Thank You, Mr. President

Most of America is closed today for President’s Day. Few of us will actually celebrate this oddest of all excuses for a day off, unless it is to take advantage of one of the many President’s Day sales afoot across the fruited plain. Much of our detachment from President’s Day no doubt is a result of the most recent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who haven’t exactly inspired us with their intellect, imagination or energy. But it has not always been so. At various times in our nation’s history we have been blessed with incredible men who seemed perfectly matched with the gravity of their time. No one more so than Abraham Lincoln.

I have chosen to reproduce his second inaugural address below in honor of the day. It is one of the most beautifully written, honest speeches ever given by an American President, before or since. Reading it 160 years later, it has lost not one ounce of its gravity or its beauty. It still causes me to feel a mixture of shame and pride. It also makes me long for this combination of intelligence, humility and brevity from a leader.

Fellow countrymen,

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

 

A Visit From the Firstborn

My sweet daughter came home for a visit this weekend. She had planned to attend a Valentine’s lunch planned for all the women in the family by my sister, but it got cancelled last minute by that pesky be-spoiler of plans—COVID. But Kaitlin decided to drive the five and a half hours anyway, arriving here at one o’clock in the morning after a long and tiring week of teaching 7th graders. She will drive back sometime this afternoon, having spent a mere 36 hours with us. This is what it is like to have grown children who live in other places, other states. Even the briefest of visits become special. So…how did she spend her time with us? Basically it involved eating, talking, and watching reruns of The Middle.

Pam fixed breakfast yesterday and Kaitlin got us caught up on all the news from Columbia over homemade waffles and crispy bacon. We heard about work, her small group and church happenings, the latest with Jon and Jackson. We got to see her new car. 

Then they both showered and announced that they were going to head over to Panera’s for a quick lunch. I immediately understood the real meaning of “quick lunch”, having long ago cracked their code. There would be nothing “quick” about this lunch. As soon as they left, I looked down at Lucy and said, “you’ll get your dinner before they get back.” I have no idea what they did for the four hours they were gone, but it probably involved lots more talking and catching up.

For dinner I had planned to take Kaitlin to the New Mexican restaurant that opened up where the old Casa Grande used to be. She loved it. By the time we got back home it was around 8 o’clock and before long her mother and her had assumed their position of choice during these rare and too short visits home…

They snuggle up on the sofa under blankets while Lucy tries to figure out her spot in this new configuration. They turn on the television and pick a show to watch. Since Kaitlin loves psychological thrillers, we suggested the show Pam and I have been watching recently…The Servant. Kaitlin was hooked after the first five minutes and insisted on watching three episodes, interrupted only by a hot chocolate break. Around 11:00 I headed up to bed, knowing that I couldn’t keep up with the two of them. I have no idea when they finally went to bed.

This morning there will be breakfast and church, either in person at Hope or sofa-church watching Midtown’s service on live stream. Then more lounging around. Then lunch out someplace.

If this all sounds boring and uneventful to you, I imagine that you don’t have children. If you do, chances are that they live fifteen minutes away and are always dropping by for no particular reason. Our kids never just drop by, so when they do it feels like a holiday—because it usually is! But not this time. She just left school Friday afternoon, got a haircut, grabbed something to eat, and then drove up 95 for almost six hours so she could spend a day and a half with her parents. Easily our best weekend of 2023.

Oh…about the Christmas tree. Yes. We haven’t taken it down yet. It is the only vestige of Christmas in our house. We have every intention of taking it down and we will…any day now. Don’t judge.

Beauty That Surprises

The most memorable beauty is that which comes as a surprise. You are engaged in the most mundane task, then look up and are stunned by something indescribable. Human beings in 21st century America are perhaps the most overstimulating in all of human history. We are bombarded by images 24/7 by technological advances that didn’t exist for 99.99% of recorded history. And yet, we still have the capacity for wonder when we are presented with something like this…

I was on my way to Mission Barbecue to pick up dinner this Friday evening. As I pulled out of my driveway I noticed a strange light reflecting off the leafless trees across the way. It had been cloudy all day, but now it was breaking up and the setting sun behind me was piercing through the gloom. I stopped the car, rolled down the driver’s window and marveled. Then I took the picture.

By the time I got on  interstate 64 at the Gaskins road exit I had to pull over to the edge of the road. It was a stunning sight. I was dazzled and suddenly getting dinner at Mission Barbecue seemed unimportant.

The rest of the drive had my head on a swivel as the miraculous canopy swelled all around me. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more distracted while behind the wheel of an automobile. By the time I pulled into Mission’s parking lot the beauty was at its peak…

I went inside to order brisket and pulled pork, along with mac and cheese with kickin’ collard greens. When I walked back outside with our dinner in a paper bag, it was gone—all the grandeur and majesty vanished without a trace. Luckily, the same technological advancement that bombards us with filth and anxiety also doubles as a decent camera. I was able to capture some measure of the glorious beauty that came out of nowhere around 5:45.

What is this thing, the human capacity and hunger for beauty? Sometimes we don’t even realize how much we need it. Most of the time we trudge along without it. But then it appears like a gift, out of the blue, when we least expect. And we are mesmerized, taken away to someplace golden, if for only a few fleeting moments.

Thoughts on the Super Bowl

I managed to do something exceedingly rare yesterday. I watched an entire football game, including every second of the halftime show, for probably the first time in ten years. I’m not even sure why, since I’m not a huge pro football fan and I didn’t even have a rooting interest in either of the teams. But the Super Bowl is a cultural moment in America and a great excuse to eat delicious food with no discernible nutritional value—always a bonus. Plus, we had a house guest for several days leading up to Sunday, which although enjoyable, tends to tire you out. Once he left Pam and I both were in need of some mindless down time on the sofa, and there is nothing quite as mindless as watching the Super Bowl.

Pam put together all of my favorites for the spread…

Reuben dip

Pigs in a blanket

Veggies with spicy cheese

Mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce.

Of course, since I am surrounded by teachers, there had to be some sort of football bingo game played via texting with my teacher sister and her husband. The stakes were high, the loser having to buy Sunday lunch for the winner next Sunday. When I finally got five in a row and exclaimed BINGO!!!

At that point, Ron casually says, “Paula already got two bingos”

How are you supposed to respond to such a statement? Have these people never played BINGO before? It does nobody any good to simply get a bingo. Without shouting out BINGO!!!, or in this case, typing BINGO!!! In a text—you don’t got Jack, am I right? Since I was the first one to declare my BINGO!!!, I was the clear winner. To which, my clueless brother-in-law says, “We’ll call it a draw.”

The actual game was pretty good. Before kickoff I had told Pam that I thought that the Eagles were the better team, but that the Chiefs had the best player and since that player was their Quarterback, I thought that the Chiefs would win. Since that was exactly what happened you can make of that what you will.

As far as the commercials were concerned, I found them disappointing. None of them made me laugh. Many of them I found confusing. Not a single one of them made me more or less likely to purchase anything. Sitting here this morning I honestly can’t remember any of them very well. And yet, companies still eagerly shell out millions for their chance at thirty seconds of our attention.

Then there was the halftime show featuring the singer, Rihanna. It featured a very cool floating stage concept that thrusted the singers high above the field to dizzying heights. It was something to see, a true visual spectacle. As far as the performance was concerned, I was hampered by the fact that I didn’t know any of her songs, so for me they all melded together and sounded like one long song using the same four of five notes over and over again. Other than the spectacular floating stage thing, the rest of it seemed like a female singer dressed in a fire engine red balloon-y costume being chased by over a hundred amazingly coordinated dancing men in identical white balloon-y costumes, looking for all the world like sperm trying to hit an illusive target. Trouble was, she was already pregnant. Anyway, for the marketing colossus that it is the National Football League, I am not the target audience. This halftime show, in fact, the entire night wasn’t designed with 64 year old men in mind. So, basically my opinion doesn’t matter. But I imagine that if you were already a Rihanna fan you loved it. If you were unfamiliar with her or her work you were probably blown away by the stage levitation thing and confused by the rest of it, like me.

But, I made it through all four and a half hours of the thing, so I’m feeling a bit more American this morning.

…and just a little dazed and confused.

Our Internet Apocylpse

So, this was quite a weekend. First Pam and I, along with 40 other couples, took part in a marriage class at my church called The Book on Love. We were one of the longest tenured couples there, but it’s never too late to learn how to get better at something. Lots of good information, not all of it new, but all of it beneficial.

Then we wake up Sunday morning only to discover that our entire neighborhood has been cast back into the dark ages—there is no cable or internet. This frightening condition was first discovered when I stumbled into the kitchen and mumbled the usual phrase to Alexa—“good morning”. This is her cue to turn on a preselected group of lights downstairs necessary to the efficient discharge of my morning responsibilities. Instead of her creepy/cheery response of “OK!!” I hear something that sounded like it was delivered with a bit of attitude, “I’m sorry, I am having trouble understanding your request.”

I tried two more times to get through to her alleged artificial intelligence and two more times I get this “having trouble” line. But without coffee I was incapable of a proper retort. After my chores were completed I took my place on the sofa and opened my laptop whereupon it dawned on me what Alexa’s issue was. No internet. Pam promptly reset the router and we waited for our AI-powered house to come to life. Soon we discovered the awful news that there would be no coming to life this day. No, there was a “problem.” Verizon sent out the first alert soon after informing us that they were working hard to resolve the “issue” and hoped to have it resolved by Wednesday the 8th. 

As this email crawled its way through each home in Wythe Trace, we could hear the primal screams building from each cul-de-sac like the wave at a football game. Parents were frantically trying to figure how they could possibly survive the day without television, YouTube or Instagram. Children were renting their garments over the prospect of having to play outside. Remote working husbands and wives fighting over which would get to work from Panera. When Pam and I got back from church we saw our next door neighbor, Jamie, pulling out of her driveway. I approached her car and in solidarity said, “How are you guys holding up? Going through withdrawals yet?” She then looked at me with a poorly disguised smirk and said, “Oh?? Our internet is working just fine. We have Comcast.”

It is not a happy moment when one discovers that one is on the wrong side of a haves and have’s not dichotomy. Suddenly, our neighborhood had been remade into Verizon people and Comcast people. Even though there were far more of us, the Comcast group had taken on an edgy superiority—“By all means, you can tap in to our network. Its running just fine. I’m sure Verizon will fix everything…eventually…bruhahahahaha!!!” Typical Comcasters.

Fortunately, by 8:00 last night the nightmare was over and peace and equality was restored. 

But as I read through the email exchange between neighbors this morning I see all the expected back and forth about what might have been the reason for the outage. An accidental severing of a line, a squirrel chewed through a cable box-where is Dunnevant when you need him?? But am I the only one who suspects the real culprit? Wythe Trace loses the internet at the exact same time as that Chinese balloon is floating overhead!! Come on people. Wake up!!

January Recap

In keeping with my 2023 plan to slow down The Tempest, I published only five regular posts during the month of January. The rest were either short stories, an ill-conceived attempt to rewrite a 35 year old story, and more recently—the first seven chapters of a novel I wrote called A Life of Dreams. Judging by the readership numbers it is safe to say that you guys are not fans!! Ha! Apparently, Tempest readers prefer my contemporaneous ramblings to my fiction—by a wide margin. For this I apologize. However, I plan on continuing it for the foreseeable future. Its actually been quite nice keeping my opinions to myself for a change. The world is still a hot mess as far as the eye can see and has managed this without my snarky input.

Has there been anything going on out there in January about which I felt tempted to comment? Sure. The six year old kid who shot his teacher was a soul-crusher. The bumper crop of mass-shootings in California were infuriating. The number of dead squirrels that magically wind up in my yard remains a mystery. But mostly January has been about getting another year started at work, doing the work of reviewing millions of dollars of investment holdings in hundreds of accounts belonging to my clients. Its the sort of work that clarifies the mind and focuses the attention.

Lots of cool stuff happening at my church so far this year. This coming Thursday thru Saturday Pam and I have signed up for something called The Book on Love, a class for married couples. Ever since we’ve been at Hope we have heard people raving about this class, so we decided to give it a shot despite the fact that we have been married almost 39 years. I wonder if we will get some sort of prize for being the oldest people there? Nevertheless, I believe that you are never too old or too experienced to learn how to get better at stuff. Apparently there’s homework involved, so I’m a little concerned about that since I have never been good at homework. But hey…if this class results in Pam becoming a better wife then I’m all for it……JUST KIDDING!!!!

So, readers of The Tempest, thank you for chopping my writer’s ego down to size by your disinterest. Humility is always a lesson worth learning. 

I close with this:

Two cats are having a swimming race. The first cat is called “One two three” the second cat is called “Un deux trois”. Which cat won?

“One two three”…because “Un deux trois” cat sank

Horrible Commercials and a Show Idea

After not watching hardly any football during the regular season, I have followed the action during the playoffs starting last weekend and again yesterday and today. The games have been pretty good as far as that goes, but for the love of all that is holy—the commercials have been painful to watch. There’s one in particular that is so imbecilic and grating I have been reduced to hitting the mute button.

I have Verizon. I have been happy with them for as long as I can remember even having a cellphone. But their commercial featuring the Einstein character makes me want to find a new carrier. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Some woman is sitting atop a huge VERIZON in the middle of what looks like a college campus. What its doing there and why she is sitting atop it are not explained. Then something very sad happens. A really fine actor who was absolutely fabulous in the HBO mini-series where he played John Adams, strolls into the scene with a ridiculous wig on complaining that his cell service has “gone kaput”. Why the great Paul Giamatti would stoop to this infantile spot boggles the mind. Verizon must have agreed to pay him crazy money to coerce him to so debase himself, leading me to think that perhaps that money might have been better spent lowering my outrageous bill.

Anyway, the woman sitting on the VERIZON display holding a Thesaurus in her hand then jumps down to extol the virtues of Verizon’s wireless plans. Einstein declares her “brilliant!!” then shuffles off to sign up leaving the bike he wasn’t riding to start with behind. The only good thing about this moronic ad is that it is only thirty seconds. Positively dreadful.

Then there are the endless promotional ads for all the shows that network television has to offer, the shows that nobody watches. They all seem to be some version of crime detection, either forensic or otherwise. All feature huge explosions. I have not been persuaded to watch any of them. I WOULD, however, watch a detective crime drama where they are trying to solve murders that take place in redneck communities. Let those hotshot forensic scientist try to solve a murder where everybody’s DNA is the same and nobody has dental records!