Day 1

This morning begins our fourth day here in Maine and so far we have yet to see the sun. It has been overcast and chilly. Today, the 4th of July, will be 58 degrees with cold rain. All of the dreariness is scheduled to end tomorrow with bright sunshine and 76. I feel bad for the town of Camden since they have a whole host of things planned for the holiday celebration, a series of outdoor concerts at the library amphitheater might get washed out along with the famous fireworks show over the harbor. Here at the lake, the association has their own fireworks display planned. Hopefully by the time the sun goes down tonight, the rain will have slid up into Canada.

Here’s the strange thing…I am not in the least bit disappointed by the weather. Would I have preferred bright sunshine? Of course. But there are two reasons why the bad weather doesn’t matter. First of all, we will be here for five weeks. There will be plenty of glorious days ahead, and a few more washouts. The weather is at the top of the list of things about which I have no influence. Second of all, lake house #1 has exceeded our wildest expectations. This little place is about as perfect a two bedroom, one bathroom lake house can be. There is a montage of photographs on the wall here that show what this place looked like when the current owners bought it…think, dump. Now it is a jewel, warm and inviting, clean as a whistle with a yard and deck system that is functional and beautiful. Keep in mind that the pictures which follow were taken under a dreary, low sky…

Meanwhile, the inside of the house is the very definition of the word charming…

Last night, before the rains came I walked out to the dock to listen to the loons who were in full voice. I took this picture of the house lit up like a campfire…

The lantern was the only light in a sea of dark, except for the dock lights on the cabins across the lake…

Yeah, so its raining today. Pam is planning a grocery run into Belfast. I will tinker with my fishing gear, getting it all ready for tomorrow’s gorgeous blue skies. I will also listen to the rain on the tin roof of Summer Dreams and consider my great good fortune. And although this is our fourth day in Maine, its really day 1, because its our first full day on Quantabacook.

The Chestnut Street Baptist Church Clock Tower

This year is the first time we have stayed in a hotel in Camden prior to moving into our lake house. It was Pam’s idea to beat the 4th of July traffic by driving up during the week. It has ended up being a delight. Although it has been chilly, rainy and overcast the entire time of our stay, we have loved being here.

Want to play some music? Management provides instruments for its patrons…

Or maybe you would like to sit around a fire after dinner…

…and make s’mores…

But honestly the best part of this experience has been something that sneaks up on you. You don’t always notice it but when you do it serves the same function as Prozac or a stiff drink…

That clock tower in the distance sits atop the Chestnut Street Baptist Church, directly adjacent to the town green. It is one of the most iconic sites in Camden. No matter where you are in town, when you lift your eyes skyward, its there, performing its orienting purpose better than any GPS possibly could. But as an incalculable bonus, every hour on the hour it tolls out the time. This morning I was sitting at a table in the dining room drinking coffee and catching up on the news when through closed windows I heard the soothing sound. Seven gentle peals, each one clear and cheerful, cutting through the dreary clouds. I wonder if the locals even hear it anymore. I decide that when 8 o’clock comes around I will be outside on the front steps so I can hear the full effect. Eight calming notes that tell me that I’m alive and in this place, right here…right now. And, if I’m lucky enough to still be here an hour from now, I’ll hear it again. It’s reassuring, dependable. In a world that has become scattered and unmoored, the Chestnut Street Baptist Church clock tower is…steadfast and true.

I believe I would love to live in a place with a clock tower.

Arrived!!

We made it! The traffic was manageable, the car performed beautifully, and we arrived in Camden at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. We would have arrived two hours earlier if not for an unexpected discipline lapse on my part. As soon as we crossed the Big Green Bridge and entered Maine Pam made an off hand suggestion that maybe this year we should take Number 1 highway up the coast and “Find a cute little town where we can have lunch.” 99% of the time, this is the sort of thing I summarily dismiss since it would be considered a time consuming detour that would totally kill the “great time we’re making.” But, there I was hearing myself saying, “great idea, let’s do it!!” What the heck? Pam was simultaneously shocked and thrilled. We ended up in Freeport, eating lunch at Linda’s Bean’s place where my first cup of clam chowder was heavenly.

Then, in yet another shocking development, I agreed to an hour or more of mindless sight-seeing around town….who have I become??!!

Got some coffee at this sweet place:

Pam got to go inside a Wicked Whoopies store for the first time ever. We came out with a bag full.

Then, we found an awesome store that sold nothing but British goods:

As soon as I entered the place I loved it. It smelled like wool and fog, and was filled with beautiful things. But the best part of the store was the fact that whoever owns the place still has a sense of humor and isn’t afraid…in the age of triggers and safe spaces…to use it :

I’m not sure what’s funnier, the stiff upper lip balm, or the fact that it’s made by the Unemployed Philosophers Guild??

We eventually meandered up the coast to our Camden Hotel, which will be our home for the next two days until lake house number one becomes available Saturday afternoon. It’s pouring rain today so we will be lazing around this gorgeous little town, drinking coffee, shopping and reading. Tomorrow we might go see a couple lake houses that are on the market. Or…not. This is where agendas go to die.

I didn’t plan it this way, but our third floor room has a direct view of my wife’s favorite ice cream joint in Maine:

Unfortunately, by the time we made our way back from our leisurely walk around town, the wait was ridiculous. Did we get in line? What? Are you kidding? Of course.

Pam…the Boss

My wife is a boss. Over the past several days she has been working like a beast around here all the while battling through a cold. Not only is the entire house squeaky clean for our house-sitters, but her world class packing skills have once again been put on display….

All I have to do is get it loaded into the car. There are still a couple duffle bags upstairs, but basically all of this was Pam.

I’m telling you guys, this woman walks on water! Of course, nobody’s perfect. Yesterday she forgot that the car top carrier was sitting on the roof of her car when she returned from the grocery store. Upon entering the garage she heard a horrifying scraping sound and slammed on the brakes, then slowly backed up to the sound of more scraping! Fortunately, the carrier survived the ordeal, although the next time she was driving back home from some errand I thought to send her a text,”FYI, you’ve got a big thing strapped to the roof of your car, so…” Her reply suggested that if not for my text the same mistake would have been repeated. Muscle memory is a powerful thing!

Ok kids…time to pack up and hit the road. AIS* time is 7:45. Why such an odd time? Well, Pam forget to bring Becky Baldwin’s birthday gift to their lunch date the other day so she couldn’t possibly leave for Maine for 5 weeks without running it by their house on the way. 

* Ass In Seat

An observation…and some really bad jokes.

Today is packing day. Its also the day where a thousand last minute details need to be taken care of. Leaving your house for 5 weeks isn’t as easy as we make it look! So, as my dear mother used to say, we’ll be running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. By the way…this was no abstract colloquialism to my mother, who as a ten year old was tasked with actually cutting the head off a chicken to start preparing it for dinner. After the hatchet came down, the unfortunate bird ran around the barnyard for several minutes before succumbing to its fate, making a lasting impression on my mom. But instead of years of psycho-analysis, mom just moved on, got married and raised four kids. It was a different world.

Since this will be my last blogpost for a few days while we travel to Maine and get settled once there, I need to make it memorable. The jokes I have chosen for the occasion were carefully selected for their cringe-worthiness. I left no stone unturned to uncover these beauties:

Where does a coffee maker go when it dies?

Percolatory…

Went to a restaurant with my parents and they were arguing about whether ordering the fries or salad were better to go with the meal so they asked me my opinion.

I said, "Oh, no. I'm not picking sides"

I work in a factory that makes clown shoes.

It’s no small feet…

Last night I experimented cooking some Ribeyes with cannabis oil.

Not gonna lie, the steaks were pretty high…

One last thing, I’m running a little low on toll money so you guys need to click on a few ads here so I don’t get stranded in Connecticut on the side of the interstate with a tin cup!!

One more last thing. Killed squirrels number 20 and 21 of the year yesterday…an all-time record before July 1st!!

We’re Goin’ to Maine

There is something that I have noticed about being married and that is that human beings have a tendency to drift apart. It seems hardwired into our DNA. The extreme version of this tendency is captured in the phrase, Familiarity Breeds Contempt. This drifting is one of the things that successful marriages find a way to overcome. Every marriage needs to find something that transcends the drifting, the indifference that can so easily creep into even the most solid of relationships. For Pam and me that transcendent thing is…Maine.

She started it. She was born there. She had the history in her bones and blood. For me, I had it thrust upon me. It was an acquired taste. But, because I loved her, I was curious enough to give it a try. Although my first trip up there was while we were still dating and got off to a famously horrible start, in the first light of my very first day there, I was hooked. I had never seen so beautiful a place as Webb Lake in Weld, Maine. Thus began a 39 year streak of annual summer visits. Burdened by a two year old and a newborn? No problem. Stick them in their car seats at 7:00 at night and drive straight through the night to get there so we can live in a tent for a week. I’m sure that sounds positively dreadful to anyone reading this who has or has ever had a two year old and a newborn, but in a miraculous way…every word of it is true.

Over fifty years ago, when my wife and her sister Sharon would lay awake in bed the night before leaving for Maine, they started something that has survived all these years, handed down to us and even to my own children. They would lay in the darkness, giddy with excitement, and whisper to each other the enchanting incantation, “We’re goin’ to Maine…we’re goin’ to Maine.”  Patrick and Kaitlin took it up when they were little. “We’re goin’ to Maine…” Now, fifty years later, Pam comes down the steps after her morning shower, sees me sitting on the sofa and whispers across the room, “We’re goin’ to Maine.”

Maine has united the two of us over the years. It’s become something that both of us have a passion for. In so doing it has brought us closer together. We share a love for the place. We both know that no matter how difficult life gets…We’re goin’ to Maine. When we get there, it starts to change us. We feel different, eventually we start to look different. Then we start noticing each other again. We remember why it is that we love each other. Being there brings out the best in us and stops the drifting dead in its tracks. Never is my wife more beautiful than when she is on her paddle board. Never am I so content as I am having my morning coffee on the dock.

So, for all of my married friends out there, find a Maine. Search for a transcendent place or thing that unites you. Then, make it yours.

We’re goin’ to Maine!!

Those Florida Cops Need to Chill Out

Sometimes, dad jokes just write themselves, especially when it concerns a Florida man.

This morning at an ungodly early hour, I read a story that began this way:

“June 25. A Florida man was arrested this morning at a 7-Eleven in St. Petersburg for throwing a 15 ounce jar of Tostitos salsa at a fellow patron with such force that it broke open on the man’s back. The assailant, Le’Trail Tresalus, was arrested for the unprovoked attack and charged with felony battery.”

But the very best part of this story was the epic headline:  Man is Charged With a Salsa and Battery.

Outstanding!! What do you want to bet that the headline writer was a dad?

However, the case gets even better once we learn that the 6’ 2”, 300 pound perp, the aforementioned Le’Trail Tresulas was also facing a theft charge for allegedly stealing a Choco Taco ice cream bar from the same 7-Eleven. 

Hmmm…several observations come to mind.

I have no idea what was going through Le’Trail’s mind when he threw the Tostitos fastball into that poor guy’s back, but I’m not sure how I feel about the ice cream arrest. I mean …its hot in Florida this time of year. Locking a guy up for stealing ice cream seems a bit cold to me. At the very least its a second-dairy offense. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not cone-doning theft here, but its not like he stole 31 flavors or anything. That would have been a Baskin-Robbery. Besides, there is such a thing as buying too much ice cream…Breyer’s Remorse. Are we really going to send a man to prison for stealing ice cream? Seriously? Is that just desserts? 

Listen, here’s the scoop. I’m sure Le’Trail has had a rocky road of a life and he has enough problems with this Tostitos throwing thing. I say we drop the ice cream charge. I mean…it is Florida we’re talking about so anything is popsicle…

The Divine Spark

You’re in your mid 50’s, married for over 35 years to a good man. You have grown children and several beautiful grandchildren. Life is good. Then one day you’re shopping at Walmart when your cell phone rings. You glance at it and don’t recognize the caller. Probably one of those robo-calls trying to sell you an extended warranty on a car you no longer even own, but you answer it anyway. The man on the other end of the line identifies himself as a Virginia State Trooper. Instantly your mind fills with a thousand nightmares. Someone’s been in an accident or worse. You brace yourself for his next words, but nothing can prepare you for what you hear…that your husband has collapsed at work and that the State Trooper needs to speak to you in person, face to face, as soon as possible. Everything else is a blur. There, in the middle of Walmart surrounded by strangers, you collapse under the crushing weight of the news.

But, we go nowhere by accident. At this point, with everything crashing down, you are approached by two strangers, a couple who look to be in their early 40’s. The woman speaks, “Ma’am, what’s wrong dear? Are you alright?”

You don’t remember exactly what you said in response, but it was conveyed with terrible anguish, “My husband is dead!!”

Then the strangers take over. They take you to somewhere you can sit down. The woman puts her arms around you and holds on tight. Your son is notified and he is on the way to pick you up. The kind woman tells you, “I will stay right here with you until your son arrives, ok?” And she does. She and her husband stay there doing their best to comfort you.

The rest of the day proves to be the worst of your life. You soon start having chest pains of your own and wind up in the emergency room. “Broken heart syndrome,” the doctor calls it. You stay overnight for tests. Your children gather around you. Things have to be done. There’s the funeral home arrangements. You just can’t. You’re not able, so your grown children take over. You are left in the grip of unimaginable grief. Your happy life has been turned upside down. With all the doctors and nurses and family buzzing around you and your heart broken over such monumental grief…you think of that couple at Walmart, you whisper a prayer for their kindness and compassion. You are so thankful that they took the time to stop whatever they were doing to stay with you during those first terrifying moments when you were at your worst. What would you have done without them?

This is not fiction. This isn’t the opening sequence of some new story I’m writing. This actually happened to a friend of mine a couple of days ago. It shouldn’t matter and it doesn’t matter, but since this is 2021 I feel compelled to mention that the couple who came to my friend’s aid in that Walmart were African-American. 

We live in a time of great racial tension and unrest. Every encounter between people from different races seems fraught with peril. The only stories we see in the media are bad ones. But the story I just shared and ones just like it that happen every day across this country don’t end up on the nightly news. My friend, a white woman in deep pain, gets approached by an African American couple who see her pain and can only think to stop whatever they were doing to come along side a total stranger, a fellow human being in great distress, to offer kindness, support and grace at the hour of her greatest need. They did so anonymously. They will get no credit for it, no accolades will come their way. But this story and it’s telling in this space hopefully will serve as a reminder that all of us has within us a spark of the divine, the better angles of our character which so often rise to the occasion. For my friend, it was strangers at Walmart who showered upon her their love and concern, offering the one single ray of light in a day of profound darkness.

Who will you be a ray of light to today?

The Meaning of Friends

The To Do Lists are getting crowded. Time is starting to feel short. One week from today we leave for Maine and I think I’ve got a cold, which is suddenly big news in the post-COVID world. I haven’t had a cold in almost two years because of all the hand washing, hand sanitizing and mask wearing. But recently I have done several things that placed me in close proximity to thousands of my fellow human beings. I have attended a baseball game, taken long rides on the crowded DC Metro etc. So a couple days ago I started with cold symptoms. But post-COVID, how do you know what is a cold and what might be …the big C? Sure, I’m fully vaccinated, but its not 100% effective. Since we are leaving for Maine next week I decided to get a rapid test at Patient First last night, out of an abundance of caution. (Having just used that dreadful phrase, I feel an apology is in order). Good news: I do not have COVID. Bad news: I have a cold. On an optimistic note, this is the time to get a cold, not next week.

Attended a funeral yesterday. One of our dear friends lost her mother after a battle with dementia. She lived a fruitful life of 85 years and was truly beloved by all who knew her. The chapel was packed. I know from personal experience how terribly difficult it is to stand up in front of a large gathering of family and friends and eulogize one of your parents. You so desperately want to say the right words, to convey the appropriate sentiments while simultaneously realizing it is impossible. You can’t reduce anyone’s life to a ten minute speech, much less the women who gave you life. Plus, as soon as you arrive at the podium and look out at the crowd your heart begins to beat louder and your stomach is suddenly in your throat. But, our friend stood up in that podium and honored her mother with a gracious and tender speech all the while holding herself together with great poise. Well done.

It’s funny what happens in the week or so leading up to Maine. I’ve noticed it before but this year more so than other years. Although Pam and I cherish nothing in the world more that the weeks we spend in Maine, we also feel this strange need to get together with people who we love before we leave. Pam has spent almost every day recently having lunch or breakfast with all of her dearest friends. We just scheduled a dinner for next Monday night with our Hope small group so we can see them all before we leave. How lucky are we to be surrounded by so many people who we love? This is what really matters, isn’t it? We won’t miss Short Pump. We won’t miss our house. We will only miss the dear people who make Short Pump and our house worth coming back to…the incredible human beings we call friends.

Reputation

No…you’re not seeing double. Yesterday I posted a photograph of this cool Father’s Day present I received from my wife. Well, thirty minutes later the doorbell rang and there were my two angel girls from next door, Sully and Kennedy along with their sweet Mom. They had a gift they wanted to give me for Father’s Day too….the exact same thing.  So now I have one for my home office and one for my work office. I also have to admit that I’m a bit concerned that I have developed such a predictable reputation in my neighborhood…slayer of squirrels and dad-joke teller.

Just Another Night at the Ballpark

Sometimes the best laid plans don’t end up turning out the way you wished. Take last night, for example. My big brother picked up a couple of Nationals tickets from a friend of his who has season tickets and was out of town. The two of us had planned to meet up at the center field gate around 5:30 for the 7 o’clock game. We were both taking the Metro to the ball park, he from Rockville, Maryland and me from Springfield,Virginia. We had both been looking forward to it for weeks and the weather turned out to be absolutely perfect. All seemed teed up for a great night.

I leave my house in Short Pump at 2:10 in the afternoon. My GPS assured me that the Springfield Metro station was a mere hour and forty minute drive. All was going swimmingly until I got onto Interstate 95 heading north…

Yes kids, that tiny green sign in the distance is the Elmont exit and this photograph was taken while sitting graveyard-dead still. Not a good sign. But, Let not your heart be troubled, I reminded myself. This is exactly why I left so early. Ignorance of 95 traffic is no excuse for anyone who lives near the thing. It is the place where travel plans go to die a painful, excruciating death. 

But eventually the traffic began to thin out, just in time for this…

Was there an accident, you ask? No. Was there road construction? No. Was there flatbed truck full of naked models pulled over on the side of the road causing a festival of rubber necking? No. So, what caused the traffic to grind to such an inexplicable halt all the way from Quantico to Springfield? I have no idea. It is a profound mystery. Nevertheless, I didn’t arrive at the Metro station until 5:12. Then, the real fun began.

I am not a city guy. The Metro is a city thing. I’m sure if I had to use it every day I would get used to it and grow to appreciate its charms. To the uninitiated, this is not charming…

Yes, it goes without saying that I missed a connection that I was supposed to make and wound up going considerably out of the way. All the while I was texting big brother with my ETA. Finally I saw the big lug standing there in his Strasberg Jersey at the centerfield gate. It was 6:15. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s four hours.

Donnie’s friend’s tickets were awesome. There was a restaurant there with tables outside…

So, the Dunnevant boys were finally together with plenty of time to spare. We ate some ballpark food, caught up a little bit and marveled at the glorious weather and the obnoxious Met Fans who had somehow gotten tickets far to close to us.

The actual game was a tight pitchers duel and the two of us had a blast providing expert analysis and color commentary to those within earshot. Through four innings it was 0-0. To change our luck, I decided to excuse myself long enough to go to the W store to buy a hat. Twenty minutes later, I returned. The score was still tied but my big brother seemed oddly quiet. By the middle of the sixth inning he informed me that he wasn’t feeling well with a look on his face that I was very familiar with. Our sainted parents bequeathed to their children many admirable traits, however, from our mother both of us inherited an unpredictable , confounding, and devilish condition that we euphemistically call stomach issues. It’s virtually impossible to predict with any certainty why or when it will strike. Lucky for both of us, it is a rarity. But when it does arrive on the scene it is almost always at the most impossible time…like the middle of the sixth inning at a baseball stadium, an hour’s metro ride away from your automobile!! I will not go into any details, but the next hour was quite the experience, involving everything from a five dollar bottle of water and botched Uber attempt to an amazingly professional ambulance crew that saved the day. My brother is fine and at home recovering from the ordeal. In the middle of all the angst and turmoil, the Nationals walked off the Mets on a run scoring single in the bottom of the ninth from Yan Gomes. We heard the roar even from the ambulance!

Of course, my night was not over because I had to once again sample the unique pleasures of 95 south. My handy GPS took me on a perilous detour at some point which was of nebulous benefit since eventually it placed me back here…

I trudged along, and trudged along and about when I was all out of trudge, I pulled into my driveway at 1:18, a full eleven hours after I left.

Just another night at the ballpark.

The Hard Wait

In less than two weeks Pam and I will begin a five week adventure at this place. This will be our home for the first two weeks, then we will head to the other side of the lake to this place for the remaining three weeks.

The alert reader will notice that I have not chosen to show pictures of the actual houses we are staying in. That’s because it’s far less important, and less interesting to me than the lake and these views. This is Quantabacook, and I will be spending far more time on these docks and in that water than I will be spending inside. Don’t misunderstand. The houses are important. Neither of them are dumps by any means. Both are actually quite lovely. The thing is, houses in Maine during the glorious summer months are places you go when its raining or its time for bed. But if you insist on lake house pictures…

Here’s the view of the lake from house number one. we will be eating our meals here if it’s raining and/or at night.

This is where I will be writing this blog for three weeks and eating lunch I imagine.

That’s it. That’s all the important things to know about where we will spending our time.

Oh, and another thing. This second place will be where our kids will be staying with us for as long as their hearts desire to do so. Six of us getting to hang out together on this lake is the greatest of gifts in this life. It makes everything I had to do to make it happen worth the trouble. And one day soon, instead of five weeks it will be all summer, every summer.

Morning Conversation

It had been several days since I had texted my friend in Buena Vista, so I knew her guard would be down. I just couldn’t resist…

Me: Hey Pup. How have you been this week?

Pam: Doing ok my friend. How about you?

Me: Not bad…except I had a colonoscopy yesterday.

Pam: That go ok?

Me: You know me, I struck up a conversation with the anesthesiologist. I asked her, “How long have you worked at this clinic?” She said, “About a year. I’ve been with field medical teams my entire career. This is the first time I’ve settled down in a clinic and the first time I’ve been in gastrointestinal.” I relied, “I see. So, after all those years in the field, how do you like working in an orifice?”

Pam: Geez, Doug!

….long pause

Pam: Did you get a good report? No polyps?

Me: GOTCHA!!!!!

Pam: ……you are such a punk!!

Me: Seriously though, yesterday my daughter Kaitlin was telling me about cheetahs and how skittish and nervous they are. They require a lot of attention and sometimes in zoos they even have a companion dog to help keep them calm.

…another long pause

Me: Turns out, without a lot of care, cheetahs never prosper.

Pam: It’s awfully early for this nonsense, Douglas.

Me: You know, as I’ve told you before, poop jokes aren’t my favorite kind of jokes.

…yet another long pause

Me: But, they’re a solid number two!!

Pam: (twenty eye-roll emojis)

Me: Your kids ever play The Oregon Trail when they were little? Mine did.

Pam: …….???

Me: You meet a man on the Oregon Trail, the man says his name is Terry. “Terry? That’s a girls name”, you laugh. Terry shoots you.

Pam: ….sigh

Me: You have died of dissin Terry.

Pam: Ok, I’ve had enough.

What a great way to start the day!!

Russ and Baseball

Yesterday, Pam gave me my Father’s Day present early by taking me and her Dad to a Flying Squirrels game…

Great seats, great food, and a beautiful day. Of course, after attending a game in Nashville recently, I was reminded just how much of a dump The Diamond has become. The concessions are a mess, the bathrooms stink, and the scoreboard is uninspired and hard to read. But any hopes that we might get a new stadium are dead simply because this is Richmond, Virginia we’re talking about, a city with perhaps the most pathetic and inept government in the history of democracy…but that’s a topic for another day. Right now, I’d rather talk about my father-in-law.

Russ is in his 80’s somewhere. I won’t offer a specific number because it doesn’t matter. He’s not old, at least he doesn’t act old, which is the important part. He’s just a really smart, funny guy who is always fun to hang around. On the subject of baseball, he is one of the few people in my life who I can talk baseball with who…understands. He’s a baseball lifer and still follows his RedSox and the Nationals, mostly because they are on television a lot. But yesterday he told a fascinating story from when he was a kid. Pam had asked him if he could remember the first big league game he ever attended. Russ didn’t hesitate.

“I was around 14 or so and we had driven down to Fenway Park to see the RedSox play the Yankees. I was so excited that I was going to see my hero, Ted Williams. Only bad thing was when they announced the starting lineup he wasn’t in it. He had a cold that day so he didn’t play. I was so disappointed!! But later on my senior class in high school went to Fenway for two days to see the RedSox play the Kansas City Athletics. On Sunday it was a double header and Ted Williams had himself a day. In the first inning of both games he hit a three run homer!”

How great is that? First of all that his senior class trip was to Fenway Park, but second of all that he got to see Ted freaking Williams hit two home runs…and he still remembers the details?! When I asked him about the lineup that day he immediately mentioned that one of the guys on base for both home runs was Dom DiMaggio, Joe’s kid brother. 

There’s something about baseball that does that to you. It makes an impression that stays with you. Although its been over fifty years now, I can still remember the guys who played for the old Richmond Virginians from when I was like 7 years old…Joe Pepitone, Tom Tresh, and Al Downing. Then the Braves came to town and it was Hal Breedan, Shawn Fitzmorris, Ralph Garr and Dusty Baker. If I live to be 100 and all of my other faculties are gone, I’ll still be able to tell the nurses at the old folks home about who was in the starting lineup for the Mets in game five of the 1969 World Series.

And now, my son has taken up watching baseball videos on YouTube and sending them to me. Dad, have you seen this catch and throw?! Crazy!!
 

Writing Stories

For the past ten years or so I have taken up the hobby of writing novels. It’s not unlike any other conventional hobby in that it is fun, done in your spare time, and serves as a distraction from the demands of your day to day responsibilities. But writing long and complicated stories takes a long time to complete, especially if its a hobby. But no matter how long it takes, you never get tired of the story or the characters you’ve created. In fact, you find yourself quite attached to them as the weeks become months, and for my latest…the months become years. I started writing this current story in August of 2020 and I’m still probably only halfway done. When/If I ever retire from my real job, I plan on trying to see if I can get one or all of them published. But for now, its just a cool outlet for my devilish imagination doing something I’ve always loved to do…write. Here’s what I’ve written so far:

A Life of Dreams

This is a story about a gambling savant whose gift destroys his life and eventually leads to a suicide attempt, after which he begins seeing visions of his still living ex-wife, which leads to a pseudo-reconciliation as the two of them go on a search for her long absent father. They find him, a successful but tortured attorney who himself commits suicide after meeting his daughter after 30 years of abandonment. When her dying mother shows up on her doorstep months later, all kinds of weird semi-supernatural stuff begins to happen, some of which involve a stray dog.

Saving Jack

Jack’s wife gets murdered in the parking lot of a convenience store by a deranged drug addict. This random act of violence leads Jack to abandon his life and business and flee to his cabin in Maine to attempt a recovery. While there, a stranger from his past shows up with the news that his wife’s murder may not have been so random after all. Both of Jack’s grown children become concerned and suspicious of this stranger and her motives and race up to Maine to intervene. What is ultimately revealed has the power to destroy the family. 

Reardon’s Walk

This is a strange tale about a traumatic event of betrayal that leads to a bizarre time travel episode that takes the protagonist back in time to the year of his birth. In the year 1962 Charlie meets his mother who is pregnant with…him. Back in real time, Charlie is dealing with the fallout from the witnessed betrayal and the disturbing information he has learned from his trip back in time. More strange semi-supernatural things begin to happen with the appearance of a kind but weird old lady with a connection to Charlie’s mother. Every detail of the story seems to center around the ornate beach house on Hatteras Island named Reardon’s Walk, built by Charlie’s estranged father not long after he was born. 

Each of these stories were super fun to write and all three of them were completed in roughly 8 months. The one I’m writing now has no working title and as I said earlier is only half done. But by far, it has been the most difficult and disturbing to write. It concerns a man who is living a perfectly fine life with lots of success and happiness when he suffers a nasty face-plant fall while out for a run. The blow to the head causes at first subtle changes to his personality then everything goes off the rails as he loses almost all impulse control which causes him to disappear without a trace one afternoon after a business lunch. His elderly and oppressive mother hires a private detective to find him and bring him home after coming into possession of evidence that her son has written a six figure check to some random woman in Mississippi. Conflict is everywhere, between Danny and his angry and abandoned wife, between Danny’s wife and her overbearing mother-in-law, between Danny’s feuding  business partners, and between Danny and this new, post-fall version of himself. There’s an encounter at a bowling alley, a hitchhiker with a gun, and a female private investigator with tons of issues. I am totally invested, all in on this group of characters, but at this point I can’t even figure out who the hero is and who the villain will end up being. All of them have each impulse within their personality.

At my current rate of progress, I’ll wrap this story up sometime next year.

Where are the Workers?

I keep seeing a lot of stories in business publications with headlines like this:

Jobs are back, but where are the workers?

Well, from all of my reading on the subject my answer is..its complicated.

There is no single reason why jobs aren’t being filled. One of the laziest answers suggests that people aren’t going back to work because the combination of enhanced unemployment along with stimulus checks make returning to work equivalent to taking a pay cut. I’m very sure that this is true in some cases, but this assumes that the average worker is a lazy freeloader with no self respect who takes pleasure in shafting the American taxpayer. This describes almost nobody I have ever known and is an insult. I take a back seat to nobody when it comes to my objections to the American safety net turning into a hammock, but I don’t think that is what is happening here. What, then? Here are some suggestions:

People have discovered that they really enjoy working from home and don’t want to go back to the hassle and expense of commuting.

Working from home has also solved the financial burden of childcare for many young families, who are not eager to go back to shelling out thousands again.

Then there’s this. This morning I ran across this line in an article, “Retailers are reluctant to raise wages and erode their thin margins—and are losing workers to employers who pay more.” Who would have thought? You mean the labor market is working exactly how it is supposed to???

Listen, I know that a lot of people out there don’t like competition and think it’s destructive to the human spirit or some such thing, but if I own a business that cannot make a profit unless it can pay its workers X, and the guy down the street has figured out a way to make a profit paying his workers XX, guess what? My workers will figure it out pretty quickly and jump ship. If that happens I have a couple of choices. I can either figure out a way to increase productivity, raise my prices, or go out of business. Nobody has a God given right to stay in business if they can’t make a profit. That’s what bankruptcy laws are for. I know that sounds harsh and unfeeling but this is business we’re talking about here. You might say, but Doug what about inflation? What about it? The race to the bottom of pricing brought about by the Walmart’s and the Amazon’s of the world has been a boon to consumers in this country. That’s great. I’m personally thrilled to death that I’m not held hostage and forced to pay exorbitant prices for consumer goods down at Mom and Pop’s Five and Dime because they’re the only choice I have. But everything, even every good thing comes with a cost. Its one thing for the American consumer to demand low low prices out of one side of their mouths but then demand higher and higher pay for retail work out of the other. If we want employers to pay more competitive wages at some point we…all of us…are going to have to be willing to pay higher prices. Yes, that’s called inflation. 

Of course, there are other thumbs on the scales in our economy that muck everything up too, like government subsidizing some businesses at the expense of others, government red tape making it so much harder to start a business than it should ever be, stupid and counter productive labor union work rules, insane CEO pay, etc..etc. But for me, the bottom line on all of this is if you want something good, whether it be a good job, a good product or a good business, you’re going to have to be willing to pay for it. A good job is going to require a marketable skill so train yourself to do something well. A good product will require imagination and ingenuity and excellent marketing, and a good business will have to be one that can offer a product people actually want at a price they can pay, while paying their employees a competitive and attractive wage.

If you can’t do any of these things, go get a job with the government.

The Gates Divorce

Bill and Melinda Gates are getting a divorce. I don’t care. You shouldn’t either.

Practically every day for the past month a story has popped up on one of my news feeds offering the latest salacious details. I have steadfastly refused to click on a single one. When news first broke that the famous couple had filed for divorce, of course I read about it. It’s not every day when one of the most obnoxiously sanctimonious billionaires on the planet files for a divorce so sure, I was curious. But that first news article was all I needed to know about the two of them. They are nothing more than a long-married couple who now hate each other and are parting company, joining the roughly 2.4 million other couples who file for divorce every year in the United States. Why do we need to know all the gory details? Imagine what it would be like if you and your spouse were going through a messy split and you woke up one day and every single failure of your marriage was plastered all over the front page of the Times-Dispatch?

So why are Gates Divorce stories all the rage? Because we want to read about our blessed celebrities at each and every milestone of their ridiculous lives. If nobody cared, they wouldn’t print it, people. In other words…we are pathetic!

Now for something more uplifting:

Why does YouTube constantly recommend videos of dancing former Vice Presidents to me??

Must be a bad Al Gore Rhythm ….

The Post-it Note Wall

A few weeks ago at my church there was a pen and post-it notes under every chair in the auditorium. It was the first Sunday after the Covid social distancing and mask requirements had been lifted. Towards the end of the service our pastor asked us to write down something that had happened to us during the COVID pandemic that was memorable, either good or bad. It could be something happy or sad, or maybe just something that the COVID experience had taught us. Then he asked us to stick pour notes on the wall in the foyer. It was up to us whether or not we wanted to put our name on our note. They are still up there three Sundays later, hundreds of them, and every week I stand there reading as many as I can. It has been an amazing experience.

I lost my job.

I found this church.

My father and both of my in-laws died. Deep dark depression.

We lost our dog.

I’ve learned that I love working from home.

It has been the loneliest time of my life.

My church is like most others I suppose, we clean up well, lots of smiles everywhere, and that’s a good thing. But its never all smiles in life at church or any place else. Under the surface human beings are conflicted and complicated. Few of us let anyone else see the vulnerability, we work hard at managing our image as a well adjusted, put together person who is getting along just fine. Deception is much easier to pull off. When someone asks, How are you, we answer fine, not because it’s necessarily true but because it’s more expedient than telling the truth about yourself…actually, I’m a mess. But with these post-it notes, our pastor had given us permission to tell the truth without the social awkwardness. The results were stunning and in a small way, comforting. The most brutally honest notes admitting depression and worse were surprising but shouldn’t have been. I’ve been in church long enough to know that Christian people are just as screwed up as anyone else. Maybe I had been lulled into the notion that this particular group of them were somehow different. It’s hard to fight that impression sometimes when I see all the smiles, all the wealth and comfort there. But there is no amount of money, privilege or comfort that can wash away the human frailty we were all born with. The wall of post-it notes serve as a reminder of this truth. My church family is filled with all kinds of people and many of them are carrying around massive burdens. It makes me love them a little more, reminds me to pay closer attention to those to my right and left and the lonely looking man across the way.

I hope they leave them up. I hope they are a permanent fixture in the foyer. I think it would do every church some good to have a wall of post-it notes. Here. This is us. This is who we really are. We all need salvation. We are all starved for grace. If not, why are we even here?

So, to whoever came up with the post-it note idea, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Squirrel #12 in the Books

Saturday was a fun day. Had a great little 5K run in the morning, cut the grass and putzed around in the yard for a while, got a massage, then went out to dinner to celebrate my sister’s birthday. I mean, other than the fact that it was hot and humid (94), Saturday was nearly perfect. But the central event of the day was none of the things I just listed. No, no...not even close. That would be the fact that I bagged my 12th squirrel of the year in spectacular fashion.

As you all know, squirrels and I have a long running feud in that they love to chew on our deck furniture, eat the flowers we plant, be-spoil my tomatoes and occasionally invade my attic, and I love to kill them. In this I am assisted greatly by my much celebrated Daisy Powerline 35:

Well, there I was Saturday minding my own business, when I spy one of the tree rats sitting up on his haunches on the peak of the A-Frame of my roof! I mean, the unmitigated gall!! I immediately stopped what I was doing and tip-toed away to fetch old Daisy. When I returned, there he was, still on his haunches taunting me with his arrogance, as if to say, “no way your Daisy can touch me way up here...” Unfortunately for Mister Squirrel, it was his last thought. One shot found it’s mark, wiping the little squirrel smirk from his little squirrel face and sending him tumbling ass-over-tea-kettle down my roof. I let out a triumphant grunt. Everything was going splendidly right up to the moment when this happened:

Are you kidding me? What are the odds?? So now I have a dead and rapidly decomposing squirrel stuck in a gutter that stands at least 15 feet off the ground, but less than five feet from my front door, and beyond the reach of my longest ladder. I guess I’ll have to borrow one from my neighbor. On the other hand, maybe I should leave him in there as an example to other members of his pathetic tribe as a warning to what will befall them should they try their luck on the Dunnevant roof.

Indulge Me

Indulge me. What follows has been percolating in my head since Friday afternoon of last week when the Biden Administration announced its federal budget for 2022. The fact that the decision was made to announce this bit of news late on a Friday of a holiday weekend should tell you something about how much coverage they hoped it would get, but that’s a story for another day. Below I have constructed a thumbnail sketch of the pertinent numbers:

Projected spending...6 Trillion dollars, which when written in numbers looks like this...$6,000,000,000,000.00

Projected revenue.....4.2 Trillion dollars

Projected deficit for 2022...1.8 Trillion dollars

For anyone quaint enough to be concerned about debts and deficits, the Biden Administration assures us that if all goes according to plan, the budget will become balanced in 2037, long after Joe Biden has gone on to his eternal reward.

What all this budget talk got me to thinking about was the last time this country actually had a balanced budget. Actually we ran a surplus of nearly 250 billion dollars. For younger readers of this blog, a surplus is when the government takes in more money than it spends. The year was 2000. It was the last budget submitted to Congress by President Bill Clinton, who had famously declared that “The era of big government is over!” 

Projected spending...1.7 Trillion dollars

Projected revenue.....2 Trillion dollars

Projected surplus......230 billion

So, 22 years ago the entire budget for the federal government was 1.7 trillion. In 2022 that’s just the amount of red ink. Wow. Let’s see now:

2000 spending = 1.7 Trillion

2022 spending = 6 Trillion

Spending is up 352% 

2000 revenue = 2 Trillion

2022 revenue = 4.2 Trillion

Revenue is up 210%

This got me to thinking. It’s easy for all of us to criticize the profligacy of politicians. We have at this hour 28 trillion reasons to do so. But, what about me? How has MY spending and revenue compared with that of my government? Good question. It wasn’t easy, but I found my old tax returns and here are the numbers:

2000 spending = NOYB*

2022 spending = NOYB*

Spending is up 192%

2000 revenue = NOYB*

2022 revenue = NOYB*

Revenue is up 211%

That’s funny, my revenue over the past 22 years has grown at nearly the exact same pace as that of the federal government, and yet I have run a surplus in all but two of the past 22 years (the dreaded two years when both of my children were enrolled in private, out of state universities at the same time!!). 

Of course, you can’t compare anyone’s personal finances to the economic life of a nation state except for kicks and giggles, but it is interesting. Actually, I must admit it would have been great fun to run 22 deficits in the Dunnevant home. Imagine all the amazing trips we could have gone on and stuff we could have bought. But, I was restricted by the fact that although I possessed an excellent credit history, I would have been expected to eventually pay all of that money back, with interest. That expectation would have been rather unyielding and I would not have had the advantage that a sovereign nation has of simply printing money. 

So, Doug Dunnevant has racked up a healthy surplus over the past 22 years, while our government has added 23,000,000,000,000.00 (TRILLION) to the national debt since that heady day in February of 2000 when Bill Clinton sent the last balanced budget to Congress.

* None Of Your Business

Disturbing Photographs

So, a couple days ago I saw a news story about a small plane that had crashed killing seven passengers. Among the dead, I was told, were an actor and someone who was described as a Christian Diet Guru. Against my better judgment and giving in to my base curiosity, I clicked on the story. What I discovered was, er...it was, how shall I say...there are no words.

I must here confess that before this plane went down I had never heard of either of these two. The Christian Diet Guru is the one on the left, a Gwen Shambling Lara. The man on the right is an actor whose most famous role was that of Tarzan in the television series The Epic Advetures of Tarzan, which somehow I managed to miss back in the early 90’s.

I am fully aware that one should never speak ill of the dead, and I understand that what I’m about to say might be offensive to some but...what the actually hell?

Look...I am an unashamed and unapologetic follower of Jesus Christ, but why was my very first reaction to this photograph, “Well, of course she is a Christian Diet Guru!!!”

This poor woman looks like an anorexic Barbie Doll who is probably single-handedly responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer of our planet, there being enough hairspray on that head to withstand a stage 5 hurricane. And, if Tarzan there had anymore Botox in that face he might never blink again! (And I think that he is wearing the bow tie from my junior prom tuxedo). Unfortunately, this image right here is what far too many people have of modern Christianity, a bunch of tan-in-a-can, herbal supplement selling, self-help life coaching, Hollywood D-lister wannabes. Don’t believe me...?

I’m told that the woman in this photograph, Jan Crouch, co-founder of Trinity Broadcasting, recently went to her heavenly reward. Reports are that her hair arrived three days later.

I feel some obligation to say to the non-Christian world out there that...no, we don’t all look this superficially goofy. Most of us, I dare say, don’t even own a can of hairspray.

It occurs to me that some of you reading this might have benefitted from the weight loss powers of Mrs. Lara. Others may be in fact, Living Your Best Life Now, courtesy of the ministrations of Mr. Osteen. If so, I’m happy for you.

But sometimes I just wish that a prominent Christian voice would come along who doesn’t look like they could either be an alien life form or...possessed by the devil...