2014 Christmas List

We have now officially reached the middle of November. This can only mean one thing—the unholy alliance between Christmas and Capitalism is upon us. For the next 38 days we will be bombarded by land, air and sea with relentless marketing extoling the virtues of conspicuous consumption. From the ubiquitous sales fliers crammed into our mailboxes to the carpet bombing Walmart television ad campaigns, there will be no escape from the Gekkoesque message, “greed is good!”

Pam needled me the other day about my Christmas list. She does this every year. I am always the last one in the family to attach my list to Dunnevant Christmas Central, our famous family Christmas website. Secretly, this is my form of silent protest, but partly it’s because I have a hard time coming up with a list of things that I want. Listen, I’m 56 years old. Most of the things that I still “want” cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, I suppose I could put, “a lake house in Maine” on my list but what good would that do? So, each year I sit at my computer trying to come up with a Christmas list and each year it gets snarkier and snarkier. Who could forget 2011’s request for a Santa PEZ dispenser followed by “a capital gains tax cut?” Or how about 2012’s plaintive plea for “better spelling skills?” I can report that I did in fact receive the new fingernail clippers that I so daringly asked for in 2013.

This year, my list will be even harder to write what with all of the turmoil in the world today. It’s hard to prioritize a wish list while watching Bill Cosby implode right before your eyes.  Asking for a year’s supply of beef jerky seems rather petty while the country is poised a heartbeat away from a Joe Biden Presidency. But, it’s November the 17^th and I either do this now or face the wrath of Pam for the next month. Sigh….

So, without any further delay, here is my 2014 Christmas List:

1.     A new coffee maker

2.     Overnight success as a published author

3.     New exotic coffee beans from Central America, Jamaica, or South America

4.     New set of golf clubs

5.     Lake house in Maine

6.     A man or women of raw intelligence, common sense and actual accomplishment to run for President in 2016

7.     Gift certificate to Men’s Warehouse

8.     Gift certificate to Patient First

9.     A grandchild

10.   A less cynical outlook on life

11.     A new stylish suit

12.     A cool hat. (third year in a row for this)

13.    A really nice modern looking but not too ostentatious…watch

14.      Underwear

15.  Dress socks

Old and Stupid

The arrival of my new cell phone has unleashed a flurry of glitches that make the Obamacare website debacle look like a miracle of innovation. It’s so complicated I can’t even find the words to describe the trouble. It has something to do with my failure to back up my old phone to the cloud, the fact that I have too many pictures and videos, and maybe something to do with not having enough storage capability. Whatever it is, we are now on our third setup regime and I am temporarily phone-less.

This is always how it is with me and new stuff. There is always a glitch, usually multiple glitches. I am always left feeling old and stupid by the process. Once it all gets fixed I am happy with the new thing. But while my wife is at her happiest upon being presented with a new technological devise, I feel nothing except apprehension, a great disturbance in my sense of well-being.

One of the first strategies we employed yesterday to try to fix the phone was to go through all my videos and erase the ones I could live without. As it turned out I found that I could live without almost all of them, one in particular.

Most of the videos were of Lucy doing something puppyish that I thought was adorable at the time, but now that she has done the same thing a thousand times…not so much. There were videos of Nationals Park and Camden Yards, scenic vistas of the Shenandoah Valley, that sort of thing. Then I stumbled upon a video I took of my dad maybe a week before he passed away. I had gone over to the nursing home one night and was feeding him some ice cream. At the time I thought he was having a very good day and I wanted to take a video to send to Linda to encourage her. When I pushed “play” I was shocked at how weak and feeble he looked. Why on Earth had I thought that he was having a “good” day? I suppose that near the end this was good. I immediately deleted the thing and fought back a wave of tears suddenly welling up inside me. That’s not the way I want to remember him.

So, thanks Apple for forcing me to stumble upon such a depressing memory!

Stupid technology!

Password Hell

Now that I have that new cell phone I have entered that most cursed state of modern consciousness… password hell. Yes, all of my old phone data was magically rescued from The Cloud and safely deposited onto my new shiny phone, saving me the heartbreak of losing all of my pictures and other valuable stuff. The only problem is that now every time I want to actually use an app, I must reenter my username and password. The usernames were all saved, but all of the passwords were not.

Ok, here’s the thing. I haven’t been called upon to enter these passwords in nearly three years. My chances of remembering them all are roughly equivalent to the chances that any national democrat will admit to ever having heard of Jonathan Gruber.

I have two choices. First I could consult my dog-eared page of usernames and passwords that I keep deep in the bowels of my briefcase. Its reliability isn’t absolute since it is so old that the ink has begun to fade and several coffee stains have rendered it unreadable in places. My second choice is the painstaking process of trying to answer the safety questions that I apparently set up years ago to test my knowledge of my own past. For example:

What was your first girlfriend’s middle name?

What was your Grandmother’s favorite pudding?

If you were one of the Beatles, which Beatle would you be?

Wait…what??

So, having failed my own tests, I must then plead ignorance and beg the various companies to e-mail me a new password, or at least allow me to start the entire identification process all over again, always great fun.

Now before any of you technogeeks out there(and you know who you are) start sending me messages about some new gadget that I can get that will store all of my usernames and passwords in the Fort Knox neighborhood of The Cloud…save yourself the trouble. The last thing I need in my life is another gadget, because that would require me to come up with yet another username and password. My powers of creativity are tapped out in that area. Since I’m constantly warned not to use things like street names, pet names, middle names, birth dates, anniversary dates, in other words anything that I might actually be able to recall under pressure, I must conjure up weird things like…PuKeVTHokiessuckooii%43320{…to which I get the reply…Sorry, your password is insufficiently complex and must contain at least three punctuation marks and two mathematical formulas. Please try again.

Isn’t technology great?

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! 

Landslide?

Election week is here and if my news sources this morning are correct, we are about to throw a bunch of Democrats out of office. Practically every story I have read has used words like “historic” and “landslide” to describe what is about to befall the party of government in these midterms. Now that we are within 24 hours of the big vote the crazies have come out. Over the weekend, desperate Dems dragged out their heavy artillery, lobbing racial bombs throughout the fruited plain. In fliers distributed throughout predominantly black neighborhoods, voters were warned that a vote for a Republican would mean that land would be donated to the KKK! Charlie Rangel, the esteemed Congressman from Harlem proclaimed that some Republicans don’t know that slavery isn’t legal anymore. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat who has managed to be elected twice in Louisiana, suddenly has discovered that her state is full of a bunch of racist, sexist slobs…now that she has fallen behind in the polls.

But the best 11^th hour haymaker thrown by a desperate Democrat has to go to retiring Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who warned voters not to be taken in by Republican Joni Ernst just because she was “pretty” and “seems so nice.” I eagerly await a press release from the National Organization of Woman slamming the Senator for his demeaning, sexist, misogynistic comments.

I will vote tomorrow but will not make the same mistake I made last time. A year ago, I wrote a blog post entitled, “Voting NO” about my failed attempt to pull the lever for anyone. That decision was met with a chorus of condemnation. Let’s just say that this year, I will keep my voting behavior to myself.

That’s not to say that I don’t have an opinion on the proceedings. When almost every poll suggests a nationwide trend away from one party like this year, it’s always kind of a big deal. I have a theory about politics in America. Demographics are destiny. Generally speaking, I believe that a majority of people want the policies of the Democrats, ie…most people want their Social Security; most people want the government to be there when they lose their job, or become disabled and yes, I do believe that most people would prefer that the government provide them with health insurance. So, how to explain a national repudiation of the Democratic Party in an election? Competence.

The only time the Democrats get beat in an election is when the majority of voters are convinced that they don’t know what the hell they are doing. Regardless of your politics, it’s hard to make the case for competence with the current administration and the likes of Harry Reid. So, according to my theory, the Republicans are about to get their shot at running both houses of Congress. Good luck to them.

But they will be on a short leash. The American people will only reward them in the next election if they keep the entitlements flowing. They start fooling around with means-testing Social Security, or eliminating infinite unemployment benefits, or even scrapping the 20,000 page tax code, well they will be tossed to the curb before you can say “national debt.”

My Two Recovering Girls

Miss Lucy made it through her spaying and Pam made it through her procedure relatively unscathed. Lucy was still under the influence of the anesthesia for most of the evening, and Pam was also numbed up, so last night passed without incident.  This morning was another matter.

Aside from the overwhelming humiliation that comes with wearing such a monstrous device strapped around her head, this morning, with a clear head, has brought irritation and annoyance. She paws at the thing, growls and whines her frustration, then stalks off in a huff careening off of furniture and walls, trying to make a dramatic exit, which only makes us laugh at her, the ultimate humiliation!

Pam, of course, is much more circumspect. There has been no whining, very little growling, and so far she hasn’t knocked anything over.

I have been greatly aided in my caretaking duties by one of my sainted sisters, Paula, who brought over the following homemade meal last night:

·        Pork tenderloin

·        Green beans with baby tomatoes

·        Macaroni and cheese

·        Some sort of steamed apple concoction that tasted like heaven

·        A pan of homemade rolls which looked like muffins and tasted like heaven’s twin sister

·        Pumpkin spice pudding

Somehow, I managed to make it through the night! Tonight will be the big test. Halloween, with its hordes of prepubescent urchins rustling around outside and Pam and I inside a dark house trying to calm Lucy down. Her famous skittishness combined with the satellite dish around her head should combine to produce some highlight reel-quality moments.

I’ll have the camera ready.

Poor Lucy

Poor Lucy. Poor innocent, unsuspecting, anxiety-free Lucy, chasing her tail on the family room floor, nary a discouraging thought in her little puppy head. In less that two hours some Vet will be robbing her of her womanly parts, altering her life forever. Then they will strap the cone of shame on her adorable head, making it impossible to do the one thing that brings her endless delight…licking herself. And who exactly is responsible for this outrage? Us, her trusted and adored owners, that’s who.

But the great thing about dogs is that she will forgive us. Actually, she won’t even blame us. She will never make the connection that it was our fault. She won’t hold a grudge like a cat would. Heck, for all I know, Lucy will think that we were the ones who saved her from the horrible Vet and forget that we were the ones who took her there in the first place.

Dogs are never shocked when we do nice things for them, because everything we do for them is the most spectacularly fantabulous thing ever! Especially when I take her to Petsmart at 7 am, apparently. She was overjoyed upon first entering this doggy Xanadu. What’s not to love about a gigantic warehouse full of aisle upon aisle of dog toys, the smell of dog food hanging heavily in the air and lots of other dogs!! Lucy’s head was on a swivel, taking it all in with delight. Wait, are those BIRDS???!!”

Upon arrival at the pet waiting room, she was thrilled to find two older, exceedingly more forlorn dogs, who both seemed totally disgusted with Lucy’s gleeful personality. These two dogs looked like grizzled veterans of the Veterinarian game and could barely conceal their unanimous disgust with this obnoxious puppy. “Idiot” they both seemed to conclude.

Unfazed, Lucy wiggled excitedly on, oblivious to the social cues practically raining down upon her to rein it in a bit. When the nurse came to take her back to the “pre-op” area, she bounded through the door as if a ten pound ham hock awaited her, not even glancing back at me. She seemed to be having the time of her life.

We’ll see how delighted she is this afternoon at 5:30. Pictures to follow.

Why We Love Sports.

Game seven. It’s what every baseball fan dreams about. After a 162 game marathon season, and a nearly month long postseason, it all comes down to this one all-hands-on-deck game. We’ve watched the ebb and flow of this series play out before us, two evenly matched teams neither of which has managed to win consecutive games. Game seven will take care of that.

In my opinion, the Royals have played better baseball, but the Giants have had Madison Bumgarner. The 6’5” 235 pound left handed pitcher from the sticks of North Carolina has been a magician on the mound in his two starts, and the Royals have looked outclassed against him. Luckily, he won’t be starting tonight’s game, but if Tim Hudson falters early, I expect to see that big, goofy kid lope in from the bullpen. So, if the Royals plan on winning the game, they better score early before that happens!

Although I would love to see the Royals win, at this point even that doesn’t matter. Either team would be a deserving champion. I just love the immediacy of it, the all or nothing, now or never strategy that will be forced on the naturally risk averse managers. At the end of this night the matter will be decided.

Don’t you wish this was how all of life worked? While it is true that we confer far too much glory and adulation, not to mention money, on sports in this country, one of the reasons we do is game seven of the World Series. In this increasingly complex, interconnected world where one thing always leads to another, where no great issues are ever decided once and for all, where ultimate victory is so seldom achieved, sports provides moments of clarity. Just try to imagine what a ticker-tape victory parade would look like the day that we win the War on Terror, a V-T Day, if you will. You can’t, because it will never happen. That conflict will crawl along for generations. Or, how about the interminable cat fight between Democrats and Republicans, the left vs. right? When will someone finally prevail in that 200 year tug of war? Not going to happen. And what about this epic good vs. evil thing that human beings have been a part of since Eden? This side of eternity, that battle is an endless stream of inconclusive skirmishes.

But tonight, there will be an answer. The matter will be resolved. There will be a winner and a loser and it will be recorded in the record books. One team will be vindicated and the other vanquished. Unlike in the sterilized world we have tried to create, the real world produces winners and losers. Not everyone gets a trophy, only one team takes the champagne bath, and they do so with callous disregard for the potential hurt feelings of the guys in the other clubhouse. Instead of endlessly frustrating gridlock, the great contest will explode in a fireball of spectacle.

And this is why Americans love sports.

The Cone of Shame

Lucy is about to go under the knife, just in time for Halloween. Yes, our girl is scheduled to be spayed on Thursday. She has no idea what is about to happen. Actually, neither do I, since Pam and I have very little recollection of this procedure with Molly. Although, we are both reasonably sure that it did NOT involve having to wear the cone of shame for two weeks! That’s what the folks at Petsmart have advised. Two weeks? I get the fact that you must protect the stiches and whatnot, but two weeks of this?

The worst part is that the very next day is Halloween. Our Lucy remains the most skittish thing ever so we can’t imagine how she will react to 100 kids traipsing through the yard ringing the doorbell demanding candy, all the while wearing such a bizarre and terrifying contraption. Leave it to my wife (with an assist from my son-in-law) to convert lemons into lemonade with this idea...

Lucy the martini!

I Hate it When My Wife is Right.

This blog is for all you husbands out there with annoyingly smart wives. You know who you are. We are the men who must endure an endless procession of that dreaded four word incantation that is sometimes spoken but more often merely smugly implied…I told you so.

Take this weekend for example. Twelve days ago I got a rare cold. I struggled with the runny nose, sneezing and congestion the entire time I was in Pigeon Forge with my kids. Then I fought against coughing and sluggishness all of last week when I returned. Saturday night was a long sleep deprived night of coughing. Sunday morning, Pam looks at me with a combination of compassion and irritation and calmly says, “If you still have cold symptoms after ten days, it has obviously turned into bronchitis. You need an antibiotic and some cough medicine to take at night. Common sense should tell you that if you are not getting better after so long, you need to go see a doctor…now.”

Patient First is right down the road, so there I was walking through the door reading the huge poster in the lobby warning me of Ebola symptoms. Nice! After signing in, I sat with all of the other sick people in the aptly named “waiting room” for twenty minutes. Finally a perky nurse-ette bounded into the room. “Mr. Doonivant?” Close enough.

Blood pressure slightly elevated, temperature normal, weight unchanged since last visit. “Doctor so-and-so will be in to see you in a few minutes,” she explained as she walked me to my cubicle. I glanced at my cell phone. It was 12:17.

I was actually looking forward to seeing my usual crazy Patient First Indian doctor with the horrible bedside manner, brutal accent and charming sense of humor…

Doctor: Why are you here?

Me: It hurts when I do this.

Doctor: Well, how about you stop doing that??”

It would be 1:05 by the time my disappointingly boring American doctor drew back the curtain to my prison cell and spent all of 5 minutes examining me. I challenge you to spend 45 minutes in an 8x8 room with no pictures and no magazines and spotty cell phone coverage, on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon. I had been reduced to reading up on the early signs of carpal tunnel and am now pretty much an expert on the differences between the common cold and fall allergies, not to mention fully up to speed on the dangers of smoking and childhood obesity.

Dr. Whitebread finally reappears to tell me his diagnosis:

“Generally speaking, any cold that doesn’t go away after ten days or so will most likely turn into bronchitis. Your lungs are sort of a mess so I’m placing you on an antibiotic, some prednisone and also some cough medicine to take an hour before you go to bed.”

Are you kidding me? I just paid this guy God knows how much to quote my wife back to me??

So, I return home to essentially admit that my wife is smarter than me. Her plan to go to the doctor was better than my plan to do nothing and wait until it went away on its own.

Grrrrrrr….

Fall Classic

Both Pam and I have been fighting a cold, so when I suggested that we go out to see The Fury tonight she pointed out that we would be that annoying sick couple that coughs through the movie…the ones who I always shoot the killer eyes of death to when they happen to be sitting behind me. I hate it when Pam always suggests that we do the right thing!

 It’s just as well since I have been thoroughly enjoying this World Series and game four is tonight. Yes, I’m aware that the ratings have been horrible. Yes, I know that Kansas City and San Francisco are among the smallest markets in baseball which has contributed to the low numbers, and yes, I’m aware that America likes runs and scoring and this series has been light on both. But, these teams are playing terrific baseball. They are playing great defense, the pitching has been amazing and as far as the Royal bullpen goes, historic.

I can practically hear my sister Paula now, “It’s just pitching!! I want some home runs! If I wanted to watch defense I’d switch over to the Military channel!” She has a point. Guys don’t get paid 20 million a year because they can lay down a sacrifice bunt. But after the steroid era turned baseball into a home run derby, I think it’s refreshing to see two teams who know how to play fundamentally sound baseball.

In what has become something of a tradition, the World Series means texting back and forth with my son. We haven’t been in the same city during the Fall classic in probably 7 years now, but we both watch and share our instant analysis. In 2013, Patrick came up with a couple of hilarious puns at the expense of Red Sox closer Koji Uehara. So far this year, nothing particularly uproarious has been exchanged but…it’s early.

Even my new puppy gets into the games, particularly when that Budweiser commercial comes on where the twenty-something kid goes off to drink with his friends and leaves his poor dog at home alone all night. As soon as the dog starts to whine Lucy stops dead in her tracks and stares forlornly at the TV, cocking her head to the side. I personally think that the spot should be 10 seconds longer and show the pile of poop laying in the middle of the living room rug and the pool of pee that the guy slips on while walking down the hall to his bedroom. Then the camera could cut back to the dog, smiling smugly with the caption, “Gothca!”

Not Black Enough??

Let me begin by stating the obvious. As a white male I must be careful commenting on race relations. When doing so I feel the need to preface my opinions with the caveat that I know very little of the interworking’s of black culture beyond what I see from Hollywood and what I observe in the world from the vantage point of white privilege. It feels silly but I also feel compelled to point out the fact that I have had many black friends in my life and no shortage of black role models, including the single best teacher I ever had, Mrs. Winston at Elmont Elementary School.

But an article I read yesterday has disturbed me greatly because it concerns someone I respect and feel a certain kinship with because of his local connection. Russell Wilson, Super Bowl hero, has apparently upset a segment of his team by not being “black enough.” According to a story written by a local reporter, a rift has erupted in the Seahawk locker room between players who supported recently traded Percy Harvin, and those who supported Wilson. Some insisted that the only reason that Harvin was traded was because he couldn’t get along with Wilson. Not being “black enough” is apparently a real thing in black culture. Sometimes it involves skin tone, but other times it concerns behavior. Blacks who happen to be “well spoken” are suspect, their authenticity called into question by other blacks who prefer a more tortured English.

I must here confess that I’m pretty sure that I haven’t spent even thirty seconds of my life pondering whether I am “white enough.” My whiteness seems self-evident. When I look at Russell Wilson his blackness seems equally self-evident. As far as I know both of his parents were black, although I never met his Mom since she died a when he was quite young. So, there must be something in his deportment that has caused his racial authenticity to come into question.

Here’s what I see. Everything this kid has ever done has demonstrated that he is an exceptional person. As a quarterback, there are few who have his dynamic skill set. As a student, first at Collegiate here in Richmond, then at N.C. State and Wisconsin, he excelled academically. Everywhere his life has taken him, he has overachieved, and demonstrated that rarest of qualities…leadership.

So, in what way precisely is he not black enough?  Did the fact that he married a white girl, his high school sweetheart, damage his black brand? Maybe. Is the fact that he has become the face of the Seattle franchise made some teammates jealous? Probably. It can’t be money since he has not signed his first big contract yet and actually is one of the most underpaid athletes in America. Why exactly does his erudition make him a target of some of his black teammates? Would they prefer him to act dumber than he is? Would his teammates prefer him to rough up a few women, get caught driving drunk, or get caught up in a few fights at strip clubs? Would this authenticate his blackness to their satisfaction?

Russell Wilson is one of the few professional athletes in any sport who I would want my children to emulate. He works hard, is courteous and polite in conversation and behavior, and through his low key work at local hospitals in Seattle, seems to give a damn about the world around him, unlike most athletes (black and white) who care only about themselves.

I don’t get it.

Ammesty?

Going to bed with the beginnings of a headache is bad. Even worse is waking up at 4:30 in the morning with a fully formed one. In this particular variety, there’s a spot behind my left eye that pulses with dull pain in perfect rhythm with my heart beat. The remedy for this condition is three Advil, a cup of strong coffee, and hope.

Reading the news from overnight in such a condition is almost always unpleasant. Bearing witness to the daily absurdities of 21^st century life with a blinding headache takes away your ability to laugh, for one thing, which has always been my best defense against despair. So this morning I must face news about the President’s post-election plans to grant amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants without a laugh track…no easy task. In this effort he has the full support of the Chamber of Commerce, an unlikely ally, along with many pro-business Republicans. It is an issue that perplexes me. Part of me thinks that since we have neither the ability nor the desire to round up 12 million illegals, we might as well grant them amnesty so we can start taxing them. But there’s another side of me that thinks that when a Democratic President and the Chamber of Commerce agree on something, it smells like an unholy alliance up to no good.

The Chamber likes amnesty because it likes business, and what’s better for business than a never ending supply of cheap labor? A Democratic President likes amnesty because with a stroke of a pen he can create 12 million new democrats. I suppose we should all be grateful that he has shown enough restraint to wait until after the midterms. No need to get greedy I suppose.

Lest any of you think that I am anti-immigrant, I would like to point out that no American can be anti-immigrant with anything approaching a clear conscience. All of us were immigrants at some point. My ancestors came over from Germany and Ireland or wherever a couple hundred years ago. As an American, I am proud to belong to such a country, a place where people have been plotting and scheming to get to for generations. I am especially proud at dinner time on the weekends when I am presented with restaurant choices from every corner of the globe.  

But something has changed in our country over the years. I don’t get the sense anymore that those who come to America have any desire to become Americans. We are hyphenating ourselves into enclaves where ethnicity trumps citizenship. America has become a nation that has lost its knack for assimilation. Instead of demanding more and more civic virtue from us, instead of expecting more and more responsibility from us, our government seems hell-bent on making it easier and easier to become one of us.  

With or without a headache, this isn’t good news.

The 2014 Midterm Election

I understand that there’s an election coming up. For me the races are to find a replacement for Eric Cantor, and a U.S. Senate race between the incumbent Mark Warner and his challenger, Ed Gillespie. Decisions, decisions…

The Congressional race is between two Randolph Macon professors, which sounds like the punch line of a joke. Actually it’s kind of nice in a way since neither of them are career politicians…yet. I don’t know enough about either of the two gentlemen to have formed an opinion, although generally speaking, it doesn’t look like a good year for the party of government. So unless the Democratic professor is running with the slogan, “I’m not like the rest of my incompetent Party,” I think I’ll probably pass.

The Senate contest is more difficult for me. On the one hand there’s Mr. Warner, the Democrat, who has largely kept his nose clean so far, seldom making the news which is a good thing. I like the fact that he followed the Founders vision of going into government only after making something of himself, in his case starting and running a very successful business. I can’t think of anything the Senate needs more than someone with some actually real world experience in the business world, the kind of business that has to make a product and sell it at a profit, not the other kind of business which brings me to Mr. Gillespie.

Ed Gillespie probably is closer to me on the large issues of the day, but represents everything that I loathe about our political system. In his campaign ads he is fond of pointing out the fact that he has “started two successful businesses.” What he doesn’t tell you is that one was a lobbying firm that traded on his own lifelong connections in DC to sell influence. The fact that he formed that business with a Democrat only means that he was a bipartisan influence peddler. The other business was something called “Ed Gillespie Strategies,” a consulting firm also devoted to politics. In fact, it would seem that Mr. Gillespie has never held any meaningful employment outside the bubble of Washington in his entire life. Now, there are two ways to look at this. One, you could view this as a plus, demonstrating as it does a keen understanding of how Washington works, a nice skill to have in the toolbox of a freshman Senator. On the other hand you could see this insular political resume as an indictment, proof that Mr. Gillespie is about as far removed from real world problems as Harry Reid, and conclude that the last thing we need in DC is another careerist.

So, it looks like once again I will enter the ballot box with my brain tied in knots.

Highway 66...an education

The Great Smoky Mountain Adventure is over and as a souvenir I brought home a lovely cold complete with scratchy throat, irritating cough and runny nose. It was a small price to pay for such a fun four days. I’m afraid to step on the scales this morning since I’m sure that I brought back more than merely the sniffles. But, that’s why God created American Family Fitness. When I am 80, infirm and broke, I hope that my children will remember all of these fun trips when pondering the question, “Where did all of Dad’s money go??”

Previous blogs have detailed the great fun we had so I won’t repeat them here. However, there was one major downer to the whole Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg experience. Highway 66. This is the major artery that leads you to the area off of Interstate 40. Whether by accident or design, it seems to be the only way to enter, sort of like the Pearly Gates. Actually it’s more like the way that department stores set up their floor plans, forcing you to meander through rows of high profit margin junk before you can find the package of underwear you’re looking for. Well, highway 66 is a 20 mile stretch of high profit margin junk that you must endure before you are rewarded with your cabin. This 20 miles takes roughly one hour and fifteen minutes to traverse. That’s right, in the time it takes for you to drive from Richmond to DC, the visitor is treated to 38 pancake joints, a dozen go-cart tracks, 16 tattoo parlors, enough doughnut shops to give all of China a sugar high, the “largest Christmas shop in the south,” three water parks, five helicopter ride pads, two Elvis museums, three psychic readers, and a giant remake of Mount Rushmore replacing the Presidents with the four icons of Dixie…John Wayne, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and Conway Twitty.

Highway 66 is an education. You want to learn about America? Forget the Smithsonian, forget National Parks. Just take Highway 66 from Interstate 40 to Wears Valley Road and soak it all in. No tolls, lots of waiting!

Zip Lining with Snoop and Opie

Having a wonderful time here in the Smoky Mountains doing all the stuff that I could never do back home. That’s always my goal on any vacation. I mean, why would anyone go to Hawaii and eat dinner at Shoneys? So, when I am in Pigeon Forge I want to do Pigeon Forge stuff like go zip-lining.

I saw a sign on one of the winding roads leading up here that advertised something called “Zip-Line Adventures” with the provocative invitation to “zip-line through history.” Turns out that the zip-lining through history part was bogus since the original owner with the big plans to build giant replicas of iconic images of American history in the valleys below the lines had moved on from the enterprise and the current owners had never bothered to change the road signs. It’s this type of bracing honesty that I find so refreshing down here. Imagine how differently we would all feel about government if they would just admit that they are incompetent every now and then instead of blaming every screw up on a lack of proper funding. But, I digress…

The best part of our zip-lining adventure was the ride in the back of the pickup truck to the top of the mountain. This brought back a flood of memories from my childhood when grownups were fond of throwing gaggles of middle schoolers in the backs of pickup trucks with nary a seat belt in sight. Only this particular ride was even more harrowing since the “road” was nothing more than an oversized foot path and the driver of our vehicle was named “Snoop” and drove like someone who had made this drive so many times he could do it in his sleep, which is to say…way too fast!

Once at the top we found the company headquarters which used to belong to a 90 year old woman who lived alone until her children insisted that maybe she might be too old to make the trip into town every day. Now the place looked like a perfectly beautiful home that had been transformed into a crack house/hostel that doubled as a meth lab. All previous customers had been allowed to inscribe their names to every flat surface of the place for posterity with permanent markers which gave the place a certain post-apocalyptic look.

Jon was having none of it. He opted out of participation despite the presence of a six year old child in full harness. It would be just Patrick and me. If Jon lives to be 100, I will probably never let him forget it.

The aforementioned Snoop and his assistant…wait for it…Opie, started with a safety demonstration which included the wonderfully reassuring phrase, “We have an 82% survival rate!” It was unclear whether this statistic included the truck ride up and down the mountain, but that’s a quibble I suppose.

I had paid for a four line trip, since the seven line super package would have taken too long and I had plans to do other dangerous stuff on this day and couldn’t spend all afternoon with Snoop and Opie. Here are some pictures and a video of our adventure.

It was all great fun!