The Death of a Hero

I opened my laptop at 6 in the morning while rubbing the sleep from my eyes and saw the headline, Hank Aaron had passed. For reasons I cannot explain, I felt my throat constrict and tears forming in the corners of my eyes. As I have gotten older this sort of thing happens more frequently than I would like to admit. My childhood heroes, like me, are getting older, and yet when one of them dies it always comes as a shock to the system. Now Hammerin’ Hank is gone.

When I was 8 years old I began a life long love affair with baseball, largely due to my older brother’s devotion to the game. His favorite players became my favorite players. For me it was always Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron. In that order. I was a Mickey guy, mostly because Donnie was a Mickey guy. I remember checking a book out of the Claiborne Elementary School library in New Orleans, Louisiana that told the story of Mickey Mantle. It was entitled, The Commerce Comet, and I was in the 3rd grade. It was the first book I had ever checked out from a library. I read it in one day. There was much to like about The Mick. He was movie star handsome, could run like the wind and hit a baseball to the moon. But I also loved Willie Mays. He did everything with style and flash, the best center fielder in the game. Then there was Hank Aaron who did nothing with style and flash. He wasn’t particularly handsome, hardly ever had anything to say. While Mickey’s smile beamed out from the cover of magazines and Willie was in every highlight reel, Hank just plugged along. The PR people with the Braves tried to juice him up with the national sports media who were Mantle v Mays obsessed by giving him the nickname Hammerin’ Hank. But it never really worked. He was just a ball player more comfortable with his real name...Henry Aaron. He lacked both the charm and charisma of Willie and Mickey, but never the talent. The press was in love with the charmers who’s rivalry started in New York City. The Yankees and The Giants, the two glamour teams. Nobody cared about the small market Braves no matter where they played...Milwaukee or Atlanta. But Hank kept showing up for work every day, playing the game brilliantly. Then one day it occurred to the baseball writers that he had an excellent chance to make a run at the most hallowed record in a sport full of hallowed records...Babe Ruth’s home run title. Finally, after a spectacular career of excellence, he would be plunged into the white hot glare of national scrutiny in the summer of 1973 and the spring of 1974 as he chased down the Babe. Suddenly after each game a throng of reporters were at his locker sticking microphones in his face. He answered their stupid repetitive questions with short, boring answers.

During this pressure packed pursuit of an icon’s record, Hank Aaron received hate mail. Tens of thousands of letters of vicious, racist hate mail. Death threats poured in among them. Yet Henry Aaron kept hitting and kept up his largely silent quest. When he finally launched a pitch by the Dodger’s Al Downing over the left field wall into the waiting glove of reliever Tom House, it was finally over. At home plate he was mobbed by his teammates, but that didn’t stop a strong, long suffering and worried to death woman from plowing through the crowd to reach her son...

And now this strong, proud and unassuming man is gone.

Willie Mays was asked once about Hank Aaron. His words seem appropriate as an ending for this tribute:

“ Hank Aaron was the best person I ever met.”

Hope Springs Eternal

Wednesday 20, 2021. Our system of government, beaten and battered though it may be, has worked. The candidate with not only the most Electoral votes, but also the most vote votes has won. The candidate who lost is leaving Washington, albeit in a childish snit. The winning candidate, who has never left Washington for over half a century, will become President today in a diminished ceremony. I will tune in for the speech. I always do. However I can’t promise I’ll stick around for the entire thing. I seldom do. One thing I will notice will be the politicians sitting behind the President, and how very old they all are. The president himself, ancient and frail, Pelosi, McConnell, and Schumer, old and sagging under the weight of all that backstabbing, guile fairly dripping off them like beads of sweat.Why are politicians so old? Where are the forty-somethings, men and women with energy and new ideas? In other lines of work, thats where. And who could blame them?

What I will not watch is the insufferable virtual parade/entertainment that the triumphant Democrats will foist on us for the rest of the day. There will be all of the beautiful Hollywood types cooing about this and that along with a procession of pop stars. You have to hand it to the Democrats though, they always have all the big stars at these types of events. Whenever Republican’s are in charge, they serve up something like Scott Baio or Tom Selleck while the music is always a couple of Country singers. Its like whoever they send up there, my first thought is always, “Wait...that guy is still alive?” But, there’s nothing to be done about it. The cool kids have always been leftists.

The best part about today—if we make it through without incident—is that it will hopefully begin a new era where politics will become boring again. Sure, for awhile Biden will be news because he’s a new President. But eventually, after his first 100 days, that tiresome legacy of FDR that forces every new administration to act like the world is on fire and they must put it out with rapid fire initiatives, things will calm down. Suddenly we will wake up and realize that every headline on the news is not about Washington infighting. It will dawn on us that politics and politicians have stopped being entertainment and gone back to being necessary but dependable annoyances.

Hope springs eternal.

My Prayer For The Week

One of the ingrained assumptions of being an American is the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. I have watched it a total of ten times during my adult life, the outgoing President riding in the motorcade with the incoming President from the White House to the Capitol, then sitting behind him and watching him take the oath of office, then politely applauding. Its always a cool moment, satisfying, even comforting. This year at the beginning of inauguration week, I’m holding my breath that it goes off without bloodshed. There will be no huge throng of people on the Mall watching. There will be no parades and no fancy balls to mark the occasion. Only members of Congress, a few guests, and a thousand masks. But there will be 25,000 American Troops and newly erected fencing, even some razor wire, photographs of which will be gleefully distributed on Chinese, Russian, and Iranian media. Add this embarrassment to the growing list of things I thought I would never witness during my lifetime.

So, my hope and prayer is that when this week is over there will have been no violence, no deaths, no destruction of property, that all 50 state capitols will be secure, and that we can begin to move forward to the very difficult task of learning how not to hate each other so much. I wish Joe Biden all the best. I can honestly say that I have wished every new President the very best at the beginning of their term in office. I did for Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump. Generally speaking, when a President fails it’s a failure for the country. When they succeed, generally the country succeeds. Good will should be the default emotion for any new President from every citizen of this country. When Biden does well, I will commend him here. When he screws up I will let him have it in this space. What I will not do is engage in inflamed rhetoric fantasizing about his gruesome death like I saw from Alec Baldwin this weekend. I will not tolerate violent language here. I believe it is possible to disagree, even strongly, with politicians without stooping to ad hominem attacks. After ten years and over 2000 posts, I’m sure if you search thoroughly enough you will find examples of such attacks here, but I hope very few and nothing recently. I am not a perfect witness in this area. Sometimes I forget myself and get caught up in the moment. But we all have to get better at this, better at disagreeing, better at talking to each other.

Maybe, a year from now, we won’t be so obsessed with the travails of politics. Maybe at some point our attention and our interest will be towards more nobler things. Maybe one day soon our disagreements will be less vitriolic. Maybe on that glorious day in the future when the masks finally come off, there will be smiles underneath.

Ten Things To Look Forward To

Since it is all but impossible to find even a shred of good news these days, I have taken it upon myself to assemble a list of ten things that we all have to look forward to in 2021:

1. That first blissful, 70 degree day in mid to late March when you scramble through the drawers to find a pair of shorts to wear.

2. The smell of hamburgers on the grill before your first meal of the year taken on the deck.

3. Opening Day of the baseball season.

4. The giving and receiving of robust, enthusiastic, heartfelt hugs.

5. A President who isn’t on Twitter.

6. Standing shoulder to shoulder in a packed church, singing at the top of your lungs.

7. That unique thrill that passes through the body and mind when you back the car out of the driveway, headed out for summer vacation.

8. The first tailgate of the college football season with trash talk filling the air unfiltered by face masks.

9. That first gathering with your small group from church around somebody’s fire pit, where you hear the sound of someone’s voice lifted in prayer thanking God for his Word and for these good friends.

10. That first delightfully cool day in late September when you scramble through the closet to find a sweater to wear.

Coping With 2021

What do you do when you’ve had maybe the most disturbing, disappointing week of business in at least ten years? How do you deal with that creeping feeling that the world is falling apart and there isn’t a single thing you can do to stop it? What next, when you’ve come to the conclusion that people are in the process of losing their minds? How do you cope with the knowledge that all of this has happened in a mere 15 days of the new year??

DAD JOKES. You go out there and dig deep for the worst, most pitiful ones you can find, collect them, then share them here on The Tempest. At least that’s what I do.

- Why did the couple buy stale bread on their wedding day?

Because they wanted to grow mold together...

- Did you hear about the dad who burnt the Hawaiian pizza?

He should have put it on aloha temperature...

-How did the carpenter find her spouse?

She used a stud finder...

- If you want a job in the lotion industry, the best advice I can give you is...

Apply daily...

-I got you a refrigerator for your birthday.

Can’t wait to see your face light up when you open it...

-I bought a dictionary only to get home and discover that all the pages are blank.

I have no words to describe how angry I am...

-I used to date a girl named Ruth. Whenever I was with her, she made me a better person. Then she dumped me.

Now I’m ruthless...

-Why was the superhero the one to flush the toilet?

Because it was his duty...

-What’s the easiest way to remember your wife’s birthday?

Forget it once...

-Kids: Dad, we want to see the new Pirate movie!!

Dad: No way.

Kids: Why not??!!

Dad: Because its rated Arrrrgh!!

-The Surgeon General has determined that listening to too much Queen is bad for your health.

Probably because of the high Mercury content...

Making Travel Plans?

My winter restlessness has come early this year. Usually around the middle of February I begin to feel trapped and isolated, in desperate need of sunshine and a change of scenery. The fact that this feeling has arrived a full month early shouldn’t come as a surprise. Something tells me I am not alone.

This week has been packed with appointments, but yesterday afternoon some downtime finally arrived. Immediately I pulled up my Expedia account on the old iPad. Welcome Back, Douglas!! The fact that I was so greeted should also come as no surprise. The travel industry has been battered by COVID like no other. A box quickly popped up...Would you like to chat? Poor things...

I didn’t even know what I was looking for. Where could I go during a pandemic where 4000 people a day are now perishing? Yes, I know, I see friends of mine on Facebook all the time traveling all over the place and God bless em. I’m feeling much more cautious these days. I saw what COVID did to my neighbor and I want no part of that. Plus, any travel plans I come up with will have to pass the Pam Test, a rigorous set of protocols that judge harshly any ill-conceived, hastily cobbled together plans, which are exactly the kind of plans I specialize in. 

My first idea was a quick four nighter to the Cayman Islands, a delightful location we have visited twice before. But that would require much research into foreign travel restrictions, airplane travel, etc..which sounded much too much like work. Then I reeled it in a bit and did a little recon work into Key West, another favorite spot of ours. Surprising how many hotels there are booked solid after March 1st. Suddenly the idea of being in Key West at a time when it is crawling with the sort of folks who frequent Key West seemed like an unsellable idea and not nearly as relaxing as I was imagining a trip like this would be. Time to reel it in further...Isle of Palms, Charleston, SC. Nice. We could drive instead of fly. But the weather there in late March early April is no slam dunk. Might be chilly. What about Myrtle Beach? Closer, cheaper and my partner has a place on the beach. Same weather gamble though, and my luck we’d be there the same week as the Hells Angels For Trump Rally or something.

Of course, I could stay in the Old Dominion. There are plenty of great places to visit here. But the predominant thought in my mind when contemplating this getaway is...warmth. Late March/early April would be a weather crapshoot. Wait, what about a week in Florida during spring training? We could stay in a nice hotel and catch a few games. It would be nice and warm. But, what will the COVID protocols be like in April? Will they be more relaxed or more stringent? There’s no way to know at this point. Maybe we could stay a few nights at a hotel in DC and do some sightseeing...wait, DC is a war zone. Nix that.

Maybe I’ll just have to suck it up in 2021 and wait until Maine. July 1st is only 165 more days, right? Perhaps I can make it until then.

Probably not.

AirBnB Announces Plans To Get Out of The Bribe Business

Here’s a small case study in how my mind works. (Pam: Wait, your mind works?). Whenever I am reading a news article about anything having to do with politics I do so with ears wide open and a barnyard manure filter working overtime, not because of media bias necessarily, but rather because it is impossible for me to ponder political things without reading between the lines. Nothing is ever as it appears. Here’s a perfect example.

This morning I learned that several American corporations have turned against politicians who voted to decertify the 2020 election results. This particular sentence stood out:

AirBnB, Verizon, Comcast, Marriot and others have stopped all donations to politicians who voted against certifying the election results.

My response to this rather prosaic sentence was probably not what its writer intended. All I could think was...Why in Sam Hill is AirBnB making political contributions in the first place?? Seriously. Why would an online vacation rental marketplace feel the need to give money to politicians? Am I the only one who thinks this way? Couldn’t that money be put to more productive use elsewhere, like say...making their website more user-friendly? Why do the men and women who run such a fabulously successful enterprise feel it wise and necessary to donate cash to Congressmen, Senators or Presidential candidates? The question answers itself. 

My mind always seems to be at cross purposes to conventional wisdom. If I were the CEO of a successful new venture it would be my goal to remain invisible to politicians. I would want the lowest possible profile when it came to my business and its relationship to Washington DC. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near their radar screen. By donating money to them I come to their attention. The last thing any self respecting enterprise wants or needs is to have the undivided attention of elected officials. Not that my business would be up to no good. On the contrary, my company would be busy making the very best product or providing the very best service possible to its customers, so busy in fact, it would be oblivious to who its political representative even was! 

Spare me the lectures. I fully understand why AirBnB and all those other corporations bankroll politicians. When your country’s tax code is 2,600 pages long, with another 60,000 or so pages of addendums, codicils and explanatory case law attached, that’s a minefield of potential danger. But its also a great place to hide a favor that some savvy pol might be able to slip in that might benefit your business. In other countries, this is referred to as a bribe. In America its called working the system by the cynical and civic engagement by the clever. Either way, it would all be eliminated or at least greatly reduced by The Flat Tax.

Until then we will have to put up with the corruption that naturally flows from a system that encourages vacation rental websites, hotel chains, and cable providers to have to make grand virtue signaling proclamations divesting themselves from disobedient politicians.