Ten Things To Look Forward To

Since it is all but impossible to find even a shred of good news these days, I have taken it upon myself to assemble a list of ten things that we all have to look forward to in 2021:

1. That first blissful, 70 degree day in mid to late March when you scramble through the drawers to find a pair of shorts to wear.

2. The smell of hamburgers on the grill before your first meal of the year taken on the deck.

3. Opening Day of the baseball season.

4. The giving and receiving of robust, enthusiastic, heartfelt hugs.

5. A President who isn’t on Twitter.

6. Standing shoulder to shoulder in a packed church, singing at the top of your lungs.

7. That unique thrill that passes through the body and mind when you back the car out of the driveway, headed out for summer vacation.

8. The first tailgate of the college football season with trash talk filling the air unfiltered by face masks.

9. That first gathering with your small group from church around somebody’s fire pit, where you hear the sound of someone’s voice lifted in prayer thanking God for his Word and for these good friends.

10. That first delightfully cool day in late September when you scramble through the closet to find a sweater to wear.

Coping With 2021

What do you do when you’ve had maybe the most disturbing, disappointing week of business in at least ten years? How do you deal with that creeping feeling that the world is falling apart and there isn’t a single thing you can do to stop it? What next, when you’ve come to the conclusion that people are in the process of losing their minds? How do you cope with the knowledge that all of this has happened in a mere 15 days of the new year??

DAD JOKES. You go out there and dig deep for the worst, most pitiful ones you can find, collect them, then share them here on The Tempest. At least that’s what I do.

- Why did the couple buy stale bread on their wedding day?

Because they wanted to grow mold together...

- Did you hear about the dad who burnt the Hawaiian pizza?

He should have put it on aloha temperature...

-How did the carpenter find her spouse?

She used a stud finder...

- If you want a job in the lotion industry, the best advice I can give you is...

Apply daily...

-I got you a refrigerator for your birthday.

Can’t wait to see your face light up when you open it...

-I bought a dictionary only to get home and discover that all the pages are blank.

I have no words to describe how angry I am...

-I used to date a girl named Ruth. Whenever I was with her, she made me a better person. Then she dumped me.

Now I’m ruthless...

-Why was the superhero the one to flush the toilet?

Because it was his duty...

-What’s the easiest way to remember your wife’s birthday?

Forget it once...

-Kids: Dad, we want to see the new Pirate movie!!

Dad: No way.

Kids: Why not??!!

Dad: Because its rated Arrrrgh!!

-The Surgeon General has determined that listening to too much Queen is bad for your health.

Probably because of the high Mercury content...

Making Travel Plans?

My winter restlessness has come early this year. Usually around the middle of February I begin to feel trapped and isolated, in desperate need of sunshine and a change of scenery. The fact that this feeling has arrived a full month early shouldn’t come as a surprise. Something tells me I am not alone.

This week has been packed with appointments, but yesterday afternoon some downtime finally arrived. Immediately I pulled up my Expedia account on the old iPad. Welcome Back, Douglas!! The fact that I was so greeted should also come as no surprise. The travel industry has been battered by COVID like no other. A box quickly popped up...Would you like to chat? Poor things...

I didn’t even know what I was looking for. Where could I go during a pandemic where 4000 people a day are now perishing? Yes, I know, I see friends of mine on Facebook all the time traveling all over the place and God bless em. I’m feeling much more cautious these days. I saw what COVID did to my neighbor and I want no part of that. Plus, any travel plans I come up with will have to pass the Pam Test, a rigorous set of protocols that judge harshly any ill-conceived, hastily cobbled together plans, which are exactly the kind of plans I specialize in. 

My first idea was a quick four nighter to the Cayman Islands, a delightful location we have visited twice before. But that would require much research into foreign travel restrictions, airplane travel, etc..which sounded much too much like work. Then I reeled it in a bit and did a little recon work into Key West, another favorite spot of ours. Surprising how many hotels there are booked solid after March 1st. Suddenly the idea of being in Key West at a time when it is crawling with the sort of folks who frequent Key West seemed like an unsellable idea and not nearly as relaxing as I was imagining a trip like this would be. Time to reel it in further...Isle of Palms, Charleston, SC. Nice. We could drive instead of fly. But the weather there in late March early April is no slam dunk. Might be chilly. What about Myrtle Beach? Closer, cheaper and my partner has a place on the beach. Same weather gamble though, and my luck we’d be there the same week as the Hells Angels For Trump Rally or something.

Of course, I could stay in the Old Dominion. There are plenty of great places to visit here. But the predominant thought in my mind when contemplating this getaway is...warmth. Late March/early April would be a weather crapshoot. Wait, what about a week in Florida during spring training? We could stay in a nice hotel and catch a few games. It would be nice and warm. But, what will the COVID protocols be like in April? Will they be more relaxed or more stringent? There’s no way to know at this point. Maybe we could stay a few nights at a hotel in DC and do some sightseeing...wait, DC is a war zone. Nix that.

Maybe I’ll just have to suck it up in 2021 and wait until Maine. July 1st is only 165 more days, right? Perhaps I can make it until then.

Probably not.

AirBnB Announces Plans To Get Out of The Bribe Business

Here’s a small case study in how my mind works. (Pam: Wait, your mind works?). Whenever I am reading a news article about anything having to do with politics I do so with ears wide open and a barnyard manure filter working overtime, not because of media bias necessarily, but rather because it is impossible for me to ponder political things without reading between the lines. Nothing is ever as it appears. Here’s a perfect example.

This morning I learned that several American corporations have turned against politicians who voted to decertify the 2020 election results. This particular sentence stood out:

AirBnB, Verizon, Comcast, Marriot and others have stopped all donations to politicians who voted against certifying the election results.

My response to this rather prosaic sentence was probably not what its writer intended. All I could think was...Why in Sam Hill is AirBnB making political contributions in the first place?? Seriously. Why would an online vacation rental marketplace feel the need to give money to politicians? Am I the only one who thinks this way? Couldn’t that money be put to more productive use elsewhere, like say...making their website more user-friendly? Why do the men and women who run such a fabulously successful enterprise feel it wise and necessary to donate cash to Congressmen, Senators or Presidential candidates? The question answers itself. 

My mind always seems to be at cross purposes to conventional wisdom. If I were the CEO of a successful new venture it would be my goal to remain invisible to politicians. I would want the lowest possible profile when it came to my business and its relationship to Washington DC. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near their radar screen. By donating money to them I come to their attention. The last thing any self respecting enterprise wants or needs is to have the undivided attention of elected officials. Not that my business would be up to no good. On the contrary, my company would be busy making the very best product or providing the very best service possible to its customers, so busy in fact, it would be oblivious to who its political representative even was! 

Spare me the lectures. I fully understand why AirBnB and all those other corporations bankroll politicians. When your country’s tax code is 2,600 pages long, with another 60,000 or so pages of addendums, codicils and explanatory case law attached, that’s a minefield of potential danger. But its also a great place to hide a favor that some savvy pol might be able to slip in that might benefit your business. In other countries, this is referred to as a bribe. In America its called working the system by the cynical and civic engagement by the clever. Either way, it would all be eliminated or at least greatly reduced by The Flat Tax.

Until then we will have to put up with the corruption that naturally flows from a system that encourages vacation rental websites, hotel chains, and cable providers to have to make grand virtue signaling proclamations divesting themselves from disobedient politicians.

America, We Have a Problem

CHAMPION	SELECTING ORGANIZATION
2020	Alabama	CFP
2019	LSU	CFP
2018	Clemson	CFP
2017	Alabama	CFP
2016	Clemson	CFP
2015	Alabama	CFP
2014	Ohio State	CFP
2013	Florida State	BCS
2012	Alabama	BCS
2011	Alabama	BCS
2010	Auburn	BCS
2009	Alabama	BCS
2008	Florida	BCS
2007	LSU	BCS
2006	Florida	BCS

America, we have a problem. Although the country has been through over a decade of vast and disruptive change in almost every aspect of life from technology to manufacturing, from social mores to fashion and everything in between...one thing never changes. The SEC owns college football and the University of Alabama owns the SEC. Moreover, over the last fifteen years, only once has a team from outside the old Confederacy won our nation’s college football championship. Heck, almost half the time the winner has been from a single state...Alabama. This is the very definition of a monopoly. This football hegemony by the Old South is blatantly unfair to the many fine teams from every other region of the country. 

Lucky for us, the political party which now rules the country has a long and storied history of not only standing up for the oppressed, but also of going after big corporations and their attendant monopolistic practices. They need look no further than the Southeastern Conferences’ stranglehold on gridiron dominance. Last night’s game was a perfect example of the unfair advantages enjoyed by the University of Alabama over the team from Ohio State. Bless their hearts, they gave it a hardy effort, but it was like watching the New York Yankees playing the Portland Seadogs. 

Then there’s the matter of optics. In this era of sectarian and regional strife it just won’t do that teams from the Old Confederacy continue to dominate so martial a sport as football. It’s high time that someone has the courage to level the playing field...an affirmative action plan for northern, midwestern and pacific coast schools, as it were. Perhaps a limit on scholarships, or only allowing SEC teams to field ten players a side, even better—award all non-SEC teams a 14 point head start each game. Whatever it takes, something must be done.

Another Fun-Filled Week

For someone who loves history so much, I’m finding that living through it as it’s being made is no fun. Every morning when I wake up I wonder what will happen next in Washington. The fact that the center of my attention has been captured by that town is galling. For someone who has spent most of his adult life seeking to build a life as far removed from Washington foolishness as it was possible to get, now suddenly it is impossible to divert my eyes from the spectacle it has become. American politics has become the ten car pileup with multiple fatalities on Interstate 95 with 250 million rubber-neckers looking on in horror. It seems like everyday has featured one large block screaming headline after another, each more outlandish than the last. Remember back years ago when the biggest argument coming out of our nation’s Capitol was...Should We or Should We Not Audit the Federal Reserve? Those were the days. Who can forget the riveting national debate about whether or not the government should bail out Chrysler? The only divisive thing about that argument was how to spell Lee Iacocca’s last name. But unfortunately, this isn’t 1979, we did bail them out but Chrysler went belly up eventually anyway, and Lee Iacocca has gone on to meet his maker.

Today’s political debates feel apocalyptic by comparison. Every issue seems like life and death. Protests, demonstrations, riots and other mayhem are ubiquitous. Violence is no longer something that organically boils over, but rather something that is premeditated, organized by elements within every movement you can name, designed to create chaos and the disruption of order. The disrupters may very well be the outliers of the crowd, but when the most extreme elements carry cell phones and gleefully advertise their mischief to the world, its the outliers who define the movement. Perhaps that’s not fair, but that’s the world we live in. Thanks, Steve Jobs.

So, this week I have to meet with nine clients over the next five days to discuss their accounts. I will do so with one eye on their numbers and the other on my news feed. Here are the possibilities:

- The resignation of a sitting President

- Impeachment proceedings

- The invoking of the 25th Amendment

- More armed insurrections at State Capitol buildings throughout the country

- Some nut job or nut jobs with guns and a grudge reeking havoc somewhere.

In other words, just another fun-filled week in America, 2021.

Final Thoughts on the Events of Wednesday Afternoon.

Perhaps the most outrageous part of Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol was the fact that the perpetrators marched under Jesus Saves banners. The presence of religious symbols throughout the crowd, although deeply disappointing, was regrettably predictable. Its part of a decades long co-opting of the Gospel of Jesus Christ by the Republican Party’s most Nationalistic elements. After the events of this week I can only say that we have got to find a way to discard this toxic notion that Jesus Christ and America are on the same team. Half the time we aren’t even playing the same freaking sport! We have made an idol out of political power and its pursuit has replaced discipleship as the core function of far too many American churches. We are now reaping the whirlwind.

I fear that for the most part the witness of the American church is damaged beyond repair. The center of the Christian witness will have to forever come from some other shore. We are the ones who need missionaries now.

Character is Destiny

I turned on the television around 3:00 yesterday afternoon. By that time I had already had three appointments and was busy doing the resulting paperwork when I noticed a text from my son...

An hour and a half later I was still sitting on the sofa watching, transfixed by the audacity. A couple of times I felt myself choking back tears. There were thousands of American citizens storming the Capitol building, overpowering the Capitol police, then parading around inside the Senate and House Chamber, taking selfies of themselves sitting at the Speaker’s podium, thinking themselves triumphant. Earlier in the day I had heard snippets of President Trump’s 90 minute speech to this same crowd, exhorting them to save the country, feeding them a series of toxic lies about how the election had been stolen from them, how he had actually won in a landslide! After whipping them into a frenzy, he slipped into his motorcade and escaped back to the White House to watch what would happen from the safety of the West Wing. When the Vice-President refused his unconstitutional request to reject the votes of the Electoral College, word travelled fast through the marching crowds. I sat and watched overcome by two consistent emotions, anger and sadness.

Of course, as soon as the optics became horrifying enough, a tidal wave of lies began flooding social media from Trump supporters claiming that it wasn’t them at all. It was really Antifa radicals dressed up to look like Trump supporters who were responsible. The old false flag Trojan Horse trick. It took all of two minutes of Google searches to discover that the alleged Antifa infiltrators were not. But, it won’t matter to the hard core apologists. The slimmest of fig leaves is all they will need to absolve themselves and their leader of guilt. Perhaps the worst part of the whole spectacle was the pathetic video produced by the White House in response to it all, a 60 second whine-fest, spewing more stolen election horse-shit with a big wet kiss to his patriots and the affectionate suggestion that they all go home now.

Winning.

Later last night my daughter sent me this charmingly concerned text, “What are your thoughts tonight?” This was her way of checking up on me. Big things were happening and her Dad was strangely silent. I replied along the lines of, “I can’t put enough coherent thoughts together at the moment to say anything. It is generally a bad thing to write while overcome with sadness and fury. Then I sent her a cartoon to change the subject...

Later last night it was time for the clever memes to begin raining down, the tiresome and predictable but what about, if this was BLM??!! Words cannot express how much I loathe this sort of lazy commentary. Whoever can make the biggest logical leap with the wittiest phrase wins. I’ll leave that short form silliness to the armchair philosophers.

Finally, as I lay awake in the darkness last night, I thought about a phrase that my Dad said to me one time years ago...character is destiny. His view was that how your life turns out is a function of your defining character traits. If you are a thief, someone or something will end up stealing your life from you. If you are violent, you will eventually be a victim of violence. If you are a manipulator, you will eventually be manipulated. When I think of Donald Trump, the first thing that comes to mind is that his defining characteristic is...lying. If you tell enough lies in your life, you become a lie. Set aside for a moment any positive accomplishments of his administration. For a second, put aside your views on immigration, trade, abortion etc. What Donald Trump will ultimately be remembered for is his shameless and pathetic actions since Election Day 2020. The man who promised us nothing but winning, winning and more winning, ends up not only losing reelection, but both houses of Congress in the bargain. He has single handedly destroyed the Republican Party for a generation.

Many of you disagree with me about all of this. I know. Nothing I say or write will change your minds. That’s ok. A few days ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a Trump guy. I asked him the following question: “Suppose an audio tape was produced that had Barack Obama on the phone to the attorney general of Florida asking him to find him 11,000 votes so he could overturn the election in his favor. What would your reaction be? I dare say it would send you into a spittle-spewing rage, and rightfully so. But I haven’t heard one word from you about Trump’s call to the AG of Georgia.” If our outrage with presidential behavior is dependent on the president’s party, then that’s the very definition of false outrage. And yet, for four years now, millions upon millions of people have been content to look the other way at rampant dishonesty. Yesterday, the bill came due.

These People...

We had a professional photographer come out to the house over Christmas while we had the whole family here. We had never done anything like this before, although I see this sort of thing on Facebook all the time. Anyway, of all the hundreds of pictures he took, this was my favorite...

The session took place on our deck and we had left all three of the dogs inside. We hadn’t heard a peep from them, then someone noticed that all three of them had lined up at the back door for a closer look. They are, from left to right, Lucy, Jackson, and Frisco. Adorable.

Our photographer, Mr. Josh Hill, did manage to take some nice pictures of humans as well...

As I was sorting through these pictures it occurred to me that if I were asked to summarize my accomplishments on this earth over the past 62 years, this is what I would show people as proof that I was here. The people, and dogs, in these photographs are what truly matter to me. Everything else is secondary. The house, the cars, the bank accounts serve a purpose, but this is the purpose. My business and the material things it has afforded me are merely tools that have helped me fashion this life, but they aren’t life itself. Certainly there are other things dear to me that aren’t in these photographs, my extended family, my friends, my church family, etc..but its these people who matter the most.

This last picture is good of all of us. But the best part of it is in the background. Look closer and you will see Lucy standing at the back door, keeping watch over her people. She doesn’t sense danger, but she’s not going to relax until all six of us are back inside. Those of you who have dogs know exactly what I’m talking about. But in a way, I feel the same way Lucy does. 

Where’s My Money

Over the past 24 hours, vandals have struck the houses of both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell. As of this hour, authorities have not identified the guilty party, so for now at least they serve only as a symbolic protest against the failure of Congress to pass a more generous stimulus package...I guess.

You’ve got to hand it to whoever did this. I haven’t seen anything this honest in our political conversation in years! Aside from the fake blood and severed pig head at Pelosi’s place, this guy’s message is bold and unequivocal...Dude wants everything! I mean, why the heck not? As a negotiating position, it makes perfect sense. You shoot for the moon, and even if you don’t hit it, you’ll land among the stars, right?

Politician: So, how can we help you through this difficult season of life?

Protester: Give me everything.

Politician: I’ll have to get back to you on that...

Whoever spray-painted McConnell’s door chose an interesting possessive pronoun, the word my in his message is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Through the first 10 months of fiscal year 2020, the government of the United States collected $2.83 trillion dollars in taxes and fees. Over that same period of time it borrowed another $2.81 trillion. That’s a lot of money. But, to our protester’s point...how much of that can fairly be described as...his? But, something tells me that the graffiti artist in question here is not pondering the complexities of finance, he is just pissed that his stimulus check will be inadequate to his needs, and he blames Mr. McConnell for the shortfall. I can think of no politician, living or dead, who cares less about what this protester might think of his stimulus check than Mitch McConnell. Having said that, the protester’s decision to paint Where’s My Money, without a question mark, on the Majority Leader’s front door works well as political theatre. Where, indeed? 

A new administration will soon take power that is more favorably disposed to give this protester what he wants...at least in theory. Their ranks are filled with people who have given at least lip service to the idea of universal income guarantees, the cancelling of college debt, free college educations for all and scores of other wealth transfer programs. So maybe the answer to our vandal’s questions are, “It’s on the way. Be patient.” Much depends, I’m told, on the outcome of the two senate races in Georgia. If the Democrats sweep, they will take control of the Senate, finally ridding themselves of the heartless penny-pincher, McConnell. If not, Mister McConnell will have to worry about a lot more than graffiti on his front door the next time he blocks President Biden’s first stimulus check package.

A GREAT Christmas Present

I’ve got a buddy down in Nashville, Deen Entsminger, who gave me one of the best Christmas presents ever...The Complete Far Side...

This is Volume One. There are three such volumes. We will be sending each other coded messages ( page 54, 8/9/80 ) for the rest of our lives, I imagine. Gary Larson’s work is endlessly entertaining, but the best part is that everyone comes away from one of his strips with a different take on what it actually means. Or does it even mean anything? Sometimes, he’s just being silly. My favorites always seem to be the ones with no caption. These are usually the ones that stir up the most controversy, since it is up to the individual reader to decide what’s going on. Of course, individual readers are free to project their own problems onto such strips, turning them inside out, endowing each with all sorts of nefarious intent. Page 54, 8/9/80 is one such strip...

I love this. Two diametrically opposed groups about to confront each other, when just around the corner sits an ice cream truck playing some scratchy childhood tune. Any number of outcomes are possible. Both sides could ignore the ice cream truck. The protesters are the aggressors here since they are the ones marching. Since one of the guys in the front row is carrying a club, it can fairly be assumed that they intend physical violence. But the troops on the other side have far superior firepower and will quickly gain the upper hand in any such confrontation. We don’t know what the issue is here, the protest signs give us no hint. We don’t know if the protesters are fighting for something noble or they’re just a bunch of anarchists. What we do know is there is about to be trouble. Big trouble. Enter, the ice cream truck and its oblivious driver. Is it possible that the song is loud enough to be heard over the screaming and yelling? Is it possible that if enough of them hear it, that they will pause and look? If so, might one of the protesters and one or two of the troops walk over and ask the driver, “Do you have dreamcicles?” It’s awfully hard to beat someone up while enjoying a dreamcicle. I look at this strip and think it perfect for the first day of 2021. As the divided states of America enters a new year, will we choose to continue fighting each other, or will we pause long enough to grab a Nutty Buddy?

So, that’s my take on Page 54, 8/9/80. As I write this, Deen is preparing his take. This is going to be great fun!

Five Things I Learned in 2020

A year ago today none of us could have imagined what 2020 would bring, how it would dramatically alter our lives, how it would change us. I entered 2020 with a list of goals, some of them quite ambitious. By the end of March they were in tatters. The stock market had cratered over 30% in four weeks, all face to face appointments had been cancelled, and Fauci and Birx had become must-see TV. There was a twilight zone quality to it all. When people started hoarding toilet paper, that’s when I knew that the world was entering something newly irrational. Of course, conducting a Presidential election in the midst of a pandemic is a recipe for a special kind of madness, and although the election is over, its most rabid partisans are still quite mad. A sizable number of them still insist that Donald Trump won the election and that some eleventh hour miracle will overturn its results. After witnessing the preceding twelve months, it’s difficult to dismiss any contingency, no matter how bizarre. Among many other things, 2020 has taught me never to underestimate the stupidity of large groups of people energized by politics.

So, what else has this year taught me? Life is, after all, a school. Every day is a lesson if we are paying attention. 2020 in this regard has been a master class in damage control and crisis management. If nothing else 2020 has revealed the quality of all of our plan B’s. With the arrival of lockdowns and quarantines we have discovered the things that really matter to each of us, and what things we can actually do without. Here are just a few from my perspective.

1. Being forced to spend so much time at home, I have become much more thankful for my home. It’s not a mansion. It makes no “statement” to anyone when they see it. But it’s ours, every room filled with memories, every piece of furniture tells our story. If I were to lose my sight, I could make my away around inside these walls from memory. That is a comfort to me.

2. 2020 has made me much more thankful for and solicitous of my neighbors. We have the good fortune of living in a neighborhood filled with good people. When you are asked to hunker down at home, you begin to wonder how those neighbors are getting along. Early on, a college Freshman across the culdesac came down with COVID. Her mother is a nurse and works with COVID patients. Another neighbor across the street lost his wife to a non-COVID-related illness. Then, our next door neighbor caught COVID at her gym. Suddenly, the pandemic became personal. There wasn’t much we could do, but we did whatever small favors that came to mind, a sort of circling of the wagons around our little corner of the world. The experience has made me thankful that I live in this place with these people.

3. I have discovered that I have a love/hate relationship with Zoom, Facetime, and Marco Polo. On the one hand, they have been a Godsend for not only my business, but also for my personal life. In the early days of the pandemic, having the ability to get all four of my children on a computer screen for a conversation felt like a miracle. Seeing their faces was like medicine. It was proof to me that they were well. It made me feel at least the illusion that we were together. The hate part is the fact that having to use this technology only serves to remind me of its limitations. You can’t hug a digital image. You can’t read the eyes of a reflection. My dependence on Zoom reminds me that my life has changed, and until the day when Zoom is no longer needed, that’s a reminder of my limits.

4. Maine is not a luxury. Maine is an absolute necessity for my well being. The seven weeks I spent there this year served as the closing argument in the great Rent vs. Buy trial that has been argued in my mind over the past thirty years. Being in Maine brings me more happiness and joy than being practically anywhere else in the world. It calms me. It wakes me up. It is the great recalibration. I arrive there tied up in knots, often overwhelmed by the complexities of life. I leave there a new man, calmer, happier, and counting the days until my return. I will buy a place. There will be no turning back.

5. I married the right woman. After nearly 37 years together, one might think that being quarantined together would bring out the worst in us. Actually, it has taught me that there isn’t another human being on the planet who I would rather be locked down with. Pam has been one of the few people I know who has thrived during 2020. She has gotten even more creative, more inventive than she has ever been. It’s almost as if she’s gotten smarter as all the world around her has gotten dumber. It’s hard to explain. It’s something you have to experience, but trust me, she has been killing it.

I Think We Pulled it Off

Family Fest 2020, the first and hopefully last virtual Christmas celebration in Dunnevant family history, is in the books and by all accounts was a raging success. Due to my wife’s initiative and creativity, we were able to administer a virtual rebuke to the pandemic, a digital middle finger of defiance, if you will. A few highlights:

There were a total of 63 videos uploaded to the Marco Polo app and they covered the gambit...

- Pam read The Night Before Christmas from a gorgeous book given to Kaitlin and Patrick 31 years ago.

- Russ read the Christmas story in Luke 2 from the King James Version of the Bible, the only translation that sounds right to us.

- Jon read the Longfellow poem, I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.

Thus ended the highbrow part of the program.

There was music. Lots of music...

Kaitlin sang an advent song, Sarah sang Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Patrick performed the British version of In The Bleak Midwinter. I played Silent Night. There was a piano recital by Ezra. My brother sang several original compositions. Cameron and Ava gave us a bizarre version of The Twelve Days of Christmas which featured singing Guinea Pigs. My sister Linda played the piano while Bill showed us his train display racing entirely too fast through the idyllic village that looks an awful lot like Bedford Falls.

There were several cooking segments. My sister Paula gave us a step by step tutorial of how she makes her ridiculous cinnamon rolls. Baby teased us with pumpkin bread. Becky showed us a Scottish dessert she had made which featured raspberries and pastry. Sarah showed us the frame of her gingerbread house, complete with stained glass windows made out of melted Jolly Ranchers.

We all got to see Ezra and Evelyn come down the stairs on Christmas Morning. We got to see Lauren and Cat sipping their Starbucks in short sleeves from sunny California. I detected just a touch of superiority in their expressions, what little I could make out of them, what with all the blazing sunshine!

We were all treated to my daughter Kaitlin, wrapping up her 16th consecutive Least Valuable Vacationer award, as she was caught sprawled out on the living room floor while Patrick, Sarah and Pam slaved away in the kitchen making breakfast.

Linda and Bill offered a fascinating video of what it looks like to open and close their 100 year old table, starting with it in round four seater form, expanding all the way to its full seven leaves, a massive table that seats 14 people.

There were videos of our three dogs. There was one of Linda’s new cat, Stella...as well as the aforementioned Guinean pigs.

There was Bernadette and Isaac, their faces giving away the fear and thrill of being three months away from their wedding day.

There was a video tour of Pam’s Snow Village...the sanitized version, a deliberate refutation of my earlier Tempest edition which told the grittier tale of the darker side of the town.

Of course, there was also a play. No Dunnevant Holiday celebration can be had without one. This one featured Kaitlin in a riveting performance as Nanny, confronted with Marco Polo technology.

So, if you are thinking that this sounds dreadfully boring, I can certainly understand. Like many family endeavors, it’s charms can only be fully appreciated by insiders. But to us, this project helped save Christmas. Although we were far apart, this brought us together. It took some work, but it was worth every minute. 

I hope that Nanny and Papa, looking down on us from heaven, are proud of us.

Christmas Cards

I just heard over the police scanner that a midget fortune teller just robbed a bank

The dispatcher said there was a small medium at large...

What’s the difference between a Harley and a Hoover?

The position of the dirt bag...

What's the definition of Baroque?

That’s when you run out of Monet...

You would think that my elegant and festive surroundings this morning would inspire better writing. But, you would be wrong. Instead, the pictures above serve as evidence of how busy Pam and I have been over the past couple of days. Patrick and Sarah and their gorgeous pup, Frisco, are on the road from Nashville today. Tomorrow, Kaitlin and Jon and their lovable doofus, Jackson, will hit the interstates toward Short Pump. This morning, I am taking Lucy over to Petsmart for her Christmas grooming appointment. She insists on looking her absolute best for guests. Just in case anyone wonders if we are the sort of family who lavishes Christmas gifts on their dogs...

What a ridiculous question. Of course!! Each of them have their own stocking. What are we supposed to do? All three of them have been so very good this year!

I love what Pam does with the Christmas cards we get every year. Normally, this is a metal decoration that spells out the word welcome. She takes each card and slides it into the iron work. I don’t know about you all, but this year these cards have meant more somehow. We have looked at each one more closely. These are all from people we love, many of whom we haven’t seen in person for quite a while thanks to this insufferable pandemic. There are family photographs from recent weddings. We smile when we see their faces. When Pam opens these cards its always the same reaction, “Aww, what a beautiful family! I love this so much!!” She then hands them to me and I smile too. We are thankful for each family represented on our wall, and more grateful this year than ever for receiving each and every one.

The Great Molasses Shortage or, How I Saved Christmas

Here we go. Monday, December the 21st, which means it’s almost go-time. Time to put up or shut up. The house is starting to take shape for the arrival of four kids and three dogs. It has been thoroughly vacuumed and dusted. The beds have been made. Today, feeling magnanimous, I have volunteered to clean all three bathrooms. Why? Well, so I don’t look so totally worthless in comparison to my wife who has been flying around here like a whirling dervish for weeks. Today, I’m thinking she will be baking all day or something equally labor intensive. In between pulling delectable things out of the oven, she will be fretting over the details of her idea of a virtual music concert/talent show called Family Fest 2020 to be held the day after Christmas. Once she gets that squared away, she will turn her anxious thoughts to how best to orchestrate a family photo session with a professional photographer—a special gift given to us by sweet Bernadette—for some time while the kids are home. Color schemes and shoot locations don’t just decide themselves, you know! Of course then there’s the planning of Christmas dinner and all the other menus for the week. So yeah, the least I can do is scrub a few toilets.

Actually, my role here is more important than it would appear to the casual observer. I am usually the one who volunteers to take each of the three dogs outside for their morning, afternoon and evening constitutionals. Consequently, each of the pups knows who loves them the most. It’s Pops! I am also the one organizing the betting pool for the week. Question: Which dog will be the first to throw up? On what surface? Currently odds stand as follows: Frisco 6:1–carpet upstairs.  Jackson 10:1–hardwood floor dining room. Lucy 25:1 tile floor our bathroom. Of course, separate pools have to be set for peeing and pooping, as well as over and under for total accidents, and a special long shot bet on probability of no accidents at all...currently at 250:1. 

I have one more indispensable job around here...Pam’s designated shopper. Just last night, my skills were brought to bear on a tragedy that had the potential to ruin Christmas entirely. Pam had run out of...Grandma’s Molasses...and what was worse was the fact that our Publix was out of stock!! I don’t have to tell you how tragic this would have been. No Grandma’s Molasses means no Molasses Krinckles, no gingerbread whoopie-pies, no gingerbread cake. In other words...no love. So, I girded my loins and hit the road around 5:00 am last night. First Stop...Food Lion. I quickly found the baking goods aisle, scanned the shelves for the distinctive burnt yellow wrapper. Instead, I found a big empty space on the shelf where molasses should have been. Next stop...the John Rolfe Publix, where I found an equally empty shelf. But, out of the corner of my eye I spied a rather rotund and completely bored out of his mind stock boy in his pea green vest looking like he would rather be literally anywhere in the universe other than the baking goods aisle. I approached him with this disarming line, “Look pal...this is the third store I have been to looking for molasses. How about you check out the back room to see if you have any in reserve.” then I winked at him slyly and offered the hook, “I’ll make it worth your while...” He shuffled to the back room with even more listless disregard. Ten minutes later he emerged, walking towards me with an even slower shuffle, small cardboard box in hand, looks at me with complete and total nonchalance and muttered, “you’re in luck.” I grabbed the box...”Give me that!” I snapped. There in the bottom of the box were the last two bottles of Grandma’s Molasses in all of Short Pump...

Christmas was saved! 

But before I can turn my attention solely to all things Christmas, I must clean up the last remaining details at work. Today I have a few hours left at the office, then I’m done for the year. After I wrap up the business year I will head out to get Pam’s stocking stuffers. Something tells me I will go overboard.

If Mary and Joseph Lived in Short Pump...

Yesterday, Pam made another delicious batch of Gingerbread Whoopie Pies with orange zest cream cheese filling, while I attempted to wrap the presents we had bought for our four kids. A couple of thoughts...

First, those whoopie pies? Yes, they are as delicious as they sound. Just the smell of them wafting around the house makes me gain weight. Secondly....

#spoiledrotten

The truly bad thing about this is the fact that I didn’t even finish the job. There are even more presents that I couldn’t wrap because of some missing piece. It’s ridiculous really...but neither of us can help ourselves. And we don’t even have grandchildren!!

So, when Pam finally finished baking the whoopie pies, she announced that we were going to head out for a Christmas cheer-spreading drive to deliver this first batch to four different couples that we know and love. An hour and a half later it was done. It was great fun. Pro-Tip...if you want to get into the Christmas Spirit, there is no better way than hand delivering fresh out of the oven whoopie pies to the unsuspecting.

And now for a couple Christmas themed cartoons that I love...

....if Mary and Joseph lived in Short Pump.

Marco Polo-ing With Mom

My Mother was a selectively impatient person. In some things, like waiting for her youngest son to repent of his many sins, her patience had virtually no limits. But in other, less eternal pursuits, her exasperation point was on a hair trigger. Here is just a short list of the topics about which she had zero patience:

* bad preaching

* Baptist churches that didn’t devote at least half of their budget to Lottie Moon

* TV preachers

* religious music that had a beat

* teenagers who slept past 7:00 am on Saturdays

* cell phones

* computers

* the internet

The last three items on this list arrived on the scene when my Mother was an older woman, and far beyond the age where she might have suffered fools with a more generous spirit. Whenever Mom would use a cell phone or sit at a computer, she could often be heard muttering, what for her, was a string of epithets...

“This John Brown, devilish thing...I declare honestly, Ima go down to that Verizon store and mop up the floor with that salesman..PHOOEY!!!”

So, as we prepare to institute the very first Marco Polo Christmas music concert in Dunnevant Family history, I can’t help trying to imagine what it would be like trying to teach Mom how to use the app....

Pam: Hey, Nanny! I have some great news. Even though we cant be together for Christmas this year because of C, there’s a way we can all be together remotely. It’s called Marco Polo, and I’m going to teach you how to use it and don’t worry, its super easy.

Mom: If you think some John Brown interweb scheme is going to replace having all of you in my house, then you’ve got another think coming!

Doug: Now Mom, we’ve already discussed this. There’s no way we can do that this year. You and dad are part of the high risk population and we don’t want...

Mom: I serve the Lord of heaven who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and...

Pam: Yes, yes Nanny. We know all about the cattle. But this is different. We just can’t cram 25 people into your tiny little house in the middle of a pandemic.

Mom: So instead, we’re gonna get on the interwebs—which as all of you know is nothing less than the Anti-Christ—and play Marco Polo?!

Doug: No, Mom. Marco Polo is this cool new app that allows people to send texts to each other in video form instead of having to type out messages. We know how much you hate sending texts from your cell phone since your fingers can’t type well because the keys are too small.

Mom: The only thing I hate more than that is having to learn some new fangled app two days before Christmas!!

Pam: This app is different, Nanny. 

Mom: I’m sure it is. And how much does it cost?? Why, if all of you would have taken the money you spent on this Magellan app and given it to Lottie Moon, the world would be a better place.

Pam: Nanny, its Marco Polo, not Magellan...AND its free!

Mom: Nothing is free, dear.

Pam: Never mind all that, Nanny. When I was over to see you the other day, remember I told you that I had installed an app on your computer? It was Marco Polo. So all you have to do is click on it. The icon looks like a beach ball...

Mom: Wait one confounded minute...a beach ball, you say? What in the Sam Hill does a beach ball have to do with this Ponce de Leon thing?

Doug: Just find the beach ball and click on it, Ma.

Mom: Well, I found the silly beach ball and I just clicked on the John Brown thing and nothing happened!

Pam: Use the clicker on the left side of the mouse, Nanny.

Mom: Good Heavens, what is all this?

Pam: Ok, now that you’re in look on the list and you will see a group called Family Fest 2000. Click on that and you will find a video that Doug and I just sent you. Click on it!

Mom:...incoherent muttering...Dad in the background, “take it easy, Betty...well, would you look at that!!”

Long pause......

Mom: Douglas...have you put on weight? Your face looks fat.

Doug: So, did you see the video? We told you it was easy! What do you think?

Mom: I think that you need to drop a few pounds, thats what I think.

Pam: So here’s how it will work on Christmas Day. Everyone will send videos to this app, then you and Papa will get to watch all of them. There will be music and stories, all kinds of things. You and Papa can even send us a video of your own.

Mom: So, thanks to Vasco de Gama here, you’re telling me I’ll get to hear my children singing hymns on Christmas?

Pam: Among other things...yes!

Mom:...long silence.....Well, I suppose it might be nice. Just goes to show that our father in heaven—who owns the cattle on a thousand hills— can take something as heathen as the interwebs and make something good out of it.

Pam: That’s right, Nanny! He sure can.

Mom: Well, be that as it may...I still say that that husband of yours needs to cut back on the sweets!

Family Fest 2020

One feature of all Dunnevant Christmas celebrations prior to the plague of 2020 has been the informal, impromptu concert of music that always breaks out after presents have been opened and dinner consumed. Donnie and I bring our guitars out and Linda sits down at the piano and music happens. There are beautiful carols and goofy songs, and songs from all of our childhoods. It’s one of the highlights of the day. Of course this year, thanks to the C Who Stole Christmas, spontaneous outbreaks of music won’t be a thing. 

Hold on...but what do my wondering eyes should appear, but a Facebook invitation from my wife so dear. 

With the help of modern technology, apparently we are going to try to make a go of it via Marco Polo. No, I am not referring to the 13th century Venetian merchant/explorer, nor am I referring that incredibly annoying middle school swimming pool game. No, I refer here to that marvelous answer to the question that absolutely nobody was asking, Wouldn’t it be great if we could text someone using only videos?? Yes, That Marco Polo. It will work something like this...anyone who wants to perform a song, read a story, play an instrument or whatever, simply signs up on the handy GoogleDoc that Pam attached to the invitation. Then, starting at a predetermined hour we will all perform our selections, submit them via the video app, then sit back and listen to the cheers and jeers that will naturally rain down on the performer. Thusly, we will be able to recreate the general ambiance of the singalong from three or four separate locations. Wonderful, right?

As I have tried to imagine what this might be like, I can’t help but think of my parents, especially my Mom. What in the world would she make of something like Marco Polo? More importantly, how, in the name of all that is righteous and holy, would we be able to explain to her how to use such a thing? I can still recall the angst involved in introducing her to Windows. I use the personal pronoun here in error. I had absolutely nothing to do with my mother’s computer education. That nightmare fell to my sister but mostly to my wife. With a level of patience that would make Job look like a foot-stomping toddler, Pam would labor for hours with Mom trying to get her to understand the general principles of modern computers...only to get called two days later by my distraught and unhinged mother, furious that she couldn’t remember how to...open a window. Trying to picture what all of this would be like if Mom and Dad were still with us causes me to laugh out loud at the possibilities. So, I’m thinking that I might write a What If story for one of my acts for Family Fest 2020 entitled, Marco Polo-ing With Mom.

I better get started. Only eight more days until showtime!

A Week From Today

I have a beautiful library. It has a wonderful desk with a perfect chair. I use it every day. Whenever I have serious work to do, or serious writing, that’s where I am. But not in the morning. I write this blog between the hours of 5:00 and 8:00 am and 90% of the time I’m sitting on the sofa in the family room with this for my view...

It’s comforting, even without all of the Christmas finery, but once the tree goes up its positively magical. A week from today, this room will be filled with every member of my family and three dogs. Those stockings will be stuffed to the seams with presents. There will be a gigantic box in one corner for all of the spent wrapping paper. The smell of sausage, eggs and cinnamon rolls will be in the air. The dogs will add comic chaos to the scene. I will begin the proceedings with the official distribution of the presents from underneath the tree. I will read with great flair the To: From: tags on each one since in our family they can be quite entertaining. Pam and I always use names of significance only to us from things that happened during the year. Since we watched Better Call Saul this year I can be sure one gift will be To: Saul Goodman, From: Kim Wexler. After watching The Crown, Pam will get at least one gift To: The Queen From: Prince Phillip. I know its silly, but it’s also tradition, and on this day, tradition is everything.

In the middle of all the unwrapping we will take a break for breakfast, another tradition with a set menu. There will be much laughing, and compliments to the chef. All six of us will be dressed alike in the matching pajamas that we received on Christmas Eve from Pam. Even this is a tradition started years and tears ago. My armoire has an entire drawer dedicated to nothing else except Christmas pajamas. I’m not kidding. I was thinking (hoping) that this particular tradition would have run its course by now, but then Patrick married Sarah, who so adores the idea that it has been given a new lease on life. When it is finally time for me to enter a nursing home one day, I will be the only resident who has a different set of pajamas for every week of the year.

When the presents have all been opened, the rest of the day will be spent in casual repose, each of us playing with our toys, drinking coffee and hot chocolate. At some point we will have to perambulate the beasts, which if the weather cooperates, will be a group effort with lots of pictures. Late afternoon will be for more lounging around with hopefully exhausted and napping dogs. Then once its dark outside, the kids will insist on a round of game playing. This isn’t my favorite part of the day, but everyone else loves it. I’m not talking charades or Monopoly here. No no...this is modern board gamery which features all manner of cooperative team building stuff. A couple years ago we actually played a game whose object was to cure the world from a raging pandemic before all of mankind was wiped from the face of the Earth. The only way this could be accomplished was with teamwork...working together, or in other words...the exact opposite of what the board games of my youth were about—-world domination and the complete annihilation of your enemies. Since I’m essentially a does not work well with other kids sort of guy, I am at a natural disadvantage when it comes to these cooperative adventures. I find myself internally scheming a way to find the cure for the pandemic, then figure out a way to corner the market and charge the other players ridiculous prices for the vaccine! Ha! Just kidding. I’m hoping that Patrick and Sarah leave that game at home.

Each of you reading this could tell me stories about your family traditions. Each are unique and special, a defining characteristic of your history as a family. This is something to celebrate. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ, Emmanuel-God With Us. But its also a celebration of what it means to be a part of a family.

Christmas Came Early at Dunnevant Financial

So, my assistant shows up yesterday with Christmas presents for me. The fact that it was only December 15th didn’t seem to matter to her. She marches to her own drummer so I didn’t make a big deal of it. Anyway, she has been working for me for seven or eight years now and needless to say...she has picked up on several of my, er, tendencies...

The beef stick is already gone. I plan on wearing those awesome Christmas tree glasses every day until Christmas, and the cigars will be smoked with my boys out on the deck over Christmas. As far as the socks go, I couldn’t be more thrilled. Speaking of Dad Jokes....

Chinese take out: 8 dollars. Tip: 2 dollars. getting home and finding out they forgot part of your order...

Riceless.

No matter where I go, I like to bring my ukulele, then, whenever someone asks me if I play an instrument, I say...

I play a little guitar.

It doesn’t matter if you’re straight, gay or bisexual...

At the end of the day, it’s night.

I have a friend who writes songs about sewing machines.

He’s a Singer songwriter...or sew it seams.

I ran out of toilet paper recently and had to use the newspaper. Now the realization has kicked in that...

The Times are rough.

What do you call a knight who is afraid to fight?

Sir Render.

In Sweden the CEO of IKEA was just elected prime minister.

He should have his cabinet put together by summer.

Is it ok to start drinking as soon as the kids get to school...

Or am I just a terrible teacher?

The 12 Days of Christmas (in a pandemic)

It is perhaps the most unavoidable trap of the human condition to fall into during a crisis...despair. For most people, despair is the default human response to great and overpowering conflict. It takes a while. We do put up a fight, we do battle, mount a resistance. But most of us eventually begin to lose hope. When that happens, despair follows like night follows day. It takes a special person to stay positive in a sea of bad news. We all know someone who manages it though, don’t we? There’s always that friend or family member who seems to take whatever gets thrown at them and turn it into something amazing. For me, that person is my wife.

Don’t misunderstand, she has been discouraged by 2020 as much as anyone else. C, in particular, has caused her no end of anxiety and worry. She worries not just about getting it, but worse...giving it to someone else. Like the rest of us she gets anguished over how to interact with family during a pandemic, Christmas in particular. How do you plan Christmas with such a large and separated family? How do you spread Christmas cheer virtually? But instead of defaulting to despair, she does what she does best. She gets creative.

Like any other decent human being, she worries about her parents. She senses their growing frustration and isolation and can’t imagine them having Christmas in the middle of this mess. So Pam being Pam, she comes up with an idea. She fires up her laptop and starts shopping. Pretty soon she has curbside delivery pickup of 12 presents for her parents. She brings them home and wraps each one. Then she delivers them to her parent’s front door with instructions...Each day over these 12 days of Christmas you are to FaceTime me so I can watch you open one gift. But, before you open the gift each of you must share one Christmas memory with me. Last night was day one. Right around 6:30 she got a FaceTime call from her parents...a first! They sat on the sofa and talked back and forth, smiling and laughing and telling Christmas stories. For this one night they were not isolated. For this one night there was Christmas cheer. There are eleven more sessions to look forward to. Mission Accomplished. My wife is a genius.

It’s gotten me to thinking about doing something similar with my brother who is up in Maryland. This morning he beat me to the punch, FaceTiming me at 7:00 am to tell me a couple of stories about Dad he had been recently told by our Aunt Emma, Dad’s youngest sister, a hilarious story about Dad’s first car and the swindler who sold it to him. Great stuff.

So, I share this story in the hopes that it might spark even more creativity out there as we all adapt to this Pandemic Christmas season. 

Hope beats despair every single time it’s tried.

Fabulous News

Pam and I just received the fabulous news that all of our kids and all of their dogs will be spending six whole days here with us for Christmas. Plans had been up in the air because of the C word. That’s right, here at the Tempest, I have made the executive decision to use a capital C when referring to the viral elephant which has taken up lodging in every room of our lives. I’m tired of the word, tired of speaking it, tired of writing it. Anyway, news that all of us will be together for nearly a week is fabulous indeed. To prepare for the week, we have instituted a sort of quarantine-lite here at Dunnevant Central. It’s not a real quarantine or even a lockdown, more like a strategic withdrawal from our public lives. It works this way.

At work, it will be a mask-wearing affair with limited hours and interaction. Church will be live-streamed, ie...sofa church. Grocery store trips will be strategic, rather than random. All other store visits will be of the curb-side pickup variety. Interaction with friends and family over the next couple of weeks will be front porch affairs. Last night, for example, we invited my sister and her husband over to our back deck for a fire in my awesome solo stove. It was great to see their faces. Unfortunately, a quick glance at the weather forecast for this week doesn’t afford many more opportunities for outdoor meetings. Bad weather makes inventions like FaceTime and Marco Polo invaluable. In addition to these magical new communication tools, my wife’s feverish creativity has turned to very old communication tools as she plans out what Christmas with C will look like. There will be pajama-wearing, doughnut-eating Christmas caroling, front porch gift exchanges, to go along with some sort of digital, virtual, talent show/singalong thing she has flying around in that head of hers.

None of us want this. I hate the isolation. I hate not being in a crowded house with 25 members of my big, loud family. I hate the cloud that’s hanging over all of us, the realization that if one of us gets C everything gets blown up. But, this is the world we live in right now. There is nothing to be done about it besides being as smart as we can, doing everything we can to lower our odds of getting the dang thing.

Meanwhile, I can’t stop thinking about all the front line doctors, nurses, and hospital workers out there who are battling C non stop. What will their Christmas be like? What about the workers at Pfizer toiling around the clock to produce the vaccine, the truck-drivers on the road at all hours in horrible weather racing to deliver it to us? When will they get to spend time with their families? It occurs to me that compared to so many other people in this country right now, we have it easy. While the heroes all around us are working their fingers to the bone, I’ll be in my beautiful house surrounded by my beautiful kids trying to figure out what to do with these guys...

2020 is not the new normal. It will not always be like this. A day is coming when the curse of C will lift. It won’t be tomorrow, next week or next month, but the day will come when we can all embrace those we love without hesitation or fear. Until then, don’t lose heart.