time. All of us eventually, in the words of Shakespeare, will shuffle off this mortal coil. We accept this fact intellectually but seldom spent a lot of time preparing ourselves for its truth. Most of us prefer to think of death and dying as the province of old age. But, yesterday it came for one of us...and we are heartbroken. Like the apostle Paul, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed...”

Every group of friends needs someone to whom they can point and say, There is what a good person looks like. We all need to know someone who models for the rest of us what it means to be loyal, generous, and kind. We all need living examples of what real Christianity looks like in person rather than merely in theory. Although she would have been the last person to claim any kind of sainthood for herself...for so many of us, Kim Davis was that person.

Her absence will leave a gaping hole in her family’s life. She will be mourned by the friends she leaves behind. But we don’t grieve like those who have no hope. Yes, we mourn. But we also celebrate a life well lived.

Freeloader

A very rough two weeks of feeling like garbage seems to be mercifully coming to an end. I hesitate to celebrate just yet since I went for a similar head fake from this dreadful cold five days ago only to fall into an even nastier abyss of misery. This time, I confidently tell myself, it will be different. So what better way to get back into the swing of things than writing a blog about...U.S. tax policy??  Clickclickclickclick...(thats the sound of 100 of you bailing on this post). For those of you who remain...

Saw the story over the weekend where Amazon earned 11 billion dollars in 2018 on which they paid an effective tax rate of -1% ( they actually got a 129 million dollar refund). I immediately forwarded the story to my accountant with the admonition...Go Thou and do likewise! Depending on your political philosophy this bit of news either infuriates you or instills great admiration for the savvy of Jeff Bezos. As it happens I am firmly in both camps. 

Do I admire Jeff Bezos and his team of tax lawyers and accountants for figuring out a legal way to use our Byzantine mess of a tax code to their favor? Am I in awe as to how they could figure out a way to combine a series of legal credits, rebates and loopholes to obliterate their tax bill? Sure I am. When I meet with my accountant every year, I have never once said to him, Ok, Carl, listen up...I’ve had a really good year but I’m very concerned about the deficit and debt in Washington, so this year I want you to arrange it so that i fall into the highest tax bracket available. This year, I want to pay more taxes than I’ve ever paid, ok? Actually, my charge to him is to earn the exorbitant fee he charges for his services by doing exactly the opposite. Each year he saves me far more in taxes than he charges for his service, so every year, I play along. However, after all of his accounting jujitsu I still pay lots of tax. He helps me to lower the effective rate, but he never eliminates it. Ending up paying 0% has never and will never be available to me. Actually, if it ever did happen, I would feel like a freeloader. There is, after all, a price to be paid for freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Does the fact that Amazon pays 0% federal taxes infuriate me? You bet it does. Something tells me that every single one of the hundreds of businesses that they have put out of business via the process of creative destruction—-paid plenty in taxes. I hear all of the Amazon apologists argue about the millions and millions of dollars that Amazon invests all over the country, the construction projects that a burgeoning business spins off, the billions of stock options dolled out to their employees etc, etc. All of that is well and good. But, here’s the thing. I am one of those dinosaurs who still considers himself a champion of the free market. When I see the way cities and states all across the fruited plain have prostrated themselves at Amazon’s alter, all undercutting themselves trying to buy a headquarters, I recoil in disgust. Amazon has become an online retailer without equal and has generated an other worldly 29 billion dollars of profit as their reward. Why should taxpayers have to pay for for their headquarters building? This is exactly how I feel when I hear some football team owner threatening to leave the city unless the taxpayers build him a new stadium. WTF??

Of course, there is an easy fix to this problem, but neither side will even consider it...conservatives (are there any of you left?) because the current system empowers the well connected and rewards those with the most diabolical lobbyists...liberals because it isn’t sufficiently progressive (although, how progressive is a 0% tax rate for Amazon?)...and that is a flat tax, no deductions, no write offs, no fancy accountants. So instead of real tax reform, we chip at the edges of our 7000 page tax code every couple of years which only has the effect of making it even more complex and exploitable. Here’s a life lesson for all of you big government types...private sector accountants are always sharper, craftier and more effective than government accountants. Always have been...always will be. To level this playing field, you’re gonna have to put them out of business....flat tax.

“Hold My Big Mac...”

Two weeks ago, in my state of Virginia, we suffered a political earthquake that had all three of our highest ranked elected officials embroiled in career threatening controversies, which had made us the laughing stock of the country. Our Governor and Attorney General were dealing with racist photographs from their college days, our Lt. Governor, credibly accused by two women of sexual harassment. The air was thick with talk of triple impeachment. At that time I wrote the following:

Ralph knows that the people of Virginia, like the rest of America, have an attention span of a toddler. Sure, the fire might be hot for the first 48 hours, but each day after that it cools. Ralph also knows that the Press also has a short attention span. They might be in high drugeon when the story breaks, but after a few days it’s like...squirrel!!!

Two weeks to the day that all this broke, this political earthquake has vanished from the newspapers. Welcome to America in 2019.

One of the most enduring legacies of the Trump Presidency will be the magnificent cover he has provided for all manner of political misbehavior throughout government. Each day’s headlines scream out the latest outrage that would have been enough to doom previous Presidents. But, just about the time that all the players have their talking points ready, Trump has moved on to the next outrage, leaving the commentariat gasping for air and back to scribbling out talking points. I have come to believe that this is the signature genius of Donald Trump. Flood the zone with outlandish, fact-free, anti-constitutional and boorish behavior, then watch with glee your enemies trying to keep up with it all. Its fiendishly clever, and provides lesser political lights valuable cover for what would have been career ending death sentences. So, there’s a governor in Virginia who posed in blackface in his medical school yearbook, you say? Psshht, that’s so two weeks ago, bro.

So, the President has declared a national emergency at the southern border to circumvent the will of Congress, and decided to divert funds earmarked for drug interdiction from the Defense Department to fund his border wall? And this has your knickers in a knot? Somewhere in the White House the President is turning to one of his aides and saying, Here, hold my Big Mac and hand me my cell...

Mrs. Winston

This blog has had a field day with L’affair NoirFace, and for that I will forever be in the Governor’s debt. The man has been and continues to be...comedy gold. But, the fact that I have relentlessly made fun of it all does not mean that i think it’s actually...funny. It is anything but. It is a stain on our State and an embarrassment to all Virginians. Generally speaking, the more I crack jokes about something, the stronger my underlying feelings are on the subject.

I would never presume to lecture African Americans about how they should feel about all of this. I can’t possibly understand their prospective upon learning that their Governor, advertised to them as a reliable liberal, turned out to be someone who not only appeared in that terrible picture, but then butchered his response to the news with a parade of awkward, tone-deaf lying. They would be forgiven for shrugging their shoulders and saying, We just assume that anyone his age, Democrat or Republican probably did the same thing! So when that poll came out saying that 57% of African Americans in the state do not want him to resign, I’m cool with it. But if I were African American, I would be furious, not just with the betrayal, but with the shameless, insincere groveling, as if he thought their support could be purchased with mere trinkets, word salads and pandering.

This entire sorry episode has gotten me thinking about the first influential African American in my life, my 4th grade teacher at Elmont Elementary school in Hanover County, Virginia...the estimable Mrs. Winston. She was a force of nature who came steamrolling into my life like a wrecking ball. In those days, I hadn’t had much exposure to black people in general, and never a black teacher, one who exercised authority over me. To put as delicate a spin on it as possible...I wasn’t exactly a model student at Elmont Elementary. I found it nearly impossible to sit still, had the attention span of a gnat, and an advanced talent at crafting paper airplanes and getting into fights on the playground. In other words, Mrs. Winston would have been forgiven for writing me off as a lost cause, and shuffling me off to her fifth grade teaching colleagues with a condolence card. But no...that wasn’t Mrs. Winston. For reasons that I will never understand, she took a liking to me. Although it frustrated me at the time, she decided that I had too much potential to continue on my present course of being a jackass. I became her project in 1968. Her plan was simple...she determined to make my life a living hell by refusing to accept anything from me but my best work. This meant after school detentions for even minor classroom infractions, whereby i would have to write on the chalkboard...I will stop being a Jackass...50 times while listening to her lecture me about education, behavior and manners. The upshot of all of this was straightforward... I fell in love with Mrs. Winston. Her relentless nagging made me for the first time in my young life a good student. I’ll never forget the tears that welled up in her huge expressive eyes when she showed me my report card with straight E’s for Excellent.

But 1968 was a different time. Towards the end of the year, my church was having a revival all week. Back in those days this was rather commonplace, and every revival had a pack the pew night whereby each family was tasked with filling an entire pew with friends and neighbors. One day after school, I marched myself up to Mrs. Winston and excitedly extended an invitation...Mrs. W, will you come sit with me at the revival meeting Friday night?

Here’s another thing I will never forget, the look of sorrow and sadness that came over her beautiful face. She looked down at me with an expression I had never seen before. Did I say something wrong? Was she mad with me? She asks me to sit down beside her, held my hands and said something close to the following. It’s been over 50 years so I hope my memory is reliable...Douglas...first I want to thank you so much for inviting me to your church. I would love nothing more than to be your guest...but not this time. When I couldn’t hide my confusion and disappointment she offered an explanation...Douglas, a revival meeting is an important thing. Serious business! Everyone needs to pay attention to the preacher...and I’m afraid if I go with you, more people might be paying attention to me than the preacher. We wouldn’t want that, would we?

I didn’t understand. I went straight home and told my Dad, who was the pastor of the church, what Mrs. Winston had said. Tears came into my father’s eyes. He sat his 4th grade son down and explained to him for the first time about segregation in the church, and how many people aren’t comfortable worshiping with people of others races. He finished with this observation...Son, listen to me. Your teacher is a very wise woman. She’s right about how people would be paying more attention to her than the preacher. But you know what else? If Mrs. Winston had come with you...I think she would have been the most holy, Godly person in the whole building.

For me, every single time something comes up about race in America, I always think back to my profoundly wise 4th grade teacher. I think...What would Mrs. Winston think of all this. Although America has made much progress since 1968, when I think of the sorry mess that Virginia finds itself in in 2019 I am profoundly grateful that Mrs. Winston is in heaven and not alive to see how far we still have to go.

Leaked Notes From Northam Staff Meeting

Notes from Ralph Northam’s senior staff meeting at the Governor’s mansion Tuesday morning, the 12th of February 9:00 am...

Governor enters meeting in high spirits, no doubt buoyed by overnight polling that shows his approval rating steadily rising among African Americans...calls the meeting to order with, Yo! You feelin’ me?.....Asks if someone can find him a Cliff Notes version of Roots, claiming that the book is..like reading the freaking phone book.....Gov. then presents a list of brainstorming thoughts he has come up with of ways that he can lead a State-wide conversation on race that can restore his good name...

* Order Executive Mansion chefs to institute Soul Food Saturday’s, where only African American inspired dishes are served

* Floated idea of hosting State dinner honoring all of his favorite African American singers and actors like Smokey Robinson and Sidney Poitier. (It was then suggested that the Governor might want to consider younger, more current stars. He agreed and suggested perhaps Mr. T and Gary Coleman)

* Floated the advisability of hiring Jesse Jackson as a consultant and liaison to the African American community.

* order rainbow colored t-shirts for all staff emblazoned with...I’m Down For The Struggle on the front and We Shall Overcome on the back

Several senior staff suggested that while all of these suggestions were very interesting, that perhaps more concrete and practical things should be done through the advancement of an agenda that might actually help address the real concerns of the African American community like education and job opportunities.....Governor rolls eyes and declares, Come on people, this is no time to get bogged down in the policy weeds. We need to keep our eyes on the prize and that prize is my  ego and my legacy. If you people think I’m gonna let one bad photograph tarnish my image as a good liberal, you all have another think coming. No, what we need are grand symbolic gestures that are photo-opp worthy. So, lets all hunker down and make it rain up in here with some ideas, yo?!

My Civics Lesson

Yesterday was one of those days when you get to see the inner workings of government up close and personal. As an American who lives in the State of Virginia, and the County of Henrico, I fall under the jurisdiction of three levels of government. I am forever grateful for all three, incidentally. The Bill of Rights and Constitution enshrine my rights at the Federal level, my State government provides valuable services to me without which my life would be considerably more difficult, and my County did a nice job of educating my children, and does a passable job of filling potholes. So, I’m no anarchist here. But my experience of yesterday demonstrates precisely why I don’t share the confidence of my younger friends that giving them fresh new Socialistic powers to centrally plan ever larger swaths of our lives would be such a good idea...

Recently, a client of mine moved to Florida. As a resident of that fine State, she then called me for investment advice. I informed her that despite the fact that she had been a client of mine for over 10 years, before we could proceed with said advice, I needed to obtain my non-resident securities and life licenses in her new home state. The business at hand was of a time sensitive nature, so I told her I would move with haste to obtain all the proper licenses. I had allotted yesterday morning for this task by marking down 9:00 to 9:30 am—-Florida license. This turned out to be wildly optimistic.

A visit to the Florida Bureau of Muckity-Muck informed me that although I have been in this business for 36 years and hold securities licenses in upwards of ten states, I would need to be fingerprinted anew for the privilege of doing business in the Sunshine State. And no, I could not use just any vendor for this procedure, I had to use just the one such firm that Florida uses for these purposes. I could obtain the properly coded fingerprint cards from them for just $50 and I could expect to receive them in two to three weeks...but wait, if you’re in a hurry, we can overnight them to you for an additional charge of $32.50. I sighed, mumbled something about well, this is the life I have chosen, and ordered the gold plated fingerprint cards, which were delivered to me first thing yesterday morning....

Florida Bureau of Muckity Muck.......$82.50

Florida Department of Insurance........$62.00

I then drove over to the Henrico County Police headquarters to get fingerprinted, which I hadn't had to do in a very long time. I was pleasantly surprised that this stage of the process would only cost $15, a glorious bargain. But, upon being ‘greeted’ by the surly, agitated women ensconced behind bulletproof glass I was rudely informed that I would need two forms of ID, one of the picture variety. Check, my drivers license would work nicely. But then I noticed that the other accepted forms of ID I did not possess...I am not a government employee, I am not in the military, I don't have a social security card, and my passport expired three years ago. Enter, the Virginia Department of Vital Statitics.

Henrico County.......$15

Their handy website informed me that a certified copy of my birth certificate could be obtained for the low low price of $31 and delivered swiftly to me in 2-6 weeks. However, walk-ins can be provided with same day service. A quick 15 minute commute down to someplace in Scott’s Addition found me in line with several dozen of my fellow citizens seeking similar proof of their existence. When I finally made it to window 4, I was confronted by a man who looked like he wanted to kill me with his bare hands for disturbing the text conversation he was having. I proceeded with extreme caution. 45 
minutes later I emerged with the proper papers. Then it was back to the Police headquarters to pick up my fingerprint cards. Hour three of my quest found me at the UPS store to overnight my precious cargo to the Florida Bureaucrats as quickly as possible to accommodate my client’s time sensitive request. The woman at the UPS store beamed at me and had the cards out of my hand and practically out the door so fast I didn’t have time to complain about the outrageous charge for shipping something next day delivery!

Virginia Department of Vital Statistics....$31

UPS......$25.50

Total man hours dedicated to project....3 and a half

Yeah, so I’m out over $200. But on the plus side, I got to meet two delightful Government employees about whom I might one day have nightmares.

But, sure...let’s let a new eager army of Commissars from the Green New Deal plan our economy. What could possibly go wrong?

Great. Now I have Guilt!

Several months ago, I signed up for the Mentoring ministry at my church. It was an eight month commitment whereby mature men and women get paired with two younger men or women in a mentoring relationship. Now, before you all start giggling at the thought of me being considered a mature man, two things...one, my church doesn’t really know me very well, I’m new, and second, they were obviously grading on a curve. Nevertheless, I made the cut. I was expecting to be paired with two twenty-something guys fresh out of college trying to make their way in the world. Instead, I was introduced to two older guys, sharp, accomplished men, one in his late 30’s the other in his late 40’s who both happened to be new to the faith. We meet every two weeks for coffee and conversation. There is no curriculum. What guidance I receive comes to me via weekly e-mail from my man, Tommy Thompson, who heads up the program at Hope. That’s a roundabout way of introducing this morning’s subject, which comes courtesy of Tommy’s most recent email in the form of the following killer quote:

“We must have some room to breathe. We need freedom to think and permission to heal. Our relationships are being starved to death by velocity. No one has the time to listen, let alone love. Our children lay wounded on the ground, run over by our high-speed good intentions. Is God now pro-exhaustion? Doesn’t He lead people beside the still waters anymore?” (Swenson, Margin, p.30)

Ok. When you read the words, Is God now pro-exhaustion, at 6 o’clock in the morning, it startles you, right? First of all, I’m bummed that I didn’t think of it first...what a great line!! But almost immediately after reading it I felt guilty. Here’s why.

I just came off a week of being sick with a really bad cold. It hampered my activities for practically the entire week. I had to cancel appointments, reschedule a bunch of things. I was only in the office for maybe a total of a day and a half. The rest of my time was spent laying around the house coughing and feeling miserable. For the first week in years I had not a single workout at the gym. In other words, I had eliminated all of the velocity from my life. I had all kinds of time to think, heal and breathe. The trouble was...I hated every minute of it. Sure, part of the hate part was because I was sick. But part of me felt totally out of the game, abandoned by life.

Here’s the thing, everything in the quote Tommy sent me is true. I know it in my gut. But, I’m a high motor kind of guy who comes from a family of high motors. One of the most hilarious things ever is watching my sister Linda during beech week trying to...relax. She’s like a jack-in-the-box on speed! Although I have never been diagnosed, my siblings considerate it an established fact that i have ADHD, a vicious slander of course, but just for the sake of argument, lets say that they’re right? All of this slowing down, taking time to smell the roses, living a more contemplative life sounds great on paper, but when it comes to applying it, I feel like Ralph Northam getting six chapters through Roots, saying, Man, this is harder than i thought!

This coming week is jammed with one thing after another, due to all of last week’s inactivity, but the truth is, I’m psyched. So, thanks...Tommy Thompson, for giving me another reason to think that maybe my guys should be mentoring me instead of the others way around!

My Money’s On Ralph

Ladies and gentlemen, Gov. Ralph Northam, D, Virginia is not going anywhere.

What we have witnessed over the last 7 days has been nothing less than a master stroke of survival. This man makes Machiavelli look like a wallflower. No one currently in public life has demonstrated a better understanding of the moment we are in than Ralph Northam. Despite the initial ham-fisted apologies and tortured explanations, and despite the fact that during the most crucial press conference of his life, he came within a nanosecond of performing the moonwalk, Ralph Northam survived. Ralph knows. Ralph gets it. Ralph understands the moment.

Ralph knows that the people of Virginia, like the rest of America, have an attention span of a toddler. Sure, the fire might be hot for the first 48 hours, but each day after that it cools. Ralph also knows that the Press also has a short attention span. They might be in high drugeon when the story breaks, but after a few days it’s like...squirrel!!!

So, Ralph didn’t become Governor by accident. He may have sold himself as the kindly old family doctor, but inside burns the heart of an egotistical tiger, who had to be willing to crush his opposition as he grew in statue in Democratic Party circles. Along the way, he picked up a select group of shady characters who’s job it was to gather background information on all of his potential impediments to power. That information was intended to be kept locked away in a safe place and only used in an emergency. When his yearbook photos emerged, Ralph had his emergency. In less than a week, his two fellow Democrats who just happen to be the two guys who would be constitutionally next up as his replacement have found themselves in even worse shape then he. What are the odds? Somebody read The Prince!

So, in this battle, my money’s on Ralph.

Get Ready For Mediocrity

The world spins slower when you’re sick. You feel more observer than participant. This is the primary reason why I hate it so. Watching your day go by from a safe distance without being in the mix is profoundly frustrating. I sit at my library desk, staring at my computer screen, bracing myself against the next coughing spasm. I drink gallons of water and obsessively wash my hands more than Howard Hughes. There is a feather covered brick lodged in my lungs that I have convinced myself will come flying out fully formed if only I can hack hard enough. After hundreds of attempts, it remains firmly intact.

I’ve had time over the past couple of days to read up on the Commonwealth of Virginia’s troubles, which can be summed up by the headline in the New York Post...Virginia is for Losers. My pride of place bucks up at such an accusation coming from a newspaper from the State of New York, which has vomited up on the Republic not one, but Two Cuomo’s. What in the name of all that is holy did the rest of us do to deserve that? Nevertheless, it hasn’t been the best couple of weeks for the State that gave the world George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

Watching men roughly my age be brought low by photographic evidence of stupidity from 35 years ago has been sobering. Although I never would have been caught dead at a party which featured either blackface or Klansmen, that is not the same thing as saying that I never did anything shameful when I was a college student. Frankly, I have put much of what transpired between the years 1978 and 1982 out of my mind, a defense mechanism to protect my carefully constructed self image. But, selective amnesia doesn’t have unlimited storage space. Some things can’t be forgotten.

There exists in all of us a rebellion gene. In some of us it gets surpressed, others allow it to blossom in all of it’s foolish glory. In the years referenced above, I let my rebellion freak flag fly. Even though the most audacious examples of that rebellion were short lived, my tendency towards rebellion has never fully retreated. I’ve always chafed against...the rules, and the rule makers. Over time, I have forged an uneasy peace with the established order, but it has always been part of my natural state to question and challenge those in authority over me. Depending on your philosophy, this is either a noble virtue or a character flaw. But, it lies at the heart of my concern over what has happened to the top three elected officials in my State.

As disappointing as it has been to discover that two men who have made their political bones by signaling their virtue on matters of race, checking all the right policy boxes, and casting aspersions over their opponent’s commitment to same, have been found to have been rank hypocrites, should these types of youthful sins be grounds for expulsion from public life? Does anyone truly believe that a man like Ralph Northam still holds the same views about race as he did in college? Nothing in his public life as an adult would suggest any such thing. And yet, because of these 35 year old photographs, nearly everyone in Virginia politics is calling for his scalp. Seriously? Will this now be the standard going forward? No matter what contributions you have made to your community and country, no matter how much valor you have earned serving the Republic, all could be destroyed by a single photograph of some debauchery from your misspent youth? Really? What of grace? What of forgiveness? Can not some balance be found on the scales of justice between youthful stupidity and a record of admirable public service?

I shudder to think of what would become of my reputation if photographic evidence of my worst moments as a college student were introduced into the public record. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one. The bad choices made in my youth are things about which I have prayed for and received forgiveness. I have learned from those mistakes. The experiences I had during those years ultimately have made me a better man, more sympathetic to others who have screwed their lives up, less likely to judge, more willing to offer grace. But, I cant erase them from the history of my life, nor would I want to. But, if we have now decided that bad choices made during youth disqualify a man or woman from leadership, then we will soon be lead by a great army of blandness, men and women without blemish, but also without the correcting scars of an adventurous life. Men and women who are devoted to rule following obedience and spotless resume building seldom accomplish great things. The best and most courageous men and women of history have been flawed. Are we now committed to flawless leaders? If so, we better get ready for mediocrity.

Suggestions, Please?

I am a business owner in America which means that among other things, I have to provide my own health insurance. As a 60 year old husband of but one wife with no children living at home this means I pay over $1,300 a month to Anthem. This purchases for me and my wife what amounts to catastrophic coverage, since before Anthem pays a dime on my behalf, I must accumulate over $3,500 in medical bills in a calendar year. My wife must do the same. To cover this gap in reimbursement, I established a health savings account (HSA) years ago, into which I currently contribute roughly $500 a month. If you’re playing along at home, that means that I spend upwards of $21,000 a year for health insurance before my insurance company pays a dime. Let’s set aside for a moment how preposterous this arrangement is, and instead concentrate on one of the many conundrums which it presents to me each and every year.

The idea behind the HSA is sound. The hope is that on the years where I don’t ever go to the doctor, the money builds up exactly like any other savings account. If years from now there is a surplus in this account, I will be able to use it for any expense that I wish. At least that was the theory. In reality, there haven’t been very many years when doctors were not a fixture of my schedule. Getting older presents you with a bulging stack of business cards which feature the letters, Dr.

So, here’s my problem. Three days ago, I woke up with a sore throat. Over the next 24 hours the sore throat was joined by a hacking cough. Now, three days in, my throat is still sore, the coughing has gotten worse and now I’m sneezing a dozen or more times a day and can’t summon enough energy and enthusiasm to make a ham sandwich, let alone do my job. I have no fever or body aches, so it would seem that it is not the flu. So...what do I do?

I can waddle over to Patient First, sit in their waiting room surrounded by a dozen other people who all look and sound as if they have the bubonic plague, then an hour and a half later be informed by a doctor(?) that I have a cold, drink plenty of water, take these antibiotics and that will be $145 please. Or, I can save the cash outlay, go over to the drug store and find these babies...

...the DayQuil/NyQuil Walgreens knock-off on sale for $7.99. The question I pose to this audience is a simple one. Which is the better deal? Which strategy will result in a faster recovery? If you’re a hypochondriac I would rather not hear your opinion, but if you are either a doctor or nurse, or play one on TV, your recommendations will be welcomed.

Thank You.

Scandalous Photographs From MY Past

Ralph Northam and I are almost the same age. We attended college at about the same time. His fate...being brought low by a damaging photograph from 35 years ago...has gotten me to wondering and worrying myself. Are there possibly scandalous photographs lurking out there of me doing something foolish? From ages 17-22, I wasn’t exactly a paragon of virtue myself. If my mother were alive she would refer to that five year time period as the years that the locust ate, or some other Old Testament formulation designed to make back-sliding sound far more sinister. Well...I have come down with a cold over the past couple of days which has left me with some down time on my hands. I have used this down time to try to get out in front of any damaging photos that might be revealed by my enemies. In my research, alas...I have much to answer for...

I do not believe that this is, in fact, me. I can’t imagine any circumstance where I would have voluntarily agreed to wear this shirt with that sweater vest, especially on picture day, 1974...my sophomore year in high school. Certainly, this does not represent the man I have become. I am willing to open a dialogue about middle 70’s fashion choices and learn from this ghastly example of poor judgement.

When I graduated from high school, my best friend and I celebrated our passage into adulthood by doing something very un-adult. Instead of entering college like the rest of our friends, we decided to load up the car with backpacking equipment and travel across the country visiting as many national parks, states, and bars as we could before our life savings of $1,000 each ran out. This would have been the summer of 1976. It was an election year. Alert readers will notice that the car in question was festooned with a brand new, hot off the press Jimmy Carter ‘76 bumper sticker. Yes...my very first Presidential vote was cast for Mr. Peanut. 

When I was a little boy, my siblings all agree that I was an out of control ADHD maniac who spent his days and nights getting away with murder and terrorizing them with world class obnoxiousness. This unfortunate photograph lends great credence to their claims. That’s me, surrounded by my two sisters and a bevy of cousins, held firmly in place by my big sister Linda. Perhaps I was just having a bad day. Maybe I was the one being terrorized by this all-female entourage. Nevertheless, this was not my best look.

This photograph deserves answers. First of all, yes...that hair is real, and yes...its a perm. And no, I have no idea what I was thinking at the time. The t-shirt, however, was quite well thought out and sadly does not speak well of my state of mind with regards to women... It’s a picture of the Quaker Oats man. Underneath is written his famous tag line...Nothing Is Better For Thee Than Me....my misogynistic mindset on full display. The fact that it was a babe-magnet just adds to my sense of shame.

Last, but certainly not least was the disastrous three months where I went all in on the Pimp Look. I look like Don Cornelious’s brother from another mother. It was a dark time in my life...

It is my sincere, heartfelt wish that everyone will forgive me these youthful indiscretions and allow me to learn from them. I ask you all to honor my privacy at this time.

Let’s Just Enjoy the Ducks

The Super Bowl is over and done with, finally ushering football off the national stage and not a minute too soon. In a mere 59 days baseball will begin and all will be right with the world. As far as the game goes, it was another example of that old adage about how nothing is guaranteed in life except death, taxes, and Patriots win.

A funny story...after the game was over I started scanning through social media and saw a hilarious post from a friend of mine. When it comes to politics, this particular friend  makes Bernie Sanders look like a Rotarian. I paraphrase his post below:

The Patriots are white privilege personified. You think the playing field is equal, but somehow they always end up on top. Most people suspect the system is rigged in their favor, but they insist that they merely play the game better than everyone else.

My immediate reaction...after spewing my Sam Adams across the room laughing...was to comment, Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the winning pickup line heard last night at Fidel’s Woke Sports Bar and Grill!!

I see this sort of thing all the time on social media. Everything, and I do mean everything gets reduced down to politics. The personal is political. If someone is a huge Trump guy, every single thing that happens in life becomes about him. If you’re all about social justice, even your dentist appointment becomes a metaphor about the evils of capitalism. 

Sure, sometimes I imagine that a duck could possible be emblematic of how the patriarchy has poisoned the bourgeois ethos...but my trick knee tells me that the vast majority of the time, a duck is just a duck. But, as my Dad told me years ago...When you’re a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

So, this morning my advice to all of you is simple. Today, lets all take off our ideological glasses and just enjoy the ducks.