The Education of Andrew Hemby

Your Honor, I would like to submit as Exhibit A in my case against public education in the United States, Mr. Andrew Hemby. Andrew is a fine young man, bright, eager and capable, but has somehow managed to graduate from Virginia Tech with an appalling lack of even entry level knowledge of the history of his country. However, what young Hemby lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in energy and a keen desire to learn. Inasmuch, he has asked me to prepare a reading list for him to introduce him to the grand story of this great Republic. I submit the following list as Exhibit B. It is not meant to be a comprehensive, complete survey of all of our history, just the basics, to give him just enough information so that he can hold forth intelligently when in a crowd of his peers.( I believe he wants to enter politics. )

1. Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis                                     Revolutionary Period

2. American Lion, A Bigraphy of Andrew Jackson               Early 1800's


3.The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote                      Civil War

4. American Colossus by HW Brands                                     End of Civil War to 1900

5.The Forgotten Man by Amity Shales                                    Great Depression

6.The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill                         1930's, leading up to beginning of WWII

7. Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer                                              "

8.Franklin & Winston by Jon Meacham                                  World War II to FDR's death

9 Witness by Whitaker Chambers                                             1950's and the Cold War


It is my hope that Mr. Hemby will actually read these books, not merely Google their reviews. I am confident that he will avail himself of this opportunity at self-improvement, and ultimately may one day mention me as a mentor in his first inaugural address.

A Great Party

Patrick is heading back to Nashville this morning after a successful recital and graduation party. The recital program went very well, but then the audience demanded an encore and Patrick made the critical error of not having anything prepared. But after an awkward pause he sat down at the $150,000, 9 foot grand piano and started to play an old jazz standard,"If I Had You", singing the lyrics with the help of his smart phone, and the entire atmosphere of the hall was transformed. Patrick's soft touch and unique flair was in sharp contrast to the highly technical, pounding style of his hired accompanist, and suddenly he had the whole room in the palm of his hand. Unfortunately, Patrick doesn't have a repertoire of such songs readily available for performance. If he had, we all would have set there, mesmerized for another hour. Great stuff.

Then everyone came over to the house for the party that Pam had planned. There was a Chick-fila party platter of nuggets and scores of homemade pies and desserts. Soon the place was filled with family and friends eating and laughing and enjoying the occasion. There's a sound that fills the place when friends are gathered to celebrate. It's a unique sort of hum, much like music, that communicates something profound. It's the sound of comfort, the sound of life well-lived. In between serving coffee, and picking up half-empty paper cups, I would hear familiar laughs from other rooms and think of how many years now I have heard those voices. These are the sounds that life long friends make, sounds that are irreplaceable.

My parents were there. It's a labor for them to be a part of a night like this one anymore. It takes Bill and Linda to pick them up, accommodations to be made for their seating and care, but there they were on the front row soaking everything in. What thoughts must go through their heads watching their Grandson, in a tuxedo singing songs in French and German? What a life to have lived that has taken them from the tobacco farms of Buckingham county to a house filled with their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, in the most uppity suburb of the state capital? I can't imagine what they must think of it all, but I suspect it's something between pride and astonishment, with a little exhaustion thrown in for good measure.

For the next week we will have Kaitlin home for spring break. Jon will be here with her. We will watch season two of Downton Abbey with them and Jessica and Katy. It will be great fun. Then spring break will be over and Kaitlin will head back to Wake, and Pam and I will resume our other life. That's the life that we live on the installment plan, two, three, four weeks without our kids. It's actually a great life. Just about the time I'm getting on Pam's last nerve, one of the kids comes home for a visit. Then, after a weekend of doing their laundry, cooking for them, and essentially waiting on them hand and foot, they leave, and we relax back into being with each other, astonished that we ever had the energy to be full-time parents. "Really?? We actually had two kids, full-time for twenty years??", we think as we collapse on the sofa.

We glance at the calender and notice that Easter is only four weeks away. Better buy Patch his plane ticket now before they get too expensive. We're already psyched.

Me, Molly, and Timing

Timing is everything. Bad timing is even more than everything, like when you were ten and caught a stomach virus on Christmas Eve. Bad timing is where bad luck becomes mysteriously connected with cosmic justice, like when you skip church to play golf only to throw out your back putting the clubs in the trunk.

So yesterday my kids are all home and everybody is getting all excited for the big wedding of a friend last night. Kaitlin is one of the bridesmaids and Patrick is singing a duet. All of our dearest friends will be there. We're all dressed up. Can't wait! Then on the way to the church I am visited by the same intestinal issue that has plagued me for months now, like that annoying person who always shows up at your door wanting to talk at the worst possible time. As we get closer and closer to the church it becomes clear that I will have to miss the festivities...no way I can sit in a pew for an hour in my rapidly deteriorating condition. So I drop off the family at the blessed event and drive back home for a night of misery. Its ok though, Patrick's duet was captured on video by Pam's cell phone. Patrick was amazing, and I got to see Kaitlin in her beautiful dress and up-do in the background of the video. She was about a quarter of an inch tall and looked stunning.

This morning I feel better. Tonight Patrick performs his senior recital at Richmond Piano for family and friends and then his belated graduation party follows back at the house. As if on cue, Molly jumps up on our bed at 2:30 in the morning, then immediately jumps down and throws up the only food that she has put in her stomach for the last 24 hours. She is not well, won't eat, can hardly navigate the stairs, and has laid around completely listless for the past two days. So, this morning I will take her to the vet to see what's wrong. Many scenarios run through my mind. Everything from, she just has a bug and will be fine in a day or so, to maybe she has some sort of intestinal blockage that is life threatening unless we spend $2,000 for immediate, emergency surgery, payment required in cash, upfront. Timing.

Kids coming home and a new hire at Grove

I will be enjoying a full house this weekend. Tomorrow my son will be arriving, along with my daughter and her boyfriend. There will be a wedding to attend, and Patrick will recreate his senior recital for family and friends at Richmond Piano. Then there will be the graduation party he never had back in December. With all the blur of activity, there won't be much time to just crash on the sofa and chat for a few hours, which is really what I'd rather do. Nevertheless, it will be wonderful to have the whole family sleeping under the same roof for the first time this year.


Strange, unsettling news received last night. After the spring preview concert at Godwin, Sherri Matthews informed the audiance that this will be her last year as the choral director of the most decorated music program in the State of Virginia, perhaps on the east coast for all I know. It seems that God has called her to become the Music Ministry coordinator or some such thing at Grove Avenue Baptist Church, which happens to be the church I attend. Within minutes of her announcement, Facebook was abuzz with the news, and I got a breathless call from my sister who was at the concert and witnessed the whole thing. Honestly, the first thing that raced through my mind was...the only profession with more back-biting, small-mindedness and Glee-like drama than public education is church work!! Poor Sherri is going from the frying pan to the fire, I thought. Then a flood of emotions hit me, feelings of loss and regret. Sherri had such a profound impact on Kaitlin and Patrick, and countless other kids who have been in her choirs over the years. She taught them not only to appreciate fine music and to perfect the craft of singing, but she also taught them the greater lesson of the joy of striving to be the best, of not settling for good enough. All that will end for future students at Godwin and for a moment, sadness came over me. Then I thought of the impact she will have a chance to have on the members of Grove Avenue. All of us could benefit from lifting our sights a bit when it comes to worship. An infusion of the manifold talents of Sherri Matthews on the music program of any church could have an incalcuable impact. If, in fact, she feels called by God to make this move, who am I to disagree? Who knows, maybe the big shots at Grove will put her in charge of the Christmas Eve service. God knows that trainwreck could use a dose of excellence!


Change, all around me. Nothing is forever. But change can sometimes bring energy and excitement, and in this case I think it will. Actually looking forward to hearing what Ken and Sherri have planned Sunday.

Obama Wins Reelection in 2012

       " To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry or skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

                                                                                                    Thomas Jefferson


" When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the Republic."

                                                                                                    Benjamin Franklin


 Tomorrow is Super Tuesday for the Republican Presidential race. As such, it is the day when some measure of clarity will come to that race and the probable nominee will be more certain. At this hour it still looks to be Romney's race to lose, as I predicted in a post from several months ago. But I am at the point now where I believe that absent some sort of catastrophic , unseen event, President Obama will win reelection in 2012, and there's virtually nothing that the Republican party can do about it. Let me explain...

I ran across a batch of statistics the other day from several different sources that reaffirmed one of my powerful gut instincts. I checked the figures to be sure that they weren't some slanted, agenda driven pseudo-statistic from some party think tank. They weren't. These were numbers derived by census bureau data and information from the IRS. Two statistics in particular made me see how hopeless is the cause of conservative, small-government politics.

First of all, back in 1968 when I was but a boy of ten, still dreaming of being a short stop for the New York Yankees, only 12% of the citizens of the United States of America paid no federal income tax. By the time the year 2000 rolled around, and I was an exhausted father of two adolescents, 34% of my fellow citizens paid no federal income tax. As I write this, that number has reached 49.5%, and I am a worn out 53 year old who reads everyday in the papers about how I need to pay more in taxes, not necessarily because raising my tax rates will bring more revenue to the treasury, but rather because of some Orwellian notion of "fairness".

The second set of numbers is I believe directly related to the first. In 1968, roughly 18% of the population was dependant on the federal government for at least some portion of their income. Today that number is 29.5% and growing more rapidly than ever owing to ageing baby-boomers who are now retiring in ever increasing numbers.

Lest you think this is just another rich guy "blaming the poor", think again. I acknowledge freely that we were placed in this mess by members of both parties and Presidents from both sides of the aisle. After all, the Earned Income Tax Credit that took so many people off the tax rolls was introduced by Nixon and enhanced by none other than Ronald Reagan. When I say dependant on government I'm not just talking about people on direct welfare assistance payments. I'm also referring to big shot bankers, insurance company and car company directors who mismanage their companies and then lobby the government for bailouts. I'm talking about public employee unions who have the sweet deal of negotiating with bought and paid for politicians for generous benefits where nobody in the room is representing the tax-payer. I'm also talking about anybody out there who believes that anything from the government is free simply because they're not paying for it themselves,  free health care, free contraceptives, free education, etc.

The bottom line is that this country has now crossed the Rubicon, statistically speaking. There are now officially more people who have a vested interest in a powerful leviathan government, than there are people who want the government to leave them alone. The Democratic party caters to that citizen, and there are much more of them, and will be in the future. There have always been fewer Peters to borrow from and more Pauls to pay.  Relaxation of immigration laws will admit more people more likely to vote for the party of government. Young people, freshly graduated from our institutions of higher learning, with notable exceptions, will generally buy in to the view of government as wealth-redistributor. An older and older citizenry will look askance at anyone in Washington dumb enough to want to reform Social Security. So, there you have it. People like me better get used to paying more and more. Additionally, I better get used to complaining about it less and less.

Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were so right all those years ago. But what do they know...just a couple of rich, dead white guys.

Angry Bird

This is the sort of thing that always happens a day or so before we're planning on going out of town. Here we are all excited about spending 3 days at some swanky resort in San Diego,  when a critter decides to take up residence in our attic.

My wife missed her calling.  She should have been one of the Super Friends. Pam has super-sonic powers of hearing. The two of us will be sitting in the family room with the television blaring when she will turn to me and say,  "Are you going to get that?" I look at her, bewildered, knowing that her turbo-ears have picked up some faint sound. I turn my ears upward hoping against hope that I will hear it too, but after a while I answer,  "Get what?"  She looks at me like I am some pitiful creature with a profound disability.  "You can't hear that??!! The kids toilet is running!! Geeze!"  Then she storms upstairs to jiggle the handle. Sometimes we will be in bed and she will say.." Listen to that squirrel."  I will perk my ears up and conjure up all of my powers of concentration to no avail. "What squirrel?"  She will look over at me and incredulously answer, "The one in Lilly's back yard with the heart murmur! You can't hear that??"

Well, for the past two or three days Pam has been pestering me to do something about the critter in the attic, which until this morning had gone totally undetected by my merely human powers of hearing. But at 7:30 I heard something shuffling around up there, so I grabbed my trusty Daisy Powerline 35 pump-action, duel ammo BB gun purchased a while back to rid us of the great squirrel infestation of 2010, and carefully opened the door to the attic and made my way silently up the stairs. The lighting up there isn't great and it was quite cold, but my blood was running hot with the thrill of the hunt. At the top of the stairs I heard a flutter in the back left corner and thought I saw movement. This squirrel was going down!! I tip-toed closer and saw that whatever it was was actually in the overhanging eave. I sent a slug towards the offending sound and suddenly a loud flutter came roaring out of the darkness, black and angry, flying way too close to my head. My heart began beating the doors off of my chest as I spun around to follow the flight. It was some sort of black bird and he was mightily pissed.  He flew in disoriented circles from one end of the space to the other. Since I had already fired a shot, I couldn't fire another until I had re-pumped the gun 20 times, a major design flaw I might add, so I ran back down the stairs to close the door so this angry bird couldn't fly into the house. After pumping like a wild man, I was ready for the kill if only the bird would light somewhere. Providentially, he came to rest on a rafter about 10 feet above my head. I fired and  knocked him off of his perch. In a flurry of feathers he fell down to the floor out of sight and as I gave chase I could hear him flapping and squawking wildly. By the time I reached the landing at the top of the stairs he was nowhere to be found, which meant that now I had a dying bird hidden somewhere in my attic. After an exhausting search failed to locate the now silent menace, I shut the door securely and headed to work. Now on my lunch hour, I went back up to try again. This time I hear the bird in the eave all the way on the opposite side of the attic from whence he came, clearly in duress and unable to fly. I can't see him but every couple of minutes I hear his wounded shuffle. Who knows how long its going to take before he finally goes to that big bird-feeder in the sky? But at least now he's in the eave that overhangs Patrick's room. Maybe if I shut the door to his room and line the door frame with blankets and pillows, Pam won't be able to hear the death throws.  Who am I kidding? She can probably hear me typing this all the way from her room at Rivers Edge. Stupid bird!

For All of You who have ever crashed at MisterD's house

Its Saturday morning. I feel it my duty to inform you all that the furniture has been purchased.  Yes, after years of false starts, indecision, trauma and tears, it is finished....and that was all over deciding what outfit to wear WHILE shopping for furniture. No, seriously, Pam has made her choice and we have bought a bunch of furniture from Bassett. I must say that it gives me great satisfaction to know that I bought furniture manufactured entirely in the state of Virginia, USA. This company is the oldest such firm in the state, having survived for over 102 years. I could have saved some money by going with furniture made in Asia, where 69% of all furniture purchased here comes from, but I chose Bassett. As a free-trader, I am agnostic about the fact that Americans buy so much stuff from China. I want as many options as possible when I spend money, and I particularly love the ability to make my own decisions rather than having my decisions made for me by a government who restricts my access to foreign goods. In this case I chose not only an American product, but a Virginia product. Good for me!



This post goes out to all of the hundreds of teenagers who over the past 13 years have done their part to make this purchase necessary. You all know who you are. Patrick's friends.  Kaitlin's friends. Strange kids who would wander in who we didn't know. Youth group kids over for bible studies. Then, hordes of college kids who would come for the weekend.  Belmont kids. Cedarville kids. Liberty kids. All would bring their insatiable appetites for popcorn and freezie-pops and chocolate. There they would gather, flopped down in a mass of arms, legs and feet all over the sofa, love seat and chair, sprawled out wildly on the floor, Molly sniffing around for dropped treats. After they would leave we would go into damage control in the early years when the furniture was young.  But after a while we just let it go, realizing the utter futility trying to protect furniture from swarms of barbarians. There were memorable offenders. Giles Fort overflowing the toilet upstairs. Matt Watson and Tyler Pegues wrestling with Molly and knocking knick-knacks off of end tables. The new years eve party that featured Mr.'s Watson, Pegues, Burton, and Edworthy actually shifting the foundation of the house by jumping up and down in tandem as the clock struck twelve. But, lest you think that all the offenders were male, think again. Most of the food stains were female in origin. From the freezie pop drippings of Amanda Carter and Lauren Pegues, to the chocolate stains courtesy of Arika Aker and Meghan Kees, the girls did their part. Well, in a couple of weeks all the old stuff will be hauled off and replaced with new, and a small part of me...actually a very small part of me will be a bit sad to see it go. The fact is that Pam and I wouldn't trade anything for the times we spent overrun with teenagers. Sure, they cost us a small fortune in groceries alone, and they were a colossal mess at times, but they brought something with them to our home.... fun. The energy and promise of a house full of kids on a Friday night is an amazing gift. To see so many of them all grown up and accomplishing great things is one of the most rewarding thrills of my life.  I saw a picture on facebook the other day that stopped me in my tracks. There were three of my all time favorite "kids" sitting on somebody elses' sofa each holding a toddler in their laps...THEIR toddler. All grown up. What a blessing to see that they didn't end up in jail.


Truth be told, we miss the mess. We miss the drama, the angst of raging testosterone, the honor of comforting a crying kid. But life comes at us in waves, one washes over us and then is gone. So we get rid of the old furniture and get ready for the new and wonder what the next wave will bring.