Month: December 2024

I wrote this essay almost two years ago, when Jimmy Carter went into hospice care. He passed away yesterday, and I thought it was appropriate to re-post it, with two post-scripts.

Campaigns

In 1975, I was nineteen, a sophomore at Denison University and an aspiring politician.  I already had experience. At fourteen I helped manage a local judicial election campaign, and at seventeen in the spring of ’74, I helped run Tom Luken’s “Get Out the Vote” operation for a Congressional special election . 

 My “shining moment”was  in the fall of ’75. I managed the campaign to make the village of Granville, Denison’s home, allow liquor sales.  Historically, Granville was headquarters for Ohio’s Methodist Convention, and a “dry town”.  While Denison (at least in my time) was anything but a “dry” campus, you couldn’t buy a beer within the village limits.  We changed that (If I had a nickel for every drink now sold in Granville, known for its pubs and breweries…). By 1975 campaigning was already “in my blood”. 

Denison

Denison gave students an opportunity to “design” their own academic major.  Students could put together courses and “experiences” and graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree molded to their own particular needs.  My degree was in “American Political Studies”. It was an amalgam of political science, history, and education courses; designed to earn a teaching certificate as well as prepare me for Law School and my future political life.  

One semester would involve student teaching,  and one semester would be working in Washington DC and taking courses at American University.  But the “best” part was the fall semester of 1976 – when I would do an “independent study” by working in a Presidential campaign.

Find a Winner

Easy to say:  but which political campaign could I work on?  In the early spring of 1976 there was no way of knowing which candidate could win the Democratic nomination.  I contacted the Sargent Shriver campaign.  Shriver was a Kennedy in-law, and head of the Peace Corps for JFK.  Getting close to a “Kennedy” campaign was always a goal, and Senator Ted Kennedy wasn’t running, still suffering from the political fallout of his Chappaquiddick disaster in 1970.  

But Shriver was out of the race by early April, and I was at a loss where to turn next.  My professor and advisor, Dr. Kirby, was friends with the brother of Ohio Governor Richard Celeste.  Ted Celeste was active in Columbus politics, and the state manager for the obscure former Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.  I had an interview with Ted (I wore a tie over a flannel shirt – it was 1976). We agreed I would volunteer with the Carter primary campaign in Cincinnati after spring semester was over in early May.

Carter/Mondale

Jimmy Carter was never my first choice.  He was too moderate, too Southern, and too anti-Washington DC for my taste.  But his crack staff of Georgia political operatives, led by Hamilton Jordan (pronounced Jur-den)  had him in position to win the nomination if he could win in Ohio in June.  They had momentum, and I wanted to be a part of the fall campaign for the Presidency.  

So I walked into the Cincinnati “headquarters”, a decrepit office building  next to an “hourly” hotel in downtown Cincinnati.  I already knew a couple of staffers there from the Luken campaign, and within a day I was putting together the “Get Out the Vote” effort for the Cincinnati area.  I was nineteen years old: street campaigning is for the young, energetic, dedicated and sleepless.  That fit my lifestyle just fine.

Carter won Ohio, and the Democratic nomination.  I used my primary contacts to get on the “professional” staff for the fall campaign.  I was a “paid political operative”, at $75 a week!! While today that sounds like nothing at all, it  converts to almost $400 in 2023, enough to live on, as long as I slept at Mom and Dad’s house.

Professional Operative

I spent the summer painting houses, repairing my Volkswagen’s engine, and studying Jimmy Carter.  I read his book, Why Not the Best, and every bit of the “policy bible” I could get my hands on.  In the end, I was a “Kennedy Liberal” in a “Carter Moderate” campaign, but that didn’t bother me.  As a future lawyer there would always be “clients” to represent that I didn’t necessarily agree with. I could make the case for Carter, especially against Republican Gerald Ford, the legacy of the Nixon/Watergate debacle.

I ultimately wrote a thirty-some page paper about my fall experience with the Carter Campaign for my independent study credit.  They put me in charge of eight rural counties around Cincinnati, gathering statistics (by hand, there was no such thing as a “webpage”; and just barely calculators) to analyze.  I also had Miami University in my “territory”, and I helped organize the student staff there.  And I had “the best” job:  I was in charge of the “illegal” sign operation in Cincinnati itself.  All of those campaign signs that “blossomed” at intersections, telephone poles and bridge railings in the middle of the night:  that was my crew.  Luckily for us, the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police were on our side. In fact, some were part of the crew. 

And, in the end, I was back to my specialty:  Get Out the Vote efforts in Cincinnati in the last weeks.  The mantra was  we’ll sleep after the election.

The Candidate

I got to meet Jimmy the one time he was in town.  The “powers” in Atlanta decided to fly him in on the second day of the World Series. It was Sunday, and the Reds played the Yankees for the championship.  Everyone in town was fixated on the “Big Red Machine”. It seemed natural to send Carter to the ballgame.  But Atlanta worried that he might be booed. We said, “Put a Reds hat on and he would be golden.”

But It wasn’t to be.  Jimmy flew in for a brief rally at the Lunken commuter airport.  There was a crowd of a couple thousand there to see him, and the staff was brought in for a “meet and greet”.  When I shook hands and welcomed “Governor Carter” to Cincinnati, he quickly corrected me – “Jimmy.”  He gave us a short pep-talk, then was back on the plane headed to Cleveland.

In fact, I spent more time with Senator Howard Metzenbaum that day.  The Senator was there for the rally, but abandoned by his staff, who were anxious to go watch the game.  In the end I gave him a ride in my beat-up Volkswagen back to his downtown office.  He was a kind and respectful man, and  we had a good discussion about politics and Ohio.

I did get to spend more time with Carter’s daughter-in-law, who campaigned in the “outer” counties with me.  And I got to meet Rosalyn (Rose-a-linn, not Ross-a-linn) as she spent a couple days in town.  

Back to Granville

Carter won Ohio, and the Presidency.  The original count had him up by 5000 votes in the state. Each of us young staffers “knew” that it was our singular effort that got him there.  We walked across Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati early on Wednesday morning after the election was determined. For the moment – we owned that town.

I decided to finish my Denison education rather than try for a job in the Administration. But I spent the winter and spring of 1977 in Washington, working for Congressman Luken and studying at American University.  The next year I was back in Granville. And when I spent that winter and spring student teaching at Watkins Memorial High School in Pataskala, I found another vocation that could compete with politics:  teaching.

In 1980 I was contacted about joining the Carter Staff for their ill-fated campaign.  But it wasn’t disappointment in Jimmy – it  was the “lure” of teaching and coaching that kept me on the sidelines. 

Outside-Inside

I do have a better understanding than most why the Carter Administration failed in so many ways.  The “Georgia Mafia”, so brilliant at the politics of winning the Presidency, were too dedicated to being outsiders.  Washington is an insider town;  the compromise needed for the moderate President to work with a progressive Congress, even from the same party, didn’t happen.  Add to that the economic downturn, and the Iran hostages (with Reagan negotiating to hold until after the election). Jimmy was fated to lose in 1980.

But even with all that, he did manage to bring together two mortal enemies:  Israeli Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. They negotiated the Camp David Accords, the first agreement between the two sides.  

President Carter

And Jimmy Carter, out of the Presidency at fifty-six, remained determined to impact the world.  His forty years of work through the Carter Center perhaps were more influential than his Presidency.  The organization monitored elections throughout the world, demanding free and fair voting.  It virtually eliminated parasitic river blindness worldwide.  And Jimmy annually volunteered for construction with Habitat of Humanity up until two years ago, when he was ninety-six.

Jimmy Carter is a model of faith, decency and service.  While his Presidency wasn’t what he hoped, his influence on the world was even greater after he left the highest office.  He’s taught Americans how to live, and now, entering hospice, he’s teaching Americans how to die.  I’m proud of my distant association with him, but more importantly, awed by his lifelong dedication.  

Godspeed, Jimmy.

Post Script 1 (November 5, 2024)

Count on Jimmy Carter to do exactly what he wanted to do.  I wrote the above as a eulogy in February of 2023, when Jimmy went into hospice for brain cancer.  I assumed that his stay on this earth would be short.  Be here we are, a year and a half later, and Jimmy is still with us.  

He lost the love of his life, Rosalyn.  And his grandchildren say he sleeps a lot.  But Jimmy is still aware of what’s going on in America.  On October 1st, he turned 100 years old.  Abiding by Georgia state laws, as soon as he was able, Jimmy voted by absentee for the President of the United States.  And while Georgia has no law prohibiting the counting of a deceased person’s absentee ballot, Jimmy is alive today, election day.  I’m sure part of the reason is to make sure his vote for Kamala Harris; the first woman, the second Black person, and the first person of West Asian descent to run for President; counted. 

Post Script 2 (December 30, 2024)

On December 29. 2024, Jimmy Carter passed away at 100 years old.  He was a man of politics, but his motives were pure.  The world will be a little dimmer with the loss of his life.  Once again, Godspeed Jimmy.

Across the Divide

There are few things both sides of the political divide agree on these days.  But there is one that aligns for economic and national security reasons. America needs to produce essential products we use here at home.   The best examples of these are right down the road from my house, here near good ol’ Pataskala.  

First Solar is the nation’s largest solar panel producer (50% of US production),. And there’s a plant at the corner of Mink Street and Refugee Road.   They use Chinese technology to make the panels, both here in Pataskala and in Arizona (Energy Sage).  Ten years ago, most solar panels were coming from China.  Now the US has its own production, lessening our dependence on an economic and military rival.

And just up that same Mink Street (actually in Johnstown) the massive Intel chip manufacturing plant is going up.  Computer chips, are the “brains” of everything from phones to cars to TV’s (and of course computers). Almost all of them come from Taiwan.  And while Taiwan is both a US economic and military ally, the island nation’s proximity to mainland China makes it vulnerable.  China’s avowed national goal is to “recover” the island for the Chinese Communist Party. (Taiwan was the refuge of the opposition Chinese Nationalists, driven from the mainland in 1949).  

The United States pledges to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. But even with our military force, a battle for the island would disrupt world chip production.  It makes sense for the US to add its own domestic chip production to reduce economic vulnerability.  President Biden’s Chips and Science Act provided support for the building of 19 chip plants in the US.  The Intel campus on Mink Street is one of those.

Birthright

Biden, Trump, and Harris are all for “Made in America”.  That is, until it comes to the intellect to lead America’s technological rebirth.  While Trump takes heroic stands before “the Flag” and disparages immigrants, some of those around him jostle for the opportunity to bring in more immigrants under the “H-1-B” program.  Both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy claim the US needs to bring in the world’s best, because Americans aren’t good enough for the work.   Ramaswamy posted on Musk’s ‘X’: “(American culture) has venerated mediocrity over excellence, leading to a nation that does not produce the best engineers.”

Ramaswamy, was a child of immigrants from Sri Lanka. His father was a General Electric engineer and patent attorney and his mother a psychiatrist. Neither were US citizens. Vivek was born in Cincinnati and has “birthright citizenship” under the 14^th Amendment. Ramaswamy was educated at Cincinnati’s St Xavier High School, Harvard undergrad, and Yale Law School.   As my (English) mother would say, he is the proverbial “Pot calling the kettle black”. If American culture venerates mediocrity over excellence, he is a product of it.

Naturalized

Musk’s career itself is a result of an F-1 US student visa.  He came from South Africa to study in Canada, then ultimately moved to the University of Pennsylvania to get his undergraduate degree.  He then remained on the visa to go to Stanford for graduate school, but never enrolled in classes.  Instead, he and his brother developed an online city guide application, which they sold to Compaq for over $300 million.  That work was, and is, illegal to do under an F-1 visa.

But that was the basis for Musk’s fortune.  And while Musk, and his brother, later got legal work visas, if they had answered the application truthfully they would likely have been denied and removed the country. Both are now naturalized US citizens.

Of a Feather

Here are two, “birds of a feather”, as Mom would say, in Trump’s orbit.   They stand in stark contrast to the “Steven’s”; Bannon and Miller, who take a dim view of any immigrant (particularly those of darker skin tones).   And while all of them have degrees from American universities, they all express disdain for Americans with the same credentials (Bannon from Virginia Tech, Georgetown, and Harvard; and Miller a Duke undergrad). 

But they have one important point.  More than half of students enrolled in post-bachelor’s education in US engineering schools are not US citizens, and in some areas, like petroleum engineering, less than 25% are.  American universities are educating the world, but fewer and fewer Americans.  

Made in America

So maybe the solution to their concerns isn’t so much with immigration, but with graduate school admission.  Just like the solar panels and the chips, the American government (even a Trump government) needs to make it a national priority to get Americans into the elite post-graduate programs at American universities.  

And for those who are somehow convinced that the American educational process can’t produce such students anymore; take a look at the cost of getting an MIT Engineering degree – $86,000 — a year.  Purdue, another top ten Engineering School is better; about $25,000 a year.  Perhaps it isn’t the educational process, but the price.

American education may be the best in the world, but it is expensive. Ask any recipient of a student loan.  Sure, it’s expensive for students from other countries as well, but they are often getting aid from their own governments. To be told that Americans just can’t hack it, especially by a naturalized and a birthright citizen who took full advantage of what American education can offer; well, it all kind of sounds un-American.

Bombs on the Way

Herman Kahn was a physicist, game theorist, and futurist with the Rand Corporation in the late 1950’s and early 60’s.  Kahn’s specialty was theorizing about possible outcomes of nuclear warfare.  He shocked the academic and government world by explaining a “winnable” nuclear war, at a time when academic thought ended at “just” overwhelming atomic destruction.  It was the gallows humor joke:  “Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven” (as if there would be anyone left to film or watch the eleven o’clock news).   Kahn posited that there could be “acceptable losses” of civilian life (“just” 20 million), and that the survival of American government and culture could be considered a “win”.

He called it “thinking about the unthinkable”.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

For almost half of American voters, they are facing the “unthinkable” right now.   Donald Trump will again be the President of the United States in less than a month.  And, unlike Trump four years ago, there will not “…be a wild time” in Washington on January 6^th. There is no threat to the Presidential Inauguration.  Like it or not, Democrats know how to lose.  We know what’s expected by the American experiment: we must now be the “loyal” opposition.  It’s Trump’s Presidency until 2029. 

Sure, we’ve had more than a month to “digest” the “indigestible”.  And I’m sure many Democrats have searched for a way out. Go off the grid, go to Canada (not going to be the 51^st state), or put on our “foil hats” of conspiracy.  Was the election really stolen?  Did MAGA-world do what it always does:  blame Democrats for what they themselves do?  Should we really be considering a “wild time”?  Is Democracy at stake, and if it is, do we need to do more than just be “loyal”?

All of that leads to a kind of madness, the “real” version of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, as my MAGA friends would say.   So here are a few rules to survive the second Trump Administration, and, hopefully to allow the American experiment in Democracy to survive as well.

A TV Show

One way to look at Trump’s actions is to learn the way he learned.  Trump’s biggest success wasn’t in real estate, or steak, wine and Bible sales, or in casino management.  In fact, he failed at most of those endeavors.  No, Trump’s biggest success was as a reality TV show star.   It was that success which put him in the national eye, and allowed him to parlay his way through a weak 2016 Republican field into the Presidential nomination.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Trump isn’t stupid.  He’s just not very successful in business.  He learned from the TV experience, as well as his own personal connections to Joe McCarthy’s lawyer Roy Cohn.  

Cohn’s rules were:  “Attack, attack, attack; admit nothing, deny everything; always claim victory”.  Trump added his own; “Bad publicity is better than no publicity”.  

From reality TV, Trump learned that it was important to always have a “plot twist”, and to leave the audience hanging to wait for more.  He also learned the art of distraction; focus the audience away from the “real” crisis with some inconsequential event, then back to the main show. And most importantly, always be the “star”, the ultimate “winner” of every show and season, even if someone else actually became “The Apprentice”.  

Tweets

It’s already happening.  Trump’s thirty-four posts on Truth Social on Christmas Day (someone didn’t get what he wanted from Santa) are a great example of his “rules”, and guaranteed to drive us Democrats to foil hat madness!!.  He talked about buying Greenland, making Canada the 51^st state (sorry “Governor” Trudeau), retaking the Panama Canal and driving non-existent Chinese armed forces out.  

He did manage to wish Merry Christmas to us “Radical Left Lunatics” (we all need Biden pardons) but only had “coal” for the 37 Federal inmates whose death penalties were commuted to life in prison – “they can go to Hell!!”.  

My fellow Democrats, are we getting ready to invade Greenland, or Panama (again), or even Canada (that didn’t work out so well in 1778 and 1812)?  After all, we Democrats have an expectation that the President-elect of the United States is serious.   If he wants Greenland, or Canada, or Panama, he’ll actually go and get them.  But Trump won’t. 

What He Does

What he is doing is distracting, from the fact that he cannot achieve his main campaign goal of “fixing high prices” (he already told us that).  And he wants to make sure he has all of your attention. President Biden continues to serve the country (he signed 57 bills into law on Christmas Day). And, of course, “President” Musk suffered a huge defeat in Congress last week (that makes Musk a “loser”, not Trump).

It’s what’s to come.  Plot twist (Greenland), distraction (Panama), insult (Radical Left Lunatic).  MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow put it simply when she said; “Watch what he does, not what he says”.  That might be the number one rule to follow in the next four years.  It’s the way to try to endure the “unthinkable”.

Disappeared

Many Americans think that President Joe Biden “disappeared” after he withdrew from the Presidential election last summer.  Biden knew exactly what that withdrawal would mean to him.  The political moniker for an office holder who is serving out his term without running for re-election is “a lame duck”.  That’s because most of the powers and authorities of office are based on the idea of “what can you do for me”.  And as a “lame duck”, there’s only a limited amount of time and authority to get things done, for legislators, constituents, or the Nation.

Biden knew full well what would happen when he withdrew and anointed Vice President Harris as his successor.  He got shoved into the background, with Harris and Trump taking up all of the political “air”.  Whether Democrats like it or not, that’s certainly a big part of the reason that Biden didn’t, as many suggested he should, get out earlier and allow for a full Democratic primary process.  Biden entered office with a lot to do. He wasn’t done.  

In fact, many historians compare Biden’s Presidency to that of Franklin Roosevelt’s. His efforts in the last four years not only helped the country recover from economic crisis, but left a lasting impact on the physical infrastructure.  Biden’s plate was full, and he wanted to get as much done as possible.  But from that Sunday afternoon when Biden withdrew, his ability to empty that plate was limited.

Power’s Lost

Biden faced a near total loss of power in three areas.  First, his ability to influence legislation was over.   While the President maintains the power to sign or veto laws; what can a “lame duck” promise in the legislative bargaining process?  Biden didn’t take a public hand in the recent Congressional Budget and government shutdown negotiations – but he still signed the final bill keeping the government open.

Second, he lost his ability to “speak for the Nation” in international affairs.  President-Elect Trump has taken a highly visible role, acting like he was already President.  But even if Harris had won, Biden would still be seen as the short-timer he is.  Why should the Netanyahu’s or Putin’s or Xi’s of the world negotiate with an Administration that can’t make commitments beyond January 20^th?  

And finally, Biden’s impact as the leader of the Nation diminished from the moment he withdrew.  Instead of the leading voice of Democratic ideas and values, that role was passed to Harris, and now is vacant. And, of course, the alternative ideas and values represented by Trump were selected by the narroest of margins.  Both Biden and Harris were barely rejected, (by less than 250,000 votes out of 130 million. But that rejection was still plain and final.

Power Remains

Just because Biden receded from his public role as National leader, he still continues to use his executive powers.  Sure, we all are aware of the very public pardon of Hunter Biden.  Controversial or not, the President  continues to use the “merciful” Article II powers of pardon and commutation.  Just today, he announced that he is commuting the death sentence of 37 of the 40 Federal prisoners on death row, changing their sentences to life without parole.  And it’s likely that there will be more commutations, particularly of non-violent drug offenders in federal custody.

And quietly, Biden is doing everything in his remaining powers to consolidate the changes he made during his Presidency.  The Project 2025 guys (and I do mean guys, no women allowed?) are in love with a concept called “impoundment”.  The theory is that once Congress passes a law to spend money, the President can still determine whether to actually spend it for the “Congressional purpose”, or can take it for something else.  

Spend It Now

Courts in the past ruled against impoundment, saying (rightfully) it violates separation of powers.  But all bets are off with the current Supreme Court.  So Biden’s getting money from the Infrastructure act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips Act out of government hands.  He’s making sure it’s spent, not still sitting in the Treasury, when the Trump Administration takes office.

Biden isn’t sitting on his “laurels”.  He will continue to pursue his agenda behind the scenes until noon on January 20^th.  But Joe Biden will also stand by the principle of a peaceful transition of power, even if it’s turning power over to Donald Trump.  There will be no Biden tweets:  “Come to Washington, it will be a wild time”.   

It will be wild enough for the next four years without that.

Provenance – the place of origin or earliest known history of something (OED)

It’s an actual Sunday, and this is another in the “Sunday Story” series. It was originally published on the Ohio Pole Vault Safety website.

This is a (long) pole vaulting story, a brief history of a piece of equipment, and what’s happened to the event in the past thirty-five years (or more) here in Central Ohio.  

I sold the raised runway today. 

Indoor Vaulting

What is a raised runway?  Mine was a series of wooden platforms, 48” long by 10” high by 36” wide, that hook together to make a 100’ raised runway for pole vaulting.  It’s heavy, 25 sections of wood each near 100 lbs.  That’s more than a ton, set up and torn down every time we wanted to vault.  But, back in the day, it gave my Watkins vaulters a competitive advantage.  We could vault, indoors, on the gym floor, in the middle of winter; something that only vaulters with access to collegiate indoor tracks could do at that time.  And we shared it with others, sometimes as many as twenty kids from different schools lined up on snowy winter nights, after the Watkins basketball practices finally ended, sharing stories and taking their turn to become a better pole vaulter.

Before the raised runway, we still tried to vault in the gym.  We moved the pole vault pit inside, stored in the hallway between the gym and the locker rooms.  Then, when we had access, we’d set it up, and plug in a device called a “vacuum” box.  It was a plastic tray with a vacuum cleaner motor in it, that sucked to the gym floor.  It created a stable spot to put the pole in for a vault into the pit.

But the problem with the vacuum box was that it was at ground level, not the 8” down angled box that is the standard pole vault box.  That changed the entire physics of the vault; requiring vaulters to use a pole a foot shorter than they would in competition.  And, since the box was flat, once the pole reached vertical, the tip “kicked back” out of the box.  That feeling, while up 12’ in the air, was unnerving, even when you know you’re still going to land in the mats.  

So while we did practice indoors in the winter, it wasn’t nearly as productive as actual vaulting.  And when I had an athlete with a serious pole vault issue, one that I could solve only on a real runway, I had to beg college coaches around to let us in.  The NCAA frowned on that, so it didn’t happen very often.  

The Raised Runway

Then, in the late 1990’s, a coaching friend of mine stopped by on a late spring day with an offer.  A parent of one of his vaulters built an entire raised runway, 100’ of heavy wood, with an actual box, 8” lower at the end.  The vaulter graduated, and the school didn’t want to store it.  If I wanted and could store it, I could have it. And boy, did I want it!!!

Thus began the “saga” of Watkins indoor pole vault.  We went a couple of nights a week and often on Sundays, originally storing the pole vault pit in a corner of the gym and the runway on a wooden cart in the hallway.  And since, with eight or ten vaulters, it took about fifteen minutes to set up and tear down everything, we’d start at 9:00pm, and finish around 11:00pm.  Some kids might have been in violation of local curfew laws.  Sometimes I worried, especially about the “guest” vaulters who drove an hour or more to jump. One night, I didn’t realize it snowed a foot while we vaulted, (One of my kid’s parents sure had words for me). But, when you’re moving a whole pole vault pit and building a whole runway, “the more the merrier” made sense.

Vaulting made a huge difference.  Now our kids could go into indoor competitions with actual full vaults on their big poles.  They were ready, vaulting almost as much as we did in the outdoor season practices.  And we saw those benefits right away. One of our vaulters won the “state invitational” (there was no State Indoor meet yet). And when the actual state indoor meet was established (first at Findlay, then Akron, and now at Spires) we had qualifiers and placers almost every year. 

Adventures 

Up until the last couple years, the athletic directors at Watkins were incredibly cooperative.  But there were some “glitches”.  The Fire Marshal determined that the pit (mats) couldn’t be stored inside the gym, worried that it blocked an exit.  So we had to store it outside, up against the building in the winter, then drag it through the narrow doorways into the gym.  The pits were often wet or snowy.  And once there were literally frozen. We had to wait for them to defrost to actually vault. 

And there was always a concern about the gym floor.  We did everything we could to protect it, putting carpet under the wood, and a full “rollout” runway beside it for the kids to walk back on (in track spikes).  But basketball coaches always seemed to have a magnifying glass out, examining the floor for any marks, after we got done. I don’t blame them, I was the same way with the track.

 There were always adventures.  There was the time that I found the wrestlers up on the roof of the gym hallway, diving off the building into the pole vault pits stacked on the side.  I heard their footsteps on the ceiling in the middle of a wrestling tournament.  And once, when I stepped out of the gym for a moment, I came back in to find my vaulters had moved the pit besides the 22’ high bleachers, and were doing “butt drops” from the top.  Then there was the kid from Logan, who completely missed the plant box, went fifteen feet in the air, and landed on his feet on the gym floor.  He was OK, but I didn’t ask him to come back.

Club Vault

And so for more than a decade we had indoor vault at Watkins.  And it was during that decade, the event started to change.

While we were vaulting two or three times a week, there was a new concept in town:  the Buckeye Pole Vault Academy, led by an itinerant Pole Vault Coach named Dave Garcia (he coached everywhere, including Ohio State and Michigan).  Dave leased a barn in rural Delaware County, set up a runway and pit, and charged kids to come.  It was a seven day a week operation.  If you had the time (the barn is a long way from anywhere) and the money (several hundred dollars a month) you could have virtually unlimited access to a full runway and pit.  

Dave altered the pole vault model.  It’s not that the kids went that much higher, but pit (and pole) access allowed them to reach their best heights so much earlier in the season.  Ohio kids no longer had to wait for May to finally get great practice days.  It was always warm and dry in the Barn.  A series of state champions, led by the Uhle brothers (there were three) from Olentangy, cemented Dave’s grip at the top. Today, Dave’s coaching “descendants” are back at the barn, and there’s another coach working with a local university, and a couple of others with indoor facilities every few years.

Around that time I retired from teaching.  I was still coaching at Watkins, but I decided to also try my hand at “private” pole vault coaching.  I found a local fitness center in an old factory building near Granville. It had an unused loft, big enough for a pit, and an 80’ runway.  We set up what we titled “The Vault Loft at ARC”.   

Have Runway, Will Travel

I carried that raised runway up the two flights of stairs by myself, and I used the Watkins pole vault pit (I got some help with that!!).  And for a couple of years, I tried to make a “go” of private coaching.  It never made financial sense, but we did have a lot of athletic success, sending multiple kids from different schools (including Watkins) to the state indoor meet.  Some became outdoor state placers as well.  And I found out what I already knew:  I was a much better coach than a business man.

In the end, the gym owners decided they could make more money putting their weight facility in the loft, and we parted ways.  Meanwhile, there was a new Athletic Director at Watkins, a “new sheriff in town”.  She wanted nothing to do with indoor pole vault.  So the runway moved again, this time to a neighboring school with a more cooperative AD, and a coach who wanted a place to vault.

For the last couple of years I coached (2016, 2017), twice a week I loaded kids up in my big Yukon, and hauled them to the neighboring school at 8pm.  We always outnumbered the kids from the home school, and together we set up the runway and got our practices in.

Finally though, I traded my black coaching shirt for a white officiating one, and left the runway, behind.

Make it Useful

The neighboring school no longer uses the runway, and it was sitting in their storage shed.  A month ago I picked it up, moved it (the last time) to my own storage facility, and put it up for sale.  A pole vault group out of Long Island, New York, was desperate for a way to vault indoors, just like I was in the 1990’s. When they contacted me, I got to tell my story of flying to Yale University in Connecticut back in 1989, then driving a U Haul truck with a pole vault pit back to Pataskala.  Today I helped them load up a U Haul, bound for the coast.

I’m glad to have the runway off my hands.  I’m also glad that there will be more vaulting, thumping down “the boards” that were made two decades before these vaulters were born.  They will be able to have full vaults indoors.  And there’s a New York vault coach so excited, that he’s ready to unload in the middle of the night, whenever the U Haul crosses the Narrows, and finally arrives in its new home on Long Island.

 He’s already scheduled practice for tomorrow.

PS – The Long Island coach set me pictures – all set up with kids on the runway.  It’s a game-changer for him, just like it was for me.  

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

Oligarchy – a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution

1981

1981 was a big year of change for me.  I left teaching in June, and started law school at the University of Cincinnati in August.  Cincinnati was home, and I was soon managing a Cincinnati City Council campaign for a good friend who was a great candidate.  Like many Democratic campaigns of the time, we were well organized, had great volunteers, a very little money.  We were trying to run a $40,000 campaign on a $10,000 budget.  This campaign taught me an important political lesson. I was a good campaign manager, but a lousy fundraiser.  That’s a near-fatal flaw in politics.

But we had an offer, an opportunity, from a wealthy Cincinnati woman interested in supporting other women for office.  She offered $15,000, more than the entire cost of our efforts.  It would have allowed us to jump into the television market, the one area that we were desperate to crack, but blocked by the entry costs.  

Quid Pro Quo

I remember serious discussions with the candidate about the position that the single donation would put her in, were we to win.  What did that amount, and more importantly, what did that percentage of our effort, guarantee to the donor?  Sure money in politics guarantees access to the office holder, but at what point does it actually promise action?  Is there an implicit quid pro quo if a donor literally writes the check that wins the office?

We agreed the answer to that last question was a resounding “yes”.  So we backed away from the donor, and never got the “magic check” that would change everything.  We lost, thirteenth out of twenty with the top ten winning a seat on the Council.  I went on to leave law school at the end of the semester, discovering that my three-year taste of teaching and coaching was more powerful than my desire to learn the law.   There were lots of decisions for me in the fall of 1981.

Musk’s Lead

The 2024 Donald Trump campaign raised and spent around $1.5 Billion in the last campaign (Open Secrets).  We know that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, spent $277 million supporting the Trump Campaign (CBS).  That’s about 18.5% of the total.   Since Trump won the election, Musk has literally moved in with him at Mar-A-Lago.  He’s been “appointed” to lead an unofficial advisory group, deceptively named the “Department of Government Efficiency”(DOGE). Only Congress can create a whole-new department of the executive branch. 

And this week, Musk exercised unilateral power over the House Republican Caucus; single-handedly killing a bi-partisan agreement to keep the US Government from closing.  His combination of social media attacks (after all, he does own Twitter) and threats of retribution threw the House into a crisis that still isn’t resolved.  The Government technically shuts down Friday at midnight – with no reasonable solution in sight.

Sure, the President-Elect chimed in.  But he clearly was following Musk’s lead.

Elon Musk is the ultimate capitalist.  His expertise isn’t in space travel, nor in social media, and not even in electric car technology.  Musk is a venture capitalist, with his original stake coming from his wealthy South African parents.  He co-founded PayPal, then sold it to E-Bay for $1.5 billion.   Now he owns Tesla, Space X, Twitter (now known as ‘X’) and some other smaller companies.  

Money Talks

Capitalists understand that they get something for their money.  And Musk gave a lot of money to Donald Trump, enough that he can take the credit for Trump’s win in 2024.  So what’s the “quid-pro-quo”:  what did Musk buy?  

It certainly is more than just access, though he got plenty of that:  breakfast, golf, lunch and dinner with the next President of the United States. And it’s more than the unofficial head of “DOGE”.   Musk is now acting as the “muscle” for Trump’s influence on his own MAGA-Republican Party.  When Trump tells a Congressman to do something, his threat is to “primary” the legislator if they don’t.  Now it’s not just Trump’s endorsement; the threat is also backed by Musk’s almost unlimited money.

The easiest way to explain the Russian Government is that it is an oligarchy, with a few very wealthy people running the government, “fronted”  by (and scared of)  Vladimir Putin.  We haven’t even started the second term of the Donald Trump Presidency.  But the outlines are already clear:  there is a single oligarch, Elon Musk, determining the course of the United States of America.  

Money talks, (everything else) walks.  That’s what America looks forward to for the next four years.

RESISTANCE

The “mantra” of the first Trump Administration – RESIST.  Resist the Nation altering changes that his Presidency represented. Resist the atrocity of child separation at the border. And, Resist the mind numbing litany of hate and disrespect uncovered by his presence.  And Resistance was effective (not futile, for those Star Trek fans – he ain’t the Borg).  But it wasn’t half as effective as Trump world falling all over itself.  

Trump was unable to make systemic changes in America in large part because he, and his minions, couldn’t get it together.  They constantly stepped on their own messages, fell over their own ideas, over-reached when the shouldn’t, and fell back when they should have “charged”.  They knew it, and so did the larger “MAGA” movement.  That’s why the “good folks” at the Heritage Foundation laid out almost 1000 pages of explicit plans for the second Trump Administration, “Project 2025”.  They don’t want to miss their “second bite at the apple”.

Chaos Theory

He’s not the President, yet.  But Trump is already starting his personal brand of “chaos theory”.   The latest example is the general disorder of the House of Representatives and the current government funding bill.  It’s all pretty simple:  if the House (and the Senate, already on board) don’t pass a spending resolution before tomorrow (Friday, 12/20), the government will shut down.  Well, not really, but those parts of the government deemed “non-essential” will shut down.  Paying Federal employees for example is not essential (according to them), especially the week before Christmas.  Many will still be required to come to work.

But it’s still a big deal, and the Republicans in the House of Representatives know it.  So they negotiated a bi-partisan deal with the Democrats, one that most of both parties could support, to gain the majority needed to fund the government until March.  Part of that bill is emergency aid for disaster relief to places like North Carolina and Florida.  Yesterday morning, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson woke up secure that the bill would be passed, and he could send his Congress home for Christmas secure the government was still functioning.

That’s when Trump, and his new side-kick Elon Musk, decided to tank the deal.  Musk (in Trump’s name) demanded that a debt limit be included in this piece of legislation, a “poison pill” to any bipartisan legislation.  And Trump backed it up, saying he would support a primary challenge against any Republican (that’s his own Party) who dared to support the “old” bipartisan bill.  Musk followed up with a pledge of financial support to those challengers.

 Blackmail

If that sounds like good, old-fashioned political blackmail, it is.  Blackmail from two men who currently hold no office in American government, who are operating from their own “capital” at Mar-a-Lago, and who completely undercut their own, elected, Speaker of the House.

So what’s the plan?  Is this really about shutting the government down, or is this more about sending a message to the Senate?  Pete Hegseth, Bobby Kennedy Jr, and Tulsi Gabbard all are highly problematic appointments to the prospective Trump Cabinet, each with multiple Republican Senators questioning their fitness for office.  Is Trump and his “muscle” Musk flexing to make the point to Murkowski, Ernst, Collins and Cassidy:  this can happen to you?

Miss the Target

It’s pretty clear, the only path to keep the government open would require Speaker Johnson to make a deal with Dems, a “poison pill” for him that may well cost the Speakership in January’s House vote.  Johnson can’t depend on Democrats to pull him out of the fire on then.  Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is more likely to let the vote go for days, demonstrating how weak and divided the House Republicans really are, with only a couple of votes to the majority.

And maybe that’s what Trump wants:  a Speaker wholly beholden to him.  Hard to imagine Mike Johnson as some kind of “rebel”, but he is theoretically the most important Republican in the government right now.  Maybe Trump needs to disable him first, though no one can top Johnson for his sycophancy to Trump.  It doesn’t matter.  

Close the government.  Dump Mike Johnson.  Make Elon the “Q” (another Star Trek analogy) behind the throne.  It doesn’t really matter.  The second Trump administration seems to be starting where the first Trump administration left off.  Sure, we need to RESIST where we can.  But, at least this far, Trump and his minions aren’t “the Borg”, an immense, immutable force.  Instead they’re more like the Feringi, in for the profit, and often “the gang that can’t shoot straight”.  

In the long run, that’s good for everyone.

Boomers Know

Covid took America by surprise.  I think we thought that the “age of disease” was past.  In fact, most Americans today believe that cancer will soon be “cured” (in some way or other).  I hope they’re right.  But folks of my generation, the dreaded Baby Boomers (I’m near the tail end), should know better.  Many of us were born in the shadow of polio, a disease of the summer that could quickly take your life.  Or, it could leave you paralyzed or even trapped in an iron lung (a steel tube that changed air pressure to force your lungs to expand and contract, replacing paralyzed chest muscles).  

It was real.  There seemed to be no way to avoid it, no action parents could take that could guarantee their child wouldn’t be stricken.  We all knew kids on crutches, or in braces; left disabled by the virus.  The most effective national fundraising operation was called “The March of Dimes”, raising money for polio research and medical care.  It was a time when dimes made a difference.

If you were a kid of the 1950’s, you were part of the near-miraculous experiment:  the polio vaccine.  The first was the injectable vaccine, created by Jonas Salk (University of Michigan), with incredible results.  But one manufacturer put out a “bad batch”, that sickened a lot of kids.  So the Salk vaccine was placed on hold for a while.  Meanwhile, there was a second vaccine, this one taken orally, literally with “a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down” (and where the “Mary Poppins” song lyrics came from).  

Maggie’s Street

Albert Sabin developed the oral vaccine.  He lived in Cincinnati on Rawson Woods Lane, just down the street from Mom’s great friend Maggie Miller.  A family story tells of neighborhood kids lining up at Sabin’s back door to be a part of the original vaccine studies.  I don’t remember doing that; I would have been three or four, but Sabin’s oral vaccine soon became the standard of care for preventing polio.  The shadows cast by “iron lungs” faded into vague memories.

And we also went through a litany of other childhood diseases.  Most came out unscathed, but there were always a few who “didn’t make it”.  Measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlet fever, mumps; most kids had them all.  Like my classmates, I had them too (though it took until my thirties to “finally get” chicken pox).  

The Boomers were the last generation facing that.  Childhood vaccinations; polio, the “MMR” (measles, mumps, rubella, also known as “German Measles”) and later the chicken pox vaccine spared millions of kids the known risks of disease.  In fact, the vaccines were so effective, that the miniscule number of adverse reactions became “the story”.  Instead of marveling at the vast numbers who didn’t get sick at all, we focused on the few damaged by the vaccines.

Covid

That was, until Covid.  Since more recent generations grew up in an era when the most dangerous community disease was the flu (with some protection available even for that), there was a great deal of skepticism about Covid.  To a large segment of our Nation, it became another infection to get, survive, and move on.  Even when the Covid vaccines were developed (with “Warp Speed” under the Trump Administration), many decided to ignore them, and take their chances with the virus.

Covid killed 1.2 million Americans.  It still is in the “top-ten” of causes of death in the US today.  Even though the vaccine didn’t prevent infection, it clearly reduces the impact of illness.  IF Americans were vaccinated, then those who are most vulnerable to Covid infection would be better protected.  Instead, Covid vaccination became a political talking point, a way to rally “the base”, and a point of honor to many Americans.  Vaccinations don’t work in a Nation where it is tied to ideological Red or Blue.

Hallowed Name

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Kennedy carries a “hallowed” name, the son of my greatest political hero.  But that’s where the similarity ends.  Kennedy originally made his mark as a lawyer who fought against polluters, but now stands as the premier “anti-vaxxer” in the Nation.  And his “anti-vax” stand doesn’t just include the Covid vaccine.  He has called for an end to mandatory childhood vaccinations, including polio.  His “science” is based on radically divergent medical opinion.  He cherry-picked a very few doctors opinions against the overwhelming majority of scientific facts to base his view.

Donald Trump wants to make him the head of the Department that controls public health.  He plans to place a man in charge who is determined to go back to the era of childhood diseases, back into the shadow of the iron lung.  Kennedy may have his “whack-o” views, perhaps a byproduct of earlier heroin addiction, or the worm infection in his brain.  That’s sad; for both him and the rest of his family who finds their hallowed name dragged through the mud.

But what is totally irresponsible is that the man elected President ( by a very slim margin) would place such a man in a position of authority.  

That’s the real failure.

It’s not Sunday – but this is definitely a “Sunday Story”. Enjoy a Christmas Tale.

NPD Inc.

Modernization, it’s a Santa Claus thing.  Here’s a guy who runs a worldwide distribution network, North Pole Delivery Inc. (NPD Inc.).  He’s always, “just in time”.  There’s a twenty-four hour delivery window, carefully coordinated with the time zones, and, of course, the North American Defense Command (NORAD).  Wouldn’t want Santa shot down, or worse, the cause of a nuclear confrontation between the super powers. 

Of course, someone with that expertise would use the most advanced intelligence gathering process possible.  The “old days” of taking written reports from parents all of the world, then hand collating them to the children available is gone; gone with the old written ledgers at the bank, or the checkbook in the desk drawer.  Now there’s a digitized process, integrating school records, social media information, police reports, and also, direct elfin observation (those odd-looking elves on the shelves).  It’s not your old fashioned St. Nicholas with a pipe and a rocker anymore (and no tobacco use either).

Legal in Jersey

You see, with all the presents requested in the past few years, NPD Inc. discovered what most kids already know:  drones are cool!!!  For just a few hundred bucks, you can vicariously fly around the neighborhood.   Better yet, you can look over the neighbor’s privacy fence to see what’s really going on, and have a birds-eye view of parades, games, and neighborhood celebrations (did you see Mrs. Smith take her top off after that sixth Tequila shooter??).  

The present selection advisory committee, headed by senior elf Jingle, suggested to the intelligence gathering service that the big guy get into the 21^st century.  What better way to “know when you’ve been bad or good…” then to have a series of drones observing the “customers?”

It’s Santa Claus:  there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing.   But like any good toy, Santa wanted to field-test “Project Bad or Good” on a limited basis before going to worldwide distribution.  And what better place to determine the efficacy of such an expenditure, than New Jersey.  Afterall, as the musical Hamilton made clear, “…everything’s legal in Jersey”.  

Good or Bad

Dobby the elf who invented the hobby horse, was placed in charge of “Project Bad or Good”, Jersey style.  He gathered dozens of drones, all kinds and sizes, to see which would work best for the planned up-scale.  Dobby carefully selected a cadre of younger elves as pilots, familiar with hand controls from their long experience in testing video games for Santa’s “peddler’s pack”.  And they settled into a temporary headquarters, an old warehouse in Asbury Park, just down the street from the bar where Bruce Springsteen first sang “Born to Run”.   These elves were “Born to Fly”.

“Project Good or Bad” started three weeks ago, with just a few smaller drone flights.  But the information was amazing, masses of “good or bad” behaviors that fully informed Santa who should get presents. And Dobby was able to use infrared technology to answer that all too critical NPD Inc. question:  “…(H)e knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake”.  

With the early successes, Dobby continued to increase the drone flights.  He even went to bigger drones, capable of staying up for hours and provide gigabytes of data on good little girls and boys.   What Dobby didn’t anticipate was the reaction of Jerseyites to the drones.  You’d think that with Manhattan’s waste washing up on the Jersey Shore, and Donald Trump’s first wife buried in a Jersey golf course, drones would be the least of their worries.  

Biden’s Gift

But even ex-Governors, Chris Christie and Larry Hogan (of Maryland, one of the younger elves got lost) got into the act.  So Santa himself was forced to consult with NORAD, to let them know that, truly, they had nothing to dread.

NORAD communicated the Santa-connection to President Biden, who actually giggled.  It was nice to see him smile, the first time since that ill-fated debate with Trump in June.  Biden ordered all government agencies (and his own press staff) to “dummy up”.  Sure, he wanted to back the “big guy”, Santa.  He knew him well from his childhood days in Scranton, back in the late 1880’s.  But all of the drone uproar was also drawing attention away from the incoming Trump administration.  Biden knew full well; the one thing Donald Trump wants most is attention.  Drones were the best “gift” Biden could give the President-elect.  He gave Dobby full authorization to continue.

“Get Ova-h It”

But some in New Jersey took things into their own hands.  Shots were fired at the NPD Inc. drones, and rumors that they were Iranian, or Russian, or Isis; spread like Christmas Ale at the office party.  An old broken down trawler, marooned two dozen miles at sea, was identified as the “Iranian Mother Ship” sending drones to spy on the good citizens of Jersey.

Dobby reported back to Santa:  “The drones work great, but folks in Jersey are crazy”.  Santa was nervous; it was close to “game time”, only weeks before Christmas.  The old man wasn’t interested in distractions.  “Either the folks in New Jersey ‘get ova-h it’, or they’re not going to be happy on Christmas morning!!!”

We’ll see what happens.  Maybe New Jerseyites will settle down, or maybe Dobby brings in the stealth drones intended for the Ukrainian military stockings in two weeks.  But if the good citizens of the Garden State don’t get with the Christmas spirit, there’s one thing for sure.

Invest in coal stocks.  Because there’s likely to be a shortage – all the coal will be in stockings hung by the chimney with care — in New Jersey.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coals for Christmas – 12/16/24

Above the Fold

What importance do newspapers have today?  They used to be the primary source of news, delivered straight to your doorstep every morning (or farther back, morning and evening).  Who won the Presidential election?  Look at the front page of the paper (except for the Chicago Tribune’s mistake: a jubilant Harry Truman and the front page with “DEWEY WINS”).  Want to know which team won the local football rivalry?  Check out the back of the sports section.  Want to know who got married, divorced, died?  It was right there, on your front doorstep, knowledge directly “at hand”.

But that’s not so true today.  While newspapers still exist, they are now a “niche” news delivery system.  We all have the answers to those important questions literally in our pocket.  Our phones know-all:  Presidential results, sports scores, local events, obituaries.  So why get a newspaper?  For the older generation it’s simple habit. We can browse a “paper”, feel the pages, see the black type on white newsprint, and, of course,  do the crosswords and wordles and word searches.

There’s a Sunday Columbus Dispatch sitting across the table as I type.

 Single Source 

And, there are certain important topics which struggle to rise to the level of “news on the phone”.  Sure, there’s always an “app for that”, including an app for the Columbus Dispatch.  But the paper, the actual paper, is actually a quicker way to “index” what’s going on, especially in local and state news.

Here in Ohio, the Gannett Newspapers own 18 daily papers.  That includes the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Akron Beacon Journal; three of the seven major Ohio papers.  So when Gannett “speaks”, especially on state issues, they become the one voice that many Ohioans hear.   And when Gannett uses a single reporter for years to explain a single issue; that reporter’s view becomes the “sole, single” source for many.

Premier System

My “niche” concern is the State Teacher’s Retirement System.  Without getting to “in the weeds”, (OK, maybe a little weedy) the problem is simple.  There are over 150,000 retired teachers in Ohio.  Those teachers worked in the schools for relatively lower wages, in part, because of a promise:  a “Premier” retirement system.  In fact, my generation of teachers didn’t even pay into social security or Medicare.  The State of Ohio exempted us, saying that our “Premier” retirement would serve all of our needs.  

And that was true until it wasn’t, in 2012.  The State of Ohio changed the deal.  The legislature delegated their powers to the State Retirement Board to make cuts (a “courageous” move by the legislators – “cuts aren’t our fault”).  They were worried that there wouldn’t be enough money in the fund to cover the mass of “boomer” teachers retiring; and the Legislature didn’t want to be part of a financial solution.  Over the next decade, the Retirement System cut what retirees thought was their “contract”.  The most important cut, Cost of Living Allowances (COLA).   

It’s simple:  you retire with an annual income of, say, $70,000 in 2013. Due to inflation, with prices up over 35% in a decade, that requires  $94000 to “stay even” now .  An annual 3% COLA  keeps “buying power” close to the cost of living. But the Retirement System cut COLAs.  It’s like retiring on $45,000 back in 2013, something that you’d never do.  When you did retire, the Retirement System, the Premier System in the Nation, promised the COLA.  They even put it in writing.  And then they broke that contract.

Old Teachers

But even worse, the Retirement System took their billions of dollars of teacher-earned money (over $90 Billion) and invested  close to a third in “private equity” firms and in real estate.  Those investments paid back less than 7% a year, and there were some years were they lost money.  If those funds were simply in the stock market over those years, they would have average over 14% gain a year.  Meanwhile, the System paid untold fees to equity firms (hidden from the public) and spent millions in wages and bonuses to the in-house staff as well.

Over 40,000 retired teachers joined together to make changes to the elected Retirement Board.  They want to change the way the fund is managed, and stop the profligate staff spending.  The goal: secure the fund for the future, provide promised COLA’s to retirees, and allow teachers to retire after thirty years of service (though they certainly can stay longer if they want to). 

But the Gannett Newspapers have decided that those 40,000 are simply a “lobbying group”.  And their reporter, author of almost every article (in the Columbus Dispatch and the Newark Advocate locally) has taken the current staff’s “line” in most issues.  To the reading public, Gannett sees the “lobbyists” as trying to soak the fund for their own benefit.  And since Gannett controls the information to most of the state – that’s how this story is heard.

You can go read the Toledo Blade, or the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to get alternate information.  If you live in Columbus, you can listen to the great work by WCMH’s Colleen Marshall.  Or you can go talk to a retired teacher.  But for most of the state, the story is cast as “greedy old retirees” versus “hard working young teachers”.  

There’s only one voice heard – Gannett’s. 

A Process

Every morning I wake up, and for a brief moment I can focus on my day.  Then Atticus, our white Lab (loveable, but not the brightest bulb in the box) realizes my eyes are open.  That means, he can go outside, and more importantly, start the breakfast process (there’s four dogs, eating in three shifts, he’s on second).  So he burrows into my side, getting me to roll over, get an unexpected kiss (he goes for the lips) then gently shoves me out of bed.   The day begins.

Somewhere in the process I turn on the news, and the reality of the Trump Administration crashes down on me once again.  Whether their talking about Pete Hegseth (a wholly unqualified candidate for Secretary of Defense), or Kash Patel, (a confused and mistaken  intelligence “expert”) leading the FBI:  it’s as if leading the Nation is just a Trumpian joke.  Sure, Matt Gaetz abandoning his Attorney General bid helped.  But it simply made Pam Bondi, another “Fox (animal and media) in charge of the chicken coop”.   And two other remaining whack-a-doodles,  Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy, quietly proceed to high office.  

Normal

Do we have to pick our battles?  Maybe give up the FBI to protect Dreamers, or accept a simply brutal and cruel man as “Border Czar” in return for putting responsible people in charge of our intelligence apparatus.   Trade off’s – in what America is and should be.  

And it’s all been normalized.  Senators (even Democrats) walking in the Senate halls, talking about the wonderful conversations they’re having with Hegseth or Patel or Kennedy; folks dragged from the extreme to now appear as “moderate choices”.  And in the background, billionaire “enforcers”.  Vote for Trump’s guys, or face a multi-million dollar challenge in the next primary election, with Elon Musk’s imprimatur and cash in hand.  Musk, Ramaswamy, Zuckerberg, Bezos:  are we still a democracy, or have we already descended into a billionaires’ oligarchy, where money talks and the rest of us walk?

Not surprising , it’s the Republican women:  Ernst, Murkowski, Collins (don’t trust her though) who are resisting.   The men don’t have the cojones to stand up to Trump, or Musk, or the MAGA base.  The women may not either (Murkowski is tough), but at least their holding things up for the minute.

And normal:  Donald Trump is Times “Person of the Year”.  I know, I know; Hitler, Stalin, and the Ayatollah Khomeini  were all once Man of the Year too.  But the media and seemingly the world has accepted the normalization of Donald Trump.  The international world, from Zelenskyy to Prince William to Justin Trudeau doesn’t have a choice.  But the rest of us do.  And we should look with skepticism at any effort to say this guy and his MAGA crowd are normal.  They aren’t.

Distract

We try to change the subject.  Luigi Mangione the assassin made a big splash, killing the CEO of United Health Care in broad daylight on the Avenue of the Americas.  I guess only Trump can shoot someone on the streets of Manhattan and no one would care.  And we all are fascinated with the assassin, his escape, his resume.  How did a brilliant, good looking, Ivy League millionaire-child, turn into a hooded figure shooting a man in the back?

Or if that doesn’t provide enough distraction; there’s the drones over New Jersey.  Is there really an Iranian “Mothership” somewhere in the Atlantic (isn’t that from Independence Day)?  Or are there a bunch of newly minted FAA “Airmen”, drone licensees, having a few afternoon brews and sending car-sized pilot-less vehicles over the New Jersey (and Maryland too) landscape?  Be careful, maybe it’s really Santa Claus, with a whole new way of; “He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when your awake!!”  Don’t stop the drones or “no presents for you!!!!”.

(Hey – just heard that the US Military has a laser device that can take down a drone.  That might be worth the distraction – a green beam knocking a drone from the sky.  That is,  as long as they don’t drop a six-foot drone on MY house!!).

Your Moment

“Distract, delay, depo…..”, oops, no “d” words in succession; that’s not currently acceptable.  But that’s what we’re all trying to do.  Does “resistance” mean fighting for every inch, or do we pick our battles?  Let Bobby end childhood vaccinations, if we can keep Kash out of the FBI?  Who do we sacrifice first?

It’s going to be a long four years.  We are going to be asked to sacrifice, to “RESIST”, to do all that we can to preserve our view of the American experiment.  As my distance coaches often say, you can’t win the mile in the first 440 yards, but you can lose it.  Pace yourself,  and pick your moment to stand up.  It’s the American thing to do.

Lame Duck

It all happens in the “lame duck” session. That’s the harried last few weeks before the Ohio State Legislature is adjourned for the year.   One of those last minute bills this season requires school districts to “publish” their policy on the Pledge of Allegiance (WCMH).  

The Pledge Policy bill would not require school districts to recite the pledge.  What it would do is require all districts to publish a policy for it online.  Some districts don’t have a specific policy on the Pledge of Allegiance.  It is often a matter of individual school administrators.  And that would be “OK” under the bill, but the district would have to make that a publicly available policy.  

For example, a local school district here in Central Ohio has the following policy publicly in place:

The Board requires all students, grades kindergarten through 12, to recite the Pledge of Allegiance during the school day at a time and manner specified by the building principal. 

In addition, District administrators, staff and students are prohibited from altering the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance. 

The Board recognizes that beliefs of some persons prohibit participation in the pledge, the salute to the United States flag or other opening exercises.  Therefore, such persons are excused from participation. 

The Board prohibits the intimidation of any student by other students or staff aimed at coercing participation in reciting the pledge. (2017,2020 – Board Docs).

Most schools recite the Pledge of Allegiance sometime during the school day.  It was common practice in public schools up until the late 1960’s. But then the Pledge became a focus for student protests against the Vietnam War.  Many schools determined to avoid controversy  and division by dropping the practice.  It wasn’t until the early 2000’s that reciting the pledge made a “comeback”, after the attacks of 9/11.

Why a Bill?

So what’s the purpose of the “Pledge Policy” bill?  

The avowed purpose is to push school districts to include the Pledge in their classrooms.  By requiring them to “publish” a policy, the local Boards of Education would open public debate on the issue. That puts a Board without an “acceptable” policy in the public glare.  The bill’s sponsor, Tracy Richardson of Marysville (R), states that: “Ohioans are concerned that we are losing our identity as a nation, a nation that is full of opportunity, freedom, and justice for all…”. She believes that reciting the Pledge would  promote; “unity and nationalism by affirming our commitment to our values.”

Representative Richardson must have missed that high school social studies class when they explained the difference between patriotism and nationalism.  Patriotism is defined as; “…devotion to and vigorous support for one’s country” (OED1).  Nationalism on the other hand, is; “…identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations” (OED2).  The first one is “good”, the second a cause of war. 

Justice for All

As an American, a patriot, and a retired teacher, I don’t have a problem with personally reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  I have a role as a teacher, coach, and now an athletic official. And I recognize the public example I set by being patriotic.  But in practice, many students stand, put their hand over their heart, and listen to the Pledge recited by someone else rather than Pledge themselves.    

I am concerned though, for those students who remain seated because of their individual beliefs, religious or political. If the avowed goal of the Pledge is to “promote unity”; physically identifying students whose beliefs prohibit reciting it, is hardly unifying.  “Liberty and Justice for All” might be learned in the example of those who sit; what a good teacher might use as a “teachable moment”.   But, just as likely in our era of internet bullying, it might set them up as  targets.

Local schools know best what their student body is like and what is best for them.  For a state legislator from Marysville to tell schools in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Millersburg, Ansonia or Pataskala how to “Pledge” is an overreach.  But, of course, Ms. Richardson isn’t “telling” them anything.  She’s a better politician than that.  She’s just forcing them into confrontation, where a majority of the parents can tell a minority how all kids should be taught.

And that’s the point.  Parents can and should make choices about their own child’s education.  But they shouldn’t have the right to choose what happens to someone else’s kid.  Parent choice should cut both ways, even with the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Shame on Us

It seems like just another “Trump Promise”, somewhere between Mexico paying for a wall and putting Hillary in jail.  It’s all wrapped up in his first and most successful political gambit. He called migrants criminals, or insane (looking for asylum like Hannibal Lector) illegally crossing the border into the US.  That’s what got him elected to the Presidency, twice.  So much for the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”.  

Yesterday Trump did an interview with NBC’s Kristin Welker (notable for Welker’s lack of pushback on Trump’s “alternate facts”). The President-elect stated that he would “get rid of birthright citizenship”.  It was as if he could just write an executive order, without Congressional or National consent, to change the United States Constitution.  But here we are, in the “new age of Trump”.

Black Letter Law

The right of someone born in the United States to be a citizen is plain, “Black Letter Law”.  The Fourteenth Amendment makes it clear in the very first sentence.  

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

That seems straight forward.  All Persons born in the United States.  It doesn’t suggest  some exception about their parents’ citizenship status.  And that’s absolutely intentional.  The Fourteenth Amendment was written as part of the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War.  There were a large number of Americans, born in the United States, whose parents weren’t considered citizens. That’s because they were enslaved.  The Fourteenth specifically defined the citizenship of those former “non-citizens”. They were citizens of both the Nation, and the State where they reside.  

Their citizenship was a result of where they were born.  In recent times that section has been dubbed “birthright citizenship”, and been derided as some “illegal migrant trick”.  If a couple come to the United States by crossing the border without permission (a misdemeanor offense), and has a child here in the US, that child is a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment.  The “trick” is that now the couple has a member of the family who is a citizen. (Detractors use the term “anchor baby”).  Someday, that “anchor” could use his status to stay in the US, regardless of what happens to the parents.

Looking for a Loophole

So how do far-right scholars see a loophole in the Fourteenth’s Black Letter language?   They hang their argument on the “subject to jurisdiction” phrase.  If the migrants are here without permission, then are somehow avoiding the jurisdiction of the Nation and State. Therefore they are not covered under the “all persons” definition. 

 It’s a specious statement.  If those migrants steal bread at the store the State will step in and take jurisdiction in the criminal courts.  So those flawed scholars see lack of jurisdiction only when it serves their purpose.  Of course the laws will be enforced on all, migrant, legal or illegal, and citizens alike.

Immune

But it is the “New Age of Trump”.  The United States Supreme Court, just last year, found a whole new perk of the Presidency; one that didn’t exist in the two hundred and thirty-four years of the Constitution before.  The Trump dominated Court provided the President of the United States with far ranging criminal immunity for “official actions” in office.  What seemed clear only two years ago, that Presidents could ultimately still be held responsible for their illegal actions, is largely no longer true. 

So perhaps, on taking office, Trump goes ahead and violates the existing Constitution by an Executive Order removing American citizenship from folks he wants to deport. He’ll take his cue from Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears, when he said of the Supreme Court, “John Marshall (the Chief Justice) has made his decision, let him enforce it”.  

Of course many, including the American Civil Liberties Union, will go to Court, and we will begin a years-long battle to determine what the clear language of the Fourteenth means.  But since the President now has this “official immunity”, he might decide to ignore court orders and simply proceed.

New Age of Trump

Or, a Court that could create blanket Presidential immunity, is certainly capable of ignoring the history and the clear meaning of the Amendment.  They could re-interpret the Fourteenth as only applying to those that were enslaved, regardless of what the Amendment actually says.  Perhaps they’ll argue that since, at the time, it didn’t apply to Native Americans (they were considered outside the jurisdiction, as separate nations to be negotiated with and defeated by armed force) that same “precedent” applies to illegal migrants.  

It doesn’t.  Migrants, legal or illegal, are clearly under the jurisdiction.  But there are five or six minds on the Court that could warp their way around it.  Anything is possible in our New Age of Trump.  

This is a part of the “Sunday Story” series – even though it’s not Sunday. No politics today – just a story about “smoking”!!!

Thanksgiving

It’s the week after Thanksgiving – and just now I’m smoking a turkey;  well, sort of.  This year Jenn and I decided to not “do” Thanksgiving.  Instead, we met my sister and her husband at Cooper’s Hawk, a restaurant in nearby Columbus, to enjoy their Thanksgiving feast.  It was a great dinner, with great company, great food, and great wine; all for a great price. And no dishes to clean-up afterwards!  

But, when you have a smoker, sooner or later you’ve just gotta smoke.  And so today, December 5^th, a Thursday, I’m smoking a turkey breast.  Sooner or later, they’ll be mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing and green beans – a full Thanksgiving repast for just the two of us.  Why a Thursday in December?  Because we’re retired, and we have a day at home, and the turkey is defrosted.   Why not?

Turkey Challenge

But smoking a turkey breast is always a challenge (as is the full bird, way too much food for just the two of us).  I can smoke baby back ribs (my best thing), spiral sliced ham (really good too), chuck roast (good – needed to stay in longer), and even chicken (a whole chicken is good, but chicken wings and pieces aren’t my favorite).  I’ve even been a part of a whole brisket (shared with the neighbor, who gets up at 3 am for work anyway – it takes over 12 hours).  That was delicious.

I’ve also tried pork chops (too big to eat), pork tenderloin (really good), and even salmon (I liked it, but the rest of the family thought it had a “weird texture”).  Anyway, one of the best things I grill is salmon –so why mess it up?  And then there’s steaks and tenderloins, also really, really good on the grill.  I know what I like, and I like those grilled and medium rare – not smoked.

Windchill 

But turkey always gets within ten degrees of being done (165), and then stops.  I leave it in an extra hour, and still it’s holding at 153, not budging an inch (or a degree).  So for the past couple of turkeys, it’s been 30 more minutes in the 1929 Magic Chef Restaurant class oven at 350 degrees, the centerpiece of our kitchen.  (Remember that advertisement on TV, where the lady asks an architect to design a house around a faucet?  Jenn designed our open kitchen/dining room around that cast iron stove that took seven boys and two grown men to get into the house!!!). 

Part of the challenge with turkey, is I’m always smoking it in the winter.  Today, it’s 22 degrees with a 22 mph wind, making the windchill 7.  It’s cold, and while the smoker doesn’t “feel” windchill, it’s still a stand-alone smoker sitting in the middle of the sundeck in the side yard.  In the past, I’ve found smoking in sub-10 degree weather didn’t work out – the smoker couldn’t hold temperature, and we had to bring that ham in to finish in the Magic Chef.  It ended up dried out.  But this is a new smoker, and it’s not quite as cold as that first Arctic day.  So I’m hoping we get solid heat.  So far, it’s been on for three hours and holding the 260 degrees needed to get the turkey done.

Flavor and Patience

As far as flavor is concerned – I like hickory smoke for ribs and beef, and apple smoke for ham,  turkey and chicken.  I’ve tried hickory with everything and like it fine, but apple is less overwhelming.  And I’ve put everything from Guinness beer to apple vinegar in the “steam”, but water works just fine with turkey.  If it smokes for four hours, it still comes up tender and juicy.  (Oh, and one more trick for turkey – injections!!! I inject Zatarain’s turkey marinade several places into the bird.  The flavoring is good, but the juiciness is awesome.  No “chewy” white meat in this turkey!!).

It’s supposed to take 3 ½ to 4 hours.  But my smoking experience is like that famous line from the old Charlton Heston movie about Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstasy.   The Pope (Rex Harrison) comes into the Sistine Chapel and asks Michelangelo (Heston) busy painting the “Creation” when he would be done. The artist grumbles, “When I am finished”.   The turkey is done at 165 degrees.  When will that be?  When it’s finished.  Or when I can’t wait anymore – and the Magic Chef can finish the job.  It’ll still be great!!!!

Post Script

So the turkey breast stayed in the smoker for over five hours – and “stalled” at 154 degrees. It took another 25 minutes in the Magic Chef to get to 165, but it was well worth it. Tasty, smoky, juicy — and enough leftovers for sandwiches and even another dinner in the near future!!!

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24

Unprecedented Times

Let’s be very clear.  We live in unprecedented times.  Not since John Adams left the White House in March of 1801 (or James Buchanan in 1861), has our Nation faced such an extraordinary shift in attitude.  If we don’t acknowledge that fact, then we are hiding our heads in the sand.  For many of us, the fate of the American experiment seems in peril. 

President Joe Biden had an exceptional Presidency.  He brought the Nation out of a pandemic, not only the health crisis, but the economic disaster that accompanied it.  From what surely could have been a depression on the scale of the 1930’s, Biden guided us to a “soft landing”.  By all of today’s economic metrics:  unemployment rate, inflation rate, the stock markets (the Dow Jones broke 45,000 yesterday, 25% higher than when Biden took office)  the Biden Presidency was a huge success.  

There was economic pain along the way.  And Biden, and then Kamala Harris, paid the electoral price for that pain.  But the long-term impact of the Biden Administration is clear everywhere you go, at least here in Central Ohio.  The interstate highways are being modernized, the high-tech manufacturing plants are going up, and the whole region is “humming” with economic activity.  Whatever the incoming President does, those huge infrastructure improvements will continue.  Trump won’t close the Intel plant, and he won’t tear the I-70/I-71 interchange project down.  I don’t think he’ll throw that “baby out with the bathwater”. 

Justice Delayed

The one great flaw of the Biden Administration was they failed to hold some Americans legally accountable for their actions.   It took more than two years, and a high profile Congressional hearing, to even begin to investigate what happened on January 6^th, and the conspiracy to violate our laws in the months leading up to it. 

We know why there was a delay.  Biden, and his chosen Attorney General, Merrick Garland, both are traditional American leaders.  They followed the long precedent of not “questioning” past Administrations, but just moving forward. (The most recent example:  President Obama’s decision not to prosecute Bush officials for the “torture” memos).  

But we do live in unprecedented times:  and by following precedent, Biden failed to address the current problem central to our democracy.  For all of the amazing things Biden accomplished, this is the prime failure of his Presidency.  I hope the Republic survives it.

Retribution

Joe Biden now has a last opportunity in his last few weeks remaining with ultimate power.  And, he has ample evidence about what is going to happen.  There is a reason that Donald Trump tried to appoint Matt Gaetz to lead the Department of Justice.  Gaetz’s replacement, Pam Bondi of Florida, though politically more palatable, is just as dedicated to Trump, and just as much an election denier.  Add to that, the outrageous attempt to put Kash Patel in as Director of the FBI, and the course of the Trump Administration is clear:  retribution.  Trump said so himself.

America has discovered the MAGA axiom:  they complain most about what they themselves are planning to do.  Their fear of Democrats “weaponizing” the Justice Department is just a mirror reflecting their intent.  The Gaetz, Bondi, Patel selections make that clear.  Mr. Patel has even given us a Nixonian style “enemies list”, sixty names of both Democrats and out-of-favor Republicans who should be prosecuted.  Trump is acting on his avowed desire for “retribution”.  His choices for leadership simply proves that intention.  

Door’s Open

This week, President Biden pardoned his own son from Federal crimes.  There was an uproar, among both Republicans and Democrats.  Republicans barked and growled: Biden took their “bone away”.  And Democrats (and others) worried that Biden had somehow “opened the door” to a vast array of pardons from Trump as he enters the White House.

That’s coming.  Those prosecuted and imprisoned for January 6^th are coming out.  The Capitol Police officers who risked their lives for our Republic are going to face one more indignity.  Those who attacked them will be lionized, not jailed.   Congress will be affronted as well. Peter Navarro, from fresh the Federal Penitentiary, is back as a White House advisor.

So Biden should stop worrying about keeping precedence in this unprecedented time.  He has the opportunity to protect folks; Liz Cheney, Adam Kinsinger, Dr. Fauci, to name a few, who courageously did their duty in spite of MAGA outrage.  And for those who say that the Courts will ultimately protect those folks from injustice anyway, don’t count on the US Supreme Court to hold.  The “six” have already granted the President almost universal immunity from the law.  There’s no reason to believe that they would, all of sudden, stand for justice.

As Biden walks out the door on January 20^th, he should drop a list of pardons as long as his arms.  He has this last opportunity to protect those who tried to protect our Nation.  It’s his duty, his last chance, to make that right. 

Pardon them all.

Form Responses

On November 21^st, I sent an email to the White House.  That was kind of a big deal for me.  Years ago, I worked as a “correspondence” guy for a US Congressman.  We got letters, snail-mail back then, all the time. There were dozens on a normal day, and hundreds when some particular issue was “hot”.  My job was to read each one, and make sure we (acting as the Congressman) responded.  

We even had a special programmable typewriter (the mid-1970’s, an IBM SElectric). It could type out a letter on a given issue, pausing so you could type in the “personalization” of name, address, and sentences that made it unique.  So I would read all the letters, divide them into subject groups, and start replying to them.  If it was an issue where there was no “form” already written, I’d write a full response. But those new responses were “vetted” by the Congressman himself before they went out.

Some letters were personal requests. Those I forwarded to the “constituent service” folks to see what they could do. Later, I would be part of that service. The problem-solving was the most fun, and fulfilling, task in the office.

Indirect Influence

Then I summarized what came in that day, and make sure my boss, the Administrative Aide, knew what was important.   I’d finish sorting and answering the mail, and get onto whatever else was on my plate (a lot of scheduling, some legislative stuff). It was important was not to miss a day.  Like email today, miss a day and it just piles up, absorbing more time than possible to clear my desktop.

So I emailed the White House, knowing full well that it wasn’t going to the “ear” of the President. But it was important for me to let the President know, even indirectly, that this issue was important to me.

Hunter

My email was simple:  I asked Joe Biden, the 46^th President of the United States, to pardon his son Hunter. I then gave my reasons.  And Sunday, Joe Biden did exactly that.

Of course, it was my “permission” that allowed Biden to issue the pardon – NOT!!  I’m sure there was a computer file full of emails asking for Hunter’s pardon, and just as big a file full of those against.  But, just like in Congress, a summary made it to the Presidential ear.  

So what did I tell President Biden?  I told him the truth.   If Hunter Biden was Hunter Brown, he would never have been indicted , much less face imprisonment.  Hunter Biden didn’t pay his taxes, got caught, then paid them all with interest and penalties.  That happens in the US all the time, and seldom are criminal charges filed.  

Not Al Capone 

Sure, there’s definitely the “Al Capone” exception.  The Untouchables couldn’t get Capone for gangster activities like murder and bootlegging, but were able to put him away for tax evasion.  Capone couldn’t explain the income. If he did then he’d have to explain where it came from, and face an even greater prison sentence.  Hunter was able to demonstrate how he earned the money, and while some of it “smelled” of influence peddling, it was all legal.  

And “what-about” the gun charge? Hunter signed a document saying he was legally allowed to have a gun when he wasn’t.  That’s seldom charged in Federal criminal court, and is likely to be declared unconstitutional by the MAGA-Supreme Court majority shortly. All of the Biden charges reeked of “selective prosecution”.

Hunter Biden ain’t no Al Capone.  He’s simply the son of the number one “high value target” of the MAGA-Republican Party, Joe Biden.  The entire investigation doesn’t happen except Hunter is the son of Joe.  So, in the end, Hunter Biden would be serving Federal time, not because of his actions, but because it was the way to get at Joe Biden.  (Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, and many former US Attorneys make the same point).

No Supervision

It started under the Trump Administration with a Special Prosecutor, David Weiss, the former Republican US Attorney for the Biden’s home state of Delaware.  When Biden came to office, he chose not to interfere with the investigation of his son, allowing it to continue.  Hunter and Weiss came to a plea-bargain which would have avoided jail time.  But the MAGA-Republicans in Congress were able to raise such a ruckus, that the judge threw the bargain out.  Hunter was then re-indicted on more counts, and pled guilty to avoid risk of many years in jail.

Attorney General Merrick Garland bent over backwards to give Weiss all of the “runway” he needed to investigate Hunter.  Even five years and another President into the process, there was no “interference” or even “supervision” by the head of the Justice Department.  So while Democrats might have been in charge, it was the Trump appointed prosecutor that still had Hunter Biden by the scruff of the neck.

The Backlash

There was always going to be a backlash for Biden pardoning his son.  The MAGA-Republicans are angry:  they had Hunter, and the President stepped in and pulled him from their clenched jaws.  It’s rich, even laughable; listening to  the whining of MAGA supporters of a convicted felon for President, who made it clear he would use the pardon power to “clean the slate” for his followers.  And it certainly doesn’t show that the Justice Department is “weaponized”.  

What it does show that President Biden (and Attorney General Garland) allowed the system, tainted by Trump’s version of “weaponization” from the beginning, to go forward.  But there was nowhere else for it to go now, except for Hunter to do time in Federal prison.  And, of course, that time would be under the questionable oversight of a Trump Administration willing to use whatever tools necessary to get what it wants.  The current President didn’t want his son in jail, and he absolutely didn’t want a really weaponized Trump Justice Department to have literal control of Hunter’s very life.

Way to go Joe; you did exactly what needed to be done.  I’m proud of your service, in awe of your Presidency, and glad you can use the power of the pardon to right the wrong that was committed against you and your son.

Merry Christmas, Mr. President!!!

Thank you Joe Biden, for doing the right thing and pardoning your son, Hunter.  There’s a lot to say about that  – and I hope to have it ready for tomorrow.  

Fever Dreams

Watch out!!! History is being re-written, “whitewashed”, before your very eyes!!  On NBC’s Meet the Press this past Sunday, MAGA-Republican Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee made these “matters of fact” points.

• The 2016 investigation of Russian involvement with the Trump Campaign was not only “fake”, but a collusion of the FBI leadership with the Democratic Party.
• In 2020, the FBI “colluded” with Social Media companies to hide the “true evidence” on the Hunter Biden laptop.
• That “collusion” was the reason that Joe Biden was elected President.

That a MAGA-Republican representative would say that on national television isn’t really shocking.  What is shocking is that the Meet the Press moderator, Kristin Welker, allowed all of those “facts” to be posited without objection.  

These Steve Bannon “fever-dreams”, will be used to justify appointing a wholly unqualified Kash Patel as the new director of the FBI. (That is, after current Trump Appointee Chris Wray is forced to resign or is fired).  Patel, like Bobby Kennedy at Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth at Defense, and Tulsi Gabbard as National Intelligence Director; all are part of Trump’s cabinet picks, chosen for their loyalty to the United States, the Constitution, and most importantly – Donald Trump.   

Revisions

Here are some “real” facts:

• The Mueller Report found 140 contacts between the 2016 Trump Campaign and Russia and Wikileaks (the group that leaked the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s emails).
• This guy – a near-blind computer technician wearing a “tam-o-shanter”, is the “direct evidence” behind the Hunter laptop.  Tough to believe then, or now.

• There is no evidence, other than MAGA frustration, that the Hunter Biden laptop (or Hunter’s nude lap for that matter, displayed to the world by MAGA-Republican Congressman Greene)  would have changed the 2020 election results – anymore than the Access Hollywood video altered the 2016 results.

But we are going to hear a lot more “revisionist” history in the next four years; so get ready.  Here’s a list of events that will be whitewashed, and how the new MAGA-Republican Administration will insist they be seen.

Insurrection

There was no Insurrection.  There was a peaceful protest at the Capitol Building on January 6^th, 2021, where a few folks got out of control.  If the Capitol Police had simply let them all in, the “peaceful protestors” would have voiced their opinions, and left the Capitol undamaged.   Therefore, all of those imprisoned for offenses on January 6^th should be released (and pardoned), and those “Democrat” prosecutors who brought charges against them now should be the prosecuted.  And besides, it was Nancy Pelosi’s fault.

Pandemic

Sure, there was a pandemic in 2020-2021.  But if we had just let the country go, it would have “burned through” the Nation, and we survivors would all now have “herd immunity” (the view of Trump’s appointee for Director of the National Institute of Health, Jay Bhattacharya).  While Trump was instrumental in the quick development of vaccines, wearing masks was a “waste of time”.

  Those that advocated masks and closing schools and businesses ought to be held accountable for the “damage” they did.  The fact that 1.2 million died (and are still dying) from Covid, and that number would be multiple millions more if we tried to gain “herd immunity”, is “wrong-speak”, not accepted or allowed by the New Administration.

Child Separation

If we only made migrants really, really regret coming to the United States, they would stop coming.  So the first term Trump child-separation policy was not abhorrent at all, but brilliant.  The only flaw in the policy was that the media got access to what was going on.  We need to let the “dirty work” to “protect our borders” go on without interference.  (It’s the old Kiefer Sutherland in Twenty-Four attitude, secretly “doing American’s wet work”).   

The fact that conditions in some Central and South American countries are so bad, that anything, any risk, is better than staying there doesn’t mean anything at all.  The Border Guards should grab up their kids, whisk them all over the country on buses, and send the parents to camps and ultimately back to Nicaragua.  Ask Tom Homan, Trump’s new “Border Czar”. 

Tariffs

Tariffs will protect American industry from foreign competition.  If we just make those “furr-in” products more expensive, then we’ll “get back” to buying “good ol’ American stuff”.  (So back in the mid-1970’s, I worked for Sears in their TV and Stereo department.  My job was to “sell American”. Back then a company called Fisher, was the  only “American” stereo manufacturer.  Don’t think about Pioneer or Sony, buy American.   Sure, it cost more, and the quality wasn’t quite as good, but it’s American – right?)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it best.  Tariffs cost American consumers money for imported goods, and the response to American tariffs will cost Canadians more money as well.  No one wins.

Resist

Part of the insidiousness of MAGAism is the impact on what we think of as facts.  In our current environment, those with the loudest megaphone often get to “declare the truth”, regardless of whether it’s true or not .  Add that to the Red State takeover of public education curriculum, and there is a real chance that the Whitewash will work.  Most Americans now believe that the Mueller Investigation was false, and that somehow it exonerated Donald Trump.  Neither of those are true.

Resistance (Part Two) includes standing for the truth, not some revisionist story.  That’s going to take courage, both by private individuals (and “essayists”) but also from journalists who will face intimidation and possible legal challenges for daring to telling it the way it really is.  And maybe the high school student who doesn’t allow a MAGA-based history course to pass without objection.

Dan Rather might have said it best when he chose one word to end his nightly newscast on CBS – Courage. It’s what will be required in the new Trump Era.

Performance

I was not a football coach – and I’m sure that my football coach friends will say that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  But, after forty years of coaching, from cross country to track to wrestling; I do know performance.  And I have a thought about the Ohio State versus Michigan football game that concluded in another Michigan win yesterday.  

I know both teams “wanted” it.  No one quit; every player, on both sides, tried to play to their maximum level.  So there’s something to consider:  is it possible to play beyond your maximum, beyond yourself?   What happens when each player all of a sudden feels the need to be a “super-hero”?  I can’t tell you what the pressure is like at the Division I collegiate level, particularly now that millions of dollars ride on each player.  I’ve never had to coach on that level.  

Try Harder

But I can tell you this:  players have to be able to respond automatically to what’s going on in front of them.  Anything that makes them think, or “try” too hard, is going to disrupt the flow of their game.  It’s so easy to tell an athlete to “try harder”, when it is that act of trying that often disrupts their performance.  And clearly, that was happening on the Ohio State offense. (Give the Defense kudos, they held Michigan to only 13.  No one expected the Buckeyes to just score 10).

Michigan’s coaches have found the secret.  They can be primed, ready, pumped, without losing their “autonomic responses” that make football players great.  The Wolverines weren’t screaming mad, fighting a “war” (as Ryan Day was quoted saying).  They were playing their “championship game”.  It’s their biggest game this season, a decent team that’s had a bad year.  They had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.  And they were playing to win.

And sometimes if you try to be Superman, you end up much less. 

Hyped 

Football is a game of muscle, of enforcing your will on someone else.  But it’s also a game of mental “flow”.  We saw a flash of that at the end of the second quarter, when the Ohio State offense just played.  But the rest of the game, from the coaches to the players, Ohio State’s offense was playing hard not to lose. My coaching analogy is that they were trying to hold “Jell-O”.  The harder you hold it, the more leaks out of your hand, until, ultimately it’s all gone.  So you have to hold it gently; with control of emotion, strength, and focus.  

Maybe screaming and yelling, maybe coaches breaking chairs in locker rooms work for some athletes (I’ve tried that).  But what I really think is that there’s  too much hype, too much craziness, too much of, “we can’t lose”.  Maybe we should walk it back a step, and make it another game; not Woody’s Ten Year War, not Urban’s magic, not Ryan Day’s curse.  At least, maybe that what Coach Day (if he’s still the coach come next Thanksgiving – the game is that important to Buckeye fans) needs to do.

House Divided

My best pre-game talk was simple:  “Do what you do.  Don’t be superman.  You got us here, you’ve won before.  I don’t need ‘Super You’ – I just need you”.

Ohio State’s offense tried to be Super-Bucks.  They only needed to be the team that won ten games before.  Michigan had nothing to lose, nothing on the line but pride.  It will be interested to see what lessons are learned – as Ohio State plays through the playoffs, and as both teams take the field in “The Big House” next year.

I live in a “House Divided”.  My family are Michigan fans, I am a moderate Buckeye fan.  I truly hope that Coach Day figures this out, that Ohio State plays through the playoffs, and gets to a National Championship Game.   He’s proven he can win almost everything – that is – except this one game.

As far as the fight after the game – I blame both coaches.  Coach Moore of Michigan was so exultant, he didn’t focus on his own kids.  Coach Day was clearly in shock, already replaying in slow motion a game that went by way too fast for him.  Neither looked to their primary duty, a job that doesn’t end when time runs out.  That duty is the behavior of their team, and the very foreseeable actions of both squads at the end of the game.  You can’t say it’s a war, and then pretend it’s not when time runs out.

There’s a movie called “Any Given Sunday”, about how every team has a chance at every game.  Michigan gets it, Ohio State doesn’t.  But there’s always more football – and I hope my Bengals, having a “Michigan like” season, find their “given Sunday” this afternoon against Pittsburgh.