Remember the Unknowns

I have only been to one American cemetary-Luxembourg in 1976.  I had wanted to go to Normandy where my father went in facing hells fire on Omaha Beach in the first wave of D-Day.  But only if I could get him to come over to Germany and go with me.  For me it would have been a bonding of parent and son, and for him, a healing.  He and the hundreds of thousands of other GI's not only freed a continent, but through the American spirit, they also set Europe on a course to become a vibrant, and peaceful member of the community of man.  But he didn't want to come.  The memories born on that cold, foggy morning in June were too much for him to overcome, so neither of us went. 

Luxemburg American Cemetary is the final resting place of George S. Patton, a cross placed above his grave, no bigger, no grander than the over 5,000 grave stones that glisten in the sunlight, laid row on row, symbolizing the loss of just some of America's youth of the Depression.  It's a beautiful place until you realize that every one of those service members died in the most horrific way imaginable. 

Among those stones of white, I stumbled across one that said "Here rests in honored glory, a comrade in arms known but to God," He was an Unknown..One of 389 unknowns resting in eternal peace.  Their parents are long gone..Wives and girlfriends may give a fleeting thought if a flicker of a memory still remains..Fatherless daughters and fatherless sons.  I checked the Unknowns at several other American cemetaries in Europe and found 389 in Florence, Italy..Actually there are 390..Two bodies were entwined together and unidentifiable.  'The number I came up with was nearly a thousand Unknowns, just in those three cemetaries I knew of.  The saying "no man left behind" is a myth.  To date there are over 78,000 Missing in Action from WWII alone.  It's said that 35,000 of those are recoverable but most are not.  2005 service member are still Missing in Action from Vietnam.  Slowly some are being recovered.  Our relationship with Vietnam is fairly good since they discovered American clothing can be made cheaply there.  They are working with recovery teams to bring them home but it is a slow process and it's doubtful many more will be found,  It is the true legacy of war.

It's hard to say how many Unknowns there are total from all sides.  But even the families of our enemies need to know the fate of their loved ones.  The cost of war is unimaginable, as one soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who perishes at war sends ripples through the lives of those left behind.  Scars that will never heal.

We will never not have war.  The threats from others are multiplying and we will continue to lose future presidents, Nobel prize winners, or sons working their father's farm in Iowa.  Those of us who wore the uniform went in eyes wide open, knowing that we might have to give, as Abraham Lincoln put so perfectly, "The last full measure of devotion".  But with DNA testing, one thing we can be sure of, there will never be another Unknown lying on a battlefield in some foreign land.

Christmas '67

The one thing about the holiday season is the fact that it's the only time of the year where the past and the future meet and sometimes clash.  We base this holiday season on the memories of past ones and hope this one will be the best which it seldom is.  We all have that one magical Christmas to base our hopes and dreams on.  Mine was Christmas of '67 when there was snow, lots of it.  I went to my first Mass and being Methodist I wondered why my congregation couldn't have the beauty of the Mass, especially at midnight.  Then there was that girl who was that once in a lifetime.  And the visit with her friends on Christmas day, and the Christmas feast.  It was a simple Christmas because her parents were simple people, but people who were the finest, most honest I have ever known.  3 years later, I was without the girl, in a place I didn't want to be, thousands of miles from family, and growing more distant from friends.  That was the Christmas to be forgotten, and once you have one of those, the rest come with baggage.  You start seeing the distance between the meaning of the day and the cynicism and the commercialism.  In '67, we didn't have stores opening at 5 AM..or the new trend of staying open then rolling out "Black Friday" deals at 5AM that aren't really deals unless you're buying an really off brand HiDef TV.  You actually get better deals toward Christmas when stores unload excess inventory they bought for the holiday season.  But in '67, stores were open a little longer for the holidays but closed on Sunday.   We still considered it to be a day of rest.  But somehow we managed to shop for everybody.  The gifts were small by today's standard.  We still put more emphasis on the meaning of the season, not what diamonds or electronics would do to prove you were...To be honest, I don't know what that proves...I guess it just proves you can max out your credit card.  I always had a dilemna.  I always wanted things that had electricity going thru them and she knew nothing about electronics, and she wanted clothes and jewelry that looked expensive and weren't.  So for a few years I bought Jewelry that looked expensive and was, and she'd buy a stereo component from Sharper Image that looked cool but was crap.  So we started shopping together and she'd pick out her gift and I'd pick out mind, then wrap them up and put them under the tree til Christmas when we would unwrap them..sometime after Thanksgiving, but well before Christmas..So now, if we see something we like, we buy it then, Whether it's Memorial Day, Groundhog Day, etc.  .The long and short is, there are rarely gifts under our tree.  That didn't happen Christmas of '67.  There was snow then, the likes of which I'll never see again.  Love was more important that the gifts.  The Meaning was more important than the shopping.  Everybody has a Christmas of '67, just a different year.  My memories of that Christmas got me through a few others where I was far from home and had no Christmas Spirit whatsoever.  We've all had a few of those too.  Especially those of us who have spent time in uniform, in places where Christmas celebrations have to be low key due to religious sensitivities.  Hopefully those in harms way this year have a Christmas '67 of their own.

Memories of Mike

 

He can turn the tide

And calm the angry sea

He alone decides

who writes a symphony

He lights every star

That makes the darkness bright

He keeps watch all through

Each long and lonely night

From the song "He", the most beautiful lyrics on the grace and mercy of the Almighty 

 

     I can’t explain how sad I was when I heard that Mike Syrylo had passed away. A very religious man who was strong in his faith and convictions. He was part of my fondest memories for so long that I couldn’t forsee a day when he wasn’t of this earth. Immortality isn’t living forever, its staying in your memory until the last grain of sand in the hourglass of life falls, and you join them in the afterlife. Mike was one of those people. The people who have made a powerful impact on your life without even knowing it.
     This will be the hardest chapter I will write because it concerns somebody who was easily the greatest person I ever knew, I have known thousands, great and small, rich and poor..To most people, Mike Syrylo probably fell somewhere in the middle on both counts. I don’t know why, exactly, he was that important. It is probably as simple as him being the one constant in an ever changing world, or at least the piece of real estate that I called "my youth"..Small town America used to be a place to enjoy peace and serenity, a place where, for better or worse, everybody knew everybody and would look out for each other. That’s the place I come from, and while I lived there, I didn’t notice the erosion of that idealic Norman Rockwell America..More and more "city folk" were moving in and slowly changing that quiet and serene little town with a bunch of relatively well behaved teenagers cruising up and down main street, trying to catch the girl, and if you caught her, not knowing what to do with her..That was where I came from, and that’s where Mike lived all his life. He was the epitome of what was good with those times..When I left, it was to find fame and fortune. No regrets, never look back, turn my face to the wind, and search for my own identity..my own destiny, because there was no destiny to be found in that place I called home. It took over a quarter of a million air-miles and 13 years to come back to where the journey began. And in those few times that I would find myself back home for a few days, the changes in my "Small Town" became more and more apparent, and they weren’t for the better..But there was always Mike. He never changed. And he always welcomed me like the prodigal son. And many times he helped me overcome challenges I was having trouble facing alone..And he never even knew he was doing it.
     I always made it a point to stop by whenever I was between countries, because, although I loved facing the challenges that lay before me, the uncertainty of the changes was very real and very intimidating, to put it mildly. Unless you have picked up all your belongings and moved thousands of miles from home, to a new culture, a new world with exciting possiblities, it’s hard to explain. I had probably the best job Uncle Sam had to offer, but I had to work hard to prove I was worthy of one of those 3 airshifts everybody coveted..and I had about two weeks to do it. So I knew where I wanted to be..The trick was how to get there quickly.I always succeeded beyond my wildest dreams but the downtime at home was difficult at best..The worst was in the fall of 1974. I had taken a month to come home, meet old friends and get prepared for the next chapter in my life..except old friends were gone, and the town no longer had teenagers cruising up and down mainstreet..The feeling of belonging I had had just 5 years before was gone. I even went to "The Nutshell", a dive of a dance hall where I used to go when I was young and foolish.. I knew I no longer belonged when the bouncer and the owner came up to me while I was minding my own business and asked me if I was an undercover narc.
     But there was Mike. I made a pest out of myself, sad to say, because there was nobody left I could talk to. And that includes my own parents. My mother was usually in the hospital or drug rehab whenever I came home, and my father would toss me his car keys and I wouldn’t see him until the wee small hours, if I saw him at all. He was fighting his own demons. I wasn’t thrilled at driving around in a 72 Dodge Monaco, but my car was on the ocean somewhere. Not exactly a chickmobile, but then again, I wasn’t in a chick mood.
      I saw Mike rarely. Most of the time I was out of the country for 3 years at a time, and would stop in to say hello while passing through. I tried not to overstay my welcome. And I always wondered why I was treated so well, as I had forfetted the right to drop in unannounced. Mike would always run to the refrigerator to get a beer even before I had a chance to sit down, We’d talk and I’d go, and when my wanderlust brought me back home, whether it be 3 years or 5 years, in my eyes he never got older, and there was always that cold beer.
     When I finally realized I had done enough traveling and wanted to stay in one place for awhile, I moved back to the very area I had tried so hard to escape. The changes by that time were profound. Wherever I was on the air, I would often speak with pride of Scranton, a city with many good memories, and a city I believed in. When I returned for good, it was a depressed city that was on the verge of dying. It was in the middle of Jimmy Carter’s economic mess that Ronald Reagan was trying to clean up, and the resulting recession hit the area hard. The unemployment rate was staggering and people who had a house couldn’t afford to keep them, and people who wanted a house couldn’t afford to buy them. And I came home to that? I had given up a career where I was on the fast track for THIS. My father said it was the dumbest thing I had ever done and for a time I thought he may be right. Again a visit with Mike helped me focus on what avenue to take. Even though I was offered a cushy job with PennDot in Harrisburg, I was not somebody who would be happy sitting behind a desk writing press releases..That definately wasn’t me.
     When I moved back to the area, I was a total unknown. It took time but by the time all was said and done, I had one of the most recognizable voices in Northeast Pennsylvania radio, and that brought a lot of television freelance projects as well. And during those 20 years, I had many days where I just wasn’t in the groove, didn’t want to be there, felt like crap..the usual feelings you have with any job. The only problem was, tens of thousands of people would know you were having a crappy day. If you sit behind a desk and shuffle paper, nobody knows how you feel, much less care. But when the very survival of your employer depends on you being at your game at all times, that is a differant story. Your "customers" have many choices, and my having a bad day could have serious consequences for me and my employer. But I found a simple phrase that would get me out of my funk.."Mike and Helen may be listening". I knew that wasn’t true, but then again.. maybe…It worked wonders many, many times. And some of those times there was such a turnaround where I achieved something I had set as my goal, but seldom achieved..Perfection.
     When my daughter was born, I had to take her to meet him. I told him I wanted him to meet my new "girlfriend" and he had that "what did the cat drag home this time" look. I still remember he and Helen holding her and me hoping my rugrat wouldn’t dump a load in her Pampers. There were other times, equally memorable, where I was searching for direction at a crossroads where just sitting at the kitchen table made the decisons at hand more clear. As I said, I don’t know what it was, or how it came to be, but at times, Mike was my rudder in the storm, and for that I will be eternally grateful. My only hope is that my days on earth were good enough that I will find Mike, a kitchen table and a cold beer in the next life. To me, that would be the perfect definition of Heaven.
     I never told Mike on any of those occasions, why he had been such a strong influence in my life. And it was as simple as I just plain enjoyed his company. He was the father figure I never had. With Mike the weekend was a time for a loud, happy family get-togethers, as the memory of the work week fell by the wayside. Everybody converged on Mike’s house, and by the time Saturday or Sunday night rolled around, Mike and his brothers, though somewhat tipsy, (sometimes more than somewhat), would play some of the worst Polka music on the face of the planet. As a musician of sorts, I found Polkas broke every rule of writing and playing music. But they grew on you. I was invited to join in the "merry music making" for the lack of a better phrase, and early on I was given a stack of sheet music to learn. I took one look and brought it to school for my music teacher to look at. If I could hear how it was supposed to sound, I could probably play it, although badly..He took one look and said "I’ll get back to you on that"..He never did, the music was lost and a budding Polka musician’s career was over before it began.
     I hadn’t seen Mike or Helen for about 10 years, but I learned that Mike wasn’t feeling well. Something I can’t explain made me call. His number was one that I remembered so well that I didn’t need to look it up. That is quite odd as I have to stop and think to dial my own number. Helen answered and said Mike was in the hospital but she said he was doing O.K. Two weeks later I learned that he had passed away and the sadness I felt was numbing. I was glad I lived 700 miles away because I would have faced a dilemna. Should I go to the viewing and funeral and see him as he was now, or not go, and remember how he was then. I was seriously thinking of flying in for the funeral, but common sense prevailed and I chose the latter, but a part of me wishes I could have paid my final respects.
     As I said, this is the hardest chapter I will write, and it probably reads that way..When it comes to my memories of Mike Syrylo, it is very difficult to express what is in my heart, and that is--Mike was THE guiding influence in my life, and his place on this earth was far too small. Everybody should have known him..If they had, their world, like mine, would be a much better place. RIP dear friend.

10 Reasons I'm Running For President in 2012

1.  I want to spend $500 million plus to get a job that pays $400,000 a year.
2,  I want over half of America to despise me, not just the people I currently know.
3.  I want to go into the cockpit of Air Force One1 and tell the pilot I'll take over for awhile.
4.  I want to tell old girlfriends that if they stuck with me they'd be First Lady.
5.  I want to have a great cabinet..preferably in oak.
6.  I want to erase the national debt by printing LOTS of money,
7.  I want to be interviewed by Keith Olbermann and then hit him up for a campaign donation,
8.  I want to save the country money by trading the Presidential Cadillac in for a Kia Sportage.
9.  I want to be able to lie and have stupid people believe me.
10.  I want to practice my own golden rule..Do Unto Others....

Advertising Demographics

For years, the target demographcs for radio, television, and print advertising has been 25-54, skewing to the lower end of that target.  Hopefully, with millions of baby-boomers retiring (I'm one of them), that trend will change to a more realistic 45-62.  The reason is simple.  At the low end, you're coming close to the pinacle of your career both professionally and economically.  You have to replace your car every 2 years or model change, whichever comes first to keep up with your neighbors.  Same goes with houses and furnishings.  Then when you get close to 62 (or 65) you have that last fling, new cars, new furniture, replacing appliances, etc as a last hurrah before going on the government dole for Social Security.  A vast majority of those who retire at 62 will actually "earn more over their remaining lifetime from their Social Security than those who retire at 65.  Plus, your health is hopefully better at 62, and as you get older, good health is worth far more than money.  Of course, when you retire you don't need many of the things that you need during your working years. (daily lunches good and bad, a closet full of the latest fashions, no replacing the alarm clock)  In short, we old farts spend a ton of money as we approach retirement.  I guarantee I've spent more disposable income this year,(minus overpriced designer clothes for my better half which she wouldn't buy anyway unless she had a 30 percent off coupon from Kohl's and it was marked down for clearance) than any 3 25 year olds.  The bottom line is time can be your best friend or your worst enemy.  So Boomers, spend like crazy and then enjoy a healthy, rewarding retirement.