My Bracket

Yes. I filled out a bracket. Me and fifty million of my fellow Americans sat down for ten minutes and made 61 snap decisions based on nothing more than the unscientific urgings of instinct. This one cost me twenty bucks and is run by our office bookie, Bland Weaver. Three or four years ago, I won the thing. Most years I'm middle of the pack.

There once was a time when I followed college basketball. I would watch a dozen or so games during the regular season, and read up on the fortunes of my local teams (UR, UVA, VT and VCU). But, not so much anymore.

Ok, so let me explain my methodology. When you have actually watched not one single game in its entirety all season, and know virtually nothing about all but a handful of teams, how does one go about making picks? I always start with the 16-1 matchup and pick the number one seed, since an upset there has never happened. Then I look for all of the local teams and pick all of them except UVA. Why? Mostly because it is my firm belief that there exists nowhere in the universe a university as overrated as Mr. Jefferson's school. Besides, their coach, Tony Bennett is frankly entirely too handsome to be a basketball coach. It's just not right. Then I go on to the matchups where I have literally no information. Perfect example of this...Purdue vs. Vermont. Frankly, it would require at least three boilermakers to force me to watch this game. I picked Purdue because I had no idea that anyone in Vermont even played basketball. Or how about Oregon vs. Iona? Seriously? Iona? They named a college after my fourth grade teacher?

Here are a list of the major upsets that I picked:

UNC Wilmington over UVA
Florida Gulf Coast over Florida
Nevada over Iowa State
Rhode Island over Creighton

That's it. Four upsets. I guess I'm a front runner.

I did notice that this year's bracket sheet comes courtesy of Jiffy Lube, a perfectly legal business enterprise which happily attaches its name to what amounts to a criminal enterprise whereby businesses throughout the nation are transformed into illegal wagering parlors in clear violation of every gambling statute on the books. The cops would do something about this wanton law breaking, but they are all watching the games!

Worst. Job. Ever.

I stumbled across a story yesterday that I have never heard of happening, and immediately wondered how it could be possible for it to never have happened before. Ever get that feeling? Yeah, me neither. Until yesterday. What am I talking about? Well, I just may have uncovered the very worst job in America that nobody has ever heard of.

I read it in the Washington Post. Early in Monday's Senate session towards the end of Senator Mitch McConnell's opening remarks, it was revealed that the Senate stenographer had collapsed. The unidentified woman had just keeled over right there on the floor of the Senate not twenty feet from the man. Senator McConnell is said to have remarked, "Oh, my goodness." A brief recess was declared as the poor woman was revived and taken to the hospital for observation. The video from C-SPAN shows the woman slowly teetering to her right, then collapsing head first onto the Senatorial carpet accompanied by a loud thud. How can this possibly be the first time this has happened? I mean, what are the odds?

Imagine for a moment that your job is to preserve for posterity every word that proceeds from the mouths of 100 of the most pompous windbags in America. Think about that...every utterance from the likes of Mitch McConnell and Church Schumer, everytime one of them opens their pie holes, you have to be there, manning your front row seat, typing every word into a machine. You alone have to bear witness to the oratorical stylings of the first blonde-haired, blue-eyed Native American Senator, the self righteous musings of the wild-eyed Vermont Socialist, the nasal dronings of the curly haired windbag from Kentucky. Five days a week, eight hours a day you have to type out classic exchanges like this:

"If it pleases the chair, I would like to yield the floor and grant the remainder of my time to the distinguished gentleman from the great State of North Dakota."

"The gentlemen from North Dakota is recognized."

"I would like to thank the distinguished gentlemen from the great State of New Hampshire for yielding his time and will gladly yield back the floor for him to revise and extend his remarks shortly..."

You're damn right the poor woman collapsed!

We are constantly told about the thousands of jobs that Americans just won't do. We are told that some disagreeable work is beneath us. This is why we need cheap foreign labor. Well, I am here to tell you, the collapsed woman laying out cold, spread eagle in the well of the United States Senate should stand as a dramatic refutation of such nonsense. Here is a woman, an American woman, who stands for eight hours a day listening and recording the most inane, inconsequential men and women spout the most inane and inconsequential rhetoric known to be uttered anywhere in the civilized world. This is her job.

You think you got problems??

My Weirdness Cell

Every so often, I become detached from reality. Some of you are probably thinking, "Well, that explains a lot!" Luckily, these detachments don't last long, and require no therapy or chemical intercession to remedy. Eventually it goes away and all is back to normal. It has been this way for as long as I can remember. How to describe the sensation?

It's as if I separate from myself and float up to the ceiling, and watch my life being lived down below, trying to figure out which view is correct. Sounds more serious than it actually is. It's more like a short period of acute awareness of normally unseen or unnoticed things. Suddenly, it's as if each day to day thing that I never ordinarily notice becomes the singular focus of my attention. The squeaking door, the ticking clock, that troublesome tag hanging from the bottom of the recliner, the strange way that dead leaves gather in the narrow, bricked gap by the front steps. After several days of this hyper attentive focus, life blends back into clarity, as if nothing ever happened.

During these days, I always feel like writing, but I can never begin. Where to start? How to explain? Nothing can compete with it, this temporal, third person existence. It always eventually sends me scurrying for the great old writers. I dust off something by CS Lewis or GK Chesterton. It helps to read something deep and wise, the Proverbs, Shakespeare. Luckily for me and those who depend on me, these episodes are infrequent and of short, spasmodic duration and serve as nothing more than a fresh way to look at the world for a day or so. No harm, no foul.

I have often wondered what the trigger mechanism might be. Hearing a particular song? Eating Pam's incredibly delicious meatloaf? Or maybe there's a random weirdness cell flowing through my bloodstream that occasionally stalls on his route through my brain, and until he shakes free and flows through, my perception gets heightened. Whether or not such a thing is biologically possible is another story, of course, but it's as good an explanation as any at the moment.

Here's a great example of how it works. The other day I was driving in South Carolina and happened upon a freshly disked field covered by probably 500 seagulls. This field was at least 40 miles from the ocean, but there they all were busy pecking the muddy soil with their hooked beaks unaware how far they were from home. For the next hour I thought of nothing but their flapping wings and muddy talons. I couldn't shake the image of a field of seagulls until I was nearly at Fayetteville. You try thinking of nothing but seagulls for over an hour. It's not as easy as I make it sound!

Not to worry, this latest episode has passed and now another won't come for six months or so. I'm back to the relentless clarity of reality, the big picture firmly in front of me, all the minutia back where it belongs...in the background.

A Dead Thing

South Carolina highway 9 leaving Myrtle Beach is like withdrawing from something. It's a divided highway in every sense of the word. The cars and trucks loaded down with the accoutrements of vacation life flow into town with such eagerness and purpose, then limp out of town worn, spent, exhausted. After ten miles or so the vacation-kitschy shops and huts begin to thin out. Fewer t-shirt shops, vegetable stands and tacky gift huts.

Suddenly, I saw a dead thing. A golf course, abandoned, gone to seed. The white painted brick gate elegantly sloping away from the entrance in both directions like wings proclaiming with black letters...lack Bear, the giant cursive B probably stolen by college kids and adorning the wall behind the bar at a frat house somewhere. A memory comes to mind of playing a round here twenty years ago when it was new and bustling with cigar smoking men in loud pants. Now it was dead.

I wondered what could possibly have happened. It was so beautiful when it was new. It was pitched as a sure thing by some sharp man in an Armani suit around a conference room table. He spoke of the unique qualities of the design, the flawless team that had been assembled to oversee the project. The investors could hardly wait for him to finish so they could write their checks.

But now it looks like a moonscape, all browns and grays, tall billowy weeds of cat tails, ragweed mixed in with the purple traces of wild alfalfa. I saw a block of blue wood with an iron stake through it pointing at the tops of trees where once a tee box stood. Here there was a rusted ball washer. There a faded hole sign diagramming the contours of what used to be a finely trimmed fairway but now looked like a minefield.

I thought of a story my Dad told me about an obnoxious churchman who, admiring his neighbor's garden, commented, "what a fine garden the Lord has given you to tend..." The neighbor, hands gnarled and stained by toil replied, "think so? You should have seen this garden when the Lord had it by himself."

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. "There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death." The golfing market became saturated. Too many options available, too many competitors. The flawless team never saw it coming. Now, 18 fiberglass poles with colorful flags were slowly decomposing in a landfill, 18 holes and 18 cups scattered throughout the property serving no purpose now except as a home for weeds.

Eventually, someone will come along with an idea. A new Armani suit will stand at the head of a polished table speaking of unique things. But this time, the hint of death will hover in the room, mental images of this barren landscape will enter the minds of investors. It will be a harder sell.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

A Two Dog Story

This afternoon, I spent some time on the beach. The place was largely deserted except for maybe a dozen college kids about fifty yards up the beach. Although it was clear and warm, it was also very windy and the wind swept down the beach from where the kids were, amplifying their voices. I heard a couple of loud female squeals(am I allowed to say this?),  and the word Wiggles. I glanced up the beach to see what was going on and saw an older woman with a little dog on a leash. The two of them had drawn a crowd. After a while they went on their way, headed towards me. When they got close, "Wiggles" made a beeline for me...

This is truly a horrible picture, since Miss Wiggles was far more adorable than this photograph. She was stunning, with one blue eye and one brown one and couldn't get enough of me. Her owner, a woman in her mid 60's told me that Wiggles can always tell when she meets a dog lover. She told me she didn't even have to ask me if I had a dog, because Wiggles doesn't care for people who don't have dogs! Without prompting, she told me the story. Her husband of 40 years had recently passed away unexpectedly. She was beside herself with grief. A friend suggested that she get a dog. Wiggles was a rescue, two days away from being put down. She's had her for nearly a year now and can't imagine what she would have done had they not found each other. As I watched the two of them disappear into the distance, they stopped at every child, every adult who wanted to meet her, and nearly everyone did. I thought to myself...who rescued whom?

Then, I found this on the internet...

Meet Air Force Sergeant Kyle Smith and his dog Bodza. They served four tours of duty together until 2014 when Bodza retired from the military to become Kyle's real life dog. Recently, Bodza, a German Shepherd, had been diagnosed with a degenerative disorder from which there would be no recovery. It was then that Kyle had to make the toughest decision of his life. When he had Bodza put down, he was sure to find an American flag to properly honor this noble animal. It is difficult to look at this picture without feeling the full measure of sorrow and grief, of how very difficult it must have been to say goodbye to such a friend, loyal and true.

The next time Lucy wakes us up in the middle of the night shaking on the bed because, I don't know, because a leaf fell from a tree too loudly, I'll remember Wiggles and Bodza...and squeeze her back extra tight.

A Day Off

By some touch of cosmic grace, I have two clients who live within 10 minutes of each other in Pawley's Island, South Carolina. Because of this happy fact, I get to schedule their annual reviews on the same day in March every year. This allows me the chance to spend a day or so down here afterwards at my partner's condo in Cherry Grove.

This is my view this morning. Lovely.

In past years, I have brought Pam with me. This year that didn't work out, so it's just me here today. Yesterday was a very long and stress-filled one. My first appointment was in my office in Richmond at 8:00am. I left the office at 9:10 and drove the five hours to the condo, ate some lunch, then got back in the car for the 45 minute drive to Pawleys. By the time the third appointment of the day was complete, it was 7:00pm, and I had another 45 minute drive back to the condo. I stopped at a grocery store, bought a frozen pizza and heated it up for dinner. It's been a while since I conducted three annual reviews and drove 410 miles in the same day.

So, today is a recovery day. There is nothing on the schedule except an hour of paperwork which I completed before breakfast. I plan on playing a round of golf, then taking an afternoon nap on the beach. Honestly, I can't imagine a better day.

Tomorrow morning, I'll head back home for my side hustle as a chauffeur. My wife bought her two sisters, her Mom, her daughter and her niece tickets to the Cinderella play for Christmas. It's a remake of the great Rodgers and Hammerstein version that ran on television way back in the day. Pam was smitten by this production as a girl and when she discovered that it was coming to town, she opened up her checkbook and began counting the days!! Well, since it will be six of them going, I had the bright idea that I would hire a limo to pick them all up and drive them up to the theatre in style. But when they gave me a quote of $475, I let go with a highly charged sarcasm-drenched rejoinder which I would prefer not repeating here. Plan B will involve yours truly getting dressed up and driving them to the show and picking them up afterwards. Not exactly a pumpkin carriage, but hopefully it will do.

Imagine a Day Without Women?

Being a leftist is hard work. It is nearly impossible to keep up with the list of causes that are constantly throwing them en masse into the streets. To the Progressive, America must seem like a gigantic Petri dish crawling with malignancies, all of which need to be exercised from the body politic...right now! From Black Lives Matter to white privilege, from ageism to homophobia, clear through to transphobia, from the rape culture, to saving the planet from global warming, to the evils of the patriarchy, it is the job of the modern leftist to raise our awareness or die trying. God bless their passion and relentless energy.

I try to imagine what would ever inspire an old Libertarian like me to take to the streets, and come up empty. When your number one political objective is being left the hell alone, the last thing you want to do is bring unwanted attention to yourself. But, this is America, which means everyone is free to get out there and demonstrate.

Yesterday was the International Day of the Woman, whereby the rest of us were asked to try and imagine a day without women. The purpose of the day, as best I can determine was to bring awareness to gender inequality in the workplace and elsewhere. Women were encouraged to stay home from work. Those who work at home were encouraged to refrain from doing the thousand things they normally do on a daily basis to keep households running smoothly. The rest of us, (men), were supposed to learn some deep, profound lesson from all of this. Facebook was filled with empowering encouragement. The media was saturated with stories of the day's events both here and throughout the world. Unfortunately, the nations most in need of some feminist education...Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, et al, didn't participate in the day's activities, but...there's always next year.

Here's the thing. I can't even begin to imagine a world without women because such a place couldn't possibly exist. Well, maybe for about seventy years or so until all of the remaining men died off. What am I saying?? Without women, men would kill each other within five years, ten tops! But neither can I imagine a world without men. Such a concept is beyond my abilities. A world without both men and women is no world at all. Despite the 119 different genders that the sexual identity crowd have conjured up in their imaginations, everybody knows that there are only two with existential weight. Without any one of them, we are history. A world without women is a place that couldn't possibly exist and if it did, I would want no part of it.

I read somewhere that one of the issues behind the day was equal pay for equal work. In this, I am in complete accord with the organizers. How anyone could be against such a straight forward concept is beyond me. If my daughter, or my wife...or your daughter or wife applied for a job for which she was equally qualified, in a field in which she had equal experience, and proficiency, then she better damn sure be getting equally compensated with her male counterpart. Full stop. No excuses. Yet, time and time again we hear of organizations great and small which routinely pay women less than men....organizations like the Hillary Clinton campaign. It's complicated, I'm sure.

I was raised by a giant of a women, possessed of a brilliant mind, strong will and a highly refined sense of right and wrong, good and evil. I grew up with two older sisters who disabused me of any thoughts I might have nurtured about male superiority. My wife is my superior in almost every measurable human quality, equality being something to which I can only aspire. My daughter stands as a constant reminder to me of what the term professional excellence actually means. I have a family full of sharp, accomplished nieces who could mop the floor with most men I know. If it's true that equality starts at home, then I'm at least halfway there. But, I suppose it's the other half of me that insures the continued existence of things like...the International Day of the Woman