A Beautiful Paradox

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

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

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

What Type Are You?

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

Democrats:

16%...Solid Liberals

12%...Opportunity Democrats

14%...Disaffected Democrats

9%.....Devout and Diverse

Republicans:

13%...Core Conservatives

6%.....Country First Conservatives

12%...Market Skeptic Republicans

11%...New Era Enterprisers

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

8%...Bystanders

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

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

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

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

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

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

17%...Guns

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

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

Why Did I Leave Maine?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Sick Dog Is The Worst...

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

And now, he is sick.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Stuff of Memories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Play ball!

"What Does Your Wife Do?"

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

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

Generally speaking, here's how it works:

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

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

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

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

So yeah, that's what my wife does.

The Triumph of the Id

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Missing This...

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

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

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

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

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

I Fought The Law...and the law won.

A day like today is better left alone, left to stew in its own juices. To speak about it, might give it even more power. Perhaps silence would be the more prudent course. Maybe, if I ignore the events of the day, they will fade into inglorious oblivion, just a droplet of water in the lost mist of time. On the other hand....I write, so there's that.

Today, I spent the majority of my time and energy doing battle with Leviathan, in this case the Tennessee Department of Revenue outpost of Leviathan, with a brief visit to the Wells Fargo division. These two institutions are both basically field offices of Leviathan, but both are fully Leviathan, root and branch. The reason for this sad 4 month project has been the quest to arrange things so that my son, who lives in Nashville, can obtain proper registration stickers for his car. Unfortunately, even though the car is his...especially since he is the one making the payments, his name appears no where on the title, since the loan is solely in his father's name. Wells Fargo, the Enron of the banking world, holds the title and will not allow me to transfer the title into my son's name while there is a lien outstanding. So far during these past 4 months, my son has received one $150 ticket for driving on expired tags. It has been my fervent hope and prayer to get this cleared up so more such tickets will not be forthcoming. Today, I had been led to believe, was going to be V-GB day( Victory over Government Bureaucracy Day). However, after nearly 4 hours of telephone conversations with three different functionaries, it became apparent to me that the day was going down in a fiery crash of recrimination and accusation. Once it was all over, I had one last job to do...inform Patrick of the results of the day. Since he has been the one ducking into parking garages at the sight of cops in downtown Nashville for the past 4 months, he is understandably vested in a positive conclusion to this bureaucratic infighting. How was I going to break it to him that we were essentially back at square one. I had promised him a phone call, but thought better of it. I decided on a carefully worded email, the first paragraph is reprinted below:

Patrick,

I'm aware that I told you that I would call you as soon as I had news about this nightmare, but I'm afraid if I do, I will forget some important detail and also, if I retell this one more time, I might lose control of myself in an undignified manner. So, I've chosen to write out this summary of today's news instead.

There is no need to regale you with the gory details of the day. Suffice it to say that when fighting city hall, the first casualty is always the sanity of the attacker. In the case of the Tennessee Department of Revenue, this loss of sanity is hastened by the thick southern drawl of the clerks in question. All of them sound like your grandmother. In your minds eye, they are wearing aprons and pulling cherry pies out of the oven while trying to explain to you why there is no way in hell they can register a car in Tennessee to someone who lives in Virginia...But, I can certainly understand why you are so frustrated, bless your heart. Even when you can get them to admit that they signed for a FedEx package which contained the transfer title in question, but somehow no one at the Tennessee Department of Revenue can find it, ...even then....they make it sound like your fault. Now, I admit that it's a shame that it got lost, but you probably should never have sent that in the first place!

So, after a 4 hour battle with the bureaucratic state bequeathed to us by FDR's New Deal and fattened considerably by every single President since, I can report that the old adage is still true...

I fought the law and...the law won.

My Entertaining Family

Pam: How come having this hole in the floor makes me not want to cook in here?

                                                                    ###

                                                                                                          

A text conversation between me and my son from yesterday:

Me: I have spoken to two people thus far this morning, one from Wells Fargo bank and one from the Tennessee Department of Revenue. Still no answer. But, someone at the Tennessee Department of Revenue is working on it and will call me back with an answer sometime today.(Editor's note: No such call back). Wells Fargo did, in fact, send the transfer title to the Tennessee Department of Revenue on the 28th of August and they have a signed receipt and a FedEx tracking number to prove it.

Patrick: OMG. Thanks for the update. All of this incompetency is making me more conservative by the hour.

                                                                ###                                            

Kaitlin: Jon made the mistake of mentioning "Lolly and Pops." Now, Jackson won't stop staring at the door.

My family provides all the entertainment I need on a daily basis.

New Things Are Hard

Everyone who knows me would probably consider me an extrovert. That's a fair assessment, I suppose, but my extroverted personality isn't absolute. I'm more like a selective extrovert, for although I am generally comfortable in large crowds of people, my comfort level has it's limits. Yesterday was a great example.

As most of you know, I have been attending a new church for the past year or so, Hope Church, just across the Gouchland County line on Patterson Avenue. After being a member of the same church for 30 years, it's difficult to start from scratch at a new place with new people. But, Pam and I have done just that. We've joined a small group and are slowly getting involved, but it's a tedious process. Every Sunday when we walk through the doors of the place we still feel like we don't know a soul. So, when I saw that the church was planning a fund raiser golf tournament to raise money for their youth ministry I thought, what better way to get to know some people? I signed up and was paired with three total strangers.

I have to confess here that I don't know that I've ever experienced such social discomfort since, maybe, junior high. As I drove into the parking lot of the golf course, an actual knot rose in my throat. It startled me. What the heck was this all about? Why was I suddenly nervous? I usually think that it's the other hundred people who should be nervous at the prospect of meeting me! But, yesterday it was me who was suddenly overcome with dread. I carried my clubs around the clubhouse and saw a sea of men. I scanned the crowd for a familiar face and came up empty. 

I finally found my cart...5B. This was not a good sign. The letter "B" meant that there was going to be two foursomes on the same tee box. In other words, I began steeling myself for a 5 hour round of golf with three guys who I didn't know. I read their names on the cart sign. Their clubs were already on the cart, but they weren't. I headed to the registration table desperately trying to recognize someone...anyone.

Wait...that guy looks familiar. He's one of the guys who does music, isn't he? Oh, and there's Pete Bowell, one of the pastors. That's a good sign. At least I know I'm at the right course. It's such an odd feeling being in such a large crowd of people, yet feeling completely isolated. Everywhere I looked there were small groups of friends yucking it up, then that group would spot another small group of friends and they both would begin yucking it up. Meanwhile, I was busy eating my boxed lunch at a table by myself...which sounds quite pathetic, but it really wasn't. It's just one of those awkward situations that we all find ourselves in every once in a while.

After woofing down my lunch, suddenly some guy walked up to me, extended a hand and said, "I know you, you're Doug Dunnevant." 

Nothing. He didn't look like a golfer...

"1976. Patrick Henry High School."

Still, nothing. The great scene from Groundhog Day flashed before my eyes...Ned Ryerson, BING.

"Robbie Robertson!!"

Yes! Sudden recognition. It was Robbie Freaking Robertson! I hadn't seen the guy since graduation. BING!!

"Robbie! Great to see you again, man! How long have you been going to Hope?"

"Naw, not me...I work here at the Club."

But at least I knew someone on the premises. Things were looking up! 

As I made my way down to the range to hit a few practice balls I spotted some dude in knickers. He had the whole Scottish highlander getup, plaid socks, beret, the whole works. I thought to myself, that guy is either a scratch golfer or completely without self consciousness. Either way, probably a fun guy. On my way back to the cart I ran across a familiar face. I recognized him and he recognized me. We stopped and stared at each other, both frantically searching our memories for a name. This guy was in my small group, for goodness sake, and I still couldn't recall his name!! How embarrassing. Finally, I think I said something lame like...small group, this week's meeting is at your house, right? Its times like this when you consider the merits of the hermit life. Maybe the monk existence has its advantages. 

Finally, we were all called to our carts by a guy with a microphone who went over the rules, then handed the mic to David Dwight, senior pastor of the church. He made a few remarks, then said a prayer. By the time I made it over to my cart, I was greeted by my cart mate for the day...knickers guy. He ended up being very nice and great fun...but sadly, not a scratch golfer.

5 hours and 35 minutes later, we finally limped off the golf course and headed to the clubhouse for dinner. That's a long time to spend on a golf course...a very long time. In fact, I'm reasonably certain it's the longest amount of time I have ever spent playing a single round of golf...certainly the longest amount of time I've spent with total strangers on a golf course. Luckily for me, they were all nice guys and we got along well. Still, by the time I made it home, I was wiped out. It turns out that playing golf poorly combined with making conversation with strangers for 6 hours is a lot like...work.

But, on the bright side, this coming Sunday I will have a greater chance of making eye contact with someone I know. There will be a flicker of recognition, then we will exchange a nod and a grin. I have determined to remember their names...Wayne, Barry, and Bill.

New things are hard. Even when you are determined and committed...new things are hard.

Third Time the Charm?

I've read twenty books so far this year, most of them novels. Some have been quite good, others mediocre, and a couple of them were fabulous. All were enjoyable. Reading fiction has always been great fun for me. Getting wrapped up inside someone else's imagination for a few days is a stimulating distraction from the relentless finality of the real world. This world, as it actually exists, requires an occasional escape, and for me a good book always does the trick.

But every single time I finish one, I close the thing and think...I could do this. I never get this same feeling about, say, the classical guitar. Whenever I listen to a recording of someone like Christopher Parkening playing something by Bach, I don't think...Maybe if I practiced a little more I could play that way. I instinctively know that all the practice in the world won't turn me into Christopher Parkening. But with writing, it's different, especially when I read something that is ordinary...Well heck, I could do better than this!

I am encouraged in my arrogance here by the fact that I have already written two novels. The first one during my 20's, written in longhand, which fills two spiral notebooks and resides in the bottom drawer of my night stand, untyped, unedited, and unread. The second one I finished last October. This one was proofread and semi-edited, then printed out in manuscript form and lives in obscurity in the middle drawer of my night stand, the piece of furniture where literary dreams go to die. 

For several weeks now, the seeds of a third effort have been swimming around in the vast empty spaces of my mind. The idea for the story came to me while I was in Maine, and why not? There's a reason why so many American novelists live there. If you can't get inspired living in a place with so many brooding landscapes and rickety barns, then you should probably hang it up. I'm thinking that if Stephen King lived in Nebraska he never could have written The Green Mile. Anyway, the idea came to me while sitting on the dock at Loon Landing, and has been gestating ever since. Last night I finally opened up a fresh Word document and started writing. If my other two attempts are instructive, it will take me around eight months or so to complete. Afterwards there will be a great feeling of accomplishment. Then the printed manuscript will take up residence in the top drawer of that night stand.

Maybe one day, long after I have gone to my eternal reward, my kids will stumble upon these efforts at the bottom of some box in the attic. They will read through them and either say, Aw, I'm so glad Dad had such a fun hobby...bless his heart. Or, perhaps they will say, Whoa, these are amazing! Maybe if we can have them published we can enjoy a spendable inheritance!! 

A posthumous Pulitzer might be nice...

Somewhere, Christopher Parkening is laughing his head off.

Progress.

For most people, history is boring. It's the domain of pointy-headed intellectuals combing over stacks of dusty books in the back corners of ancient libraries. For me it's the most instructive of all the academic disciplines. Without it we wouldn't know this:

The three leading causes of death 100 years ago in the United States were as follows:

3. Pneumonia 

2. Tuberculosis 

1. Diarrhea 

That's right, the number one cause of death in America a hundred years ago was the runs. In 1917, 59,000 souls perished because there was no Pepto-Bismol. Today, the cure cost 3 bucks. That is what is known as...progress.

A friend of mine recently posted a story online about how he was going over an old deed from a piece of property in Richmond with one of his clients, who happened to be black. In this deed from 1939 mention was made that no future sale of said property could be made to anyone who wasn't Caucasian. My friend was horrified, especially because his black client had to see such a thing. The comment section of this story immediately filled up with people talking about how horrible a thing this was and how it was prima facia evidence of rampant racism in America. This, despite the fact that today such a provision is not enforceable in the United States. Moreover, these types of provisions are no longer legally acceptable. The moral of this story should have been, aren't we glad that so many of these sorts of racial barriers, which were commonplace in America in 1939, are no longer. But instead, most saw this as a commentary on modern race relations, not a part of our past.

I believe that it is possible to hold the following two positions without contradiction: A. More work needs to be done in the arena of race relations in America because racism still exists and any remaining barriers that still hold back minorities from full participation in society need to be taken down. B. We have made enormous strides over the past 100 years with regards to race relations in America. In other words, it's possible to at once understand how far we have come while agreeing that there's more to be done. When I hear the debates today I sometimes ask myself, does anybody know what race relations were like 50 years ago? When I hear loose accusations about what a filthy, racist hell-hole America is I think, Then, why have we made so much progress since the days of the racially exclusive deeds of 1939? How could such a wretched country institute such changes?

The value of history is it allows people alive today to look back at the record of our predecessors, for good and for ill. Yes, the record shows our failures, our inconsistencies...even our shame. But it also measures our progress. It comes in fits and starts. Too fast for some, horribly slow for others. But, who among us would deny that the world we inhabit today is far superior to the one our ancestors lived in when it comes to at least two areas of life...the number one cause of death....and race relations?

Who's To Blame?

I stayed up and watched until the bitterest of endings, the filthy slider dipping under the flailing bat of Bryce Harper, putting an end to the 2017 season for the Washington Nationals. The Cubs stormed the field and for the fourth time in the past six years, the baseball team from our nation's capital failed to advance to the National League Championship Series. For the 10th straight time, a Dusty Baker managed team lost a closeout game in the postseason. This particular loss was bizarre, even by Nationals standards, and immediately pundits and fans began casting about for villains. There were many to pick from:

- Gio Gonzalez for being characteristically wild and mercurial in a clutch start which required coolness and precision...surprising absolutely no one.

- Trea Turner for taking more called strikes over the five game series than the entire Cubs roster.

-Jose Lobaton, the slowest player on the team, for allowing himself to get picked off of first base with a teammate standing on second base.

- Jayson Werth for losing a fly ball in the lights at the worse possible time.

- Matt Weiters for allowing strike three to go under his glove all the way to the backstop allowing a man to score, then compounding his error by throwing wildly to first, then following that up with catcher's interference during a bizarre span that may go down as the worst example of catcher play in the history of baseball.

- Max Scherzer for hitting a batter at the worst possible time and for having Matt Weiters for a catcher.

- Dusty Baker for...I don't know...for being Dusty Baker.

I watched these guys play all year. They were fun, talented and clutch. But, they remain most famous for losing in October. You think of the Washington Nationals and the first thing that comes to mind is opposing teams celebrating in the middle of the infleld of Nationals Park. Death, Taxes, Nationals fail to advance.

But here's the thing...it's nobody's fault. This is what drives me crazy about sports. Whenever your team loses, everyone starts the blame game, as if laying the loss at one guy's feet will absolve the failure of the entire franchise and preserve the self respect of devoted fans...My team didn't lose, it was that idiot xxxxxx. This morning's sports pages will probably coalesce around Weiters, or Scherzer. Extreme jock sniffers will blame everything on Dusty since it's never the beloved players, always the stupid manager. Wrong.

Baseball is a team sport which features a series of individual matchups.. The games are won and lost for a whole host of reasons, but seldom does it come down to one guy. Even when it does, like when a relief pitcher gets lit up and blows a save, there were a couple dozen earlier matchups, which if they had gone the other way, the closer would never have been needed in the first place. But, here's the real reason that fixing blame for a loss on one player is so dumb...sometimes a team doesn't lose so much as they...get beat. The reason the Nationals loss this series against the Cubs is because over the five games, the Cubs players won more of their individual matchups than did the Nationals. The Cubs are the defending world champs for a reason. They are a terrific ball club. How about we all just acknowledge the fact that the Cubs won, instead of harping on the fact that the Nationals lost....again? Because, that's not how human beings prefer to operate. Blame is far more satisfying than grace.

Yes, Let's Discuss Incarceration Rates, Shall We?

What do all of these people have in common? Well, a lot actually. They are all powerful. They are all lecherous pigs. They are all insanely wealthy. All of them have been accused of rape. They are all men. 

...and not a single one of them will ever spend a single night in jail.

Last night I got involved in a social media debate about incarceration rates. Someone tried to explain the vastly different incarceration rates between African-Americans and whites as simply a result of prudent public safety advocacy on the part of wise and impartial judges. If a black teenager is caught selling drugs along with a white teenager, what is a good judge to do? The white teenager shows up in his courtroom with two loving parents, gainfully employed, along with a respectable lawyer. The black teenager's single, welfare-dependent mother shows up along with a public defender, with no father anywhere in sight. Mustn't the judge consider the defendant's support structures when determining a sentence? After all, if he returns the wayward black teen back to his public housing environment, won't he be much more likely to sin again, while the white kid, with loving parents and a nice neighborhood to support him be less likely to return to a life of crime?? Isn't this just a public safety issue? I was incredulous. He was insistent.

But, in the case of these famous serial sexual predators, we see the ultimate fulfillment of my friend's form of equal protection. If any of these gentlemen were poor, lived in the projects and couldn't afford high priced lawyers, each of them would be spending the rest of their miserable lives in the big house. But, because they have such excellent support systems to go home to, each from stable homes located in neighborhoods with finely trimmed lawns, and are represented by legal dream teams, none of them will go to jail. This is what disparate incarceration rates looks like when it grows up. It's also why we have the 14th Amendment, despite the fact that it's protections are so unevenly applied. If you have no problem with the different fates of our two teenage drug dealers, then you should be perfectly fine with the likes of Harvey Weinstein walking the streets, a free man.

Shameful.

Top 5 Things That Annoy Me...(at the moment)

Everyone has them, those irksome things that fray the nerves, stew the bowels, and sound to the heart like nails on a chalkboard. These things change with the seasons. Things that annoyed the heck out of you six months ago may be minor irritants today. Something that you haven't even given a second thought to for months could start yanking your chain tomorrow morning. Although your list might be totally different than mine, I have a blog and you don't, and at this moment, these are the things that are sticking in my craw:

1. The silly, annoying and pretentious martial language of political advertising.

- This time of year my mailbox is stuffed with mostly attack advertising from various political candidates running for statewide office. I am constantly being assured of Candidate X's fearsome willingness to fight for me. I am informed of all the many battles he or she has already waged and won on my behalf. Then I am assured that unlike Candidate Y(who was always suspiciously missing in action during the heat of the aforementioned battles) Candidate X has a clear record of answering the call. Just so I'm clear on the subject, Candidate X then commits to an unwavering commitment to sustained and relentless fighting in the future if only I will vote for him or her. Generally speaking, unless Candidate X has several Purple Hearts in his or her resume, he or she should knock off the false bravado of what a brave fighter they are. Besides, the only politician I've known in my lifetime for whom this sort of advertising would actually be true is Joe Morrissey. So annoying.

2. The type of television commercials that run during the baseball postseason.

- What makes this particularly annoying is that I realize fully that I am the target customer. It's no secret that the median age of baseball fans has been drifting higher over the past twenty years so if I am constantly being beaten over the head with Viagra adds I guess it's my fault for being in my very late 50's. But, it's not just the erectile dysfunction overkill, it's all of the other miracle cures...everything from diabetes to receding hairlines to those pesky fungus-infested toenails, men my age are clearly going to hell in a hand basket. Being constantly reminded of my mortality while watching a bunch of 25 year olds playing a game that I used to play is...annoying.

3. People who act like there is zero racism in the United States

- The most extreme example of this was the recent statement by that noted authority on race relations in America, Mike Ditka, who opined that there hadn't been any "oppression in the last 100 years." Of course, it might be that Ditka is just bad at math, since the footage of those people getting Fire-hosed and attacked by growling German shepherds in Selma back in 1963 would appear at first glance to be within that 100 year timeframe. Maybe he forgot to carry the 1. While an incredible amount of progress has been made in race relations during my lifetime, there is still work to be done, and anyone who pretends that there isn't is.....annoying.

4. People for whom every single solitary thing in the world is about race.

- Yes, there is racism in America. There is racism everywhere basically because the human heart is desperately wicked. But not every human failure can be laid at its feet. Sometimes people get fired from their jobs because they are incompetent. Sometimes you get passed over for that promotion because you're a jerk. And sometimes, there isn't a racist reason for stuff that happens. Just because you're a hammer doesn't mean that the entire world is a nail. It's....annoying.

5. Political situational ethics.

- I'm tired of playing the game called, "My sexual pig isn't as bad as your sexual pig." How about we all just stop comparing our side's creeps to your side's creeps? How about we all agree to call out repulsive and piggish behavior whenever we find it? This particular annoyance is best summed up by Jonah Goldberg who said it this way: ..."If you decry piggish behavior only when it helps your side, or if you think accusers are telling the truth only when they speak up about people you hate (or don’t need professionally), then you don’t actually care about sexual harassment." Yes. Exactly. Otherwise...it's annoying.

Manipulation For Fun and Profit

I have not been a fan of all of the kneeling going on in professional football. Do players have a right to protest? Sure they do. I just think that there's a time and place for everything, and making a spectacle of yourself during the playing of the national anthem before a sporting event is a poor choice of time and place. But, that's just my opinion. Others disagree. Fine.

But, you know what I'm really not a fan of? Being manipulated...and by any reasonable measure, that's exactly what happened yesterday in Indianapolis.

The Vice President of the United States, along with his wife, flew up to Lucas Oil Stadium to attend the game between his home town Indianapolis Colts and the San Fransico Forty-Niners. With cameras rolling, the VP stood ramrod straight with his hand over his heart as the anthem played. Down on the field, as had been the case in all of their previous games this season, twenty Forty-Niner players knelt in protest with hands over their hearts. Soon afterwards, the VP left the game in a protest of his own, quickly tweeting this:

"I left today's Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem."

As if on cue, Donald Trump tweeted:

"I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and @secondlady Karen."

Mission Accomplished.

Here's how this happened:

White House Operative: Hey, have you guys seen this poll? The American people disapprove of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem 62%-38%.

White House Ass Kisser: So?

Operative: So...we need to get out in front of this, take advantage of these numbers somehow. Quick...Google which team has the most protesters.

White House Googler: That would be the Forty-Niners.

Operative: Who do they play this Sunday?

Googler: That would be the Colts, at Indianapolis.

Operative: Are you freaking kidding me??!! What a stroke of luck!

Ass Kisser: Wait, I don't get it...

Operative: The Colts are the VP's favorite team. He's from Indiana, remember?

Ass Kisser: Yeah, but I don't understand wh...

Operative: Jeeze bro...how did you ever get a job here!? We'll send the VP to the game, sit him on the front row of a prominent box, and he will stand for the anthem looking for all the world to see like Captain America. Then, when the Forty Niner players kneel, the VP will make a huge deal about walking out of the game in his own protest. Then we'll send out a Tweet about how we can't abide someone disrespecting our flag. It's a home run! We score points with the voters, and we keep stoking this fire for all it's worth. Listen dude, if you're gonna pick a political fight, always pick a fight with millionaire ballpayers who refuse to stand during the national anthem. It's a guaranteed win!!

Before any of you get your shorts in a knot, I am aware that the Trump White House isn't the first one to seek to exploit touchy societal issues for political gain. His predecessor wasn't always Mr. Peace-Maker, after all. But, Trump seems especially adept at the art of division and manipulation. Regardless of who occupies the White House, one would hope that the chief executive would be in the business of trying to bridge divisions, to quell unrest, to be an agent of reconciliation when the country is tearing itself apart. With regards to the national anthem protests Trump seems thoroughly delighted with the issue, first with his undignified and unconstitutional, Fire the sons of bitches comment and now this staged walkout. He apparently feels that he has a winning hand so he's going to play it for all it's worth. Wonderful.

So, yeah...I'm no fan of millionaire athletes kneeling during the Anthem, but what I really resent is being manipulated by politicians.

Reason Number 16 Why I Don't Read Oprah Magazine

A friend of mine recently posted these three photographs online, hoping to begin yet another conversation about race. They come from an article in Oprah Magazine and came with the breathless tag line:

"In three devastatingly simple photos, the yawning gap of inequality between white women and women of color is brought to the forefront."

My friend opened the discussion with his own reaction to these pictures thusly:

"Why do these 3 photos make you uncomfortable? When I first saw them I was confused, startled, and upset."

A vigorous discussion followed. 

When I first saw the pictures, here's what happened. I was watching a baseball game. During a commercial break, I ran across the photographs. As is usually my habit, I looked at the pictures before I read any of my friends comments, since along with most Americans, my eyes are much more drawn to visuals. I noticed immediately two things, how brilliantly colorful they were, almost as if the color had been enhanced artificially, and the fact that all of the people in the pictures were female. Then I scrolled up to my friend's comments. Immediately I thought, Wait, what did I miss? I looked at them a second time. Still...uncomfortable? Confusing? So only then did I click on the accompanying link to Oprah Magazine. Finally, I got it. Racial roll reversal. Check!

The comment section of my friend's post began filling up with puzzled white people, like myself, who felt confused alright, but not in the way the folks at Oprah Magazine intended. When several people opined that nothing about any of the photographs made them feel in the least bit uncomfortable, a helpful suggestion was made by a commenter that we were all probably lying. Another conversation about race ending up careening into the ditch. So, what to make of all this?

After reading the Oprah piece, it's clear what the purpose of the spread was. They were trying to make white people feel uncomfortable about the fact that, as a majority race, we enjoy most of the power when it comes to retail, and more often than not, we are the ones who get served at places that do pedicures, usually by Asian women, and most of the time, if a maid gets hired, it's by a white person and that maid is either black or Hispanic. By staging pictures that reverse this dynamic, it is supposed to produce guilt and grave soul searching about our inherent privilege. Fair enough. 

However, one wonders whether the good people at Oprah Magazine have actually shopped for dolls at a toy store in the past, oh, I don't know, 20 years? The last time I was in the market for dolls was back in the early 1990's. My go-to stores were ToysRus and American Girl. The doll aisle at ToysRus was always a mile long and crammed full of every kind of doll the mind could imagine. Most of them featured white dolls, it's true. Back then, America's population was somewhere around 75% white, so it would make perfect sense that the most predominant doll race would be white. That's called knowing your customer. However, there were always plenty of dolls from a whole host of ethnicities available. I'm not sure of the percentages, but one would assume they were represented in rough proportion to the percentage found in the company's profile of a ToysRus customer. American Girl was a whole other story. Even in the 90's, that place was a globalist one world government dream, a regular United Nations of dolls! Of course, most of them were priced beyond my ability to pay, so...

Now, I'm sure that back in the 50's, one would be hard pressed to find an African-American doll at the local General Store. The fact that this is no longer true makes a point that Oprah Magazine seems unwilling to...that times have changed, largely for the better, in the area of race relations since the 50's.

Moving on to the pedicure shop photo, again...when is the last time the editorial staff at Oprah Magazine has actually been to a nail salon? Although I have no personal knowledge of this subject, my wife does, and in the 30 or so years since she has been getting her nails done, nearly 100% of the time, she is attended by an Asian woman. Why is this? Why do Asian women, particularly Vietnamese women gravitate to this particular profession? I have no idea. But, my hunch is that it has virtually nothing to do with racism. So, a photograph that features smiling Asian women being serviced by white pedicurists proves...what, exactly? Are the Asian women laughing because the white women are doing it all wrong, or what? Why is this supposed to make white people feel some sort of guilt? In this particular picture, it's the white women who are getting paid, and the Asian women who are being grossly overcharged for the guilty pleasure of a pedicure, after all!

The last photograph is even dumber. We see what looks like a young, beautiful, wealthy Hispanic women, being served tea by her uniformed white maid. The stereotype is completed by the lap dog and the omnipresent cellphone. I should point out that this particular white maid is precariously close to getting fired since her eyes are clearly fixed upon her employer instead of the cup into which she is pouring hot tea. One gets the distinct impression that the wealthy Hispanic hero in this photo would be very unforgiving if Fido gets scalded. It is clear that we are supposed to look at this and ponder the irony, or something. When I look at this, I can imagine this actual scene being reproduced in any number of insanely wealthy Hispanic homes in south Florida. Or course, an argument can and should be made that any self respecting Hispanic socialite in Miami should probably hire a fellow Hispanic to attend to her every need, since charity always begins at home.

The fact that none of these pictures had the desired impact on my consciousness is troubling. Why did I not feel the confusion and discomfort that my friend felt? Does this mean that I am insensitive, or ignorant, or both? Perhaps if I had read my friend's comments and clicked on the article first, before looking at the pictures, I would have reacted differently. Or maybe I am stuck in some sort of privilege denial mindset. 

Or, maybe the pictures were just...dumb?