My Heat-Wave To-Do List

Things to do today, August 17, 2016

1. Make "shave" decision

2. Iron thinnest shirt in closet...curse the fact that nobody makes business shorts.

3. Liberally apply baby powder all over despite the fact that I hate baby powder.

4. To guard against dehydration, drink copious amounts of water.

5. Try to break yesterday's record of 16 trips to the bathroom.

6. Encourage ladies in the office to bring blankets if they don't like the thermostat set at 69.

7. Spend an hour staring at my weather widget showing the 75 and sunny forecast for Camden.

8. Shame myself for my weakness by looking at pictures of Teddy Roosevelt wearing a wool suit, signing a treaty in an unairconditioned train car in Panama....in freaking August!!!

9. Suffer raging bouts of guilt when Lucy comes up to me, frisbee in her mouth, begging me to go outside.

Why Go To Church?

Every now and then as a writer, something pops into your head that you want to write about even though it's not at all exciting. This is one of those times. It's the answer to the question, Why do you go to church, and it hit me this past Sunday.

Now, I know what the Sunday School answer to the question is, I know what I'm supposed to say. It's some combination of, "I go to worship God" or "I go to fellowship with other Christians." But after attending church for a lifetime, what keeps me going back besides habit and tradition? For me I have recently discovered the answer...I go to church to be confronted by and comforted by...the truth.

I can sit through the most insipid, juvenile music. I can tolerate poor acoustics, boring announcements and ugly buildings. I can put up with modern translations of the Bible which strip it of its lyrical beauty. But if I hear the truth, communicated by an honest, authentic voice, I'll always come back. I'm not interested in book reviews, politics, social commentary, or bad poetry. But if a man...or women...of God stands up and delivers the unsanitized truth to me, then I've been to church. I don't want to be told how great I am. I'm not interested in learning all about how much God wants me to be insanely rich. I want to be confronted with the reality of my condition as a flawed man and the incredible miracle that is grace and forgiveness. I want someone to challenge me to be better, to live better. I want someone to expose my selfishness, to challenge me to care for the least of these. I want to hear about the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son because even after 50 years as a Christian, I'm still bad at the former and too often feel like the latter. I don't want some phony poseur telling me about how persecuted I am for my beliefs. I'm not interested in some self promoter whose only goals are building monuments to his own vanity. I want a preacher who isn't afraid to look me in the eye and tell me the truth, even if he knows it might make me angry or uncomfortable. 

So, I'll sit through 7/11 lyrics, somber, minor key ballads which drone on and on about nothing. I'll tolerate all the corny church stuff for the chance to hear an authentic presentation of God's Word. If church doesn't offer that...I'd rather sleep late and go for a drive in the country.

Look on the bright side!

Ok. At this point in the Presidential campaign it has become clear that Donald Trump isn't going to become President, and that outcome seems like a huge relief to...Donald Trump. Never in my lifetime have I seen a major party candidate so expertly self-sabotage his own campaign. Never. So, I feel like it's my patriotic duty to try to buck up all of you out there who truly despise Hillary Clinton. I include myself in this group. But, I have always preferred to look at the glass as half full rather than half empty. So, let's all look on the bright side, shall we?

1. At least our new President won't spend half her time on the golf course.

2. Having chosen Tim Kaine as her running mate, the nation will be spared the humiliation of watching Hillary throw out the first pitch at the World Series.

3. All of us who disagree with the President's policies will no longer be called "racists." Sexist has a less sinister ring to it.

4. Feminists will no longer be able to harangue us with the charge that we live in a country led by a fascist, patriarchal government.

5. Hillary isn't cool enough to be asked to appear on late night talk shows, saving all of us that perpetual annoyance.

6. Can you imagine how perfectly horrifying the inside of the White House would have looked at Christmas under the Trump Administration? The giant, black lighted velvet manger scene alone might have permanently scarred us.

7. Once Hillary becomes President, money will finally become available for other private charities and foundations once The Clinton Foundation is taken off the market.

Not a Good Night For Angels

Pam and I took our first ever Uber ride earlier today. By doing so, we gained valuable street cred from our two Millennial kids who are constantly extolling the virtues of this new transportation system. Pam downloaded the app, and before we knew it, there was our driver picking us up in front of the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Chicago. He drove a shiny Toyota Camry with the cleanest interior you ever saw. He introduced himself...Thomas.

I will now try to faithfully recreate the conversation which took place between us during the thirty minute drive to O'Hare airport. I want to do this now while it's still fresh in my mind. I never want to forget it and think it's fascinating enough to share with you for reasons that should become clear enough.

When we entered Thomas' car, Jamaican music was playing softly in the background. He spoke English with a beautiful African accent delivered in a lyrical cadence that was calming. We soon discovered that Thomas was an immigrant from Ghana who had landed in Chicago six years ago. His "real job" was with a competitor hotel across town which he assured us was far superior to the Sheraton Grand! He had been an Uber driver just on the weekends for the past year. After the basics, I asked him to tell me his honest impressions of America.

Thomas: I have only ever been in two countries, Ghana and America, so I don't know about other places, but my feeling is...and the feeling of many people I know is...that there is no place like America.

Pam: Yes, America isn't perfect by any means...

Thomas:(interrupting)...certainly not, but compared to so much of the rest of the world...no place like America.

Me: How and why did you choose Chicago?

Thomas: It is beautiful and so clean.

Me: This is my third visit here and I can tell you that compared to most other big cities, you are right, it is beautiful and clean. 

Then he asked us what we had done and seen during our stay. He politely approved of our choices. Then I took a chance. I wanted to find out what a Chicagoan thought of the horrific amount of violence that has plagued this city for the past decade. Just in the four short days of our stay, 22 people were murdered, 16 of which were African-American. So far in 2016 according to the Chicago police department's numbers, 428 homicides have been committed in Chicago, the vast majority of the victims, African-American.

Me: Thomas, what's the deal with all of the murders here? In what part of the city is this happening? What is the reason for it all?

Thomas: Not in the beautiful parts, but all over really, much of it on the south side. It is so horrible. I ask myself and I ask other people, "Why are they doing this to each other? It is crazy. Much of it is turf wars over drugs. One gang sees that one neighborhood buys many drugs, so they move in to that neighborhood because they want the business, so a war breaks about between the gangs. So they continue to kill each other!! It's crazy! Then we hear about black lives matter, black lives matter...what is that?? It means nothing in Chicago because black lives don't even matter to them!! The worse is the little children, six so far this year. The other day a man pulls over to the side of the road to rest. Another man comes out of the trees and shoots him in the head for no reason, just gun play macho...it is crazy.

The more he talked the more animated he became, desperate to make us understand how crazy and meaningless it all seemed to him. 

Thomas: I come from Ghana to this place where the economy is so much better, more opportunity, and this is the way people behave?

When our ride was over I wanted to hug the guy and thank him for coming to America, for working two jobs. Instead, I shook his hand and thanked him for the ride. Thomas and his shiny Camry disappeared . I will never see him again. I wondered if he lives on the south side. I wondered if he too might become one of the nameless victims of the war raging just four miles from my luxury hotel on the magnificent mile. It occurs to me that Chicago has suffered more casualties so far this year than the United States has lost in Afghanistan in the last four years combined. 

On the night that Pam and I gathered with 40,000 joyous Cubs fans at Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs beat the Angels, less than ten miles away, no less than seven African-American males were gunned down in the streets. 

It was not a good night for angels.

Chicago

This is my third trip to Chicago, the first for Pam. Every time I come here I am stunned at how beautiful the place is. Sure, recently they set a record with 100 shootings in one week. Sure, they are on pace to shatter the record for homicides in 2016, with over 600 souls expected to get whacked by year's end. But the killing fields are a long way from Michigan Avenue, and we didn't see a single cop on our walk from the hotel to the dock on the Chicago River yesterday afternoon for our boat tour of the city. Our "Architecture Tour" snaked its way down the green water where the towering buildings of Chicago loomed overhead. Our guide was a native Chicagoan who lived up to its reputation as the "Windy City."

Dude was a living, breathing encyclopedia. Here are some of the sights...

Each magnificent building came with a story, including but not limited to the egos of the architects. It was fascinating and worth every penny....except for one thing, it was 90 degrees out, humid with only rare whispy breezes. We sat on the top deck in the blazing sun. Pam was a trooper. There is nothing on earth more intolerable to my wife than being hot..nothing! Yet, she never complained, and paid rapt attention to our guide throughout. I thought that at any moment she might suddenly scream out and cast herself overboard in a fit of rage, but she held it together like a champ. Of course, I kept disappearing below deck so I could keep her placated with lemonade and diet cokes. I've learned something  in 32 years of marriage!

Life Lesson in a Picture

"Winners focus on winning. Losers focus on winners."

Wegmans!!!!

Pam and I went to the grand opening of Short Pump's new Wegmans today. We should have known better. This may have been the most eagerly anticipated, most over-hyped store opening in the history of Henrico County, and since our county is over 400 years old, that's saying something. We knew it might be a madhouse when we saw this guy at the corner of Broad Street and Wegmans Way...

 He was the first of at least a dozen of Henrico County's finest we saw patrolling the area, some in cars, some on foot and even a couple on bikes. Once we finally found a place to park we entered this monstrosity of a store...

Once inside I was astonished to see this...

If you squint you will see...yes, count them all...27 Checkout lanes, all manned( and womanned )by eager, smiling cashiers. Matter of fact, this store seemed to have an abundance of employees, handing out everything from glossy maps of the place to free beer samples. Speaking of adult beverages, if you're into that sort of thing, an entire wing of the building is dedicated to you...

...and that's only half of it. The rest contains three two story high shelving aisles full of wine from every corner of the globe. As awesome as the place was, it didn't take us long to decide that today probably wasn't the best day to be taking a tour. We only made it through roughly a third of the store, but what we saw can be summed up neatly this way...if you need something, anything really...you will find it at this store. 

"But, how are the prices?" you might ask. I have no idea. Probably not the cheapest in town. If I want the cheapest prices, I can drive down the road five minutes and buy my groceries at Walmart. If that's too embarrassing, I could always drop by Food Lion, the home of the perpetually sticky floor. Or, if I want to have my guilt assuaged for being part of the evil west, be-fouler of the planet, I can go drop truckloads of cash at Whole Foods, the world wide headquarters of self-flagulating white people. The point is, Wegmans is just another choice that a free market gives me.

My children, and many others their age don't have the same image of Socialism that I do. For them, Socialism is gorgeous Danes and Swedes eating ice cream while on one of their 12 weeks of paid vacation, courtesy of the State. For me and many of my age, Socialism looks like this...

This is the line forming outside a grocery store in Venezuela. The lines sometimes take ten hours to get through only to be told that there isn't any more milk.

This one is from Cuba, where the lines are a bit quicker, but the goods are limited. The Venezualians and the Cubans learned all of this from the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union, which featured this sort of scene practically every day...

I can hardly visit Facebook without seeing some article written my some Millenial about the horrors of Capitalism, and honestly...Capitalism does have a few horrors. But whenever I hear this sort of argument, I always come back to the Wegmans of the world. Only a free market can deliver this sort of abundance. Do we have a free market in every segment of our economy? Not even close, and in the places where we don't like cable television, service and quality suffers. But Doug, but Doug...if capitalism is so great at allocating resources, how come we have 17 different brands of deodorant? Isn't that a waste of effort??? Well, I would rather let the marketplace decide the answer to that question. Apparently, there is currently enough profit in the deodorant game to compensate 17 different companies for making the stuff. Turn that decision over to a command economy government committee and we would eventually end up with one brand of deodorant which made us all smell like cat pee and nobody could find anyway since there would always be a shortage!

So, yeah. I'll take my Wegmans huge crowds and all, and be thankful that I live in a country where Wegmans is even possible.