Hooked

Almost three years ago I wrote a blog entitled, “Ignorant and Helpless…yes, I got a new cell phone.” It was my first smart phone and the thing wore me out. I felt like a third grader being introduced to calculus. My wife was very patient, and my two smarty-pants kids tried mightily to keep the snickering to a minimum, but I managed to learn how to use the thing in something quite less than record time. Well, this morning I got the following text from Apple:

“Good news!! Today’s the day! Items in order W246******* should be delivered today.”

My new phone is ready. Pam bought it so I don’t know much about the details except that it’s the newest model, but not the ginormous one. Hopefully the learning curve won’t be as severe. It should be pointed out that this order was placed a month ago because every retail outlet in America was sold out of the things, which reassures me that those 100 shares of Apple I bought four years ago on a whim might very well prove to be the best investment I have ever made in my life.

I suffer from major league ambivalence with these iPhones. On the one hand I love them. I love the convenience, the amazing power, and the functionality. On the other hand I hate how dependent I have become on their existence. When I see some hapless millennial walking down the street, nose six inches from the screen, fingers frantically typing away, I used to roll my eyes in disgust, fairly dripping with condescension. “Look at that moron,” I would sneer. “Dude probably can’t go to the bathroom without that contraption!”

Well…I may not require my phone in the can, but with every passing week I am growing increasingly tethered to this miracle machine, and it is a source of great shame and embarrassment. At least I have created phone-free zones for myself…the golf course for one, and…and…well, the golf course. I don’t even bring a bible to church anymore. There’s an app for that.

Whatever…it’s too late to turn back now. I’m hooked. Maybe one day they will discover that cell phones give us all cancer or that after 15 years of sustained use our ears suddenly fall off of our heads. Then we will all look back and wonder what the hell we were all thinking. Maybe then we will all stop walking into light posts. Maybe then we will rediscover the bliss of ignorance.

Thanks Eminem!

There was a huge concert last night on the Mall in Washington DC celebrating veterans. Hundreds of thousands of people were there and the event was live-streamed by HBO. Lots of famous singers and entertainers donated their time and talents. There was no charge for the concert. What’s not to like?

Unfortunately the only thing I see about the “Concert for Valor” this morning in my news feed involves the F-bomb laced performance by rapper Eminem, who opened his set with this classy gem, “Happy Mother-F***ing Veterans Day!”

A few observations…

This rapper has first amendment rights to free speech, rights that Veterans know a thing or two about defending. Veterans themselves are quite famous for their liberal use of profanity, the F-bomb in particular being a staple of boot camp and the battle field. I am no Puritan when it comes to colorful language, although I do think that excessive use of the profane in literature or music lyrics is mostly a linguistic crutch for the inarticulate. However, having said all of this, I feel a bit silly having to point out the fact that just because you have a first amendment right to use foul language doesn’t mean that you should. There’s a little thing called decorum, and well-mannered people for millennia have had enough of it to know the difference between language appropriate for a poker game, and a public concert to honor Veterans.

Increasingly, public manners seem to be going the way of the rotary phone. My opinion of rap music and rappers in general is well known to readers of this space, and this Eminem business does nothing to change my opinion of this wretched, cesspool of racists and misogynists. But it’s not just rappers who have poisoned the public well. Freedom doesn’t work without discipline. Free speech isn’t a license for brutishness. Thanks Eminem for making that so glaringly obvious.

A Veterans Day Tribute

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. I will do nothing special to commemorate the day. I never do. Neither will most of you. It’s not really that we don’t appreciate the men and women who have served their country, it’s more like we are too busy enjoying the freedoms that their service purchased for us. Tomorrow, I will spend most of the morning engaged in free enterprise, and the afternoon on the golf course. One of the reasons my life turned out so well was the fact that 70 years ago there were hundreds of thousands of men barely 20 years old who dedicated themselves to the annihilation of the Nazis. One of them was my Uncle, John Henry Dixon.

A few days ago I went to see The Fury, a film about a Sherman tank crew in the waning days of World War II in Germany. The film took place in April of 1945. One month prior to this imaginary tale, a real flesh and blood battle was raging near the town of Pruem deep inside the crumbling Third Reich. Lt. John Dixon, in the early morning hours of March the sixth was about to be given a set of extraordinarily ill-conceived orders from his commanding officer. Behind the scenes, other senior officers had tried to talk the commander out of such a dangerous move but to no avail. In the book written about the 70^th tank battalion and its amazing combat history, Marvin Jenson describes what happened this way:

“The next morning I told Lt. John Dixon that his platoon would lead. They had only four tanks left, and I figured if they got hit it was better to lose fewer rather than more. I was very apprehensive about the whole setup. I told John to get his tanks going full speed and to head for a clump of trees, maybe 200 yards ahead and left at about a forty-five degree angle. The idea was for Dixon to get that far, which would give us firepower for the main attack.”

There was good reason for apprehension. Sending four Sherman tanks across an open field with German guns trained on every inch of that field was the sort of thing that contributed greatly to the short life span of tank crews in WWII. There is no indication that my Uncle questioned his orders although he surely must have known what was about to happen.

“An infantry major radioed Dixon and ordered him to move out…Dixon got his tanks going full speed, but about half way down, all hell broke loose. Tanks 1,2,3, and 4, all four were hit. We couldn’t see where the fire was coming from on the ridge, but it was a hell of a display of gunnery, and they had excellent guns, probably 88’s…Lieutenant Raiford Blackstone was a witness to the attack and reports that he and Lieutenant McCaffrey went down to the tanks to aid the stricken crewman, “I wrote with white enamel on a tank:6 killed,14 survivors, March 6, 1945”

Uncle John survived the battle and the war. According to my mother, he was never the same man after he returned from Europe. He settled down and lived his life in an unremarkable way. I knew him only when I was a child. For me he was the kind man with the very sad eyes. He, along with hundreds of thousands of others, did their duty, then came home and mostly never talked about it again.

Mr. Jenson was gracious enough to sign my copy of his book. I told him that John was my Uncle and he went on and on about what a great man he was. On the inside cover he wrote this:

To Douglas,

Your Uncle John Henry Dixon was one of the men who made the 70^th an outstanding unit in the long struggle against the tyranny of the Nazis.

Marvin Jensen

So tomorrow, I will think of my Uncle and say a prayer of thanks for the men and women just like him who have answered the call throughout our country’s history.  

Lucy's Six Week Report Card

We have had Lucy for six weeks now. If she were in school it would be about time for a report card. Hmmm. Let’s see now, I wonder what that report card would look like?

Gets along well with others.  A

Follows instructions. B+

Exercises self-control. C-

Respects the furniture of others. A

Bathroom etiquette. A-

Table manners. A+

Respects landscaping in the backyard when left to roam freely. F-

Exudes self-confidence upon introduction to new things. F-

Yes, this amazing puppy only seems to have three flaws. The first involves her reaction upon meeting guests in our home. It’s as if she has been transported to the world headquarters of Dog Ecstasy Inc. She becomes overjoyed to the point of hysteria. It takes her a full five minuets to calm down from death-com level five to mere annoyance level two.

Lucy’s second flaw is her world class skittishness. I’ve spoken about this before and it has gotten better. Just the other day an acorn fell and she did NOT jump a foot in the air in response. But she still flees in terror at the introduction of anything larger than a breadbox into the room. Poor thing has a particular problem with the color black, so I suppose I now own my second consecutive racist retriever.

 The last flaw with  Lucy is a new one for us. None of our two previous Goldens suffered with the predilection for…digging. Yes, Lucy enjoys nothing quite so much as a vigorous digging session in the back yard. This is especially lovely when it has recently rained and she presents herself at the backdoor to be let back in, her front paws covered in mud. Of course the problem is catching her in the act. When we are with her she doesn’t dig. So, I open the floor to anyone who has dealt with an excavating dog before for any suggestions for how we can break her of this habit. My only idea is to pick her favorite dig spot and place a pressure sensitive, spring loaded boxing glove down in the hole and let her have at it! I figure that getting unexpectedly punched in the nose by a BLACK boxing glove might do the trick, but I’m sure that modern dog behavior theory would be appalled at such brutality. So, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Lucy isn’t perfect, but she’s awfully close. We love her to pieces.

A Bad Weekend to be in the Military

The Mayor of Ferguson, Missouri is warning his constituents to “prepare for the worst” ahead of the impending release of the grand jury report into the death of Michael Brown. That State’s National Guard is on high alert.

Late Friday afternoon, a column of 32 Russian tanks, 16 howitzers, supply trucks and troops were spotted pouring across the Ukrainian border.

Also late Friday afternoon, President Obama made the decision to send 1,500 additional troops into Iraq, a doubling of our presence there dedicated to our war with ISIS. You remember the ISIS war, right?

Decorated Navy Seal, Rob O’Neill has abandoned the ethos of that famously private fighting fraternity by going public with the account of his exploits in killing Bin Laden. This “cashing in” and shameless self-promotion has resulted in the Seal community turning their backs on one of their most decorated alumni.

It’s not a good weekend to be in the military.

Actually, it’s probably never a good weekend to be in the military. God knows what the idiot politicians are going to ask them to do next. Imagine how the poor soldiers stuck in Liberia feel. I’m pretty sure that trying to prevent a health pandemic from breaking out…in another country… wasn’t what they had in mind when they signed up with Uncle Sam. But hey, this is the 21st century, and soldiers must now multi-task.

Here’s my prayer for them today…May we produce civilian leaders who are worthy to lead such honorable men and women.

The Fury

Pam had a “ladies night” with the White girls last night. They do this every couple of months or so. This time it was to celebrate Lori’s birthday. It’s the sort of thing that sounds dreadful to me, going out to some restaurant and talking for three hours. But they always have a great time together and it keeps the sisters close making it a worthwhile endeavor.

For me these ladies nights mean that I must feed and occupy myself for the evening. Most of the time I eat dinner at Big Al’s and watch a game. Last night, I decided to go see a movie that I’ve wanted to see but that I know that Pam would hate…The Fury. Best decision I’ve ever made. Pam would have spent the entire time in the fetal position.

As a History major, I have always had a certain obsession with World War II. Everything about that conflict and that time fascinates me. The dominant personalities, the ideologies, the grand sweep of the thing captivates me. Add to that the fact that my mother’s oldest brother John drove a tank for Patton’s army, and you can understand perhaps my desire to see this movie about one Sherman tank crew in the final days of the war, despite the presence of the talentless Brad Pitt.

The film was gut-wrenching. Five men inside a Sherman tank is the stuff of claustrophobic nightmares. This particular crew, having survived together all the way from North Africa to the waning days inside Nazi Germany, is as grizzled a group of men as I have ever seen depicted on film. The horrors of the war have transformed them all, almost completely taking away their humanity. They have come to the dark place of rabid hatred for the enemy, a natural disposition I suppose for one’s lucky enough to survive more than the average 26 combat days lifespan for tank crews. Although their souls have been hollowed out by their experiences, they summon the courage required to make a heroic stand at the end. Their sacrifice wasn’t simply for each other, but for something that they all sensed was bigger than themselves. Knowing that they were all doomed, one of the characters says, “This is a righteous thing we’re about to do,” then quotes from scripture, “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who shall go for us? And I said, here am I. Send me.” It’s the most moving scene in the film.

As I watched, I couldn’t help but think of my Uncle John. My mother used to always tell us that John was a different person when he returned from the war, totally transformed in personality and disposition. No freaking kidding! The fact that John came home at all was nothing short of a miracle, the fact that he didn’t end up in an insane asylum, a tribute to mental toughness on a scale with which I am not familiar. Instead of being declared a victim of PTSD, he came home, got a job, got married and raised a family, all the while harboring private, unspeakable nightmares that must have plagued him for the rest of his life.

There is a line in this film that sticks with me this morning. Pitt’s character takes his new 18 year old replacement gunner into the living room of a wealthy German family in a freshly liberated town. All four aristocratically dressed Nazi party members had shot themselves in the head rather than be taken by the Americans. The kid asks WarDaddy, “Why are you showing me this?” WarDaddy answers, “Because ideology is peaceful, history is violent.”

It is the conceit of many in this generation to believe that we as a species have somehow evolved away from brutality. Some politicians are fond of saying that war is a remnant of a bygone, less enlightened era, so twentieth century. My understanding of history tells me otherwise. The vast majority of man’s story is one of violence, and conquest. Our experiment with representative democracy is but a mist in the wind of human history. War and warriors will always be with us. To think otherwise is vanity. But, to pursue war, to glory in it is an abomination.

Book News and a Lucy Story

My first excursion into self-publishing is nearing the finishing line and I’m getting rather jacked about the prospect. Several months ago I shared with you my plans for a book about the last two years of caring for my Dad after Mom passed away. Since then I have put the finishing touches on the thing and am now in the process of designing the cover and getting it printed. It has been at turns frustrating and invigorating. The writing was easy, reliving it all wasn’t, but everything else about the process has taken me out of my comfort zone. The editing, proofreading, and formatting have seemed interminable, but I possess the patience of a gnat about the details of life.

 The plan is to have a couple hundred paperbacks printed for those who prefer the dead tree version, while simultaneously offering an e-Book version for sale on Amazon. If I sell enough of either to recoup my investment I will be deliriously happy. If not, I will still be happy because I will have done the thing. I will have produced something worthy of my parents as a tribute to not only them, but the amazing family who cared for them so long and so well.

The name of the book is Finishing Well.

On a completely unrelated note, Lucy has discovered something new to add to the list of things that freak her out. A lawn sprinkler. Yesterday, the folks from Virginia Green showed up and laid down some fertilizer with instructions to water the lawn for thirty minutes before the end of the day. I broke out the sprinkler, set it first in the back yard and turned it on as I was instructed. After dark I let Lucy into the back yard for her evening constitutional, forgetting that the sprinkler was in the yard. She bounded down the steps in her usual spastic, wildly expectant way only to practically jump out of her little puppy skin upon discovery of the sprinkler beast attached to the horrible hose-monster! Oh. My. Word. The poor dog was convinced that this devise was of the devil and meant her great harm. Needless to say, there would be no peeing or pooping going on until this beast was dispatched. It was quite hilarious.

I love this dog!