Nightmare in Nashville

Earlier this week, my wife, along with my sister, my nephew and my son left my house in three fully loaded vehicles headed for Nashville, Tennessee. Patrick, having completed his graduate studies had rented a house with two other guys and was excited to start his new life in his favorite city. My wife refused to let him make this trip alone. If he’s going to live 9 hours away, at least his new home should get off on a good start by being settled and organized. So, off they went!

What follows are actual events that took place between roughly 6 PM Monday the 21st of July and 12:15 AM Tuesday the 22^nd. Details have been provided to me via an e-mail written by my wife along with several hysterical texts and one more measured and dispassionate cell phone conversation. I present this information to you without embellishment, and I will refrain from employing dramatic license, since as you will soon see…none is required.

From: Pam Dunnevant

To: Doug Dunnevant

 This day has spiraled into a blog-worthy nightmare. What follows are just the worst of the multiple bad things that have happened:

1.     Patrick’s house is filthy and reeks of pet urine. The previous tenants trashed the place and were kicked out---for good reason!!

2.     Patrick’s house has no hot water. That’s right…no hot water. Oh, and when you turn on the bathtub faucet, the sink faucet stops working.

3.     Went to the mattress store to buy him a bed and the place was so sketchy, it freaked me out. No mattress purchased. Add that to the 100 other things I will need to do tomorrow before I will be able to leave my sweet son alone in an essentially empty house that he will probably become allergic to.

At this point, I couldn’t imagine her day getting any worse. I was mistaken. They hadn’t checked into their hotel room yet.

4.     Our hotel room, which we checked into around midnight…reeks of skunk, billows of skunk smell roaring out of the AC vents, which we can’t control. The manager had to move us to another end of the hotel since apparently, a skunk had made its way into the basement near the elevator shaft and caused a “problem” in that end of the building. The new room, the only one available only has one bed, not two.

 I would cry, but I’m not able to since I’m in shock. Hope you’re having fun too.

 

I read this e-mail first thing Tuesday morning. Needless to say, I was very concerned about the situation as well as my wife’s sanity. However, with the dawn of a new day and after a decent night’s sleep, things began to improve.

Pam: Patrick doesn’t seem as worried about the house as I am. We’re working on a fix for the water and I am putting on my happy face.

                                                         ….later….

Me: How are things going now?

Pam: Great! Just bought a mattress and a desk. The cat pee smell is almost non-existent today. Paula and I must be superior cleaners! Plumber is on the way to fix the water situation.

Me: Unless you think they might send me into cardiac arrest, could you send me some pictures of the place?

 She sends me a picture of her and Patrick assembling his TV cabinet. Hmmm…

Pam: The Plumber thinks he has found the problem with the water and he can fix it. Unfortunately the power just went out in the neighborhood.

Me: What…is there a thunderstorm??

Pam: Not a cloud in the sky. The saga continues…

 

Fortunately, the power came back on, and the place is organized and sanitized enough that Pam felt she could safely leave this morning heading back home. She will cry when she leaves her boy. She will cry again when she gets home after so long and trying an adventure. But then I will whisk us both away for 7 days in Maine, hands down the most superbly timed vacation of our entire married life.

Diversity

Diversity. A fine word. We all want lots of diversity in our lives. When we go to the grocery store to buy, say…beer, we like the stores that stock 50 different brands of brew. When we purchase a cable television package we want a diversity of channels, not just NBC, CBS, and ABC. Since we are not North Korean, we desire diversity in our clothing, lots of different styles and colors in our closets. But somewhere down the line in the field of higher education, the word “diversity” has become associated with another fine word…moron.

Consider, if you will, the latest advance in the diversity project at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where they are striving mightily to “place the mission of diversity at the center of institutional life so that it becomes a core organizing principle.” One would have thought that the “center of institutional life” at a “university” would have been reserved for, you know…education, but what do I know? I’m not an educational expert like the luminaries at UW.

The interesting part of this new project at Wisconsin comes in the fine print of the plan as follows:

…it calls for “proportional participation of historically underrepresented ethnic-racial groups at all levels of an institution, including high status special programs and high demand majors, and in the distribution of grades.”

Hmmm…What measures does a professor have to use, besides a student’s mastery of the material, in order to properly distribute the correct grades, you might be wondering? Well, there’s lots of stuff…

“individual differences in personality, learning styles and life experiences, group and social differences that may manifest itself through personality, learning styles, along with differences of race, gender, sex, and gender identification or expression, sexual orientation, age, country of origin, physical or intellectual ability, emotional health, social-economic status, and affiliations that are based upon cultural, religious, political, or other identities”

Goodness. Using this menu of excuses, I could have graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Richmond, instead of “Thank the Laude.” I mean, I clearly struggled in the hard sciences because of my “learning style” which was heavy on baffling them with bull**** on the essay questions and using my patented guessing system on the multiple choice. My “life experiences” didn’t help out either, since I was working in a pallet manufacturing factory 30 hours a week while I was in school. As for “emotional health”, are you kidding me? I was a basket case every time I opened a blue book in Dr. Rilling’s British history class. And, don’t even get me started on my “intellectual ability” or “personality.” You try sitting for an hour and a half listening to Dr. Bogel pontificate on the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict with ADHD!

Clearly, under this new regime of performance analysis being employed at the University of Wisconsin, I could have turned out totally different. Perhaps I could have graduated with an advanced degree in Bio-Physics, and won a Nobel Prize by now.

Seriously though, when one thinks through the long term consequences of this type of Balkanized learning curve, the results will not be good. Suppose you are in a heart surgeon’s office and notice that he earned his undergraduate degree from UW-Madison? How confident will you be in allowing someone to cut your chest open who was given diversity A’s in biology because of his low self-esteem issues? You might not give a hoot about his sexual orientation, but when you consider that it might have helped him pass Surgery101, you might care…a lot!

So, while the good people in Madison work hard fine tuning their “representational equity,” I’ll look for a Johns Hopkins diploma next time I need an operation.

Vacant Lots

This morning the clouds hung low in the sky, gray and listless, humidity thick as molasses. Clear skies and sunshine would have helped. I had been dreading this day for months now, but there I was helping Patrick pack all of his worldly possessions in three cars for his latest trip back to Nashville, his new city. Pam and Paula were heading down with him along with Ryan, who would be driving the cavernous Buick.

Meanwhile, Kaitlin and Jon were busy packing up all of their wedding gifts, all of Kaitlin’s clothes and the remainder of her stuff from the attic in preparation for the trip to Columbia. They will begin their married life together in South Carolina, while Patrick will be trying to make his mark in Tennessee, both of them many miles from home.

Pam and I have been through this before, but in the past it was always temporary. This is the real thing. They are both grown and on their own, and my house feels empty, their old rooms like vacant lots, full of furniture but oddly still and lifeless. Pam won’t be back until Wednesday, so I’ll have a couple of days in this place by myself to get acclimated to the new reality.

I spent much of my day at the office working through my Dad’s financial affairs, paying the stray bills that keep trickling in through the mail. I spent nearly an hour talking with someone at Bank of America, trying to officially cancel a credit card that had a zero balance. It would require a copy of his death certificate to get it done, a certificate that I had to pay $12 for. Even after death Dad can’t escape the tyranny of our paper-pusher society. Dying isn’t cheap.

So now, I will pretend to watch a baseball game on TV while I think about how it could possibly be true that I have two grown people for children.

But first, I think I’ll close the doors to their rooms. There’s no point in standing in the doorways looking in anyway. Who wants to look at vacant lots? Besides, I hear that a redecorating project is in the works.

A Dark Day at PETA

I normally don’t spend a lot of time in this space talking about the latest shenanigans in the Middle East, mostly because it is so unbearably boring and predictable. The Israelis vs The Palestinians are to the geopolitical world what the “terrible twos” are to child rearing, both inevitable and infuriating. The only difference is that with kids, they eventually grow up. Not so in the Middle East. So the rest of the world has to put up with their interminable adolescence.

However, something happened while we slept that is worthy of note, as it may help turn the tide of public opinion.

Generally speaking, the world press treats an Israeli/Palestinian conflict like this:

-         Peaceful yet fed up Palestinian people “rise up” against their Jewish oppressors by lobbing a few harmless rockets into some random hillside and the war mongering Jewish state completely overreacts by launching a full scale military invasion of the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of thousands of children. Every reporter on the ground in Gaza shows up at hospitals and begins interviewing the injured toddlers. Great pains are taken by these intrepid film crews not to show the rocket launchers in the corner of these hospitals rooms, which might make for inconsistent optics and confusion among the viewers. At the end of each piece, footage is shown of riots taking place in the streets of New York, Paris and London in support of the suffering children and against the Fascist Israeli state.

All of the beautiful people of the world are always in agreement. The Jews are killers and the Palestinians are innocent victims. In another world and in another time, this used to be called “anti-Semitism.” Now, it’s called liberal consensus.

But, I have a feeling that the tide may be turning. Cracks may begin to be seen in the united front of progressive, enlightened thought. For, overnight came word that Hamas, the governing power in Gaza, has resorted to using “suicide donkeys.” That’s right, perfectly innocent animals have been enlisted as weapons of mass destruction...no wait, should it be "ass" destruction? The traditional “beast of burden” has now been employed to carry the ultimate burden, one hundred pounds of bombs. This follows reports of dogs similarly engaged, but never documented, in the second intifada. As of 6:25AM, no official statement has been forthcoming from PETA, but a press conference has been scheduled for later in the day, and one source inside the animal rights organization has described the denunciation of Hamas that is to come as “blistering.”

“You know, it’s one thing to strike out blindly at your Zionist oppressors and all, I mean, I get it,” said the highly placed source. “But you start strapping bombs around donkeys, well…that’s just beyond the pale.”

If PETA can be turned, one has to wonder what traditionally leftist organization may follow? Might powerful Teachers Unions in America object to Hamas using the roofs of schools for their anti-aircraft batteries? Might Humanists organizations tire of Hamas soldiers constantly yelling “God is great” every five minutes? Right now the situation is quite fluid, but from where I sit, the Palestinian cause may finally have gone a bridge too far.

Time will tell.

---

 [Ma1]ass

 [Ma2]

When All Else Fails, Head To The Hamptons

Yesterday afternoon was one of those times when the outlandish possibility that the world might be about to end creeps into your mind. There I was having a delicious Italian Stallion sub at Big Al’s with some friends over lunch, when news breaks that a Malaysian 777 with 295 souls aboard had been shot down over Ukraine by a surface to air missile. Among the dead, 23 Americans. To the families of the dead I suppose it doesn’t matter who fired the missile, but that’s all the talking heads seemed to care about. Was it the Russians, the Ukrainians, or the separatist rebels?  If it turns out to be the Russians, what will President Obama do?

As if this wasn’t enough, word then came that the Israelis had begun a ground invasion of the Gaza strip. No dead Americans, but lots of explosions and tracer fire flying across the television screen and somber, earnest reporters breathlessly wondering what this escalation will do to the “peace process.” We were told that Secretary of State John Kerry was headed to the region for emergency talks. Gas, meet fire. Then, to add insult to injury, Bubba Watson made a triple bogey at the British Open. My chances of finishing my lunch without severe heartburn vanish. I glance over at a panel of sports reporters on ESPN2 having a discussion on how all of the day’s events will effect Lebron’s legacy. It was all just too much.

So, let’s recap. The most snake bitten airline in history loses another plane due to some trigger happy Russian/Ukrainian/ Separatist nutjob. Obama heads to the Hamptons for a fundraiser. The Jews and Palestinians are at each other’s throats for the 16,000^th time over the last 4000 years of recorded history, and we send Lurch over there (for reasons that escape me) to mediate, or get caught in the crossfire, whichever comes first. Bubba Watson proves once again that he can’t play golf in any tournament with the word “Open” in the title. What a day!

Meanwhile, the afternoon’s events have had the effect of taking the southern border crisis out of the news cycle. No more pictures of crying children, angry protesters, or earnest info-babes wondering what President Obama is going to do about all those poor kids.

If I were him, I’d head to the Hamptons too!

 

 

                                                                                       

 

Three Stupid Arguments

I would like to take this opportunity, granted to me by the First Amendment, to obliterate three ignorant arguments currently being made concerning our immigration problem on the southern border.

1.         “This is America. We are open to everyone!!”

                          Congressman John Lewis (D) Georgia

Mr. Lewis, I would like to respectably disagree with you in the most emphatic way possible. For the sake of charity, I will assume that you were merely caught up in the moment and used this line as a rhetorical device only, not intending it to be confused with an actual statement of law or fact. Surely as an elected official of some statue, you are aware of the many restrictions that we place upon anyone wishing to come to this country. In case you have forgotten, let me list just a few. The following are a short list of circumstances that would prohibit a person from entering the United States:

1.     Tuberculosis, or any other infectious disease

2.     Ties to any terrorist or criminal organization

3.     Guilty of crimes of moral turpitude ( child molestation, rape, fraud or theft)

4.     Having overstayed a previous visit to U.S.

5.     Ever worked illegally in the United States.

6.     Any outstanding international warrants.

Every sovereign nation has a duty to control the flow of people in and out of their country. For all of the beautiful optics of Lady Liberty, Ellis Island is/was a controlled entry point for immigrants, not an opened gate.

2.                               “Fences don’t work!”

                                   Practically every Democratic politician

Yes, fences don’t work, which explains why every important and powerful politician in America lives behind one. Fences most definitely do work, a fact that every dog owner in America knows, along with every convicted criminal living in a prison. The President’s Secret Service detail also knows that fences work since the White House is surrounded by a quite formidable one. The current Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villarigosa just got finished installing a six foot tall security fence around his residence, becoming the first mayor in that city’s history to do so, yet it didn’t stop him from lecturing the rest of us. When discussing the present unpleasantness on our southern border, his honor proclaimed, “We don’t need to build fences, we need to build bridges.” Ok. We will if you will!

3. The fact that we want to build a fence on our southern border, while ignoring our northern border with Canada proves that the motivations of those in favor of “securing the border” are racist.

This particular insinuation is so sand-poundingly stupid it defies comprehension. Yes, of course, we are racists for ignoring those long lines of Canadian children flooding into Detroit. This is the equivalent to arguing that the best way to treat a broken leg is with a multi-vitamin. It reminds me of that old bit that Bill Cosby used to tell about the time when he was playing football for Temple University. It was the one and only game of his career that was broadcast on television. All of the team was told that during the game they were prohibited from touching “certain parts of your body.” Sure enough, in the first period Bill gets kicked directly in the family jewels. When the trainer runs out he reminds him not to touch “certain parts.” So Bill grabs his head! To make it look convincing, the trainer bandaged his head!!

The reason nobody is talking about a fence up north is because nobody wants to bandage the nation’s head, when we are being repeatedly kicked in the you know where down south.

Thank you for your time. I feel so much better now!

The Wedding Day. Conclusion

5:30PM – Toby hustles the two of us down the stairs and into our designated spot for the grand entrance. I notice that the oppressive heat and choking humidity have subsided a bit. I hear music drifting through the tops of the grand oak trees, a piano and orchestra arranged by my son. I look at Kaitlin by my side, she is positively glowing. The last thing she says to me before we turn the corner and escape the seclusion of the lush green hedges is, “I love you daddy!”

5:32PM – As we make our way down the sweeping turns of the brick walkway, I look up and recognize the faces of some of my best friends on this planet. I see men and women who all had a hand in raising her, in shaping her character. Some of them have come from far away to be here. I remember warnings from many of my buddies that I would cry at this moment, but all I feel is deep gratitude. Just about the time we got to our stopping spot a soft, cooling breeze swept over the assembly. I managed to get through my four word speech, “Her mother and I,” without incident. I take my seat on the front row beside my wife.

5:37PM – The minister, Gordon Fort began the proceedings by reminding all that this date, July 12, 2014 would have been my parent’s 67^th wedding anniversary, then proceeded to read from some of my Dad’s notes we had found just a couple of weeks ago when cleaning out his house after his death. They were in a small dog-eared three ring binder of wedding services he had done over the years. When I heard Gordon reading his words, I looked up at the top of the trees now swaying in the unexpected breeze. I wondered if he was watching, if he knew how much I miss him.

5:42PM – It was time to play my guitar. Kaitlin wanted Paula to sing and me to play the Steven Curtis Chapman song, I Will Be Here, so although it had been at least a year since I had played and longer than that since Paula had sung at a wedding, there we were beginning the song. That’s when the oddest thing happened. For the first time all day, I became overcome with emotion. I felt my palms sweating, my heart began beating loudly in my ears, my fingers began to tremble. Luckily, I never look at my hands while playing, so I buried my chin in my right shoulder and stared at the ground throughout the entire song. By the time it was over I had recovered my composure.

5:50PM – I hear Gordon introduce the happy couple as “Mr. and Mrs. Jon Manchester.” I look at Jon and he has a smile splashed across his face as big as Texas. Actually he’s had it all day. It’s as if he has a clothes hanger turned upside down stuck in his mouth. The poor guy is hopelessly in love and just can’t help himself. They disappear past me as they make their way up the walkway amidst raucous applause. It’s over. The deed has been done.

6:00PM thru 7:30PM – This is the part of weddings which I hate, everybody standing around eating cheese and crackers and fruit waiting for the photographers to do their work. Between the several summons I received to appear for pictures, I began bargaining with the Almighty over the promises I had made when praying for cool weather. While the weirdly timed cool breezes that blew during the actual ceremony were a nice touch, I’m not sure that it would qualify as “cool.” I mean, I made my request pretty clear and despite the aforementioned cool breezes, it was hot and sticky both before the service and now after the service. Any impartial observer would side with me on this one, but with God, you never know.

7:30PM thru 9:15 Dinner is served after interminable picture taking session, the only bright spot being when Toby showed up with a plate of crudités for all and two iced coffee drinks for the bride and groom. Never have little squares of cheddar cheese with carrot sticks and ranch dressing tasted so good. Actually sat down at my table and ate for at least 12 minutes. Rest of time spent making the rounds talking with the guests like a shameless politician.

9:20PM – Bride and groom begin introduction of each of their bridesmaids and groomsmen. Kaitlin as poised and graceful in front of a crowd as her mother always is, and equally beautiful. After the introductions it was time for the father/daughter dance. Kaitlin chose that great song from “The Jerk,” You Belong To Me. Halfway through dance I was kicking myself that I didn’t arrange to have a trumpet handy to whip out for the solo. Truly wonderful moment. Later there was a dance for all married couples. At various times during the song, the DJ would ask those couples who had been married less than a certain number of years to be seated. The last couple standing were my in-laws. Cool.

   

 

10:00PM – After several wonderful and moving toasts from various members of the wedding party, it was my turn to give the final toast before the cake cutting. Again, my palms began to sweat, again with the loud beating heart, I began. Except for a final perfunctory paragraph acknowledging that there was, in fact, a groom on the premises, my words were mostly about Kaitlin and what a gift she has been to my life.

10:20PM – Kaitlin throws her bouquet and Jon throws the garter. Jon’s throw was particularly impressive, since he wrapped it around a 2002 Ohio State National Championship commemorative football before sending a spiral into the amassed gaggle of single men. In true Ohio State form, Jon’s brother, the intended target, dropped the ball. Yet another incomplete pass by the Buckeyes.

10:35PM – Couple finally pass through the gauntlet of sparklers on the way to their getaway car. Taillights disappear and they’re gone.

11:55PM – Arrive home after lengthy clean up made infinitely easier by my helpful family who stayed until the bitter end helping us pack everything up. Potential mother of the bride meltdown avoided when all the leftover food from the reception was trying to be loaded into Pam’s car. There just wasn’t any room yet Pam was determined to squeeze it all in. When I noticed the wild expression of exhaustion and panic in her eyes I knew that she was unable to make one more decision, so I did. I carried an entire large pan of mashed potatoes and several other gargantuan containers of meat and vegetables back into the manor house with the simple declaration, “There is no way in the world anyone will eat any of this food!!”

12:30AM – After unloading the cars, we all collapsed on the sofas in the den, too exhausted to even speak. It was all over. After 18 months of planning, 6 months of deciding, 3 months of organizing, and three weeks of 20 hour days, it was all over.

Someone on Facebook made a comment about this picture, “The Perfect Family.” Nothing could be further from the truth. We are like every other family on Earth, full of flaws and flawed people. But this I know, the people in this photograph love each other, without qualification or reservation. Each of them have been a blessing to us and instrumental in helping Pam and I shape and form Kaitlin’s character. Without these people, and without Emmett and Betty Dunnevant, none of this day would have been possible.