Like anybody who fancies themselves as a writer, a journalist, or blogger, I wanted to do my own commemoration to those who perished on the first day of the "War on Terror". It was only the second time there had been an act of war on the United States, and no, Pearl Harbor wasn't the first. Hawaii wasn't a state in 1941. The first was the War of 1812 when the British tried to take back what we took from them.
I originally wanted to do a "I wonder what it felt like" story starting with what it felt like to be looking out over New York Harbor with the Varrezano Bay Bridge slightly to the right, Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty straight ahead and a beautiful blue skied September morning. Then in the distance, a small blur getting bigger until the nose of a 767 was at eye level.
I also wondered what if felt like for those on the obliterated floors, hanging out the windows knowing they were trapped and had only two options: burn to death in the inferno or jump to their death. Most took the latter. Some believe that suicide is a mortal sin. In this case, I don't think it was. I believe God Understood.
I wondered, as well, how police and firemen found the courage to rush into buildings where survivors were rushing out. Between their oxygen equipment and their firefighting tools, each fireman was carrying 100 pounds on their backs and having to climb the stairs, floor by floor. Nobody knows how many lives were saved by their unselfish dedication to their mission, knowing this was an impossible task. Some policemen and firemen came in on their day off to help, and lost their lives. One of those members of the Transit Authority Police was George Howard. 9/11 was his day off. He lost his life in the collapse but his shield survived. His mother presented his shield to President Bush and he showed it proudly as he addressed the nation.
Some firefighters brought survivors down many flights of stairs to the lobby and safety, then turned around and went back to save more. A World Trade Center security guard stood over a man who was dying, and when offered the path to safety, he chose to stay and comfort the man and in turn, became one of the dying.
There were other stories of heroism and self sacrifice. Whatever people previously thought about New Yorkers and their not caring about anybody but themselves became a swell of compassion and unity. We were all New Yorkers on that dreadful morning.
The search for survivors began immediately after the building's collapse but there were few. But the grim task of recovering body parts had also just begun. A man was found still strapped to his airline seat. Every so often a horn would sound and work stopped and it became deathly silent as an ambulance would arrive to pick up a piece of a broken body. A priest was there to give last rites. Nobody cared if the victim was Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or atheist. The were handled with reverence and care.
I always loved Barbara Olsen. She was a conservative author and commentator who was young and feisty. Her husband, Ted, became Solicitor General in the Bush Administration and is arguably, one of the best legal minds in the country. She was on the flight that slammed into the Pentagon, full throttle, at 570 miles an hour. It was amazing that the explosion didn't do more damage than it did, but still, 125 men and women in the building and 59 on American flight 77 were gone in an instant. Many, injured themselves, went to the aid of others, some coming close to perishing themselves.
And lastly, Flight 93. The brave passengers who stormed the cockpit. It wasn't them who brought the flight down, it was the hijackers themselves. The plane rolled from side to side during the struggle, banking as much as 30 degrees left and right. Many in their seats got sick from the motion. Finally the hijackers pushed the yoke forward and put the plane into a steep dive that no pilot could recover from. The men who stormed the cockpit door knew if they succeeded, they would perish. They also knew they would perish if they didn't. But they saved the icon of our democracy..The Capitol Building.
Today and tomorrow we'll hear numerous stories of courage and fear, which are actually one and the same. Most heroes don't think about what they're doing..They just focus on what they need to do. Many of the stories we have heard before and forgotten. But we need to remember, not just for today, but every day of our lives, just how resilient we are as a people and as a society. We need to remember the thousands of fatherless daughters and motherless sons of 9/11, for they will carry on the legacy of their loss, and carry the mantle of Freedom..Because they know it's not FREE.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Fair Daze
It's that time of year that the folks in Wayne County wait for..The Wayne County Fair, now in it's 149th year. I can't think of anything on the planet that's continued, basically unchanged for 149 years. The fairgrounds are relatively small. You can go from end to end in about 20 minutes at a slow pace. It has the obligatory midway with rides, mostly for kids, and food ranging from good to ptomaine express. And there is the "real" reason for the fair, the livestock judging.
When I was a kid, the Fair was in the second week of September and on Wednesday, it was "School Day" when we all got a ticket for free admission. It was the highlight of the school year and a good promotion to get the parents to spend money and maybe try to win a teddy bear at one of the arcade games. It was also a time for them them to renew old acquaintances from the year before while the kids rode all the rides. It was a safe and innocent time.
As I got older, the rides became to small and too slow and my attention shifted to the entertainment. There was alway Joie Chitwoods Hell Drivers thrill show and Saturday night Stock Car Races on the quarter mile dirt track they built inside the horse track. The grandstands were always filled for both and the Chitwood show was always exciting as the dirt horse track lead to the cars not doing what the drivers intended them to and, as with the stock car races, the wrecks were the most exciting.
The live stage shows were another matter. Unknown singers, dancers, jugglers, tightrope walkers..And the highlight, year after year, Myron Floren and his "accor-deen"..One year I got a job as the barker at one of the "freak shows"..I think we had monkey boy and a bearded lady. And the pay was outstanding..$2.50 an hour..not bad when the minimum wage was $1.25. After my gig was done, the other kids my age would walk over to the back row and catch the naked ladies and their interesting use of kitchen utensils. The girlie shows were dropped in later years, leading to a plunge in fair attendance. (just kidding)
The fair director was my family doctor and friend, Doc Perkins. In late December of 1968, I had to visit him because I had the flu. He asked me who he should get for entertainment for the fair, as Myron Floren was wearing out his welcome. I suggested two names that would be pricey but fill the grandstand..Eddy Arnold and Bobby Vinton. Early in '69, he told me he got Vinton for $7,500 dollars, way over their budget but he agreed to do two shows.
The fair in '69 would wind up being my last for a number of years. The girl I had placed my future on was running late, and I was a bit..make that very aggitated and for the first time ever I raised my voice and made a jack-ass out of myself. After the show I raced home and literally kicked her out of the car as she didn't want to stay at the fair and I did. It wound up being our last time together except for a trip to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth pulled. At that time, my prospects weren't all that good and she was probably looking for a way out. In retrospect, I wish I'd been given another 6 months when I got my act together. But she moved on and I hope her life has been as fulfilling as mine. But that's another story for another time.
I went one more time to the fair around 1985..I went back to the old homestead to visit when the fair was going on. The prices were substantially higher, to be expected. When the date was changed from September to August, it was primarily to take advantage of the thousands of kids from New York City in the area summer camps. They had money to burn and not much else to spend it on. The rides were rickety. I did ride the very small ferris wheel and I half expected it to roll across the midway into the horse track. There were people in the livestock area, mostly kids who wouldn't know a cow from a goat. I didn't see anybody I knew, but then again, maybe I didn't look to hard. I wanted to show my wife where I spent part of my youth. We didn't stay too long. I had ghosts of fair's past dogging every footstep.
The fair is still the only game in town during the dog days of summer. It was always cooler and brighter in September. My memories are bittersweet but I'll never forget walking the midway, a beautiful girl on my arm, and the sounds of happy children, and the smell of cotton candy and candied apples. They are the memories of youth, only slightly dimmed by time.
When I was a kid, the Fair was in the second week of September and on Wednesday, it was "School Day" when we all got a ticket for free admission. It was the highlight of the school year and a good promotion to get the parents to spend money and maybe try to win a teddy bear at one of the arcade games. It was also a time for them them to renew old acquaintances from the year before while the kids rode all the rides. It was a safe and innocent time.
As I got older, the rides became to small and too slow and my attention shifted to the entertainment. There was alway Joie Chitwoods Hell Drivers thrill show and Saturday night Stock Car Races on the quarter mile dirt track they built inside the horse track. The grandstands were always filled for both and the Chitwood show was always exciting as the dirt horse track lead to the cars not doing what the drivers intended them to and, as with the stock car races, the wrecks were the most exciting.
The live stage shows were another matter. Unknown singers, dancers, jugglers, tightrope walkers..And the highlight, year after year, Myron Floren and his "accor-deen"..One year I got a job as the barker at one of the "freak shows"..I think we had monkey boy and a bearded lady. And the pay was outstanding..$2.50 an hour..not bad when the minimum wage was $1.25. After my gig was done, the other kids my age would walk over to the back row and catch the naked ladies and their interesting use of kitchen utensils. The girlie shows were dropped in later years, leading to a plunge in fair attendance. (just kidding)
The fair director was my family doctor and friend, Doc Perkins. In late December of 1968, I had to visit him because I had the flu. He asked me who he should get for entertainment for the fair, as Myron Floren was wearing out his welcome. I suggested two names that would be pricey but fill the grandstand..Eddy Arnold and Bobby Vinton. Early in '69, he told me he got Vinton for $7,500 dollars, way over their budget but he agreed to do two shows.
The fair in '69 would wind up being my last for a number of years. The girl I had placed my future on was running late, and I was a bit..make that very aggitated and for the first time ever I raised my voice and made a jack-ass out of myself. After the show I raced home and literally kicked her out of the car as she didn't want to stay at the fair and I did. It wound up being our last time together except for a trip to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth pulled. At that time, my prospects weren't all that good and she was probably looking for a way out. In retrospect, I wish I'd been given another 6 months when I got my act together. But she moved on and I hope her life has been as fulfilling as mine. But that's another story for another time.
I went one more time to the fair around 1985..I went back to the old homestead to visit when the fair was going on. The prices were substantially higher, to be expected. When the date was changed from September to August, it was primarily to take advantage of the thousands of kids from New York City in the area summer camps. They had money to burn and not much else to spend it on. The rides were rickety. I did ride the very small ferris wheel and I half expected it to roll across the midway into the horse track. There were people in the livestock area, mostly kids who wouldn't know a cow from a goat. I didn't see anybody I knew, but then again, maybe I didn't look to hard. I wanted to show my wife where I spent part of my youth. We didn't stay too long. I had ghosts of fair's past dogging every footstep.
The fair is still the only game in town during the dog days of summer. It was always cooler and brighter in September. My memories are bittersweet but I'll never forget walking the midway, a beautiful girl on my arm, and the sounds of happy children, and the smell of cotton candy and candied apples. They are the memories of youth, only slightly dimmed by time.
Monday, June 6, 2011
D-Day
When America went to bed at 11pm on the night of June 5, she had no idea that 140 thousand Allied troops, half British and half Americans, were on landing craft in the middle of the English Channel, ready to storm the beaches of Normandy and begin the slow move inland to the Rhine. Of the 5 beaches, Omaha Beach was the most difficult and those landing craft were nearly all Americans, proud and brave. My father was one of them.
It's impossible to say whether the craft where the famous picture of the ramp dropping and troops swarming onshore. There were hundreds doing the same thing at the same time. During those initial moments, many died by drowning because the water was too deep and because of a navigational error, the LST's and LCVP's landed on the wrong part of the beach. The rest fought just to make it too the beach where there was no cover. By the end of the day, nearly 2,500 lay dead in the surf, some being swept back out to sea with the high tide.
The beach was crowded and troops pinned down by fire from above as the second wave landed and caused even more chaos. Meanwhile, Naval bombardments from the channel had little effect. The bunkers on the cliffs were so well built, that the shells from the battle group's 15 inch guns would ricochet off them. Medics were overburdened by the dead and dying, let alone the injured. They were a prime target of German snipers. The fact that the invasion succeeded was almost a miracle. Eisenhower had written two speeches..one for victory and one for defeat.
My father was one of the lucky ones. He survived when so many fell. He refused to talk about the experience, only once in a great while did he gave a passing mention, but always about what somebody else did. That was apparently a common trait of those who walked into hell and emerged on the other side. They weren't unscathed. There was no PTSD..you would just continue to fight until you couldn't fight any more. His fighting temporarily ended shortly after the invasion, not by enemy action but by trenchfoot, caused by wearing waterlogged combat boots for a long period of time. He was evacuated to England, almost lost both feet, was declared ready for combat, and sent back to duty. As he was a tank commander, he was returned to duty just in time for the "Bulge", where he stepped out of his tank to take a leak and watched in horror as a German round hit the tank dead center.
The break-out from Normandy was slow. At midnight of D-Day, Allied troops held a beachhead that was only 5 miles wide and a mile and a half deep. 34,000 troops had landed, 3 of whom earned the Medal of Honor including Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who could have stayed off shore, but insisted on leading his men in the assault. His first 2 requests were denied and the third approved. He died running up and down the beach leading men to safety with few casualties.
By the end of July, 1 million 300 thousand men had secured the beachhead and moved inland at a cost of 120,000 casualties. The American Cemetary holds the sacred remains of over 9,300 war dead, most from the Normandy invasion and the war inland. The Wall of the Missing contains 1557 names. There are 307 Unknowns as well as 4 women, several fathers and sons, 33 brothers.
Whether Eisenhower was a great general is open to debate. There were many failures in both the mission and the intelligence. It was the gallantry of those first 34,000 men and the largest naval bombardment in history to secure the beach so more could follow. It was the French Resistance that knew how to blow things up and create mischief. It was the 82nd and 101st Airborne that, though scattered because of high winds, were able to regroup and attack German ground forces from behind.
I have two regrets. One was not being able to get my father to go with me to Omaha Beach. I didn't want to go alone, and ultimately I didn't go at all even though it was an 8 hour train ride. He carried the emotional scars and even in delirium in the final hours of his life, I swear he was reliving the horrors of that June morning over 40 years earlier. He still had combat dreams for all of his life.
The other regret was not getting 3 people I knew had been in Normandy to do an interview for the 40th anniversary. One was my father whom I knew better than to ask, Mike Syrylo who was a medic, and the other was a Medal of Honor recipient who was, as I remember, the administrator of the VA hospital. I wanted to do an hour on WARM to tell their story but I also wanted to let their memories rest in peace, so I never got it off the drawing board. Today I wish I had pursued it further.
We will never again, God willing, have to sacrifice so many lives for a small piece of beach anywhere in the world. So many gave so much for the greater good of mankind. Some might say the hand of God won the day, but if it was God, He would have given the Allies blue skies and calm seas. And the beach wouldn't have been red from the blood of thousands. They gave us the American Dream. They gave us that brighter tomorrow. Please don't let us squander it.
It's impossible to say whether the craft where the famous picture of the ramp dropping and troops swarming onshore. There were hundreds doing the same thing at the same time. During those initial moments, many died by drowning because the water was too deep and because of a navigational error, the LST's and LCVP's landed on the wrong part of the beach. The rest fought just to make it too the beach where there was no cover. By the end of the day, nearly 2,500 lay dead in the surf, some being swept back out to sea with the high tide.
The beach was crowded and troops pinned down by fire from above as the second wave landed and caused even more chaos. Meanwhile, Naval bombardments from the channel had little effect. The bunkers on the cliffs were so well built, that the shells from the battle group's 15 inch guns would ricochet off them. Medics were overburdened by the dead and dying, let alone the injured. They were a prime target of German snipers. The fact that the invasion succeeded was almost a miracle. Eisenhower had written two speeches..one for victory and one for defeat.
My father was one of the lucky ones. He survived when so many fell. He refused to talk about the experience, only once in a great while did he gave a passing mention, but always about what somebody else did. That was apparently a common trait of those who walked into hell and emerged on the other side. They weren't unscathed. There was no PTSD..you would just continue to fight until you couldn't fight any more. His fighting temporarily ended shortly after the invasion, not by enemy action but by trenchfoot, caused by wearing waterlogged combat boots for a long period of time. He was evacuated to England, almost lost both feet, was declared ready for combat, and sent back to duty. As he was a tank commander, he was returned to duty just in time for the "Bulge", where he stepped out of his tank to take a leak and watched in horror as a German round hit the tank dead center.
The break-out from Normandy was slow. At midnight of D-Day, Allied troops held a beachhead that was only 5 miles wide and a mile and a half deep. 34,000 troops had landed, 3 of whom earned the Medal of Honor including Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who could have stayed off shore, but insisted on leading his men in the assault. His first 2 requests were denied and the third approved. He died running up and down the beach leading men to safety with few casualties.
By the end of July, 1 million 300 thousand men had secured the beachhead and moved inland at a cost of 120,000 casualties. The American Cemetary holds the sacred remains of over 9,300 war dead, most from the Normandy invasion and the war inland. The Wall of the Missing contains 1557 names. There are 307 Unknowns as well as 4 women, several fathers and sons, 33 brothers.
Whether Eisenhower was a great general is open to debate. There were many failures in both the mission and the intelligence. It was the gallantry of those first 34,000 men and the largest naval bombardment in history to secure the beach so more could follow. It was the French Resistance that knew how to blow things up and create mischief. It was the 82nd and 101st Airborne that, though scattered because of high winds, were able to regroup and attack German ground forces from behind.
I have two regrets. One was not being able to get my father to go with me to Omaha Beach. I didn't want to go alone, and ultimately I didn't go at all even though it was an 8 hour train ride. He carried the emotional scars and even in delirium in the final hours of his life, I swear he was reliving the horrors of that June morning over 40 years earlier. He still had combat dreams for all of his life.
The other regret was not getting 3 people I knew had been in Normandy to do an interview for the 40th anniversary. One was my father whom I knew better than to ask, Mike Syrylo who was a medic, and the other was a Medal of Honor recipient who was, as I remember, the administrator of the VA hospital. I wanted to do an hour on WARM to tell their story but I also wanted to let their memories rest in peace, so I never got it off the drawing board. Today I wish I had pursued it further.
We will never again, God willing, have to sacrifice so many lives for a small piece of beach anywhere in the world. So many gave so much for the greater good of mankind. Some might say the hand of God won the day, but if it was God, He would have given the Allies blue skies and calm seas. And the beach wouldn't have been red from the blood of thousands. They gave us the American Dream. They gave us that brighter tomorrow. Please don't let us squander it.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Prom's and A Clouded Future.
The Prom season is almost over and it is the night that kids get to pretend they're adults and ready to take on the world. I know I was one of those..The most beautiful girl in the world on my arm, ready to hit the big time and make a name for myself, preferably as a singer..Radio was the second choice. Planning a future free of toil and strife..Of course there was, as Kenny Rogers called it, "That pesky Asian War". But we were naive. We relied on Walter Cronkite for 20 minutes each night (minus commercials) to tell us everything we needed to know about the world. 20 minutes wasn't enough to spend on unfunded liabilities, debt limits, and federal deficits. 20 minutes was barely enough to tell how many died that week in Southeast Asia or the show President Johnson picking up his beagle by it's ears. No, Prom was just a night that would be burned into your memories to be resurrected once in a while to remember a quieter and simpler time. Republicans and Democrats got along, more or less, we didn't question our elective process or hear of hanging chads. All that mattered was how to make those idiotic Roman columns for the gym. Our motto was "We Came, We Saw, We Conquered". About the only thing I conquered was the Pythagorean Theorem and don't ask me to explain it today. We went in my custom painted '61 Plymouth 4 door sedan which, while looking much better than she did when I bought her, wasn't exactly the stretch limo kids rent today. I washed it and then waxed the hell out of it.
We had some quiet rumblings about spiking the punch bowl, but thought better of it. Our corsages were a courtesy of our small town undertaker. They were magnificent and I don't think he made much, if anything off them. A 2 orchid corsage was 3 bucks, a single a buck and a half. It cost 15 bucks to rent the tux. I was lucky, a friend of the family actually owned one and he was my size. I forget the name of the band, something like the Sominex Sextet or something like that. We would have had our own school dance band but the whole trumpet section (myself included) and half the sax section were Seniors, so a band consisting of drums and 2 clarinets wouldn't have provided much romantic atmosphere. Nobody hired disk jockeys back then, at least not in small town America. They were those mystical people from far away places and God, I just had to become one of them. Should have become a door to door proctologist. Or a used car salesman. At least I wouldn't have had to choose between the microphone and working 8-5.
Nowadays, kids going to the Prom face a future of uncertainty. They already owe around 50,000 dollars toward the national debt, more or less depending on whose figures you use. Even more if you included State and Local debt. The "fun" jobs are going away. Hell, the kid who wanted to be an astronaut just saw his dream job go away. Can't even pay for a Shuttle ride anymore. "Green Jobs" and "I.T." jobs are apparently in abundance as are jobs at Walmart. But the jobs you can grow old with are swiftly fading away. As we make better mousetraps, we need fewer mice.
In the Bible, Jesus said "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth". Time to change that to "Blessed are the EDUCATED" America is so in need of young adults who are ready and eager to learn. In my neighborhood, most of the young adults are more interested in learning skateboard skills and how to make their pants defy the laws of gravity. Learning is so easy today...If the history teacher leaves out some important details on the Battle of Hastings, there's always the internet and the History channel to fill in the gaps. There's always a friend on one of the social networks to walk you through a Math problem. Wood shop..get rid of it. You can learn to cut off your thumb on your own.
America is at a crossroads. Continue on as we are and go down faster than the Roman Empire, or make the changes that need to be made and upset everybody who has a hand out, and in one way or another, that's all of us. Makes you want to go back to the days of blue Prom dresses and '61 Plymouths.
We had some quiet rumblings about spiking the punch bowl, but thought better of it. Our corsages were a courtesy of our small town undertaker. They were magnificent and I don't think he made much, if anything off them. A 2 orchid corsage was 3 bucks, a single a buck and a half. It cost 15 bucks to rent the tux. I was lucky, a friend of the family actually owned one and he was my size. I forget the name of the band, something like the Sominex Sextet or something like that. We would have had our own school dance band but the whole trumpet section (myself included) and half the sax section were Seniors, so a band consisting of drums and 2 clarinets wouldn't have provided much romantic atmosphere. Nobody hired disk jockeys back then, at least not in small town America. They were those mystical people from far away places and God, I just had to become one of them. Should have become a door to door proctologist. Or a used car salesman. At least I wouldn't have had to choose between the microphone and working 8-5.
Nowadays, kids going to the Prom face a future of uncertainty. They already owe around 50,000 dollars toward the national debt, more or less depending on whose figures you use. Even more if you included State and Local debt. The "fun" jobs are going away. Hell, the kid who wanted to be an astronaut just saw his dream job go away. Can't even pay for a Shuttle ride anymore. "Green Jobs" and "I.T." jobs are apparently in abundance as are jobs at Walmart. But the jobs you can grow old with are swiftly fading away. As we make better mousetraps, we need fewer mice.
In the Bible, Jesus said "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth". Time to change that to "Blessed are the EDUCATED" America is so in need of young adults who are ready and eager to learn. In my neighborhood, most of the young adults are more interested in learning skateboard skills and how to make their pants defy the laws of gravity. Learning is so easy today...If the history teacher leaves out some important details on the Battle of Hastings, there's always the internet and the History channel to fill in the gaps. There's always a friend on one of the social networks to walk you through a Math problem. Wood shop..get rid of it. You can learn to cut off your thumb on your own.
America is at a crossroads. Continue on as we are and go down faster than the Roman Empire, or make the changes that need to be made and upset everybody who has a hand out, and in one way or another, that's all of us. Makes you want to go back to the days of blue Prom dresses and '61 Plymouths.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
God Bless The USA
I spent more time in uniform than most, 11 mostly good years, and I never saw it as a sacrifice or myself as a hero. The heroes are in cemeteries and VA hospitals across the land. To just call somebody in uniform a hero cheapens those who really did make a sacrifice, some of them ultimate. On Memorial Day we sometimes lose track of just what the day really means. I must have gotten a thousand advertising flyers for Memorial Day sales. Most of those are emblazoned by the red, white, and blue and offer me Hi-Def TV's, refrigerators, tires, and even vittles. There are festivals galore. In my own backyard we have "Freedom Aloft" weekend which is a gathering of dozens of hot air balloons which usually brings them over my house. In years past, some have even crash landed on people's houses. There are kiddie rides and lot's of food I'm not allowed to eat anymore..But will anyway. I doubt many will think about what used to be a solemn day when fresh flags were placed on the graves of Veterans from all our wars and conflicts.
We still have too many soldiers and Marines in combat in places where we really aren't liked much. And the lessons of Viet-nam have been lost in our fervor to impose democracy on countries that don't know the meaning of the word. In the beginning, we didn't know what it meant either. It was the dream of some very forward thinking men of an experiment where we, the people, would have liberty, a word that had never been used before to define a country of diverse and sometimes radical views. To be sure, the Constitution itself was a compromise to bring 13 states under one umbrella. The Articles of Confederation had failed, and it looked like the nation itself would fail. That view of failure led the British to try to take back her territories in the War of 1812, but by then, the Constitution had 23 years to take hold, and we were able to retain our liberty, although just barely.
Since then, dozens of wars, some frivolous, some out of necessity, made us the most feared of all the world's powers. The British Empire declined, the Spanish Armada was gone, Nazi Germany rose and fell, Communism took hold, only to fall under it's won weight. Suddenly, we were the only ones left to maintain world peace. NATO has always been a paper tiger. If not for our billions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops, NATO would be nothing but a bunch of politicians arguing why they COULDN'T go to war.
Now we are involved in 3 theaters of operation. Iraq is drawing down but still is a fragile democracy in it's infancy. The big question is will she stand on her own once we have pulled out with only a few advisors left. Afghanistan is the big question. Will our leaving, as promised, open the door to the Taliban to return? My guess is yes, and those who have died on the battlefield will have died in vain. And the "Non War" in Libya actually see a change in government to a true democracy, or will radicals swoop in to fill the void if and when Quadafi leaves. You cannot impose democracy. It has to be earned, and without courage, will fail.
So as we buy a new Hi-Def TV, or refrigerator, or tires..And watch the dozens of hot air balloons fill the sky, remember those who serve far from home, and hope no more flags will be placed on the final resting place where they, as Abraham Lincoln so succinctly put it, "Gave the last full measure of love and devotion". And God Bless America and those who walk in the shoes where so many of us walked before.
We still have too many soldiers and Marines in combat in places where we really aren't liked much. And the lessons of Viet-nam have been lost in our fervor to impose democracy on countries that don't know the meaning of the word. In the beginning, we didn't know what it meant either. It was the dream of some very forward thinking men of an experiment where we, the people, would have liberty, a word that had never been used before to define a country of diverse and sometimes radical views. To be sure, the Constitution itself was a compromise to bring 13 states under one umbrella. The Articles of Confederation had failed, and it looked like the nation itself would fail. That view of failure led the British to try to take back her territories in the War of 1812, but by then, the Constitution had 23 years to take hold, and we were able to retain our liberty, although just barely.
Since then, dozens of wars, some frivolous, some out of necessity, made us the most feared of all the world's powers. The British Empire declined, the Spanish Armada was gone, Nazi Germany rose and fell, Communism took hold, only to fall under it's won weight. Suddenly, we were the only ones left to maintain world peace. NATO has always been a paper tiger. If not for our billions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops, NATO would be nothing but a bunch of politicians arguing why they COULDN'T go to war.
Now we are involved in 3 theaters of operation. Iraq is drawing down but still is a fragile democracy in it's infancy. The big question is will she stand on her own once we have pulled out with only a few advisors left. Afghanistan is the big question. Will our leaving, as promised, open the door to the Taliban to return? My guess is yes, and those who have died on the battlefield will have died in vain. And the "Non War" in Libya actually see a change in government to a true democracy, or will radicals swoop in to fill the void if and when Quadafi leaves. You cannot impose democracy. It has to be earned, and without courage, will fail.
So as we buy a new Hi-Def TV, or refrigerator, or tires..And watch the dozens of hot air balloons fill the sky, remember those who serve far from home, and hope no more flags will be placed on the final resting place where they, as Abraham Lincoln so succinctly put it, "Gave the last full measure of love and devotion". And God Bless America and those who walk in the shoes where so many of us walked before.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
1967 And Harmon Killibrew.
Another link to my youth passed away, something that is happening more and more frequently these days. Harmon Killibrew was "only" 74. In 1967, I got to see him play several times. He was all that was good about the late '60's, even as the country was torn apart by an unpopular war that was claiming far too many lives. Baseball was our diversion. We escaped with the pitching of Tom Seaver and Sandy Koufax who retired before I had a chance to see him pitch. And there were the home run kings..Reggie Jackson made his debut in June of 1967 and in 118 at bats his rookie year he hit..1 home run..Harmon Killebrew was at his peak in 1967. He played every game and hit 44 home runs, 113 RBI's and walked 131 times. He was as good as they get..And he played for Minnesota.. In his 22 years in major league baseball, his total career earnings were less than 2 million dollars..a lot less..He only had 4 seasons where he earned over 100,000 thousand dollars and in 1960, his salary was $20,000. Today he'd be in the 20 million a year range..Maybe more.
1967 was my year of hopes and dreams. There were proms and the pressure of finals and graduation. And after graduation on a Friday night, I had 2 days downtime before heading to New York matriculate on the science of broadcasting and to find fame and fortune as a "big time, sensuous rock and roll disk jockey". There were dreams of a white picket fence and a beautiful wife and daughter welcoming me home after a hard day slaving over a hot microphone. Fancy and expensive cars, cool sharkskin suits..(Maybe my future would have been better served in the Mafia with the suits.) I made them all happen, just not as expected. Actually the sharkskin suit's were the first to go, replaced by leisure suits and apache scarves.
But 1967 was the perfect year and the one I use to judge just where I am as a person and where we are as a society. And that's where Harmon Killebrew comes in. I had a whopping budget of $60 a week to pay for our dorm at the Prince George Hotel on East 27th which was 24 bucks a week, $13.50 to buy a round trip ticket to Waymart, Pa on Friday Afternoon , a few bucks to wine and dine while there, and the rest to eat..or go to a Yankees or Mets game..sometimes 2 or 3 if I didn't eat much. General admission at the time was a buck and a half and the subway was still 15 cents so it was a cheap 3 hours of thrills. And the night I spent in the WPIX broadcast booth with Joe Garagiola and Phil Rizutto, knocking off a few White Owl cigars was a freebie so that week I could take in an extra game. Over the course of the summer, it was the subway to Shea to see either Seaver and Koosman or to the house that Ruth built to see the Yankees and Mantle and Ford, both of whom were in the twilight of their careers as the Yankees had a dismal .444 winning percentage. The Mets were worse with a .333 winning percentage. Tom Seaver won 16 of the Mets 61 wins. But win or lose, baseball was fun and a cheap escape.
1967 was also the year we didn't care about the deficit or the national debt. Few of us even knew they existed. The government left us alone, more or less, except at tax time. Cars didn't have electronics that made driving so easy that we became bad drivers. Gas was 35 cents a gallon or less which is why I learned it was cheaper for me to drive back and forth from New York to Waymart than to take the bus. Plus I had an extra 10 bucks in my pocket which meant I could have a couple more hot dogs for dinner during the week.
So while most of us had forgotten Harmon Killebrew since he retired, he was part of what was right and good in America in 1967. Even the Viet-Nam War was considered just and good. We cared for the welfare of our neighbors and we believed that we were our brother's keeper, not the government. I knew few people who owned new cars, and those that did kept them for a very long time.
Killebrew would probably been a farmer in Iowa being known only to those in his community. But he did have the ability to hit a baseball over 500 feet and to be a role model for thousands of other kids who wanted to hit a baseball over 500 feet. Without steroids or corked bats. Just a natural talent and a love for the game. That's what baseball and life were all about in 1967
1967 was my year of hopes and dreams. There were proms and the pressure of finals and graduation. And after graduation on a Friday night, I had 2 days downtime before heading to New York matriculate on the science of broadcasting and to find fame and fortune as a "big time, sensuous rock and roll disk jockey". There were dreams of a white picket fence and a beautiful wife and daughter welcoming me home after a hard day slaving over a hot microphone. Fancy and expensive cars, cool sharkskin suits..(Maybe my future would have been better served in the Mafia with the suits.) I made them all happen, just not as expected. Actually the sharkskin suit's were the first to go, replaced by leisure suits and apache scarves.
But 1967 was the perfect year and the one I use to judge just where I am as a person and where we are as a society. And that's where Harmon Killebrew comes in. I had a whopping budget of $60 a week to pay for our dorm at the Prince George Hotel on East 27th which was 24 bucks a week, $13.50 to buy a round trip ticket to Waymart, Pa on Friday Afternoon , a few bucks to wine and dine while there, and the rest to eat..or go to a Yankees or Mets game..sometimes 2 or 3 if I didn't eat much. General admission at the time was a buck and a half and the subway was still 15 cents so it was a cheap 3 hours of thrills. And the night I spent in the WPIX broadcast booth with Joe Garagiola and Phil Rizutto, knocking off a few White Owl cigars was a freebie so that week I could take in an extra game. Over the course of the summer, it was the subway to Shea to see either Seaver and Koosman or to the house that Ruth built to see the Yankees and Mantle and Ford, both of whom were in the twilight of their careers as the Yankees had a dismal .444 winning percentage. The Mets were worse with a .333 winning percentage. Tom Seaver won 16 of the Mets 61 wins. But win or lose, baseball was fun and a cheap escape.
1967 was also the year we didn't care about the deficit or the national debt. Few of us even knew they existed. The government left us alone, more or less, except at tax time. Cars didn't have electronics that made driving so easy that we became bad drivers. Gas was 35 cents a gallon or less which is why I learned it was cheaper for me to drive back and forth from New York to Waymart than to take the bus. Plus I had an extra 10 bucks in my pocket which meant I could have a couple more hot dogs for dinner during the week.
So while most of us had forgotten Harmon Killebrew since he retired, he was part of what was right and good in America in 1967. Even the Viet-Nam War was considered just and good. We cared for the welfare of our neighbors and we believed that we were our brother's keeper, not the government. I knew few people who owned new cars, and those that did kept them for a very long time.
Killebrew would probably been a farmer in Iowa being known only to those in his community. But he did have the ability to hit a baseball over 500 feet and to be a role model for thousands of other kids who wanted to hit a baseball over 500 feet. Without steroids or corked bats. Just a natural talent and a love for the game. That's what baseball and life were all about in 1967
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The Aftermath
I had very mixed emotions about President Obama on the ground in Alabama after the rage and fury of Mother Nature. What part was compassion and what part was a campaign photo-op. I'm sure he remembered the flack about George Bush doing the fly-over after Katrina and didn't want to fall into that trap, but the fact is, whenever a president is on the ground during a natural disaster, precious resources needed for search and rescue are pulled from their job to provide security for the "visit". That's why Bush did the fly-over. And that's the only way to get the full picture of the devastation.
I know tornado's quite well having lived 2 years in Lawton, Oklahoma which is in the heart of Tornado Alley, although it appears the storms are forming farther east so Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas aren't affected as much as they once were. During the spring and summer of '73, we averaged a tornado watch every day, and a tornado warning a week. There was no Doppler radar at that time. The best we could hope for was that normal citizens would report funnel clouds, or the National Weather Service at Will Rogers in Oklahoma City would see a "suspicious" cloud formation on their normal weather radar. We also had what are now called "stormchasers".
Besides my normal 8-5 at Fort Sill, I was also the night jock at the local FM station and an auxiliary Cameron County deputy sheriff. In Oklahoma, the county sheriff's were law enforcement and was in charge of what used to be called Civil Defense. I became a deputy when our program director came in one night in uniform and when I asked, he told me about the program. First and foremost, they preferred military and ex military because there wasn't a need for extensive background checks and we were already weapons qualified. So I applied and was accepted. It gave us the edge on news gathering and also provided a service to the community which looked good when we re-applied for our station's license.
It was a paid position, and we had to go on patrol once a week, I usually took the Friday midnight to 8am Saturday shift with my PD, and, when severe weather hit. Tornadoes usually travel southwest to northeast, so we would send cars out to the southwest part of the county and inward toward town and sit and wait. We'd watch the sky through lightning looking for funnel clouds and listen for the roar. It's very scary sitting in a squad car in rain so heavy you can't see the end of the car, with winds over 50 miles an hour. One night we had 160 funnel clouds (clouds with rotation) go over the city. Luckily, none of them came to ground. But one did in a neighboring county. I forget the name of the town but it roared up main street where there was a an assisted living home that was flattened. At first they thought there would be massive casualties, but luckily there were none. Relatives had taken the residents out without telling anybody.
Another night there was a supercell that went just north of town and according to the National Weather Service, it topped out at 55,000 feet. The sheet lightning within the cloud lasted as much as 30 seconds and was bright enough to read by. It also did strange things to radio waves. I listened to an FM station in Detroit that came in clearer than our own.
On the western side of town there was a mountain that stood alone on the plain called Mt. Scott. It was a National Wildlife Preserve where buffalo had the right of way. If a buffalo was crossing the road, you had to stop. There was also an old Native American saying that Lawton would be spared of tornadoes. But while I was in Italy, a news story crossed the wire that a tornado had hit Lawton and 5 people died.
Tornadoes are unpredictable as well. A friend of mine was General Manager of the television station outside of town and one day they were preparing for the 6pm news and one of the cameramen saw a funnel cloud so he opened the back door of the studio and wheeled the camera over and began shooting. As everybody gathered to watch, they realized it was heading for the building. Everybody went for cover, when the twister sucked the water out of a small pond nearby and jumped the building and continued for another mile where it destroyed some mobile homes.
Now, when there's a tornado warning, I don't fear, I respect. The best thing you can do is plan where you will go should there be a warning in your area. Basements are best, a first floor bathroom if it's not against an interior wall, even a church or other substantial building. The odds are very slim that you'll ever see one on the ground. The last round was an anomaly, and has nothing to do with global warming, it just has to do with mother nature's normal weather cycle. Just like the number of Hurricanes have an ebb and flow year over year, so to do super-cells. Just be alert and be safe.
I know tornado's quite well having lived 2 years in Lawton, Oklahoma which is in the heart of Tornado Alley, although it appears the storms are forming farther east so Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas aren't affected as much as they once were. During the spring and summer of '73, we averaged a tornado watch every day, and a tornado warning a week. There was no Doppler radar at that time. The best we could hope for was that normal citizens would report funnel clouds, or the National Weather Service at Will Rogers in Oklahoma City would see a "suspicious" cloud formation on their normal weather radar. We also had what are now called "stormchasers".
Besides my normal 8-5 at Fort Sill, I was also the night jock at the local FM station and an auxiliary Cameron County deputy sheriff. In Oklahoma, the county sheriff's were law enforcement and was in charge of what used to be called Civil Defense. I became a deputy when our program director came in one night in uniform and when I asked, he told me about the program. First and foremost, they preferred military and ex military because there wasn't a need for extensive background checks and we were already weapons qualified. So I applied and was accepted. It gave us the edge on news gathering and also provided a service to the community which looked good when we re-applied for our station's license.
It was a paid position, and we had to go on patrol once a week, I usually took the Friday midnight to 8am Saturday shift with my PD, and, when severe weather hit. Tornadoes usually travel southwest to northeast, so we would send cars out to the southwest part of the county and inward toward town and sit and wait. We'd watch the sky through lightning looking for funnel clouds and listen for the roar. It's very scary sitting in a squad car in rain so heavy you can't see the end of the car, with winds over 50 miles an hour. One night we had 160 funnel clouds (clouds with rotation) go over the city. Luckily, none of them came to ground. But one did in a neighboring county. I forget the name of the town but it roared up main street where there was a an assisted living home that was flattened. At first they thought there would be massive casualties, but luckily there were none. Relatives had taken the residents out without telling anybody.
Another night there was a supercell that went just north of town and according to the National Weather Service, it topped out at 55,000 feet. The sheet lightning within the cloud lasted as much as 30 seconds and was bright enough to read by. It also did strange things to radio waves. I listened to an FM station in Detroit that came in clearer than our own.
On the western side of town there was a mountain that stood alone on the plain called Mt. Scott. It was a National Wildlife Preserve where buffalo had the right of way. If a buffalo was crossing the road, you had to stop. There was also an old Native American saying that Lawton would be spared of tornadoes. But while I was in Italy, a news story crossed the wire that a tornado had hit Lawton and 5 people died.
Tornadoes are unpredictable as well. A friend of mine was General Manager of the television station outside of town and one day they were preparing for the 6pm news and one of the cameramen saw a funnel cloud so he opened the back door of the studio and wheeled the camera over and began shooting. As everybody gathered to watch, they realized it was heading for the building. Everybody went for cover, when the twister sucked the water out of a small pond nearby and jumped the building and continued for another mile where it destroyed some mobile homes.
Now, when there's a tornado warning, I don't fear, I respect. The best thing you can do is plan where you will go should there be a warning in your area. Basements are best, a first floor bathroom if it's not against an interior wall, even a church or other substantial building. The odds are very slim that you'll ever see one on the ground. The last round was an anomaly, and has nothing to do with global warming, it just has to do with mother nature's normal weather cycle. Just like the number of Hurricanes have an ebb and flow year over year, so to do super-cells. Just be alert and be safe.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
The 800 pound gorilla
58 TRILLION!!! That's a number we should all worry about. Now that everybody, especially the military, is happy that the government is funded until October 1st, there are 3 other numbers that should be addressed. The new budget, the debt ceiling, and the third, which is the most serious, yet never passed on to American taxpayers. It's called unfunded liabilities, and that's the 58 TRILLION dollars.
Unfunded liabilities are those things that are mandated but money never set aside or money that the government had but spent on something else..like making the deficit look better than what it was. That's how Bill Clinton balanced the budget. Things like Social Security, Military retirement, and a host of other "off the books" expenditures.
With just the debt that is on the books, every taxpayer is on the hook to the tune of 181 THOUSAND dollars, the current deficit around 35. So a child born this minute already inherits it's share. It's not a Devious Democrat or Rotten Republican mess, it's our mess.
Most of the people who gave us debt upon debt aren't bad people, they're just ignorant people. Most are lawyers, a few are doctors, engineers, and even retired military. Very few, if any, are accountants. And the layer upon layer of bureaucracy and duplicate programs would make any number cruncher beg for a padded cell.
For decades we have kicked the can down the road, as the news media says to the point where a primal scream would make me feel good. Anytime somebody tries to tackle the problem, it gets skewered, cooked, and devoured before anybody even sees it, much like Nancy Pelosi tirade against Paul Ryan's budget even before he released it to anybody.
I remember debt commissions and Social Security commissions as far back as the 70's, probably before. Commissions aren't cheap. They cost millions of taxpayer dollars for participants and staff plus travel costs and any other expenditure that comes down the road. But their reports are seldom adopted, even in part, because there is just too much reality contained in the pages of the final report. I loved Alan Simpson when he was the straight talking senior Senator from Wyoming who could insult you to your very core and make you feel good about it. I was never a fan of Erskine Bowles which maybe has something to do with all the closed door, top secret meetings on Hillarycare. I thought he was as somebody who was a bit too intellectual,, a bit too radical and much to idealistic. But somehow, the very conservative Republican and the ultra liberal Democrat came up with a do-or-die plan to reign in the debt..and it was dismissed out of hand by the very President who called for the debt commission in the first place. Much of Paul Ryan's budget draws upon the debt commission's recommendations.
I never begrudged the ultra rich..the Bill Gates, Warren Buffets, and, yes, even Donald Trump, their wealth. Many charities wouldn't survive if not for the generous and mostly quiet donations they, and others like them make. True, there's a tax aspect but most don't do it for that. But the rich are vilified for not paying their fair share which is very unfair. If we confiscated every dime every millionaire has, it wouldn't even cover this years deficit..far from it. And, of course, if they didn't have any money, they would have to let all their employees go.. Whatever happens in the next 6 months will be messy. To be somewhat stabilizing, the debt ceiling has to be raised at least 4 trillion dollars at the current spending rate, and somehow we have to do a budget that, among other things, cuts the corporate loopholes that let GE make a total of 14 billion in profit and pay nothing in taxes, and still get a rebate from Uncle Sam. To be fair, Verizon, AT&T, and many other Fortune 500 companies legally evaded paying federal taxes. If nothing else, a minimum alternative tax is definitely warranted.
We don't need to go back to the fall of the Greek and Roman Empires, or even the shrinking of the British and French Empires to see what happens when a government collapses under it's own weight. We need only to go back to the fall of the Soviet Union, the do all and be all of it's citizens. They didn't let Eastern Europe free because they were nice. They did it because they couldn't afford it. And it only took 6 months to implode. We're on the same path.
Something has to happen and happen fast, otherwise we'll be just a footnote in the history of great civilizations. The changes that need to be made will not make anyone happy, but they are changes that must be made. In short, the federal government needs to only provide what is included in the Constitution. Nothing more, nothing less.
Unfunded liabilities are those things that are mandated but money never set aside or money that the government had but spent on something else..like making the deficit look better than what it was. That's how Bill Clinton balanced the budget. Things like Social Security, Military retirement, and a host of other "off the books" expenditures.
With just the debt that is on the books, every taxpayer is on the hook to the tune of 181 THOUSAND dollars, the current deficit around 35. So a child born this minute already inherits it's share. It's not a Devious Democrat or Rotten Republican mess, it's our mess.
Most of the people who gave us debt upon debt aren't bad people, they're just ignorant people. Most are lawyers, a few are doctors, engineers, and even retired military. Very few, if any, are accountants. And the layer upon layer of bureaucracy and duplicate programs would make any number cruncher beg for a padded cell.
For decades we have kicked the can down the road, as the news media says to the point where a primal scream would make me feel good. Anytime somebody tries to tackle the problem, it gets skewered, cooked, and devoured before anybody even sees it, much like Nancy Pelosi tirade against Paul Ryan's budget even before he released it to anybody.
I remember debt commissions and Social Security commissions as far back as the 70's, probably before. Commissions aren't cheap. They cost millions of taxpayer dollars for participants and staff plus travel costs and any other expenditure that comes down the road. But their reports are seldom adopted, even in part, because there is just too much reality contained in the pages of the final report. I loved Alan Simpson when he was the straight talking senior Senator from Wyoming who could insult you to your very core and make you feel good about it. I was never a fan of Erskine Bowles which maybe has something to do with all the closed door, top secret meetings on Hillarycare. I thought he was as somebody who was a bit too intellectual,, a bit too radical and much to idealistic. But somehow, the very conservative Republican and the ultra liberal Democrat came up with a do-or-die plan to reign in the debt..and it was dismissed out of hand by the very President who called for the debt commission in the first place. Much of Paul Ryan's budget draws upon the debt commission's recommendations.
I never begrudged the ultra rich..the Bill Gates, Warren Buffets, and, yes, even Donald Trump, their wealth. Many charities wouldn't survive if not for the generous and mostly quiet donations they, and others like them make. True, there's a tax aspect but most don't do it for that. But the rich are vilified for not paying their fair share which is very unfair. If we confiscated every dime every millionaire has, it wouldn't even cover this years deficit..far from it. And, of course, if they didn't have any money, they would have to let all their employees go.. Whatever happens in the next 6 months will be messy. To be somewhat stabilizing, the debt ceiling has to be raised at least 4 trillion dollars at the current spending rate, and somehow we have to do a budget that, among other things, cuts the corporate loopholes that let GE make a total of 14 billion in profit and pay nothing in taxes, and still get a rebate from Uncle Sam. To be fair, Verizon, AT&T, and many other Fortune 500 companies legally evaded paying federal taxes. If nothing else, a minimum alternative tax is definitely warranted.
We don't need to go back to the fall of the Greek and Roman Empires, or even the shrinking of the British and French Empires to see what happens when a government collapses under it's own weight. We need only to go back to the fall of the Soviet Union, the do all and be all of it's citizens. They didn't let Eastern Europe free because they were nice. They did it because they couldn't afford it. And it only took 6 months to implode. We're on the same path.
Something has to happen and happen fast, otherwise we'll be just a footnote in the history of great civilizations. The changes that need to be made will not make anyone happy, but they are changes that must be made. In short, the federal government needs to only provide what is included in the Constitution. Nothing more, nothing less.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Japan
I have been in Tokyo 6 times that I can remember, 4 times just passing through and once for a day which was about as long as I cared to stay. I lived in the Far East for a year and didn't like it one bit. I called Seoul home during that period and Tokyo was only an hour away by air and that was the place to pick up electronic equipment from the manufacturer at ridiculously low prices. The yen at that time was something like 315 to the dollar so the buying power was huge. Just don't buy anything else but electronics. Everything else was astronomical in price.
One time, I was flying back from San Francisco with a stop in Honolulu, Tokyo, then into Kimpo International is Seoul. I was flying Northwest Orient, now defunct, which was the premier carrier for the Pacific rim countries. We landed in Tokyo a little late and would be unable to clear Japanese airspace by midnight so the airline put all 350 or so of us up at a 5 star hotel and gave us a 20 dollar certificate for breakfast at the hotel resturant before flying out at 9 the next morning. The hotel was in the heart of downtown and the first thing I noticed was that they stuck lightbulbs on everything. Vegas wasn't that well lit. Lights on buses..buildings..And the corporate headquarters..Panasonic put up a brightly illuminated sign and Pioneer had to have a bigger one..Sony had to make theirs bigger than the two..and on and on..
After checking in and exchanging a few dollars for yen, I went to the nightclub downstairs and listened to a Japanese group sing a song for the visiting Americans, "The Gleen Gleen Glass of Home", which I found to be cute because I had tried to learn Korean and I had much bigger problems than substituting "L"'s for "R"'s. The 1 drink I had (I asked for a whiskey sour..not sure what I got) was the equivalent of 6 bucks in 1972 dollars. One way to keep me sober.
The next morning was miserable. It was cold and rainy. But I would be able to use the 20 dollar chit to have a big breakfast. What 20 bucks got me was an egg and coffee. And bad coffee at that.
My final memory of Japan was landing in Yakota, to fuel our Flying Tigers stretch DC-8 for the 17 hour flight back home. We were all called off the plane and ushered to the tarmac where everybody's baggage was stacked in a pile. Somebody was bringing home contraband so we had to gather our luggage and go through customs to have our baggage checked. Sure enough, some Air Force guy stationed at the Air base had tried to smuggle some exotic plant out of the country. For a planeload of servicemembers wanting to go home, the guy was lucky we didn't kick him off at 40,000 feet.
To be sure, my experiences in Japan were few. The culture and mindset of the Japanese were completely foreign. Japan is still a relatively closed society and that brings us to the current situation in the country.
We all watched in horror as the earthquake and tsunami wiped away homes and people. And then the worldwide panic of what happens when a nuclear reactor melts down. The odds of that happening anywhere else in the world is minuscule but sadly, our best chance at clean energy may be stalled if not abandoned altogether. The final act of the play hasn't begun yet. Rebuilding will be a massive and expensive ordeal that will take years to finish. Haiti was a different situation. They had no infrastructure to begin with. It's doubtful that those who survived on the northeast coast will rebuild in the same spot. Even if the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is fixed, the ground around it will be radioactive virtually forever. If the chart I'm reading is correct, U-238, the most common form of Uranium, has a half-life of over 4 BILLION years. U-234 is less-ONLY 250,000 years. There's a reason nobody lives near Chernobyl anymore.
But on the bright side, if any people on earth can rebuild from the devastation, it's the Japanese. They have the pride and strength as a people, and if at all possible, they will do it themselves, with as little outside help as possible. The cost will be somewhere between 300 billion to a half a trillion dollars. And that too they will pay with as little outside help as is needed. With Americans, especially those in California, if the San Andreas let loose, they'd say to hell with it and move to Kansas. I know I would.
One time, I was flying back from San Francisco with a stop in Honolulu, Tokyo, then into Kimpo International is Seoul. I was flying Northwest Orient, now defunct, which was the premier carrier for the Pacific rim countries. We landed in Tokyo a little late and would be unable to clear Japanese airspace by midnight so the airline put all 350 or so of us up at a 5 star hotel and gave us a 20 dollar certificate for breakfast at the hotel resturant before flying out at 9 the next morning. The hotel was in the heart of downtown and the first thing I noticed was that they stuck lightbulbs on everything. Vegas wasn't that well lit. Lights on buses..buildings..And the corporate headquarters..Panasonic put up a brightly illuminated sign and Pioneer had to have a bigger one..Sony had to make theirs bigger than the two..and on and on..
After checking in and exchanging a few dollars for yen, I went to the nightclub downstairs and listened to a Japanese group sing a song for the visiting Americans, "The Gleen Gleen Glass of Home", which I found to be cute because I had tried to learn Korean and I had much bigger problems than substituting "L"'s for "R"'s. The 1 drink I had (I asked for a whiskey sour..not sure what I got) was the equivalent of 6 bucks in 1972 dollars. One way to keep me sober.
The next morning was miserable. It was cold and rainy. But I would be able to use the 20 dollar chit to have a big breakfast. What 20 bucks got me was an egg and coffee. And bad coffee at that.
My final memory of Japan was landing in Yakota, to fuel our Flying Tigers stretch DC-8 for the 17 hour flight back home. We were all called off the plane and ushered to the tarmac where everybody's baggage was stacked in a pile. Somebody was bringing home contraband so we had to gather our luggage and go through customs to have our baggage checked. Sure enough, some Air Force guy stationed at the Air base had tried to smuggle some exotic plant out of the country. For a planeload of servicemembers wanting to go home, the guy was lucky we didn't kick him off at 40,000 feet.
To be sure, my experiences in Japan were few. The culture and mindset of the Japanese were completely foreign. Japan is still a relatively closed society and that brings us to the current situation in the country.
We all watched in horror as the earthquake and tsunami wiped away homes and people. And then the worldwide panic of what happens when a nuclear reactor melts down. The odds of that happening anywhere else in the world is minuscule but sadly, our best chance at clean energy may be stalled if not abandoned altogether. The final act of the play hasn't begun yet. Rebuilding will be a massive and expensive ordeal that will take years to finish. Haiti was a different situation. They had no infrastructure to begin with. It's doubtful that those who survived on the northeast coast will rebuild in the same spot. Even if the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant is fixed, the ground around it will be radioactive virtually forever. If the chart I'm reading is correct, U-238, the most common form of Uranium, has a half-life of over 4 BILLION years. U-234 is less-ONLY 250,000 years. There's a reason nobody lives near Chernobyl anymore.
But on the bright side, if any people on earth can rebuild from the devastation, it's the Japanese. They have the pride and strength as a people, and if at all possible, they will do it themselves, with as little outside help as possible. The cost will be somewhere between 300 billion to a half a trillion dollars. And that too they will pay with as little outside help as is needed. With Americans, especially those in California, if the San Andreas let loose, they'd say to hell with it and move to Kansas. I know I would.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Losing America
I loved my country enough to give her 11 years of my life, and would have given more if my choices hadn't been becoming more and more limited as I was climbing to the top as fast as my talents and abilities would allow. Notice I said I loved. Now it's only like. Something is happening to this great experiment called democracy that would have our founding fathers outraged.
When I was growing up, honor, patriotism, and sacrifice were the cornerstones of this experiment called democracy. We were given a birthright in blood by the 418,000 Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War Two, and the 683,000 who were wounded and the 130,000 who are still listed as missing in action. I was proud to wear the same uniform and I never had a day that I considered it a sacrifice. Nor did I see myself as a hero just because I heard my country's call as a whisper, not a shout. It was a time of war, as it is now, but nobody called us heroes. There was a draft but I was deferred so I went completely of my own choosing. I was lucky in that I had a profession that allowed me to have a more civilian mindset than most. I wasn't worthy to even walk behind those who stormed the beaches of Normandy which saw over 2,500 die in the first 24 hours. That number could be as high as 7,000, as many are still listed as MIA. Or those who fought tiny island by tiny island in the Pacific.
Flash forward to today. We have sold that birthright to China and anybody else who will buy our Treasury Bonds. We are paying about 22 percent of every tax dollar to pay INTEREST on the debt. Like when you take out a mortgage, very little in the first 4 years goes toward principal. But in the case of China, they are more than happy to loan us money because every dollar you spend on something that says "Made in China" goes to the government and they, in turn, can loan us our own money.
Right now, every taxpayer is on the hook for 181,000 dollars. That's your share of the national debt. I remember when the debt hit 4 trillion dollars and the outcry to cut spending. At that time I was only on the hook for 36,000 dollars. There were cries for fiscal reform when the deficit hit 400 billion. But instead of cutting, they expanded. The new cry is for high speed rail and green energy. The federal government can't get Amtrak in the black, so how is high speed rail supposed to help. Thousands of miles of new track will have to be laid to handle speeds of over 100 miles per hour, but they'll have to push 150 to get people away from air travel. And green energy is decades away. Incandescent bulbs are being outlawed but the new CFL bulbs, although they save energy, contain dangerous amounts of mercury. God forbid your kid breaks one and releases mercury vapor into the room. If out read disposal instructions, you all but need a HAZMAT suit.
Then there's the entitled. I watched the worst come out of America in Wisconsin, the home of the 159,000 a year bus driver. Collective bargaining doesn't belong in the public sector. They hamstring government's ability to conduct the people's business. And now the day of reckoning has arrived. We must now pay for the sins of the past. The salaries of state workers are paid by taxpayers who don't have family medical plans for a pittance, or retirement before 65 with no contribution. And most of those who pay for those salaries and benefits are struggling to provide those same "rights" for their own families. Bad teachers are destroying their student's futures with no fear of repercussion. School districts would rather keep them on knowing they don't deserve to be in the classroom because it takes too long and costs too much to fire them.
Assuming the court's let "Obamacare" stand, the ramifications to the future of medicine will be profound. First, where are the doctors who will treat the 35 million or so uninsured who will suddenly swell the rolls of insured. And, as with any new benefit, they will overtax the system getting health care they didn't have before. Many doctors are quitting their practice due to malpractice insurance costs. Med schools will have to start accepting marginal applicants, new med schools will spring up like "The Famous Artists School". Now it will be the "Famous Doctor's School". Send us 200,000 dollars and we'll make you a doctor at home. Maybe there'll be online courses. Now I'm being sarcastic, but nobody knows what the impact to health care it will be or the cost once it's implemented.
I remember when the price of a gallon of gas was 30 cents. And I remember the gas wars that would break out that would see the price as low as 19 cents. We didn't have OPEC or how and where the gas came from. We just knew it was there. How times have changed. I remember not so long ago when gas spiked at over 3 dollars a gallon. To listen to Democrats, it was because President Bush was making his rich oil buddies richer. This time, those same people are deathly silent as we watch the price of everything that has to be trucked in or is made from petroleum products skyrocket. The only upside on that one is there may be an increase in the cost of living so Social Security recipients may get a cost of living increase for the first time in 3 years. But then again, if they do, (or even if they don't) Medicare increases will wipe that out.
People are starting to compare America to the fall of Greece, Rome, The British Empire, and other great civilizations that fell because of greed and excess. I don't know where this road leads, but for now, it looks like it's over a cliff. I hope I'm wrong. Too many people have given too much to give us something nobody else has..the once great country called the UNITED states.
When I was growing up, honor, patriotism, and sacrifice were the cornerstones of this experiment called democracy. We were given a birthright in blood by the 418,000 Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War Two, and the 683,000 who were wounded and the 130,000 who are still listed as missing in action. I was proud to wear the same uniform and I never had a day that I considered it a sacrifice. Nor did I see myself as a hero just because I heard my country's call as a whisper, not a shout. It was a time of war, as it is now, but nobody called us heroes. There was a draft but I was deferred so I went completely of my own choosing. I was lucky in that I had a profession that allowed me to have a more civilian mindset than most. I wasn't worthy to even walk behind those who stormed the beaches of Normandy which saw over 2,500 die in the first 24 hours. That number could be as high as 7,000, as many are still listed as MIA. Or those who fought tiny island by tiny island in the Pacific.
Flash forward to today. We have sold that birthright to China and anybody else who will buy our Treasury Bonds. We are paying about 22 percent of every tax dollar to pay INTEREST on the debt. Like when you take out a mortgage, very little in the first 4 years goes toward principal. But in the case of China, they are more than happy to loan us money because every dollar you spend on something that says "Made in China" goes to the government and they, in turn, can loan us our own money.
Right now, every taxpayer is on the hook for 181,000 dollars. That's your share of the national debt. I remember when the debt hit 4 trillion dollars and the outcry to cut spending. At that time I was only on the hook for 36,000 dollars. There were cries for fiscal reform when the deficit hit 400 billion. But instead of cutting, they expanded. The new cry is for high speed rail and green energy. The federal government can't get Amtrak in the black, so how is high speed rail supposed to help. Thousands of miles of new track will have to be laid to handle speeds of over 100 miles per hour, but they'll have to push 150 to get people away from air travel. And green energy is decades away. Incandescent bulbs are being outlawed but the new CFL bulbs, although they save energy, contain dangerous amounts of mercury. God forbid your kid breaks one and releases mercury vapor into the room. If out read disposal instructions, you all but need a HAZMAT suit.
Then there's the entitled. I watched the worst come out of America in Wisconsin, the home of the 159,000 a year bus driver. Collective bargaining doesn't belong in the public sector. They hamstring government's ability to conduct the people's business. And now the day of reckoning has arrived. We must now pay for the sins of the past. The salaries of state workers are paid by taxpayers who don't have family medical plans for a pittance, or retirement before 65 with no contribution. And most of those who pay for those salaries and benefits are struggling to provide those same "rights" for their own families. Bad teachers are destroying their student's futures with no fear of repercussion. School districts would rather keep them on knowing they don't deserve to be in the classroom because it takes too long and costs too much to fire them.
Assuming the court's let "Obamacare" stand, the ramifications to the future of medicine will be profound. First, where are the doctors who will treat the 35 million or so uninsured who will suddenly swell the rolls of insured. And, as with any new benefit, they will overtax the system getting health care they didn't have before. Many doctors are quitting their practice due to malpractice insurance costs. Med schools will have to start accepting marginal applicants, new med schools will spring up like "The Famous Artists School". Now it will be the "Famous Doctor's School". Send us 200,000 dollars and we'll make you a doctor at home. Maybe there'll be online courses. Now I'm being sarcastic, but nobody knows what the impact to health care it will be or the cost once it's implemented.
I remember when the price of a gallon of gas was 30 cents. And I remember the gas wars that would break out that would see the price as low as 19 cents. We didn't have OPEC or how and where the gas came from. We just knew it was there. How times have changed. I remember not so long ago when gas spiked at over 3 dollars a gallon. To listen to Democrats, it was because President Bush was making his rich oil buddies richer. This time, those same people are deathly silent as we watch the price of everything that has to be trucked in or is made from petroleum products skyrocket. The only upside on that one is there may be an increase in the cost of living so Social Security recipients may get a cost of living increase for the first time in 3 years. But then again, if they do, (or even if they don't) Medicare increases will wipe that out.
People are starting to compare America to the fall of Greece, Rome, The British Empire, and other great civilizations that fell because of greed and excess. I don't know where this road leads, but for now, it looks like it's over a cliff. I hope I'm wrong. Too many people have given too much to give us something nobody else has..the once great country called the UNITED states.
Monday, February 7, 2011
10 Years
2001 was a year of change. It was the year I headed for warmer climes in the south. That was a good thing. No more snow shovels. No more watching a depressed Northeast Pennsylvania try to find prosperity like most of the nation had at the time. It was time for a new beginning.
But it was also a time of tragedy-9/11 and the death of Dale Earnhardt, and it's hard to say which was the bigger shock. For America, of course, it was 9/11. I made my last trip to New York a month after the towers fell. The fires had stopped and heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel, there was nothing to show the devastation at ground zero..Just the lack of two buildings that used to tower over the city, two buildings that were not necessarily loved by New Yorkers. I have some pictures lying around somewhere of me standing on the bow of the Staten Island Ferry looking toward Battery Park. At the time, the towers were probably only 20 stories high and New Yorkers were already complaining about the blight on the skyline. And that complaint would get louder as each story was added. After they were completed, the towers were accepted but not necessarily loved. The observation deck had a spectacular view although I never had the urge to go to the top, even though I parked in a parking garage a block away on many occasions. I always preferred the observation deck of the RCA building, and when relatives came in from the old country, the Empire State Building.
I was also surprised at the 9/11 souvenirs that had already hit the street. I bought "Never Forget" and "FDNY" sweat shirts and saw a city that hadn't lost it's uniqueness. The street vendors were out in force with Rolex knockoffs, restaurants were packed with the lunch crowd, Wall Street was back in business, trying to recover from the 20 percent drop in value, and the people of New York City were as loud and animated as I had come to know and love from my youth. Sinatra called it the "City that never sleeps". I call it the city that never dies.
Also, in 2001, millions of us watched the most thrilling and tragic of all Daytona 500's. Michael Waltrip won his first race in over 460 tries. And as he was charging for the checker, Dale Earnhardt made a tiny mistake. He lost traction, ever so slightly, and went sideways and was T-boned by Kenny Schrader. As far as Daytona accidents go, this one really was minor. Not like Richard Petty's number 43 do cartwheels and totally disintegrated his car where only the roll cage remained. This one looked minor..until the ambulance left the speedway at a very slow speed. Michael was in victory lane celebrating, oblivious to what had happened just a third of a mile from the end of 500 miles. I've watched replays of the wreck numerous times and I still say that it shouldn't have ended that way. Dale should have dropped the net and run to victory lane to congratulate his driver, his protégé, his friend.
The events of 9/11 and the 2001 Daytona 500 show that in an instant a sport, and even a nation can be changed in an instant. 10 years seems like a long time, but it isn't. Events from 40 years ago seem like only yesterday. Life is that short. Live it to it's fullest. You never know what the next second will bring.
But it was also a time of tragedy-9/11 and the death of Dale Earnhardt, and it's hard to say which was the bigger shock. For America, of course, it was 9/11. I made my last trip to New York a month after the towers fell. The fires had stopped and heading toward the Lincoln Tunnel, there was nothing to show the devastation at ground zero..Just the lack of two buildings that used to tower over the city, two buildings that were not necessarily loved by New Yorkers. I have some pictures lying around somewhere of me standing on the bow of the Staten Island Ferry looking toward Battery Park. At the time, the towers were probably only 20 stories high and New Yorkers were already complaining about the blight on the skyline. And that complaint would get louder as each story was added. After they were completed, the towers were accepted but not necessarily loved. The observation deck had a spectacular view although I never had the urge to go to the top, even though I parked in a parking garage a block away on many occasions. I always preferred the observation deck of the RCA building, and when relatives came in from the old country, the Empire State Building.
I was also surprised at the 9/11 souvenirs that had already hit the street. I bought "Never Forget" and "FDNY" sweat shirts and saw a city that hadn't lost it's uniqueness. The street vendors were out in force with Rolex knockoffs, restaurants were packed with the lunch crowd, Wall Street was back in business, trying to recover from the 20 percent drop in value, and the people of New York City were as loud and animated as I had come to know and love from my youth. Sinatra called it the "City that never sleeps". I call it the city that never dies.
Also, in 2001, millions of us watched the most thrilling and tragic of all Daytona 500's. Michael Waltrip won his first race in over 460 tries. And as he was charging for the checker, Dale Earnhardt made a tiny mistake. He lost traction, ever so slightly, and went sideways and was T-boned by Kenny Schrader. As far as Daytona accidents go, this one really was minor. Not like Richard Petty's number 43 do cartwheels and totally disintegrated his car where only the roll cage remained. This one looked minor..until the ambulance left the speedway at a very slow speed. Michael was in victory lane celebrating, oblivious to what had happened just a third of a mile from the end of 500 miles. I've watched replays of the wreck numerous times and I still say that it shouldn't have ended that way. Dale should have dropped the net and run to victory lane to congratulate his driver, his protégé, his friend.
The events of 9/11 and the 2001 Daytona 500 show that in an instant a sport, and even a nation can be changed in an instant. 10 years seems like a long time, but it isn't. Events from 40 years ago seem like only yesterday. Life is that short. Live it to it's fullest. You never know what the next second will bring.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Butch, Mike, and Leo..The Worlds Worst Polka Band.
I've found the most fond memories in life have been the small ones that should have faded from my mind as quickly as they were made. Some of those surround three brothers, Butch, Mike, and Leo Syrylo and the polka band that never quite got off the ground, even when a somewhat accomplished trumpet player, me, entered the mix.
I had never heard a real polka in my life, but that changed quickly. The brothers were Polish Proud, and Mike would listen to the Polka show on the local radio station where I eventually got my start. I even filled in once but that story later.
Every few weeks the brothers would set up in the garage and start playing Polkas. I believe Mike was on the Accordion, Butch on clarinet, and Leo on drums. The personnel may be incorrect but the fact remains, that's where I heard my first Polka. And it broke every rule of music I had ever learned. Then as the warm sun took it's toll, and a few beers flowed, the music got worse. But it was a happy sound and the guy's were really into it and that's what music is supposed to be..Fun. I didn't like classical music because it wasn't fun. So the guys would play on into the evening and luckily, being in a rural area, there wasn't anybody nearby to annoy.
Mike asked me if I wanted to join in, and wanting to impress the man I'd hoped would be my father-in-law one day, I said I'd be honored and he gave me a pile of sheet music and my face went white. I had never seen anything like it before. I was good with jazz, could play classical if forced, I was great with ballads, but this...stuff...was nothing but runs of 16th and 32nd notes that ran up and down like the Rockies. I would have to hear how it was supposed to sound before I could play it so I said I'd take it to my music teacher and have him help me out. I took the sheet music in to school Monday and asked him to play it on the piano and he looked at the music and said he'd get back to me on that. Then he lost it. And I had to tell Mike that it was gone. I know he was hurt and disappointed, probably not as much as I because I really wanted to join in. It's funny how a mistake so simple and innocent bothers me still, 43 years later.
I was still able to listen. If the "band" wasn't playing, Mike would always have the radio playing Sunday afternoons and the Polka show had a large following. I got roped into doing the show one Sunday when it's host had another engagement and it was something I would never admit to on my resume'. I took Mike's daughter, Patty, to the studio to at least help me pull the music. She was smart pulling songs that had English titles, but it was the worst show in any format I ever did. It was bad. But Mike said it was pretty good. I was never asked to do the Polka show again.
Butch, Mike, and Leo were close and it was the first time I had seen a functional family. Mine was always feuding about something, usually petty. Usually about company business. But these 3 brothers seemed to never have an argument or even a cross word.
I didn't know Leo that well. I had been at his house and I remember a close family but that's about it. But Butch I really liked. I'm not sure if he was the youngest but he was at Mike's house most often and I remember a young toddler crawling across the floor, dressed in something frilly and pink, just learning how to walk and talk. She was the cutest thing ever. As with many relationships, Patty and I had talked about the never to be future and how, among other things, how we wanted our first child to be like her.
But time turned some pages and I left to wander the world but returned 12 years later to settle down. I had lived in The Far East, Germany and Italy and then came back to...Northeast Pennsylvania. And nothing changed. Mike was still gracious and outgoing and I visited him from time to time. Maybe I was looking through rose colored glasses, but to me, Mike didn't age.
I was reading the Scranton Times at work one day and saw an article about Butch and some serious health issues he was having, I forget what they were. I saw him one last time when I was visiting Mike. I was leaving as he was arriving. I didn't recognize him and I doubt he recognized me, or, for that matter, remembered. As I said, time had turned some pages.
Somehow I became the radio king of church bazaars. I did remote broadcasts from every Catholic Church in the Scranton/Wilkes Barre corridor and the entertainment was always one of the Polka bands. I worked with Stanky, Jolly Joe, the Kryger Brothers, and a host of others. They actually worked more than some of the better known rock and country bands in the area. But it always came back to memories of three brothers, slightly tipsy, making music for fun. And that's what was really important. Making music for fun.
I will always remember the three brothers, especially Mike who has been gone for a longer time than I care to remember.. The timeline gets blurred as you get older. I remember him every day. Somehow, for some reason unknown, he was my inspiration for going outside myself and becoming better than I ever thought I could be. I remember many times when I was having an "off" day on the air and I would get back on track by thinking Mike might be listening. I highly doubt he was..I don't think he was into Elton John or Billy Joel, but maybe, by accident, he'd hit the button for WARM instead of the Polkas.
I'm quickly coming to the end of the line in this life and getting ready to transition to the next. I believe Heaven is what we have here in this life, except in perfection. That means I might be greeted by a no longer bad Polka band, now playing to the angels, and a perfectly chilled bottle of beer. Sounds good to me.
I had never heard a real polka in my life, but that changed quickly. The brothers were Polish Proud, and Mike would listen to the Polka show on the local radio station where I eventually got my start. I even filled in once but that story later.
Every few weeks the brothers would set up in the garage and start playing Polkas. I believe Mike was on the Accordion, Butch on clarinet, and Leo on drums. The personnel may be incorrect but the fact remains, that's where I heard my first Polka. And it broke every rule of music I had ever learned. Then as the warm sun took it's toll, and a few beers flowed, the music got worse. But it was a happy sound and the guy's were really into it and that's what music is supposed to be..Fun. I didn't like classical music because it wasn't fun. So the guys would play on into the evening and luckily, being in a rural area, there wasn't anybody nearby to annoy.
Mike asked me if I wanted to join in, and wanting to impress the man I'd hoped would be my father-in-law one day, I said I'd be honored and he gave me a pile of sheet music and my face went white. I had never seen anything like it before. I was good with jazz, could play classical if forced, I was great with ballads, but this...stuff...was nothing but runs of 16th and 32nd notes that ran up and down like the Rockies. I would have to hear how it was supposed to sound before I could play it so I said I'd take it to my music teacher and have him help me out. I took the sheet music in to school Monday and asked him to play it on the piano and he looked at the music and said he'd get back to me on that. Then he lost it. And I had to tell Mike that it was gone. I know he was hurt and disappointed, probably not as much as I because I really wanted to join in. It's funny how a mistake so simple and innocent bothers me still, 43 years later.
I was still able to listen. If the "band" wasn't playing, Mike would always have the radio playing Sunday afternoons and the Polka show had a large following. I got roped into doing the show one Sunday when it's host had another engagement and it was something I would never admit to on my resume'. I took Mike's daughter, Patty, to the studio to at least help me pull the music. She was smart pulling songs that had English titles, but it was the worst show in any format I ever did. It was bad. But Mike said it was pretty good. I was never asked to do the Polka show again.
Butch, Mike, and Leo were close and it was the first time I had seen a functional family. Mine was always feuding about something, usually petty. Usually about company business. But these 3 brothers seemed to never have an argument or even a cross word.
I didn't know Leo that well. I had been at his house and I remember a close family but that's about it. But Butch I really liked. I'm not sure if he was the youngest but he was at Mike's house most often and I remember a young toddler crawling across the floor, dressed in something frilly and pink, just learning how to walk and talk. She was the cutest thing ever. As with many relationships, Patty and I had talked about the never to be future and how, among other things, how we wanted our first child to be like her.
But time turned some pages and I left to wander the world but returned 12 years later to settle down. I had lived in The Far East, Germany and Italy and then came back to...Northeast Pennsylvania. And nothing changed. Mike was still gracious and outgoing and I visited him from time to time. Maybe I was looking through rose colored glasses, but to me, Mike didn't age.
I was reading the Scranton Times at work one day and saw an article about Butch and some serious health issues he was having, I forget what they were. I saw him one last time when I was visiting Mike. I was leaving as he was arriving. I didn't recognize him and I doubt he recognized me, or, for that matter, remembered. As I said, time had turned some pages.
Somehow I became the radio king of church bazaars. I did remote broadcasts from every Catholic Church in the Scranton/Wilkes Barre corridor and the entertainment was always one of the Polka bands. I worked with Stanky, Jolly Joe, the Kryger Brothers, and a host of others. They actually worked more than some of the better known rock and country bands in the area. But it always came back to memories of three brothers, slightly tipsy, making music for fun. And that's what was really important. Making music for fun.
I will always remember the three brothers, especially Mike who has been gone for a longer time than I care to remember.. The timeline gets blurred as you get older. I remember him every day. Somehow, for some reason unknown, he was my inspiration for going outside myself and becoming better than I ever thought I could be. I remember many times when I was having an "off" day on the air and I would get back on track by thinking Mike might be listening. I highly doubt he was..I don't think he was into Elton John or Billy Joel, but maybe, by accident, he'd hit the button for WARM instead of the Polkas.
I'm quickly coming to the end of the line in this life and getting ready to transition to the next. I believe Heaven is what we have here in this life, except in perfection. That means I might be greeted by a no longer bad Polka band, now playing to the angels, and a perfectly chilled bottle of beer. Sounds good to me.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Jack LaLanne.
I remember watching Jack LaLanne when I was young..and he was too. In the 1950's, television was in it's infancy and afternoon fare included Liberace, Kate Smith, and Jack Lalanne, all doing what Ellen, Oprah, and Dr. Phil do now..Only for a whole lot less money. Old 3 would survive today in a television world dominated by the Young 3. Kate Smith was a plus plus size and not very pretty. But boy she could sing. Liberace had to be gay. Or as it was called then, Queer or Faggot. In a time when homosexuality wasn't even mentioned in normal conversation, Liberace all but came out. His Jewelry, his outfits, his speech pattern..And he wasn't that good a piano player either. But he transcended the bias at the time and Don't Ask, Don't Tell was born. LaLanne did fitness on television again long before Nordictrak and any of thousand fitness regimens started running commercials for a thousand different ways to lose weight and become fit. It's not that Jack LaLanne lived to be 96, it's that he kept doing what he did best for most of those 96 years..eat right and exercise.
Now let me be clear, I am not exactly a big fan of exercise. Not because I don't think it's good for you but just because I can't get motivated to stand in one place on a treadmill or an exercise bike. When (If?) spring arrives I do plan to start walking. Maybe. But Jack LaLanne did get millions of houswives off the couch and start preparing better, as in nutritious, dinners so millions of husbands wouldn't expand as they sat on the couch and watched Jack Benny, or Sgt. Bilko. And as the years passed, LaLanne also started the trend of watching what we ate as far as the bad things that were put in our food.
I went to his website, and so far no mention of his passing. As late as Friday there was an offer for an autographed cook book. It also listed the many organizations he had been honored by, and by all accounts, was a great motivational speaker. He also gave us the nutrition bar and Instant Breakfast. The first co-ed gym, and women working with weights. There is also an archive of some of those early television shows. Black and white, no special effects, and the show would never go today. For that matter, Jack wouldn't go today. Too much competition from other pitchmen and women with plastic, very exposed boobs for your exercise dollar.
Jack LaLanne was lucky in that he was born for his era. It's doubtful he would have achieved such great success had he been born in the 50's..Would the Beatles win American Idol? Would Jack Benny calling for Rochester be funny? Would Gunsmoke have stayed on the air for over 20 years? I don't think I need to answer those.
So for the next few days the media will cover his life and funeral and he will be forgotten to all but his family and a few close friends. But of one thing I'm certain, Millions of grandmothers in Heaven are now doing Jumping Jacks and push ups. I kind of believe that you do in Heaven what you did in life.
Now let me be clear, I am not exactly a big fan of exercise. Not because I don't think it's good for you but just because I can't get motivated to stand in one place on a treadmill or an exercise bike. When (If?) spring arrives I do plan to start walking. Maybe. But Jack LaLanne did get millions of houswives off the couch and start preparing better, as in nutritious, dinners so millions of husbands wouldn't expand as they sat on the couch and watched Jack Benny, or Sgt. Bilko. And as the years passed, LaLanne also started the trend of watching what we ate as far as the bad things that were put in our food.
I went to his website, and so far no mention of his passing. As late as Friday there was an offer for an autographed cook book. It also listed the many organizations he had been honored by, and by all accounts, was a great motivational speaker. He also gave us the nutrition bar and Instant Breakfast. The first co-ed gym, and women working with weights. There is also an archive of some of those early television shows. Black and white, no special effects, and the show would never go today. For that matter, Jack wouldn't go today. Too much competition from other pitchmen and women with plastic, very exposed boobs for your exercise dollar.
Jack LaLanne was lucky in that he was born for his era. It's doubtful he would have achieved such great success had he been born in the 50's..Would the Beatles win American Idol? Would Jack Benny calling for Rochester be funny? Would Gunsmoke have stayed on the air for over 20 years? I don't think I need to answer those.
So for the next few days the media will cover his life and funeral and he will be forgotten to all but his family and a few close friends. But of one thing I'm certain, Millions of grandmothers in Heaven are now doing Jumping Jacks and push ups. I kind of believe that you do in Heaven what you did in life.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Why Wasn't He Stopped.
It's been a week since the Tucson massacre, or as Nancy Pilosi calls it, a "Tragic ACCIDENT" She was obviously fishing for a word and she picked the absolute worst one in the dictionary for that circumstance. There are no words to express the horror those innocent victims must have felt. Jared Loughner, the "alleged" gunman, (innocent until proven guilty, you know.) was a complete and certifiable loonie and should have been institutionalized. But yet, he was allowed to roam the streets in complete freedom. No parental involvement, red flags for law enforcement that were ignored. We're a compassionate society, you know. We can't just lock up somebody because he may be a threat to others or themselves..
There are so many ways that this tragedy could have been averted, but instead those of us on the right were vilified as if we caused a nut case to pull out a semi-automatic with an elephant clip and almost empty the chamber. He had his run-ins with the law. How could he pass the background check to get the Glock. Why why wasn't there a single member of law enforcement at the event. Pennsylvania State Police escort Joe Paterno on and off the field during the football season, so why doesn't a member of Congress rate the same security. Whether or not her staff requested it is immaterial. It should be mandatory that at least one law enforcement officer be at any event where a congressperson has access to their constituents.
Another question is why did it take so long to subdue Loughner. Even a semi automatic takes a second to reload, let alone pull it out from wherever he had it hidden. Witnesses said he just appeared but he had to come from somewhere in the crowd. 19 hits out of 22 fired. He obviously took time to aim. Nobody noticed him pushing his way through the crowd. And allegedly, he was stopped for a traffic violation on the way to the rally. If the cop who stopped him would have only taken his time to write a ticket. If only somebody in the crowd would have been carrying a concealed weapon, perfectly legal in Arizona. If ONLY.
I had never heard of Gabrielle Giffords before, and no reason I should have, she's not my Representative in Congress and having been re-elected to her third term, she's also near the bottom of the Congressional food chain. In other words, Katie Couric wasn't booking her to discuss anything, although she probably wishes she had so she could have her own stock footage rather than relying stock footage.
And then there's Bernie Sanders, the "Independent" from Vermont. Or should I say "Socialist". Even before it was known whether Rep, Giffords would survive, he sent out a fundraising letter to his constituents asking for money to fight the Republicans who allowed this to happen. Sanders doesn't need funds. He's one of those legislators who will win time after time with minimal opposition.
And to the critics of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, those wars provided the medical knowledge that saved Gabrielle Gifford's life. Many have received the same medical care on the battlefield and lived when they shouldn't have, and went on to recover. It's far too soon to say what degree of recovery she'll have but the brain is an amazing thing, and it can rewire itself to bypass the destroyed area. Only time will tell.
Also time will tell if Arizona Governor Jan Brewer will name an interim replacement while Gabrielle Gifford
recuperates. She can, if a member of Congress is incapacitated, but I doubt she will. With Democrats in the minority, Rep. Giffords vote would not have any effect on legislation, and the Governor would have to name a Democrat, as naming a member of her own party would create very serious problems within her own state government.
The fact is, this was nothing more than a long string of actions by a madman who, if he hadn't succeeded last Saturday, would try again another time. The two words "If Only" are just that. We can't go back and change any event in our lives. Each one of us could one day be in the sights of just such a person as Jared Loughner.
It took Dallas years to get over the stigma of the Kennedy Assassination. The same for Memphis..And Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania where a deranged gunman killed 13, starting with his own family. Jared Loughner didn't just suddenly snap, the acts of last Saturday have been brewing for a long time..The signs were there..But obviously, everybody including his own family believed him to be harmless. Harmless until he killed 6 people he didn't even know. And there are countless more out there capable of the same atrocities. We can only hope that we catch them before they catch us.
There are so many ways that this tragedy could have been averted, but instead those of us on the right were vilified as if we caused a nut case to pull out a semi-automatic with an elephant clip and almost empty the chamber. He had his run-ins with the law. How could he pass the background check to get the Glock. Why why wasn't there a single member of law enforcement at the event. Pennsylvania State Police escort Joe Paterno on and off the field during the football season, so why doesn't a member of Congress rate the same security. Whether or not her staff requested it is immaterial. It should be mandatory that at least one law enforcement officer be at any event where a congressperson has access to their constituents.
Another question is why did it take so long to subdue Loughner. Even a semi automatic takes a second to reload, let alone pull it out from wherever he had it hidden. Witnesses said he just appeared but he had to come from somewhere in the crowd. 19 hits out of 22 fired. He obviously took time to aim. Nobody noticed him pushing his way through the crowd. And allegedly, he was stopped for a traffic violation on the way to the rally. If the cop who stopped him would have only taken his time to write a ticket. If only somebody in the crowd would have been carrying a concealed weapon, perfectly legal in Arizona. If ONLY.
I had never heard of Gabrielle Giffords before, and no reason I should have, she's not my Representative in Congress and having been re-elected to her third term, she's also near the bottom of the Congressional food chain. In other words, Katie Couric wasn't booking her to discuss anything, although she probably wishes she had so she could have her own stock footage rather than relying stock footage.
And then there's Bernie Sanders, the "Independent" from Vermont. Or should I say "Socialist". Even before it was known whether Rep, Giffords would survive, he sent out a fundraising letter to his constituents asking for money to fight the Republicans who allowed this to happen. Sanders doesn't need funds. He's one of those legislators who will win time after time with minimal opposition.
And to the critics of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, those wars provided the medical knowledge that saved Gabrielle Gifford's life. Many have received the same medical care on the battlefield and lived when they shouldn't have, and went on to recover. It's far too soon to say what degree of recovery she'll have but the brain is an amazing thing, and it can rewire itself to bypass the destroyed area. Only time will tell.
Also time will tell if Arizona Governor Jan Brewer will name an interim replacement while Gabrielle Gifford
recuperates. She can, if a member of Congress is incapacitated, but I doubt she will. With Democrats in the minority, Rep. Giffords vote would not have any effect on legislation, and the Governor would have to name a Democrat, as naming a member of her own party would create very serious problems within her own state government.
The fact is, this was nothing more than a long string of actions by a madman who, if he hadn't succeeded last Saturday, would try again another time. The two words "If Only" are just that. We can't go back and change any event in our lives. Each one of us could one day be in the sights of just such a person as Jared Loughner.
It took Dallas years to get over the stigma of the Kennedy Assassination. The same for Memphis..And Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania where a deranged gunman killed 13, starting with his own family. Jared Loughner didn't just suddenly snap, the acts of last Saturday have been brewing for a long time..The signs were there..But obviously, everybody including his own family believed him to be harmless. Harmless until he killed 6 people he didn't even know. And there are countless more out there capable of the same atrocities. We can only hope that we catch them before they catch us.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Abolish Weddings?
I have always been loud on my opinion of weddings. I used to provide entertainment to weddings, class reunions, sock hops, etc. It was a very good source of income, especially weddings. But I always jacked up the price, first, because I could get it, but second, I didn't want to do them so maybe if I charged an exorbitant price, the bride and groom to be would walk away. Sometimes sit worked, sometimes it didn't and I'd spend my time during the merrymaking giving odds as to whether it would succeed. Unfortunately, I was usually right.
Weddings are big business, to say the least. And now, weddings are big entertainment on the lower level cable channels, starting with "Bridezilla", and now "4 Weddings" and one I saw yesterday where I would have told the bride to take a hike. The first red flag was when she said "I always get what I want". So she started spending like a drunken sailor, with my apologies to drunks and sailors. She wanted a fall theme with lots of pumpkins, including carved out small pumpkins to serve drinks in. She also wanted a wedding cake layered to look like 3 pumpkins, and being a hockey fan, she wanted to get hockey jerseys for the entire wedding party, all 18, for 110 bucks a pop. But they would have their name and a custom logo on them. And to arrive at the reception she wanted to arrive on a zamboni, rented for 700 dollars and a pony painted pink for people to pet as they came in at a cost of 500 dollars. The bride's mother wound up being on the hook for the dress. The bride chose one that had a weird brown filigree below the bust line. It was an inexpensive dress at 750 dollars but to get her daughter out of it, she said she'd buy the whole shootin' match..shoes, jewelery, etc. Cost for the dress alone-1500 dollars. Then to make matters worse, they had made an offer on a house that was rejected, but mid-way during the planning, the seller changed his mind and accepted the offer. So the cutting began...The zamboi and the pony were the first to go. Final cost for the wedding, a tad over 29,000 dollars.
Brides and their parents are the most vulnerable at this time. The bride wants the fairy tale of prince charming riding in on a white stallion and mom and dad want to make their little girl happy and that in turn leads to overpriced "extras" that may make for a memorable day, but it's only one day, and reality starts very quickly after that.
I was lucky. My only big expense was two tickets from Frankfurt to New York. We didn't want to go through the hassle of getting permission from Uncle Sam which could take as much as 6 months, so we flew in, had a simple ceremony at the old homestead by the pastor who had been my friend since my very early teens, and then flew back. Planning a wedding was impossible. Most of my friends had scattered to the four winds, and I wasn't going to fly her family in. And my relatives. To be blunt, I didn't like them too much.
In Europe, you are first married by the inequivalent of our Justice of the peace. That's the official wedding that counts. After that, to seal the deal, you can plan a Church wedding. Many don't take that separate step. The Church wedding was only symbolic for Protestants but most Catholics did have the Church wedding. For the reception, most just invite friends and family to a neighborhood restaurant, gifts optional. But, like I said, I couldn't go that route due to not wanting to go through the red tape where where I could just jump on the next thing smoking,
But, the money I didn't spend went a long way toward starting a life that's lasted far longer than many who spent the kings ransom on zamboni's and pony's. We didn't need a "honeymoon"..We lived in Northern Italy. Where else was there to go.
The bottom line is, the divorce rate is still at 50 percent and if I were a financial advisor I'd call the investment in a wedding in the same category as"junk" bonds. And under the surface, what percent who don't get divorced do so out of fear, finances, religious beliefs, and "for the sake of the children". Maybe I'm more cynical than most because of homicides I've covered where the "prince charming" makes sure nobody else has the princess. South Carolina is number 9 in the nation in domestic dispute homicides at around 40 per year. Over 1.3 million acts of domestic violence against women and 855,000 against men are reported each year nationwide: 33 percent of fatal attacks against women are by their partner: the cost of treating injuries from domestic violence is in the billions. Protection from Abuse orders aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Police won't act until "somebody does something". Even some parents don't protect their daughters by reporting abuse because of "shame" or "staying out of their business".
The solution in my mind is very simple. First, make law enforcement more responsive. I was a deputy sheriff in Cameron County, Oklahoma in 72-74. My program director at the station where I worked nights along with my duties with Uncle Sam was a deputy and recruited me because members of the military didn't need weapons training or a background check, and it really aided our news gathering. We rode overnights Friday and Saturday night and most of our calls were for domestic disputes. Unless there was physical violence, all we could do was separate the husband and wife and cool them down. Odds were we'd be called back, sometimes that same night. Even if there was physical injuries, in most cases, the wife refused to press charges and we could do nothing unless they did.
Second, put some teeth into PFA's. In most cases, police won't respond to a PFA violation unless there is actual physical injury. Many times that response is to a homicide.
Third, take the prosecution out of the hands of the abused spouse. If police are called to the scene, don't leave the choice to prosecute in the hands of that abused spouse. In most cases, the spouse will not press charges due to fear of further abuse, or "he's a good guy, just had too many beers".
Anyway, back to Weddings. The biggest decision in life is sometimes botched by common sense being overwhelmed by belief in fairy tales. My idea is have a simple ceremony by a priest, pastor, or rabbi..And if after a year it looks like the marriage is working, have one hell of a party, complete with zamboni and pink pony if you so desire. Because it's not the size or cost of the wedding that counts..It's really about the growth of love and devotion. After all, the remainder of your lives together is a long, long time.
Monday, January 3, 2011
How Did I Get From There to There
I come from about the smallest towns in small town America as you can find. Last known population-189..And that was before I left. When I left in late 1969, the last place I saw myself in were the capitals of Europe or standing on the shores of both the Mediterranean or the Aegean sea. 6 years living in Europe thanks to Uncle Sam. But, thanks to my career field, I, for the lack of a better word, had it made. So much so that I couldn't wait until I could request re-assignment back to Europe, first to Germany and then to Italy.
Unlike the United States, you didn't have to travel more than an hour to see dozens of towns that had a rich history, in some cases dating back to the Romans and even before. People living in houses that date back to the 14th and 15th century, ultra-modern inside, but still having the half-timber exterior we first learned of in childhood fairy tales. All countries in Europe held on the their past with a passion, They weren't a throw away society. The charm and beauty, not to mention cleanliness surpasses us in so many ways. Look through the pictures and you will not see one piece of litter. I didn't see the homeless sleeping in the street. Rarely did I hear a police car, siren blaring, heading to a homicide. Sadly, that may be changing. Germany especially, still has the stigma of the Holocaust and because of that, they became a haven for radical Muslims, because Germany didn't want to be seen as intolerant of any ethnic group, and Muslims are having far more children than Germans so the next generation or two could see a Muslim majority population. The same with France and, to some degree, Italy.
But I digress. Most of the memories have been stored in a shoebox as there was no need to rehash the past, but one day, about a year ago, I started scanning them into my computer and each one brought back an interesting moment, at least for me, of a time so very long ago. I began printing them out and sending them to a very dear friend back home. Her husband and my father had both been in Europe in her darkest hour, he a medic and my father a tank commander who was lucky to have survived both the first wave of D-Day and the Bulge. Their memories of Europe were far different than mine. I realized that it would take the kings ransom to print everything so I sent them out on DVD, backed by music..and some basic production techniques. It was my attempt to honor them and the 15 million others who destroyed a country, then let it rebuild itself into it's own image. And my pride was in seeing the result of that sacrifice.
I had planned to retire in Germany, but our government decided to stop protecting the dollar and it's now worth about 25 percent of what it was when I left so that plan went out the window. There are still a lot of tourists heading across the pond and paying far more for just the basics than I did "back in the day". That's sad because now the vacation di jour is a big piece of tin sailing the Caribbean and going to a beach that looks more or less like any other beach and eating 10 meals a day. The best vacation is getting a Eurail pass
and just go from town to town, each one unique unto itself. I guarantee it will be the vacation of a lifetime.
Unlike the United States, you didn't have to travel more than an hour to see dozens of towns that had a rich history, in some cases dating back to the Romans and even before. People living in houses that date back to the 14th and 15th century, ultra-modern inside, but still having the half-timber exterior we first learned of in childhood fairy tales. All countries in Europe held on the their past with a passion, They weren't a throw away society. The charm and beauty, not to mention cleanliness surpasses us in so many ways. Look through the pictures and you will not see one piece of litter. I didn't see the homeless sleeping in the street. Rarely did I hear a police car, siren blaring, heading to a homicide. Sadly, that may be changing. Germany especially, still has the stigma of the Holocaust and because of that, they became a haven for radical Muslims, because Germany didn't want to be seen as intolerant of any ethnic group, and Muslims are having far more children than Germans so the next generation or two could see a Muslim majority population. The same with France and, to some degree, Italy.
But I digress. Most of the memories have been stored in a shoebox as there was no need to rehash the past, but one day, about a year ago, I started scanning them into my computer and each one brought back an interesting moment, at least for me, of a time so very long ago. I began printing them out and sending them to a very dear friend back home. Her husband and my father had both been in Europe in her darkest hour, he a medic and my father a tank commander who was lucky to have survived both the first wave of D-Day and the Bulge. Their memories of Europe were far different than mine. I realized that it would take the kings ransom to print everything so I sent them out on DVD, backed by music..and some basic production techniques. It was my attempt to honor them and the 15 million others who destroyed a country, then let it rebuild itself into it's own image. And my pride was in seeing the result of that sacrifice.
I had planned to retire in Germany, but our government decided to stop protecting the dollar and it's now worth about 25 percent of what it was when I left so that plan went out the window. There are still a lot of tourists heading across the pond and paying far more for just the basics than I did "back in the day". That's sad because now the vacation di jour is a big piece of tin sailing the Caribbean and going to a beach that looks more or less like any other beach and eating 10 meals a day. The best vacation is getting a Eurail pass
and just go from town to town, each one unique unto itself. I guarantee it will be the vacation of a lifetime.
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