Category: Uncategorized

Ella

The last few weeks were busy “dog weeks” for Lost Pet Recovery (LPR), and our household.  My wife Jenn was completely immersed in finding a nearby dog for two weeks, working to get a lost Great Dane back to her home in Kirkersville.  Ella was a new arrival there, and got out on her second day.  

She “disappeared”, but really didn’t go very far.  Thanks to the dozens of signs put out on the roads, “Lost Dog – Great Dane – DO NOT CHASE call (Jenn’s number)”, we knew she was still hanging around the small village.  And Jenn was just behind her, putting up cameras and leaving “bait”:  dog food, Vienna sausages, chicken broth, the occasional McDonald’s burger; and hoping to spot her on a trail cam.  The idea:  get her to come back to eat, then “drop” a trap (a really big trap for a Great Dane) and get her safe.

Corn Maize

The calls kept coming in for a week, but Ella never found the bait, and was never on camera.  There was no place to put a trap, because there no place where Ella stayed.  Then, as we drove to a birthday party for a friend on Sunday, the phone rang.  Ella was in the “corn maize” at Van Buren Acres, a pumpkin place right beside I-70.  Four LPR members converged in the pouring rain at the maize, and wandered the paths looking for a glimpse of the 150 pound gray Dane.  You haven’t experienced farm life if you haven’t been in a corn maize in a downpour. But Ella was already gone.

So more signs went up, and Jenn talked to the entire neighborhood on the access road by the Interstate and the farmer who owned the surrounding cornfields.  Trail cameras were posted, but it really was more sightings from the neighborhood that let us know that Ella was still hanging around.

Jenn and I were searching a cornfield on Thursday when the call came in – Ella is in the backyard heading west!!  We raced to get ahead of her to put down a trap, but we arrived just in time for Ella to look in the window of the home, and turn back into the corn.  We didn’t get her.  But finally, one pile of food disappeared, just outside of an isolated hay barn.  Jenn was adding more food and setting up a camera there when Ella emerged from behind the barn, sniffed the air, then sauntered off into the corn.  Jenn “dropped” a trap.  

Go Bucks!

It was a sleepless night, waiting for the phone alarm to go off – something moving at the trap.  But it wasn’t until the next morning that Ella was caught on camera, stretching into the trap and getting the food – but missing the trigger to set if off.  Ella ate, then wandered away.

Jenn reset the bait, this time with sausage biscuits, and carefully checked the trap. After the sleepless night before, she went to bed early.  Ella, a true “Buckeye”, must have been aware of the Ohio State football schedule.  She waited until just after the Penn State game was over, then went back into the trap for more food.  This time the gate slammed shut. 

 We raced the twenty minutes  to the trap and got there about 12:30 am.  Other members of the LPR team joined us, and we lifted Ella, trap and all, into the back of our pickup truck. We drove her to her “Grandma’s” garage.  At first, she was “shaking” scared, but as she came out of the trap in the garage, she relaxed, leaned on Jenn’s leg, and turned into the sweetest girl.  She gave Jenn a lick as we said goodbye.

That’s the high of finding lost dogs. 

Pearl 

But there are lows as well.  Pearl was a beautiful Golden Retriever who was rescued from a breeder.  She was never socialized to people, just kept in a cage to make puppies.  The Rescue had her checked out by the vet, then sent to a family in Dublin, Ohio.  Pearl was there nine days, when  she slipped out the door – and she was off.

Pearl was gone for weeks in the hot July sun.  But she didn’t go too far.  She stayed along a creek in a neighborhood park, hiding in the tall grasses.  LPR got involved and set up a feeding station, that Pearl, and all the raccoons in the neighborhood, were happy to use.  But when LPR put out a trap, Pearl wouldn’t even get near it.  She had spent much of her life in cage – no amount of food would get past the fear of the trap.

Bigger Traps

So if you can’t get a dog in a trap, and there’s no way to lure her, then what other alternatives are there?  There’s a bigger trap, really more like a kennel cage, called a panel trap.  So we started with one panel near the food.  The change threw Pearl off for a while, but she finally started eating again.  We added a second and a third panel, and in time Pearl would stretch into the area to get food. But she always ready to jump back and get away.   We hoped that we could complete the panel, and eventually close the door to rescue Pearl.

We hauled bags of food a couple hundred yards through the brush, three times a week.  Pearl would always show up on camera, nervously eating what was available.  Sometimes she was by herself, but often the raccoons and possums joined in the repast.  One afternoon, Jenn and I were bringing in the food, when Pearl and some deer emerged from the grass and ran off. 

We hoped we hadn’t scared her too badly, but we were glad she found companionship with the deer.  

This went from July through August and into September.  The park maintenance workers cut the tall grass, changing the environment, but Pearl eventually  returned to the food.  The nearby High School came into session, and on football game nights (and their home cross country meet) Pearl would disappear for a while, but she soon came back.

We were slowly conditioning Pearl to the panel-trap, and to a “schedule” of coming back for more food.  She was finally becoming “predictable”. 

Chased Away

Then one day, there was a human figure with a leash on camera.  Pearl was gone.  When we went back with more food, we found a tennis ball right beside the panels.  Perhaps “the figure” decided he could catch Pearl, maybe hoping he could entice her to “play ball”.  We don’t know what happened, but we are pretty sure she wouldn’t know what the tennis ball was for.  

Pearl ran off, far down the creek.  We had one more sighting, this time about a mile away down Indian Creek in Dublin.  Then Pearl was gone.  That was on October 1st.  We continued to leave food for her, sausage biscuits, her favorite, until it was clear that she moved on.  Then LPR put up more signs around Dublin, hoping for a sighting so we could get back to feeding her again.

High and Low

On November 1st,  Pearl’s body was found along railroad tracks in Marion County, about twenty-six miles away from where we last saw her.  We don’t know exactly how she got there, the creek meanders down to the Scioto River, and there are railroad tracks near where the Scioto flows across the Delaware/Marion County border.   She was a beautiful, fearful, dog, that that we were unable to save.  From the high of Ella on Sunday, we had the low of Pearl on Monday.  

There are other dogs out there.  LPR has been involved in over two hundred rescues just this year.  Sometimes we get the dog right away.  Sometimes we advise the owners how to find their own lost dogs. Then there are the projects, the “Ella’s” where we have to out-think and get lucky to bring a dog home.  But the Pearl’s stick with us, more than the successes.    It’s hard to get past that beautiful, scared, dog, running with the deer in Dublin.  

But there’s always another dog missing – time to go back to work.

Lost Pet Recovery is a non-profit organization.  We don’t charge for any of our efforts, and no one gets paid.  But these efforts do cost money – equipment, bait, cameras, gas, and more.  If you’d like to support our efforts, you can donate through Facebook, through PayPal at info@lostpetrecovery.org, or you can use the old fashioned way – a check to Lost Pet Recovery, PO Box 16383, Columbus, OH, 43216.

The Sunday Series

• 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 Lost and Found – 11/21/21

Too Much Information

File this in the “information I wish I didn’t know” category.  Sausage is a mix of ground meat, spices, seasonings, and some kinds of grain or meal; all mixed together.  But no one wants to eat a “mash”. So it’s shaped and stuffed into a tube called a casing. That’s what makes it “sausage”.  And what’s the casing made of?  Well, a natural casing is made of the sub-mucosa layer of animal intestines.  It could be pig, or cow, or goat, or even a horse!  That’s the “tastiest” kind of sausage.  The casing lends a flavor to the “innards” (or is the “innards” really the casing – I’m not sure).

More mundane sausage is now contained by a polymer coating:  nylon or polypropylene.  There are also cellulose and collagen wraps. Doesn’t that sound tasty.  Since the artificial casing holds the flavor in, and doesn’t lend any flavor of its own, they don’t become part of the “sausage experience”.  And knowing that might make you really think about eating bites of whole sausage anymore.  Maybe you should peal the edge off the bologna.  

These essays are often political, and very, very seldom explain gastronomic delights.  They do however, often deal with legislation, and we sure have been talking about “making sausages” recently.  It seems only fitting that we should have a better understanding what goes into the real thing. 

Raucous Caucus 

Today (or tomorrow), the United States House of Representatives will vote on the “Build Back Better” plan. This is not of interest to the Republican Congressmen; they will, to a woman and man, vote against it.  The Republicans aren’t interested in “making” this sausage, in fact, they are vegan when it comes to the “Build-Back-Better” bill.  Nope, the sausage making is a wholly Democratic affair, and, like most things involving the always raucous Democratic caucus, there’s a whole lot of sausage making going on.

The ”chefs” in this sausage-making game are much the same Democrats as those that “cooked” up the final “BIB” (bipartisan infra-structure bill) the was signed into law this week.  The “two” sides are the Democratic moderates and the Democratic progressives.  But part of the true art of sausage making, is that there isn’t just two sides.  There are shades of moderation and progressivism, and even some progressives who are extremely “moderate” on some issues (for example, Senator Kristin Sinema, progressive on the environment, almost beyond moderate to full Republican on government negotiating with “big pharma”). 

Dreaming Things that Never Were

So no wonder the “raucous, caucus” has struggled to figure out what goes into Build-Back-Better.  There’s so much they want to fix.  They want to  take care of people’s health: child care, cut prescription costs, Medicare hearing and eye care and home health.   They want to “fix”  the world:  improving the climate, energy, modernizing education and creating affordable housing.  And finally they want to improve our system of taxation, with the wealthy paying a fairer share of the burden.  

Amazingly, with all of those “wants”,  they managed to stuff their sausage in a casing that pays for all the programs.  The United States government, known for dipping deeply into the trough of national debt, particularly when it comes to national defense, has found a way to pay for what it wants.  The House bill spends $1.68 trillion over ten years (that’s $168 billion a year – less than a third of what we spend annually on national defense).

Inflation

For those of us (and that’s most of us) who are worried about all that spending fueling inflation, here’s the best part.  Inflation is normally caused by increases in the supply of money.  When the government heavily spends more than it brings in, it essentially creates more money.  More money in supply means that the money is worth less – prices go up.  But if the Build Back Better legislation is paid for, there’s no increase in money supply, and no inflationary pressure.

Technically, the Congressional Budget Office rates it as creating a ten year $160 Billion deficit – that’s $16 billion a year.  But the CBO does not count the program that improves the Internal Revenue Service so that it collects more tax monies.  That improvement should bring in more than $400 billion over ten years, actually making BBB budget positive.  And if you’re worried about the IRS “coming for you”:  then you’re making a whole lot more money than I am, and you’re cheating on your taxes.

A Blevit

No wonder the Republicans are against it.  No surprise that Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy gave a rambling eight and a half hour speech to hold up the final vote.  The Build-Back-Better bill does all the things the Republican Party is against – rich people paying taxes, poor people having housing, old people getting medical care, everyone paying less for medicine.  Oh Hell no – line ‘em up, every Republican in Congress will vote against this one.

When Speaker Pelosi finally bangs down the gavel on the Build Back Better bill, we’re halfway there.  The good news is that the Democratic House Moderates kept their word, the promise they made when the Progressives helped pass the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Bill.  But the sausage making is only beginning.

The two most moderate Democrats in the Senate, Manchin and Sinema, have designated a “casing” quite a bit smaller than the House’s casing.  So when the Senate gets the $1.68 trillion BBB Bill, they’re going to have to split the House casing, and stuff what they can in Manchin’s casing (of course polymer based, though if they could make a coal-based casing, he’d use it).  It’s going to be smaller, maybe more like a trillion dollars.  

There is an old Yiddish word that’s incredibly descriptive:  a “blivet”.  Technically it’s ten pounds of…manure…in a five pound bag.  Joe Manchin’s holding the casing, and the Senate is going to decide what sausage fits in and what doesn’t.  In the end, like any good compromise, probably no one will be fully “happy”.  But Democrats are on course to deliver Build Back Better as a Christmas present to the American people.

It might be a “blivet”, but it should be tasty.

It is the common perception that being held in contempt means going to jail.  There isn’t much “due process”:  the “contemptee” gets a chance to follow orders or go to jail.  And when it comes to the personal power of a Judge to control their courtroom, that’s actually true.  

The Story  (of course there’s a story!!)

I was a high school government teacher, and for several years I took my classes down to the Franklin County Courthouse in downtown, Columbus, to observe trials in action.  After all of the class lessons about court procedure, criminal rights, civil rights, and rules of evidence, the “Field Trip” downtown was one of the highlights of Senior year.   The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a “…speedy and public trial.”  Students could (carefully and quietly) slip into the back of courtrooms to watch trials in action.  It’s public – really – Constitutionally guaranteed.

Well, almost guaranteed.  I had a class of kids at the Courthouse.  The students spread out so that they didn’t overwhelm any one trial.   And I went to trials too.  I was sitting in on a civil trial on the fourth floor about a parking lot company, when one of my students slipped into the room, sat beside me and whispered, “A judge on the fifth floor wants to see our teacher, and sent me to find you”.  That couldn’t be good:  did my students disrupt a case in some way?  Where they in trouble?

Judge O’Neill

I raced up the stairs to the next floor, and entered Judge Deborah O’Neill’s courtroom.  The room was empty of spectators except for five of my students. But the prosecutors, the defense team, the bailiffs and the judge were all silent, and waiting — for me.  As I came in, the bailiff directed me to “the bar”; to stand at the front of the courtroom between the prosecution and defense table.  Judge O’Neill then yelled and pointed at my kids, “Are you the teacher of those students?”  I answered in the affirmative. She continued, “Do you know we are trying a rape case in this courtroom?”   I didn’t, but these were seniors in high school and all of them in the room were eighteen; legal adults.  

I asked if they had misbehaved in some way, but that didn’t seem to be the problem. The judge didn’t think the “subject matter” was appropriate for students, and she was furious that I thought it was.  I never got to explain it to her (she just kept yelling), but it’s a public trial and my kids are adults.  As their teacher, I knew that during the year we had discussed almost every imaginable  topic in class, including rape.  We even had to analyze then-President Bill Clinton and oral sex!

So I wasn’t worried about what they would hear or see. In a courtroom on the third floor there was a bloody murder case going on.  My students were stacking up to see that trial, and on a recess break, the judge there went into exquisite detail explaining the case to them.  Then the Prosecutors took the students back into a conference room to see the autopsy evidence.  Whatever was going on the fifth floor, it was our justice system in action, and it certainly wasn’t worse than that.  And, besides, by Constitutional guarantee, it was a “Public Trial”.  

Judicial Contempt

Though I couldn’t imagine it was a problem, Judge O’Neill definitely could.  She demanded my name, what school district I worked for, and the name of my Superintendent.  She berated me for “exposing” my kids to the evidence in trials.  Then she laid out her demand:  “If one more student comes in this Courtroom, I’m holding you in contempt and putting you in jail”.  One of the defense lawyers leaned over and whispered in my ear – “Go ahead, quote the Sixth Amendment to her. I’ll take your case for free!!!”

I had forty kids in the courthouse that day, and ending up in jail would definitely be a problem with the folks back at school.  Besides, we had a 12:30 reservation at the Spaghetti Warehouse. I wasn’t too worried about a phone call to the superintendent, but ending up in a Franklin County jail cell didn’t sound like a good career move, even if the Sixth Amendment guaranteed my class’s right to be there.  

So I sat outside Judge O’Neill’s courtroom for the remainder of the day, making sure my kids didn’t go in.  And I called my Superintendent to give him a head’s up (good thing, she called him on the next recess). In the long run though, paybacks, as always, were wonderful.  A couple of years later, it was with some joy that I heard Judge O’Neill was sanctioned for her unprofessional behavior (not just to me) by the Ohio Supreme Court.  She was removed from her judgeship.

Inherent Contempt

Judges have inherent contempt powers – they can just say “Go to jail” and you “go to jail”.  If someone refuses to testify, the Judge can hold them in jail until they do, or the trial is resolved some other way.  Congressional committees have contempt powers as well.  The first kind is exactly like the Judge O’Neill’s power, inherent contempt.  A Congressional committee could order a person to appear and testify, or produce documents. If that person refuses, Congress could order them held in jail or fined until they decide to testify or produce.  But Congress hasn’t done this since 1935.

The reason Congress hasn’t is simple.  While they do have a protective service, the Capitol Police, they don’t really have an enforcement service.  It would be difficult for the Capitol Police to go off Capitol Hill and arrest and hold someone.  Besides, they don’t actually have a jail cell in the Capitol building (though there are rooms that would work).  After all, they are the legislative branch, not the executive branch.

Civil Contempt

So instead they use two other forms of enforcing Congressional will.  The first is called “Civil Contempt”.  Essentially the Congress “sues” someone in Federal Court, to have the Court require them to testify.  If the Court agrees, then it is the Court that orders the person to be testify,  or be held in Federal Jail until such time as they agree to do so.  

They can be held for as long as Congress remains in session (it expires every two years).   But the problem with civil contempt is that it takes time, and  the Court’s decision can be appealed up the Federal chain. We saw that with the House impeachment committees and President Trump’s men.  And, civil contempt has a definite time limit:  stay in jail until you comply, or until the session is over.

As former Congressman Doug Collins was fond of saving, Congressional Committees run on a “clock and a calendar”.  If a “contemptee” can appeal long enough, the Committee would expire before the evidence is heard.

Criminal Contempt

The other form of Congressional contempt is a criminal contempt referral.  The Congress asks the Justice Department to file criminal contempt charges in Federal Court.  At this point, Congress is out of the picture, it is prosecutors versus a defendant in front of a judge and jury.  And the outcome of criminal contempt charges is different as well.  A guilty finding means that the guilty person pays a fine, or goes to jail for a specific term, or both.  But it doesn’t require them to testify or produce anything for Congress.  

Criminal Contempt becomes a crime just like any other crime.  Once the referral is made, and the Justice Department brings charges, Congress has nothing to do with it.

The House of Representatives committee on January 6th referred criminal contempt charges against Steve Bannon.  The Justice Department took on the referral, and charged Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress.  The committee knows that Bannon is likely to never testify.  And they also know that Bannon will stretch out the process as long as possible.  So if Bannon is never going to testify anyway, the greatest punishment Congress can offer is conviction for contempt.  That way, no matter which political party controls the House after the 2022 elections, Bannon still goes to jail.

Just like Judge O’Neill, that would be a wonderful “payback”.  

Bombs Falling

My parents lived an amazing life.  From the beginning,  they were an unlikely pair. Mom was a Londoner born and bred, who lost her fiancé to the Battle of Britain flying Spitfire fighter planes.  Her grief evolved into a desire to join the fight, and she became part of the Churchill’s irregular spy service, the Special Operations Executive.  Dad was from Cincinnati, with a degree in finance from the University there.  He became a finance officer in the US Army, and was sent to England to pay the troops.  

Their relationship began literally as the bombs fell on London during World War II.  They met on a blind date (after Mom secretly had Dad “vetted”) at a restaurant called the Queens Brasserie, and, by their telling, immediately fell in love.  They married more than a year later, two months before D-Day, then separated for another year to fight the war.  After, Mom came with Dad to America and Cincinnati.

Retirement Life

Dad knew finance and was the ultimate salesman, selling syndicated television shows across the nation.  He and Mom were a team in the business, and a team in raising three kids and taking care of their home.  When Dad finally retired, they looked forward to travelling the world.  And they did, from safaris in Africa, to Dad’s “famous” video on top of the Great Wall of China. (He got the on and off button on his video camera confused – so when he was videoing it was off, and when it was hanging from his shoulder, it was on.  The result could have been titled, “Chinese Bottoms on Top of the Great Wall”.)

They found a condo to buy in Florida; Sea Oaks on the Atlantic just north of Vero Beach.  It was a tennis “club” where Dad could find a daily game with a group of older gentlemen called “The Walking Wounded”.  The ocean was just 100 yards away, and Mom would walk miles on the beach most days.  Mom and Dad were social,  and always found a group of friends that often became more than friends, more like family.  They had that group in Cincinnati, and soon had a group at Sea Oaks as well.

Health

Dad had some health issues:  the inherited coronary artery disease that led to two different bypass surgeries, one when Dad was in his late sixties, and a second in his seventies.  The second surgery caused a stroke, and while he kept most of his physical capacities, Dad lost a portion of memory.  Mom stayed in great health, and the two of them continued their amazing life through their eighties.

It wasn’t until they turned ninety in 2008, that their health began to impact their day to day life.  Dad was driving in Vero Beach, and all of a sudden, couldn’t remember how to get home.  Mom was handling the bills, but it got confusing with bills from Cincinnati or Florida arriving late, forwarded from one address to another.  

And she had serious breathing problems, suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, a hardening of the lungs.  She was on oxygen in ever increasing amounts.  Dad valiantly tried to take care of her.  But the oxygen bottles were awkward, and required tiny washers placed in the connections.  It was tough for me to do, thirty-eight years younger, so I know Dad really struggled to make them work.

RV’ing To Florida

 By 2010 I was doing what a lot of children do for their parents, taking care of the “books”.  Part of that was trying to track the increasing number of Medicare bills for both of them.  Other than the thousands of dollars in prescription drugs they spent each year, Medicare and their supplemental insurances covered almost all of the bills.  Helping them was a family affair:  my sisters and their spouses were all deeply involved.  And when I fell in love with Jenn, she became part of the process as well. 

After Christmas of 2010, Mom and Dad were determined to get to Florida.  Mom needed oxygen for the plane, and airlines stopped carrying oxygen “on board” after the fatal ValuJet crash.  They still allowed oxygen concentrators, but Mom’s small unit couldn’t supply enough for the flight.  So we rented a bigger unit, carry-on suitcase size.  Delta was kind enough to seat us in First Class – and we made it to Sea Oaks.

But it was the last year.  My nephew Chris stayed with them and helped.  And by the spring, even that machine wasn’t enough to get her home.  Mom also suffered from back deterioration causing constant pain and needed a medical procedure.  Florida doctors wouldn’t do it, but she could come back to Cincinnati to get it done.  

A jet-ambulance was crazy expensive and “not covered” by any insurance.  So we rented an RV, and my brother-in-law, Jenn and I drove it down to pick Mom and Dad up and bring them home.  The RV generator would run the “big” oxygen machine Mom needed.  Fueled by Mountain Dew and Classic Rock, we drove all night to Florida, picked them up, and started for Cincinnati.  She wasn’t happy about it – I think Mom knew that she was saying goodbye to Sea Oaks for the last time.  That was in April of 2011.

The Last Summer

Things got only a little better at home.  Mom had the back procedure, and that did stop the excruciating constant pain.  But  Mom was constantly low on oxygen, even on the machine,  and it changed her personality.  She was often angry, and quietly scared.  It was impossible for Dad to keep care of her, and he was having his own difficulties.  Mom went into the hospital in June, and we thought that would be the end. 

But she was tough, and not ready to quit.  So when the hospital released her to a rehab facility, we knew they had to move out of their three story home of forty years.  We found a nice two bedroom apartment in a “step” facility, with assistance available.  But I don’t think she ever forgave us for moving them.  She lived there until the end of September, when her lungs just wouldn’t work anymore.  Mom went, as my niece put it, on her “final mission” on October 5th. She was ninety-three.

Dad lived on for another five years.  We moved him to Cleveland so that my oldest sister could supervise his medical care.  And he had a series of strokes that took away much of his memory, but also made him the sweetest man in the world.  There were still monthly bills, the condo in Florida and house in Cincinnati to close and sell,  and as the end approached in 2016, preparation for his final estate.  He passed on July 22nd 2016, two days before his 98th birthday.

Reminders

So what brought all these memories up?  

I turned sixty-five in September and signed up for Medicare Part B.  A month ago, I was doing something stupid, and jammed a pair of scissors into my hand.  It took four stitches to close the wound, and hopefully the feeling and function will return in my right index finger soon.  It was my first claim on Medicare.

And here I am, a month later, looking at the exact same “CMS Medicare – Explanation of Benefits” form, the ones that I still have stacks of on file for Mom and Dad.  But now, that form has my name on it.  

Approaching “old age” seems to be a process, rather than a crash.  It starts when the kids at the counter automatically give you the “senior” discount.  It continues as folks start talking louder to you, and the neighbors “check” on you when bad weather hits.  I was doing that, just last year.  And then there’s the great “sign-up” for Medicare, the rite of passage into senior citizenship.  No wonder “seniors” sound confused, Medicare is a confusing process.

But all of that didn’t really make as big a dent on me, as receiving that “Explanation” did yesterday.  If we’re lucky, like my parents, Jenn and I will have another thirty years to figure it out.

Want to learn more about Mom and Dad? Here’s a link to “all about them” – The Dahlman Papers

The Old South

It feels like sixty years ago – 1961 not 2021.  In a courtroom in the “Old Confederacy”, Brunswick, Georgia; a jury made up of 11 white people and 1 black person is hearing a murder trial.  It’s about three white men who accosted Ahmaud Arbery, a black man they chased down with a pickup truck for being in “their neighborhood”.  When  Arbery resisted, the white men tried to use a gun to subdue him.  In the subsequent struggle, Arbery was shot and killed.

A defense lawyer complained that there wasn’t “enough diversity” on the jury.  What he wanted was more “white males born in the South over forty without a college degree”.  As he said, “…Bubbas or Joe Sixpacks…seem to be significantly underrepresented” (First Coast).  That’s diversity, I guess, not a jury more reflective of a community where 26% of the people are black (US Census Bureau).  Even the judge in the trial admits that the defense has intentionally picked a “white” jury (though he says there’s nothing he can do about it – CNN)

But that’s not all.  The same lawyer is concerned that the presence of “black ministers” might influence that eleven and one jury.  “If their pastor’s Al Sharpton right now, that’s fine.  But then that’s it.  We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here…sitting with the victim’s family…”  He then compared the black pastors to folks dressed like Colonel Sanders with white masks (Reuters). It’s hard to know if he was implying that black people like fried chicken, or that Colonel Sanders dressed like the Ku Klux Klan.

The Old North

But at least the attorneys in the Ahmaud Arbery Trial are allowed to refer to Mr. Arbery as the victim.  In the trial of eighteen year-old Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the defendant is accused of shooting three white demonstrators at a protest over the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake.  But the prosecutors aren’t allowed to refer to the two dead and one wounded demonstrators as victims.  They can be “…rioters, looters or arsonists”, the Judge says, if the defense can show evidence of that.  Of the twenty jurors selected in Kenosha, (ultimately twelve of the twenty will decide the case) only one person is of color. Kenosha is 80% white (Census).

Movie Trials

There are two famous “movie” trials where our nation’s race relations were exposed.  The first, the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird, is set in the 1930’s. It’s about an innocent black man, Tom Robinson (played by Brock Peters) accused of raping a white woman.  The black man’s white attorney, Atticus Finch (played by Gregory Peck), makes an impassioned plea to the jury. He tries to convince them that the courts are the place where “all men are created equal”.   But the all-white jury finds the defendant guilty anyway.  The film, made in 1962, highlighted the continuing racial discrimination in the United States.  What was true in the 1930’s was still true in the sixties, with all-white juries determining the fate of black men and women.

In the more recent film,  A Time to Kill, set in the 1980’s and filmed in the 1990’s, Matthew McConaughey plays Jake Brigance. He’s a young Southern white lawyer defending Carl Lee Hailey, a black man (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who actually commits the crime of killing the torturers and rapists of his young daughter.  Despite pressure on the jury and defense team from the Ku Klux Klan,  Brigance is able to convince the all-white jury to overlook the guilt of his client.  He has them visualize the crime against the child,  then pretend she was white instead of black.

The message of A Time to Kill was that times had changed, and that, with prodding, an all-white jury could relate to a black man’s anger.  But the two current trials have a different emphasis.  Both the Brunswick and Kenosha trials hinge on the accused’s right to “self-defense”.  

Defending Property

In Brunswick the three white defendants claimed they were making a “citizen’s arrest” of a potential burglar. When Arbery resisted, they threatened him with a gun, which he attempted to grab.  The “citizens” claim that they were first defending their property, then defending themselves from Arbery.

In Kenosha, Rittenhouse, then seventeen, took a semi-automatic rifle to the protest, supposedly to protect property.  When one of the victims (oops – protestors) tried to take the rifle away from him, he shot and killed him.  The other two victims then attempted to apprehend him, one with a gun (he was killed) and the other using a skateboard as a club (he was wounded).  Rittenhouse’s defense is that he was protecting property, then defending himself against the victims, and was in fear for his life.  

White Privilege

One aspect of both these cases is that of “white privilege”.  Three white men see a black man jogging down the street, and they have no problem chasing and accosting him.  One white boy sees a protest going on twenty miles away in another state, and decides he’s going to grab a rifle and  insert himself to protect someone else’s property.  It’s not hard to think that if the races were all reversed, Jake Brigance wouldn’t have the juries close their eyes. The outcome of both these cases would be pre-ordained:  guilty.

Atticus Finch is the “model” of an attorney fighting not just for his client, but for what America should be like – all created equal.  The two current trials will give us an answer to  how far has our society come since the 1930’s, or 60’s or 90’s?  

The answer, I’m afraid, is not very far at all.

Frozen Positions

We Democrats want to make the political issue of our time the Insurrection.  As a Democrat, it is the ultimate betrayal of our Democracy.  It’s easy to get fired up against those that manipulated the Nation into that crisis, just as easy as it was for those same manipulators to fire up their base to “Stop the Steal”.  That base thought they were acting to defend the country.  It isn’t the guy down the street with the “F**K Biden” flag that’s the problem, it’s the manipulators who continue to lie to him about our Republic.

What happened around January 6th, and what’s happening still today, are incredibly important.  But voters on either side of that issue are frozen in place.  Democrats, like me, are enraged by the Insurrection and will vote solely on that issue.  The guy with the flag down the street will too.

Slapped

But that’s not what’s deciding elections these days.  Democrats can’t be blinded by our rage at the betrayal of the Constitution.  For the precarious middle of our national politics, the small percentage of voters that decides who wins Virginia and Ohio and Pennsylvania and the other “swing” states; the issues are what they always were.  There’s a blindness in that as well, but it’s fact.  As Democratic Operative James Carville said back in 1992 – “It’s the economy, stupid”.

The economy is slapping people in the face today.  They see it in the price of construction. The cost of lumber and other materials have skyrocketed.  The cost of beef at the grocery store is up 40%.  But the most striking increase is visible every time you drive down the street – the cost of gasoline.  Gas today here in Pataskala is $3.35 a gallon.  So a fill up for my Jeep is now $50.  And the pickup truck is almost $75.

$75 for a tank of gas.  One of my early political jobs paid $75 a week (but it only  cost about $4 to fill-up of my 1967 Volkswagen).  Rising prices eat away at all of the “advances” people make in their jobs.  They are proud of getting a raise, but the end result is that raise is gobbled up (no Thanksgiving pun intended) and their standard of living doesn’t change.  And for those living on a fixed income – like old teachers who are retired – costs go up, but the pension check remains the same.

Shutdown Supply

What happened – why are we literally “all of a sudden” looking at 6% annual inflation?  It takes a look at the past nineteen months, America in pandemic.  We all remember the beginning, St. Patrick’s Day of 2020.  All of a sudden schools moved to online classes, hospitals braced for skyrocketing Covid cases, and places of employment shut down.  Service industry jobs in restaurants and gyms disappeared.  Other jobs became work from home, a good thing, as many children were at home in “online school”, and many daycare centers were closed.

We still needed police and fire, grocery stores and delivery drivers and healthcare workers.  But the shutdown was eerie.  There were those amazing pictures of New York City so closed down, that coyotes were wandering the streets.  Here in Pataskala, Broad Street grew oddly silent, even at rush hour.  But we still needed those folks to work in the meat packing industry, and the canning factories, and the bakeries, and all of the other “essential” areas.  They took the risks the rest of us avoided.

The economy was dramatically slowed down.  Unemployment approached 20%.  Gas prices hit a modern era low (of course, no one was driving much).  It’s the oldest rule in economics – supply and demand.  The supply of gas was high, demand for it was down, so the price went down.

Shutdown Demand

And that happened for a lot of other products.  We couldn’t go out, who needs nice clothes?  We didn’t fly much – airlines were near giving tickets away.  For those earning money, there wasn’t a lot to do with it.  So we stashed it, in bank accounts, and we added the Covid incentive payments, Covid pay increases, and even Covid unemployment benefits to that money “under the board”. (Remember Monopoly?  It was always good to stash some early money under the board.  That way if you had a bad run, you had some extra.  And if things were going well – your opponents didn’t know how well you were really doing). 

There were supply issues then too.  We lined up for toilet paper and paper towels early in the morning.  Some products, like cleaning sprays, were hard to find.  That made sense.  But other, odd things came up missing – like low calorie bread.  Beef costs went up too, as the workers at the processing plants came down with Covid.  Farmers had products, but couldn’t get them processed to go to market.   The “supply chain” was broken.  

It lasted through the spring, then eased some in the summer as we began to adjust to the pandemic.  But our economy was still restricted, unless you were selling campers.  Then it was a booming market – a vacation, outside, with a contained environment was one of the few ways out.

Back to Basics

It wasn’t until the vaccine arrived and larger percentages of the nation reopened that the economy started moving again.  While it seems like an eternity, that was really only six months ago.  People had money, they were ready to spend, and there were more jobs available than people who wanted them.  Again, basic economics:  demand for products went up, supply of products hadn’t even caught up to the pandemic level, so prices went up.  We have inflation.

There is a standard macro-economic definition:  if the supply of money increases without a corresponding increase in the supply of goods, the cost of goods will increase.  Increased supply of money is often a product of government spending more money than it brings in, deficit spending.   But our current inflation isn’t about government spending.  It’s being created by the imbalances of a pandemic world.   

Democrats are in control of Federal Government, no matter how tenuous that control may be.  Being “in charge” means taking credit for the good, and blame for the bad.  Getting our current prices increases under control is not only in the interest of Democratic success, it’s in the interest of the country.  Democrats must do something to take the credit, or prepare to bear the blame at the polls in 2022.

Day-Off

I’ve been subbing at the high school on and off for the past few weeks.  It’s good to be back in a school, but the advantage of my present situation is that today, I’m going back to being “retired”.  Unfortunately, no one told the dogs, so we were still up at 6:15, though it feels to me (and them) like 7:15 with the “falling back” time thing.

I’m sitting in our family room, dogs fed, with two huddled beside me on the couch.  Louisiana, our giraffe-like rescue, is restless. There are squirrels in the backyard that need to be chased away.  But it’s too early for barking.  The fire in the fireplace is taking the chill out of this early November day, and CeCe our foster pit-bull puppy is snuggling on blankets in front of it.  But we are still in Ohio.  Frost in the morning will give way to sunshine and mid-sixties this afternoon.  It’s a good day not to work, at least at school.  There are plenty of leaves to rake.

As usual I’m listening to MSNBC’s Morning Joe.  They must need a rating’s boost this week, they led the seven o’clock hour with Donald Trump.  Joe Scarborough learned from the 2016 election that  Donald Trump boosts ratings.   So they are talking about the Insurrection, and how the Justice Department isn’t moving fast enough, and what Congress must do.  My take:  all of that is going to happen, and when it does, we all will be watching.  Until then, let’s talk about what’s going on today, not what we wished was happening to Trump.  Leave him in petulant exile at Mara Lago, like Napoleon on Elba.  We will have to deal with his next Waterloo soon enough.

Level One Lockdown

Last week I was teaching a social studies class when the Principal put her head in the door. “Keep the door shut and the students in the room”.  It wasn’t a criticism, there was an unexplained emergency.  Soon a fire truck, an ambulance, two command vehicles and two deputy sheriffs were in the parking lot.  Next there was an announcement on the PA System  that our wing of the building was on a Level One lockdown.

I remember when we came up with the “lockdown procedure” back in the late 90’s.  There are three stages.  Level One – shut and lock classroom doors, no one in the halls, continue teaching.  Level Two – level one – but make sure outer doors are locked, and stay away from windows, there’s a threat outside the building. Then there’s Level Three – danger in the building, barricade the doors and hide.

Level One was an emergency, but not a threat.  When we came up with those definitions after Columbine, we recognized there were times when we wanted the hallways cleared, but we could continue education.  Maybe a student was acting out, or there was a health emergency.  This was one of those times.

Unlike the late 90’s though, today almost every kid in class can immediately communicate with the world.  It didn’t take long for the kids downstairs to let us know what was going on.  A substitute teacher was having a health issue – a stroke or a seizure.  It turned out to be much worse. He had a massive heart attack.

Mr. Pokorny

A couple of weeks ago I was checking out at the office from subbing, when the secretary asked if I’d had the chance to talk to Mr. Pokorny.  He was also a substitute, and was surprised to hear I was back in the building.  Now I could blame it on my “advanced” age, but I’ve never been great with remembering names.  There are former students that I can tell you their grades, their term paper topics, where they lived and what shirt they wore to school four out of five days a week – but I can’t remember their names.  So I didn’t remember Mr. Pokorny.  But he knew me, and I was curious to get re-acquainted.

We never got the chance to catch up.  Mr. Pokorny died last Friday, after both high school staff and then paramedics were unable to revive him with CPR.  It took until Monday for me to figure out who Chris Pokorny was.

Talking Shop

From 2006 until 2014 I was the Dean of Students at the school, Watkins Memorial High School.  My office was just outside of the main office complex with the door open to the front lobby of the building.  Folks would often stop by for a chat; kids, parents, and teachers.  And there was a substitute teacher who would stop in.  He was on the School Board for a neighboring District, Northridge, and was interested in how “we” (Watkins) did things to compare with his District.   We had long talks about discipline policy, individualization with students, teacher policy and how to pass school levies.  

But I actually didn’t catch his name. I just knew that he was a “good sub” for us, available for work and able to keep control of classes.  He liked to talk education, and he cared about kids.  And so did I.  So we talked a lot. 

No More Chalk

As an “older” teacher, there’s a “vision”: to “go out with chalk on your fingers”.  Well, first of all there’s no more chalkboards.  And you don’t really want to go that way – your passing would traumatize the kids in the room.  I know that Chris Pokorny didn’t want to do that, but fate didn’t give him a choice.  The Level One lockdown kept the desperate attempts to save his life in the semi-privacy of the emptied hallway.  

Substitute teachers often pass through those halls of school, and lives of kids, without a whole lot of impact.  They are “place-savers” more than educators, “keeping the door shut and the students in the room”.  But they are absolutely necessary – and if they are “good subs”, who are available to come in frequently, they begin to establish relationships with kids and staff.  Watkins lost a “good sub” last week, and I’m sure Northridge lost a good school board member.  My condolences to his family. 

And I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to catch up.

Since writing this essay I’ve found out more about Chis Pokorny: a retired Army Colonel, West Point Graduate, and an active member of his community. Here’s his obituary: Chris Pokorny – 1959-2021

Newark Advocate Article – Northridge Mourns the Loss of Veteran, Advocate and School Board Member

Common Sense

This is the America of the 2020’s.  In the “before times” sometime before the turn of the century, some things used to be just common sense.  Things like voting ought to be easier for everyone so everyone can vote. Or kids should get vaccinations to protect them from diseases.  Or you might not like the President of the United States, but you shouldn’t threaten to kill him.  But those things aren’t  common sense anymore. 

Big Bird, that 8’2” character on Sesame Street, has been on the air since 1969.  That makes him over fifty-two years old.  But Big Bird “identifies” (there goes the argument) as a six year old – and has since 1979.  Big Bird was first vaccinated for measles on the air in 1972 (Newsweek).  Kids relate to Big Bird, he’s the soft friendly voice explaining why things like “shots” are good for kids, even if they hurt, a little.  So it wasn’t a big surprise that, now that the FDA has approved Covid vaccinations for 5 to 12 year old’s:  Big Bird got his shot.  After all, he’s eligible, he’s six!!

Like many socially responsible celebrities, Big Bird took his shot, and tweeted about it –  cause he’s a – Bird!  Kids shouldn’t get Covid.  It can make them sick, and they can make others sick even if they don’t get ill themselves.  It’s part of the way to end the pandemic, get enough folks vaccinated to stop the disease from spreading.  It’s old fashioned I know, common sense.  And Big Bird let kids know that while his wing “got sore”, he was doing a good thing for himself and others.

Victims

Texas Senator Ted Cruz called it out as  “government propaganda”.  Just to clarify something. Big Bird, nor Sesame Street, nor the Children’s Television Workshop (now called the Sesame Workshop) aren’t now or never were owned by any government entity.  Yes, they appear on PBS, a government funded public broadcasting system, but the show and its characters are all privately owned and controlled.  So it’s not “government” propaganda.  In fact, it’s not propaganda at all.  Why not?  Because it’s science, not politics, that drives Sesame Workshop to let kids know the Covid shot is OK.

But it doesn’t fit in with Senator Cruz’s political strategy, though he’s vaccinated.  And it doesn’t fit with the Fox News narrative, who echoed the “propaganda” charge, and then claimed Big Bird should be shamed for not getting the vaccine sooner (but he’s six).  Fox News mandates their employees get the vaccine or get daily Covid tests since September (AP).  For Cruz and Fox, it’s a way to make the poor “victims” of our modern society feel further “victimized”.  “The Government, is trying to manipulate your child into wanting a Covid shot”.  As the MSD Kids say, I call BS.  You can’t have a shot, and then complain when others get the shot and tell people about it – even Big Birds.

Play Fake

I stand with Big Bird, not another celebrity, Green Bay Quarterback Aaron Rogers.  Rogers lied about getting vaccinated, then got Covid, and spouted real “propaganda” about why he didn’t get the vaccine, and his current treatments.  But the truth is in his actions.  He lied, saying that he was “immunized” (pretending that meant vaccinated) because he didn’t want to get “criticized”.  His body, his choice:  except that there are other team members now “not available” due to Covid.  Did Rogers give it to them – did he get it from them?  

The one thing we do know is that Rogers did not follow the NFL protocol for unvaccinated athletes.  The league fined Rogers and the Packers for it.  His desire to not be “criticized” led him to lie.  There’s an old saying “You know you’re doing something wrong when you have to lie about doing it”.  Rogers may be among the best at throwing a football, but as a man and a leader, he falls woefully short, especially when compared to – you guessed it – Big Bird!  Now, of course, he is a victim of the “woke mob”, cancelled by the “left”.  I guess better than being a victim of the Kansas City Chief’s defensive end Melvin Ingram.

Slaying Cartoons

And while we are on fictional characters, let’s talk about Republican Congressman Paul Gosar from Arizona.  He’s tweeted in “anime”, the Japanese cartoons.  Gosar has replaced the Japanese hero’s face with his own, using his sword to “slay” the monsters with the faces of President Biden and Congressman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.  

It used to be, back in the “before times”, that we recognized that threatening the President (or a Member of Congress) was a bad idea.  The “joke” of the 9-11 era was that the NSA was monitoring every phone conversation.  Mix two words in a conversation in any order:  bomb and bush, and you could expect an FBI knock at the door.  So don’t say, “I got bombed last night, and slept in the bush”.  All of that was too close to “bomb President Bush”.

But now a United States Congressman can “tweet” video of his image attacking the President with a sword. When many reasonably called out Gosar for the video, his staff tweeted another cartoon (Twitter).  A red-eyed, scraggly haired pale figure wearing glasses, obviously a “woke-lefty”, declaimed:  “Your cartoon anime scares me with jet pack flying and light sabers”.  A bearded, coifed and tanned figure answers:  “It’s a cartoon. Relax”. 

Hey, Fox News and Senator “Cancun” (can’t take credit for that, it’s from DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison):  Relax.  It’s a fictional Bird.  

And I stand with him.  I stand with Big Bird.

Wreck

My worst car wreck was on September 14th, 2001.  It’s one of those memories I can replay with exquisite detail: the sound of the crash, my head bouncing off of the door post, the crunch as my front wheels literally broke off the axles.  It was absolutely my fault.  I pulled out of a driveway onto busy State Route 16 on a Friday night at 5:45 pm, the height of rush hour.  I looked left, saw nothing, then looked right and saw my opening to turn left across the road.

As I pulled out, I glanced left once more.  There wasn’t even time to say the proverbial, “Oh Shit”, before the car hit my driver’s side door.  They were going about fifty or so, lucky for me in a compact car.  I was in my “new to me” blue GMC Suburban, a veritable tank.  Anything smaller, and I would have been seriously injured.

Aftermath

After the accident, I got out the passenger side door and found myself standing in a pile of beer cans.  They weren’t mine – maybe the other driver’s? I wasn’t sure, I was more worried about him and his family.  He was relatively unhurt, burned by the airbags on the insides of his arms.  His wife was bruised on her face.  Their young child, standing up in the backseat, was thrown at the dash. He had a split lip that would require stitches, but seemed OK besides that.

We stopped traffic on Broad Street at rush hour on a Friday night.   Not surprisingly, a crowd soon gathered, and eventually the local police arrived.  I told them everything I remembered, looking at but not seeing the on-coming vehicle, then pulling out in front of him.  And I made sure the officer understood that the accident was totally my fault, that the other driver did nothing wrong.  I distinctly remember hearing a spectator in the crowd:  “…That’s the most honest thing I’ve ever heard”.  Maybe it was his beer.

Injuries

They took the kid in an ambulance with his parents.  I was living alone at the time and when they asked if I wanted to get checked out at the hospital, I said that I would.  The world was still ringing, I wasn’t sure how banged up my head was.  But the worst injury was still to come.  Working in the ambulance were some of my former high school students.  They said they needed practice putting in IV’s.  So I got a few, and the next day had the dark bruises to show for it.   After that, my memory isn’t so clear. The other thing I distinctly recall was telling the ER Doctor that I wanted a blood alcohol test.  He said, “You’re not drunk”, and I replied “I know, but I want that on record”.  I was still thinking of all those beer cans.

It was my forty-fifth birthday, and it was three days after 9-11.  Looking back, the toll of that week:  learning and teaching about the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the melting point of steel beams, and helping my students through the trauma of airplanes striking buildings, definitely impacted me.  I was mentally exhausted by the end of the week. Maybe that’s why I didn’t see the car coming.  And I was distracted, getting birthday wishes from my parents on the phone at the time.  

Slow Speed Collision

I’ve been writing about my experiences, politics, and our world for the past five years.   And I’m starting to wonder; has the cumulative effect of the shock of a nation where nearly half of the voters are willing to support a candidate like Donald Trump caused that same kind of mental distraction?  Add the very real trauma of the Insurrection, of seeing the attack on the Capitol and the Nation, and I find I’m struggling with tolerance.  I’ve looked back at my writings for the past few weeks and I’m worried. Have I become inflexible? For a man who prides himself as seeing all the grays between black and white, my vision and attitude are polarized.  I feel a crash coming on.

Civil War

Donald Trump, and those who support him, were willing to overthrow the Constitution to achieve their individual power and money.  They, all of them, are at a point beyond forgiveness, or to put it in religious terms, beyond redemption.  I envision them as the same as those leaders of the secession movement before the Civil War, Edmund Ruffin or Howell Cobb.  Ruffin, who wrote essays advocating slavery, demanded that the South secede and fired one of the first shots against Fort Sumter.  Cobb, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives and Secretary of Treasury, led the Secession Congress and became a Major General in the Confederate Army.  For both of them, there should be no redemption.

Ruffin determined his own fate at the end of the war by committing suicide.  But Cobb, and many others, were redeemed.  After the War Cobb received a pardon.  He was even eligible to run for Congress again, though he didn’t (others did, like Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens).  But Cobb became a strong opponent of Reconstruction, speaking all across the South, even as one of those who caused the need for Reconstruction in the first place.

Search for Gray

And for those leaders of the Trump Administration, who plotted at the White House and in a nearby room of the Willard Hotel to thwart the US Constitution and the will of the people; today there is not only redemption, but vindication.  They continue to plan their return to power.  And those that enabled their treachery remain empowered in Congress, and by right-wing media.

I am struggling to find the gray.  I can understand some of my friends who went to Washington to “Stop the Steal”.  They were misled; told by their trusted leaders that the “Revolution” was against them. But that leadership knew better.  And we are getting clearer information about what went on. We know that the crowd was aimed and fired at the Capitol, and violence was a foreseeable and even desired outcome.

So it’s hard to look at Josh Mandel here in Ohio, or other Republican candidates throughout the nation who have “committed to Trumpism”, as legitimate seekers of office, rather than usurpers of the Constitution.  I can find no “gray” in that.  They allowed Trumpism to “happen”, and they have neither asked for or received absolution for the trauma our nation is still going through.  They are like Cobb and Ruffin, unreconstructed. How can they possibly be allowed to run?

Frustration

And the second issue I’m struggling with is those who refuse to get the Covid vaccine.  They don’t ignore the science – they deny it.  And they base their decision on their own set of “alternative facts” (at least Kelly-Ann Conway had the courtesy to disappear). It’s being fed  to them through pod-casts and the “alternate” media.  When confronted with the “real” data, they deny-deny-deny.  It becomes all about a giant world “plot” to enrich big Pharma and the government.  Need an example? Check out Covid infected Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rogers, following the medical protocol of that known “viral specialist”, podcaster Joe Rogan. It’s disappointing.

And it’s maddening – that normally reasonable people, capable of high levels of research and thought, are choosing information sources so poorly.  But they demand that I respect their choices as “valid”:  “You do you, I’ll do me”.  The problem is, “you doing you” is hurting the rest of us.

Polio 

Thank goodness my parents didn’t think that way.  As polio, infantile paralysis, was burning through children in the suburbs in the 1950’s, two vaccines were developed to stop its spread.  The first, by Dr. Salk in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was an injection.  The second, by Dr. Sabin who lived down the street from us in Cincinnati, was oral.  Both prevented the disease and  removed the specter of iron braces and iron lungs that made parents lock their children inside throughout the summer.

Mom and Dad took us to Dr. Sabin’s house.  He served the vaccine out his back patio door.  I suppose we were test subjects – but my parents, like many, were so worried about polio they would do almost anything to prevent it.  There were mistakes, including a bad batch of Dr. Salk’s vaccine.  But there wasn’t a “movement”, an anti-polio vaccine effort.  The disease was so much worse than the possibility of mistakes, people accepted the risks.

But today many are somehow willing to accept as inevitable a disease that has killed three-quarters of a million of us.  And the argument that their infection, while it might be mild, put others at serious and maybe even fatal risk, doesn’t seem to matter.  It’s hard to “keep my head” in those discussions.  Hard to accept their ideas even for the purpose of dialog.  It’s hard not to lose my temper, and say exactly what I think – they are being played for someone else’s benefit.  And that their decisions might impact and kill others.

Prayer

There Is a friend of mine who worked with the toughest kind of emotionally disturbed children.  She often quoted the “Serenity Prayer”:  

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

I’m not a prayerful man, and I am struggling to determine what I can and cannot change.  There’s not much likelihood of serenity in my head anytime soon.  But I do need to find the capacity to see “the gray” once again.  It may not lead to serenity, but it might allow me,  “…To keep my head about me, when all others are losing theirs” (Kipling).  In our current political world, that might be as close to “grace” as we can get.

School House Rock

Who would have “thunk-it”!  Democrats in the United States Congress actually got something done.  Friday night, after enough sausage-making to satisfy even the “Oscar Meyer Weiner” company, the bipartisan-infrastructure bill was passed.  For those who need the School House Rock play-by-play: the trillion dollar bill was already passed in the Senate. The House approved the identical Senate bill – so it’s done.  The bill now goes to the desk of the President of the United States, where he has ten days to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.

No worries there either.  President Biden is more than excited to get this bill signed.  He wants America on improved roads, rebuilt bridges, expanded ports, fixed railroads, faster internet, and driving electric cars.  It will get America moving even faster, and it will employ millions of Americans in “good-paying” jobs.  And it will also inject money all across the country, putting more dollars into local economies for concrete and guardrails, Big Macs and Tacos for construction workers and – especially here in Ohio, ORANGE BARRELS!!!

For those who need “granular detail”, Ohio doesn’t actually “own” many orange barrels – the state  leases them, by the barrel and by the day.  When last I checked, the rate was a $1/barrel/day. Drive any interstate highway –  someone is making some good cash in “barrel leasing”!

So expect that the bridges will get fixed, even here in Licking County, where forty-three bridges out of four hundred and thirty are categorized as being in “poor” shape (Bridgereport – look up your county).

Leap of Faith 

The passage of this bill was a leap of faith for Democratic House Progressives.  Speaker Pelosi needed almost every Democratic vote, with only thirteen Republicans voting in favor.  And six Democrats voted against it – the “Squad” plus one. They weren’t against the bill – but they don’t have the faith  of the other Progressives.  

And what did they have to have faith in?  Progressives linked the passage of this bill with the eventual passage of the even bigger “Build Back Better” bill in the near future.  The language for Build Back Better is complete, but moderate Dems want to see the “scoring” for the bill. Scoring is when the Congressional Budget Office goes through the entire bill and determine what it will cost, and what revenues it will raise.  CBO then generates a “bottom line” cost – a number that Congressmen can work with.

Moderate Dems wouldn’t vote the Build Back Better bill through without the scoring, though they did approve a procedural measure to move the bill along.  And they gave written assurances to the Progressives that they would vote for Build Back Better once it is scored.  So Progressives gave up their leverage and voted for this infra-structure bill. They trust that the moderates of the House, and ultimately in the Senate will keep their word.  And that’s what “making sausage” is all about.

Tweaked Sausage

The “Build Back Better” bill is going to be “tweaked” in the Senate.  And whatever the Democrats in the Senate determine is in “their” version of the bill, that’s what they’ll pass by a 51-50 vote (Vice President Harris casting the tie-breaker).   Then the House and Senate will put together a conference committee, to determine a bill that both chambers can pass.  Then it will go back for final passage, without amendment, to both Houses.  It’s back to School House Rock.

So there’s a long legislative journey ahead for “Build Back Better”. And assuredly the Progressives and the Moderates will tangle once again as the “sausage gets made”. What can also be assured though, is that Republicans will have no part in this. Whatever gets done, will be done by Democrats. Governing and progressing, isn’t what Republicans do these days. They are too busy whining about non-existent issues like Critical Race Theory, “election security” and paying down the National Debt to actually get anything done. They weren’t worried about the debt as long as they were the ones passing bills.

The Moderates didn’t just promise the Progressives.  They also assured the President of the United States that they would support his bill – Build Back Better.  So the commitments are made.  But until the votes are actually cast, nothing is certain.  

We can expect that negotiations for Progressives will be harder without leverage.  But in the end, as promised, Democrats delivered the first of two huge legislative efforts to rebuild America.  And if you have to drive over one of those “poor” bridge in Licking County or elsewhere in the nation every day, you’ll should be glad to hear it.

Disaster

Democrats got surprised on Tuesday.  While the vote differences were narrow, the Party took a hit in Virginia, losing all of the statewide elective offices and control of the House of Delegates.  Democrats went from  holding all of the levers of power, to just the Virginia Senate. And in New Jersey, the Democratic Governor maintained office by the literal “skin of his teeth”, though the final vote tallies aren’t complete.  From the Democratic standpoint – it was a disaster, but not a catastrophe (unless you’re a Democrat in Virginia). 

It’s a big hit for the Party (and I would argue for the country), but more importantly, there are lessons to be learned, before 2022 and even more before 2024.  

One – Forgiveness

I will never forgive the Republican Party for the agony of Trumpism.  I hold the leadership accountable for what our nation (and world) has gone through in the past five years, in part because of alleged leaders like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy.  At every opportunity to disavow Donald Trump, they did the politically expedient thing, not the courageous thing.

But it really doesn’t matter whether I forgive the Republicans or not.  Clearly the “swing vote” has granted absolution (or Amnesia) and is moving on.  It doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what the voters are going to do.  And the first lesson is the same lesson we should have learned from 2020, when Trump lost, but Republicans “down-ticket” did well.  Regardless of what we Democrats think, the “middle “ of the nation wants to get back to business as usual.  IF, and that’s a big IF, they hold anyone accountable for Trumpism, it’s Trump himself. 

Two – Proof

You will hear Progressives, many my good friends, use the Virginia election as “proof positive” that moderation isn’t the answer.  They will, with some cause, say that more Progressive candidates will energize the Democratic vote, and that moderates like Terry McAuliffe or Phil Murphy simply can’t succeed.  That lesson may be valid, but here’s the problem.

Progressives haven’t shown proof that they can govern, yet.  You will hear the McAuliffe team complain that Congress left Terry hanging, without either the infrastructure or the Build Back Better bill completed.  The perception is that Progressives can’t get “things” done (though it just as reasonable an argument that the “conservative” Democrats are at fault).  Rather than haggle as to who should bear the blame for the Virginia debacle, Congressional Dems need to complete something.

They need to get the bills done.  Build Back Better and Infrastructure need to go to Biden’s desk for signature. Democrats in the field cannot campaign on “we’re almost finished”.  They’ve got to prove it, and until they do, voters aren’t convinced anything will happen.  We’ve spent enough time waiting for the chaos in Congress to resolve – it’s time to close the deal. 

Three – Inexorable History

This may relate to Lesson One.  In my view Donald Trump was/is an inflexion point of American History.  Things were different before, during, and after the Trump Presidency.  Because of that inflexion point, I thought the historic “rules” of elections were altered.  But they don’t seem to be changed.  Traditionally, the party the won the Presidency loses the Virginia Governorship the next year.  That happened.  Traditionally the Party that wins the Presidency loses ground in the next Congressional election.  That may be coming.  Democrats, like Terry McAuliffe, are “swimming upstream”.  We better become stronger swimmers, fast.

Four – Governing is Hard

Every executive leader; from President Biden to state Governors, to Mayors and local school superintendents,  has tried to govern through the Covid pandemic.  They’ve had to do “hard” things:  business shutdowns, school closings, mask and vaccine mandates.  Those leaders (even Republicans like Mike DeWine in Ohio and Larry Hogan of Maryland) have followed the science, even when it shifted and changed, to protect their citizens.  

But America is really tired of Covid.  When we missed the opportunity to end our pandemic in 2020, and allowed the development of more contagious variants, many Americans had enough.  They decided to “live” with Covid, rather than protect themselves from it.  We’ve paid, and are still paying, a huge price for those decisions.  770,000 Americans are dead from Covid, almost 40% more than any other country in the world.  More than 8,000 are still dying each week (OurWorld).

But no one likes the bearer of “bad news”.  And those leaders have time and time again been that bearer.  Governors like Phil Murphy in New Jersey paid the price for that leadership, and while he survived, it’s likely that others, like Mike DeWine in Ohio won’t.  

Five – Final Lesson

We are still a nation of three camps.  There is the Trumpian Republican Party, and there is no hope for them.  They are who they are, and they will not be persuaded otherwise.  As a Democrat they are simply a block that will always be against whatever you are for.  The key is will they show up and vote, or believe their leader that the elections are rigged. By the way, I haven’t heard any cries of “election fraud” in Virginia.

Then there is the Democratic “block”, a little larger than the Trumpians. They too are going to vote in a mass. But they too need to be motivated to “show up”, and if Democrats don’t show success on the issues they care about, they won’t.

And finally there is still a “middle”, and that middle seems to be the one that decides elections in states like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan (and maybe even Ohio).  The middle is sensitive to the “wedge” issues, even ones that are fake like Critical Race Theory (CRT – Bending the Moral Universe).  It’s easy for Democrats to say that CRT is a false issue, but that doesn’t change how the middle responds to it.  So we need to answer CRT, just as we needed to answer “Defund the Police”.  

And we have those answers.  We Democrats just have to “stoop down” to answer concerns that we feel are made up problems.  We think with Covid, the Insurrection, and all of the economic and real social issues we have, CRT and Defund aren’t worth our time.  We’re wrong. We need to answer to win.

On the Wall

When I was in college, politics was “my thing”.  I was involved in student politics, local politics, and even worked for the 1976 Jimmy Carter Campaign as a paid (not much) staff member.  Pasted up on my wall were different sayings to remind me of why I wanted to be in politics. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”, and “I dream things that never were and say, why not?” were prominent.

But there were also phrases to remind me what was bad about American politics.  Remember, this was in 1974-75, only ten years after the Civil Rights Act was passed.  Nixon resigned the month I started college, and the Vietnam War was still going on, though “winding down”.  And a power in Southern Democratic politics was the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace.

Wallace

It’s easy to look back on Wallace and see him as the racist he was.  But in the early 1970’s, Wallace was still important, still a Governor, and had the sympathy of many as a candidate paralyzed in an assassination attempt.  Wallace had “smoothed the edges” of his racist rhetoric, trying to sound like a “populist”.  But like the proverbial leopard, he hadn’t changed his spots.  So I made sure George Wallace’s most famous phrase was on my wall. 

When he first won the Alabama Governorship in 1962, Wallace was sworn in on the State Capitol portico, intentionally standing on the same spot (marked with a star) where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederacy.  And Wallace’s speech that day was one that Davis himself might have delivered.

“In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

The “Seventies” might have changed Wallace into a more polished “media figure”, but he still was the man of 1962, and of 1963 when he stood in the “Schoolhouse Door” of Alabama University to prevent integration.

Dog Whistles

Racism  has smoothed its language.  No one is talking about segregation as a “good thing” anymore.  But Racism is a constant of American political life.  It has been for one-hundred and fifty six years, since the end of the Civil War.  In my youth, racism was more “obvious”, with physical segregation the law in many states.  My parents took trips to see the horse farms in Kentucky, and as we stopped for gas, there were “White” and “Colored” restrooms.  It isn’t “ancient” history – it is in my memory (though some of the students I see as a substitute might equate me and the word ancient).  

In the seventies it was no longer segregation.  The new term was “busing”.  The threat of “busing” students to integrate schools brought a new reality of racism to the North.  And it built the “suburbs”, as white folks fled the cities in order to keep their children from integrated schools.  The “threat” of busing pretty much ended when the Supreme Court ruled that while school districts needed to work towards integration, the Courts couldn’t force “cross district” busing.  So the “suburbs” were safe with their separate districts.  And politicians used busing as a cudgel, to threaten the community, and gain votes.  Underlying the term, like segregation, was racism.

Then in the eighties and nineties the cry was “affirmative action”.  How dare a person of color with fewer opportunities get some “advantage” over those that always had privilege.  We still hear that “dog whistle” today.  A reasonable accommodation to hundreds of years of discrimination has become a “battle cry” of victimhood for some white folk.  Their “whiteness” put them at advantage throughout US History, now when the tables are tweaked just a little, they cry with “righteous outrage” about the unfairness of things.

Heritage

In the early 2000’s the new term was “heritage”.  Preserving “our” heritage was a codeword for keeping the advantages that “whiteness” had always allowed.  Heritage was a carefully preserved and protected story of America that “white-washed” all of the hateful actions towards people of color and indigenous natives.  It was an America where slaves were freed by Lincoln, and then again by Lyndon Johnson.  The intervening century of discrimination wasn’t discussed.  

It was a land where sturdy pioneers went out into the wilderness and wrested a world of agricultural industry from empty fields.  It didn’t talk about the folks that lived in those fields before, or the culture that was destroyed so that the wheat could grow and the cattle graze.  Even the buffalo had to be eliminated – to, as General Phil Sheridan put it, “destroy the Indian commissary, and make the plains safe for the speckled cattle”.  American heritage didn’t talk much about that.

Critical Nonsense

Racism was supposed to “die out” in the new millennium.  We are a nation that will soon have no majority race, a nation that will be “majority-minority”.  And still the appeal to white voters is there, the “dog whistle” so high pitched that only white people can hear it.  This year, that’s being called “Critical Race Theory”.  

It doesn’t matter that “Critical Race Theory” really is an esoteric graduate level study of American law and procedure.  Critical Race Theory now is incorrectly applied as a watchword that covers all kinds of diversity training, and the rooting out of the more blatant racism of our past.  The words are used to evoke the same racism that “heritage” and “affirmative action” and “busing” and “desegregation” did in our past.  

The Moral Universe

It’s not really a “dog whistle”.  The incorrect use of the term Critical Race Theory has become a national clarion call for those white folks who are fighting their own inevitable minority-ness.  They are losing their privileged status, and some are kicking and screaming about it every step of the way.  And much like George Wallace, politicians from Senators to school board members are taking advantage of their discomfort, and appealing to their basest hatreds.

A phrase that was not on my wall at college, but should have been, is by Martin Luther King;  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”   Time will cure America.  But like any disease, the sooner you start curing the illness, the sooner you can get better.  Right now, we are letting the sickness spread.  That IS our heritage, but it should not be and cannot be our future.  

We need to do some bending to make America just.

Election Day

It’s the first Monday of November.  Here in the United States, election day is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November – so America votes tomorrow.  There is always “hope” on the day before the election, hope for change, hope for things to get better, hope that Americans will go to the polls and with their “righteous might”  and mass wisdom make America…well hopefully not “great again”. 

But it’s the off-off year election.  Kind of like the non-Olympic years, this is a very preliminary election year.  Here in Ohio, it is elections filled with local offices:  the school boards and township trustees and local ballot issues.  There are no statewide issues here.  And, unfortunately, only around twenty percent of America’s “righteous might” will show up at the polls.  Only one in in five citizens will make these local decisions, choosing the leaders for the most direct and immediate jobs.  

Virginia

However, there is a statewide race in Virginia.  Republican Glenn Youngkin is running against former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.  The Virginia race is considered a “bell weather” state, a predicator of how the nation is reacting to national leadership.  In 2017, Democrats took charge of the state, supposedly in response to Trumpism.  Democrat Ralph Northam won the Governorship.  It’s easy to forget what happened soon after:  photos were found of Northam in college in “blackface”, photos that Northam denied, and then acknowledged, and then denied again.

National Democratic leadership (and this essayist: Equity and Absolution) called for Northam to resign.  But the Democratic Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General had their own issues, and if all three resigned the Republican Speaker of the House of Delegates would become Governor.  So everyone stayed.

Virginia bars Governors for running for consecutive terms, so Northam could not run again.  But the people of Virginia haven’t forgotten all of the controversy, even if the rest of the nation has.  When we see tomorrow’s results, remember that.  McAuliffe is running “uphill” against more than just Joe Biden’s popularity rating.

Moving On

But there is a greater question to answer in Virginia tomorrow.  Republican Glenn Youngkin is working to distinguish himself from Donald Trump.  While the former President endorsed him, Youngkin has carefully created space.  He hasn’t asked Trump to come in and campaign.  And while McAuliffe has done his best to make Youngkin a “Trumpian Candidate”, it appears that the Republican is “having his cake and eating it too”.  He’s benefitting from Trump’s support and issues, but constantly declaring he’s “not Trump”. 

The national Republican Party is still under the thrall of Donald Trump.  Local candidates, particularly in “Blue” states like Virginia, are trying to run away from Trump, while still getting his supporters.  That’s not true in more “Red” states:  here in Ohio Republican candidates are “doubling down” on Trumpism.  Josh Mandel, a former State Treasurer running in the 2022 Senate election, is running as close to Trumpism as he can get.  His web page leads with Trump’s “America First” rhetoric.  And just last week he disrupted a local school board meeting, standing up and demanding that “student be allowed masks” (Springfield).  He was escorted from the meeting by Sheriff’s Deputies, but he got the “sound bite” he wanted for his future advertising.

Absolution

And the rest of the nation is faced with a question of absolution or amnesia.  The four years of Donald Trump ended with the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans from Covid.  The groundwork of distrust created by the Trump Administration is still impacting us today – thus Mr. Mandel thought he could “make hay” by opposing mask mandates.  And even worse (hard to imagine worse than all those deaths) Trump led the nation to attempt to overthrow the Constitution on January 6th.  And just like Covid, that isn’t over either, as state after state attempts to restrict voting access.  

But candidates like Youngkin are trying to return to Republican “business as usual”.  They aren’t asking for absolution from the terrible actions of Trump.  They can’t, they still need Trumpist supporters to come to the polls.  So instead, they are asking for “amnesia”.  They want Americans to “move on”, to put the Covid failure and the Insurrection “in the past”. These post-Trump Republicans are trying to tap into Americans desire to “return to normalcy”, what they remember of politics before Donald Trump came down the golden escalator.

We went through two immense tragedies, one impacting each of us personally, and the other threatening our Constitutional order.  Neither of those tragic events are over.  One of the questions answered tomorrow in Virginia will be: is it absolution, amnesia, or accountability?

This is another Sunday Story – no politics – just some tales from my backpacking days!

Housekeeping

“Housekeeping” notes from Our America.  

Many of you access Our America through Facebook.  I know that some are concerned about the impact Facebook is having on “Our America” and the world, and are considering dropping the platform.  There are several other ways to access “Our America” besides Facebook.  You can link through Twitter at @martydahlman. Or you can subscribe to the WordPress site – www.dahlman.online (click the register button on the side menu).  Or you can be “really special” and join the select few that get their essays emailed directly to them – just email me at dahlman@aol.com and I’ll put you on the list.  

To the moment (who’s counting) I’ve written 1,171 essays – and I don’t think I’m going to stop soon (why do I write like I’m running out of time?).  If YOU would like to “try your hand” on “Our America” as a guest essayist, I’d be honored.  Just a few guidelines:

• essays should be around 1000 words – 
• this is not a forum for personal attack (though politicians might argue the point)
• I reserve the right to decline to publish any essay – for my own reasons
• While the essay will be published as a guest essay and I will know who wrote it, 
• You can choose not to have your name published (I get it).
• Keep it moderately clean – it’s a family “show”.
• Yes, I was a teacher, and No, I won’t be grading your “work”
• And if you and I disagree – that’s OK, alternative views are absolutely allowed. 

And finally, thanks for reading “Our America”!!!!!

Boots

I learned to hike in the Boy Scouts.  We started out on five-milers at Scout camp, marching the hills and woods of Woodland Trails near Eaton, Ohio.  At eleven I learned why checking those “hot spots” on your feet were so important – they never, ever seemed to get better on their own.  You need to get a piece of “mole skin”, a thin felt pad with an adhesive backing, over the red spot, soonest.  By the way, I later learned that duct tape worked too. Fix it early, or find a blister later, when a lot more elaborate first aid  is needed.  But either way, you were finishing the hike!

Two pairs of socks worked, a thin cotton layer under a thick wool pair.  The cotton absorbs the sweat, the wool absorbs the effort.  And dry feet, to this day, dry feet are so much better to stomping in the wet.  Wet feet feel bad, get soft, and end up blistered for sure.  So a good pair of boots, supportive, well fitted, water resistance and broken-in are essential. 

How important were good boots for me?  Well for my high school graduation present, I asked for a serious pair of hiking boots.  My Raichle mountain boots cost more than $100 in 1974, a huge amount of money for boots at the time.  But they let me hike ANYWHERE – snow and rock, dirt and swamp.  And they lasted well into the 1990’s.  When they finally died, it wasn’t from bad leather – it was from worn out soles and no “cobblers” left in the world to replace them.

Hooked on Wilderness

In my last summer in Dayton, Ohio, my Scout Troop (229) sent a crew to the “High Adventure” base in the mountains near Philmont, New Mexico.  I was thirteen, technically too young for Philmont, but I talked myself onto on the crew (persuasive even then).  We hiked maybe seventy miles over several days.  The first days were tough with a forty-five pound backpack at elevation, but by the end I was “hooked” on backpacking, and the wilderness.

We moved to Cincinnati, and a new Scout Troop, 819 in Wyoming.  I ran into a group that loved to backpack, both the kids and more importantly, the adults.  We hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina and Tennessee, and north in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  And we found trails in the mountains of Pennsylvania (I wrote about one of those experiences, Hiking with Jack).  

We went out to the high plateaus and mountains of Colorado, and up into the summer snow of the Maroon Bells above Aspen.  But we also found closer places, like the Red River Gorge in Kentucky.  And a bit farther south, we hiked a trail along the Kentucky/Tennessee border near Cumberland Gap National Park.  It was a “two-day” hike called the Mischa Mokwa Trail.

Mischa Mokwa

I’ve hiked the trail twice, once with the troop and once on my own.  It’s about twenty miles long, starting off near US Route 58  and Shawanee, Tennessee. The trail goes up across the state line into Kentucky, and heads east along the ridgeline.  At the end it comes south off the ridge, across a state line again, this time into Virginia, and ends near the small village of Ewing.

The first time with the troop was a good two-day backpack trip.  We drove one car to the Ewing end, to shuttle kids back to the trailhead at Shawanee, about a fifteen mile drive.  Our big adventure – what to do about the rattlesnake wrapped around the trail post sign, right beside the path.  You won’t go back, and you can’t go forward (especially with kids). Going around isn’t good either, as rattlesnakes often come in pairs.  Better to deal with the snake you can see, than the one you don’t!!

It was a big stick, a really big stick, that did the trick.  We picked the snake up, and launched it into woods.  Then we hustled the troop along the way.  A pissed off rattler isn’t going to chase you, but getting far away from that shaking tail is a really good idea.  

Solo 

When I was in college, I drove back down in my Volkswagen “Squareback” to hike the trail on my own. A little over halfway there’s Brush Mountain with an abandoned town, called the Hensley Settlement. It was founded in the late 1800’s, and once had a population of near 100. There is a school house (more of a log cabin), a store, and a “spring” house; though there was also a big sign saying that the spring water wasn’t drinkable.

The Great Depression drove folks down the mountain looking for work, and the young men went off to World War II and found a whole different world to live in.  The last Hensley left the mountain in 1951.  The Park took over the settlement, and in the sixties began restoring buildings.  

Today it’s a “living museum” to Appalachian settlement, and if you go when it’s “open” there are folks talking about the way people lived.  But when I was backpacking through, it was after hours.  I had the entire settlement to myself, walking down the dirt street, looking in the buildings, all set for life – with no one there.  It was un-nerving:  a town “all dressed” up, but no life around.  

You’re not supposed to camp at Hensley, but I don’t think I’d want to do that anyway.  I don’t worry about wildlife camping in the wilderness, you take the proper precautions and bears pretty much leave you alone.  Raccoons can be annoying – but they’re a nuisance, not a danger.  But I do worry about people – and an empty town would just be too much.  I wouldn’t sleep.

Thumbing Back

The next day I finished, picking my way down the steep trail off the ridge and back into the valley. I ended up in Ewing, and began looking for a way back to the trailhead and my Squareback, about fifteen miles away. It was the 1970’s and “hitch-hiking” was still an OK thing to do. I had friends in college who travelled the country, by “thumbing rides”. So I walked over to US 58, and stuck my thumb out.

Even though I was a dirty hiker with a bush of unkempt hair and a bandanna, it didn’t take too long for someone to pull over.  It was a couple of guys my age, in a 1967 Mustang with Tennessee plates.  I threw my pack in the trunk, and climbed into the back seat.  The “boys” wanted to give me a “Tennessee ride”, to see what this “Northern boy” might do.  We screamed down the road, with the speedometer needle pushing 120.  What took me two days of steady hiking to cover, took less than a half an hour.  

I think I gave the “boys” what they wanted – an excuse to drive crazy, and a look of terror as we screamed around the turns. But we made it back to the entrance of the trailhead parking lot, and my Volkswagen Squareback. It had a top speed of seventy miles an hour, going downhill! After that “Tennessee Ride” I was pretty happy with that.

The Sunday Story Series

• 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

Commitment

The most patient friend I ever had often used the phrase, “You’re either on the bus, or you’re off the bus”. It was her way of explaining commitment – either you are in, or you’re not.  Or, as Mr. Miyagi of Karate Kid fame said, “Karate Yes, Ok. Karate No, Ok.  Karate, Maybe – squish, just like grape”.  

But, as we all know, President Biden is not a “bus guy”, and probably doesn’t do Karate. Biden is a “train guy”. For thirty years as a US Senator, he rode the train from his home in Wilmington, Delaware to Washington to work, every day. It was about an hour and a half, one way, and now costs $39 for a round trip ticket.

Biden originally did it so that he could be home with his kids each evening. But ultimately enjoyed the work time on the train, and the opportunity to sleep in his own bed each night. He would probably take the train home today, but the Secret Service can’t secure the route for Presidential use without disrupting the whole network.

Leaving the Station

President Biden didn’t tell Congressional Democrats to “get on the bus” yesterday as he tried to close the infra-structure, “Build-Back-Better” deal. Nope – he told them essentially to “Get on Board, the Biden Build-Back-Better train is leaving the station”. Some Democrats hesitated again, making the Party of the New Deal and the Great Society look like a bunch of squabbling seventh graders. But the Presidential message, delivered in person to the House Democrats and on television to the Nation, was clear. The “framework” for the “deal” is done. You can nit-pick some details, but here’s the train, ready to leave the station. Democrats: whether Socialists, Progressives, Liberals, Moderates, a West Virginia conservative or whatever Kyrsten Sinema is (a Progressive in the pocket of big Pharma); must get on board.

If they do, then the Democratic Party can present to the nation improved Medicare and health care, education and housing, immigration and tax credits.  And more importantly, Democrats can honestly say they are taking care of the future. Or, as Speaker Pelosi would say, “the children, the children, the children”.  In the “package” is guaranteed pre-school for every child, affordable day-care, and most importantly, the biggest national investment in our climate and clean energy in history, over $500 Billion.  

Campaign Message

And after passing the plan, Democrats can say they did it without a single Republican vote.  The Democratic Party will be the Party that got something done to make America better, for ourselves and the children.  And what about the Republican Party? Well they will be the Party that stood against climate, against children, against tax relief for the middle and lower class, and against hearing aids for senior citizens.  Oh yeah, and the Party that gave all the rich guys a tax break.

Or four House and three Senate Democrats can guarantee a Republican Congress in 2022, and perhaps a Republican White House in 2024.  

Closing the Deal

Four House Democrats are the “moderate” Dems, struggling to make the “Build-Back-Better” deal.  They are all for the smaller “bipartisan” Infra-structure deal (though hardly bipartisan in the House), but all “a-twitter” about the bigger package.  They need to get over that, and find their seat in the “club car”:  the train whistle is blowing.

And three Senators:  the conservative Democrat from West Virginia and the confused Democrat from Arizona.  The plan has been crafted specifically to their wants and desires.  They already have a “first class” seat on the train.  They need to take their winnings and get on board.  After the vote, they can go home and campaign, telling their constituents how important they are, and why they should be returned to Washington.  And they’ll be right.

The Conductor

Oh, I did say three Senators.  We haven’t talked about the “Independent” Democrat from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.  Bernie is telling his Progressive colleagues in both the House and the Senate, not to vote for the “bipartisan” deal without having the “Build-Back-Better” deal in hand.  He doesn’t trust those four House members, and more importantly, Manchin and Sinema.  

He’s afraid they are “train-jumpers”.  They’ll take the bipartisan deal then all of a sudden come up with some excuse to leave the rest behind, and kill the Build-Back-Better, much larger package.  And he’s got every reason to be concerned.  

If Joe Biden is the engineer driving this train, then Bernie Sanders is the angry (isn’t he always angry?) conductor on the platform, driving passengers into the cars so they can all depart.  He’s not leaving any baggage left behind, so he’s making sure everyone is on board, for the whole trip.  It’s not often I feel like Bernie Sanders is a “Democratic Leader,” but on this one he’s right.  Better to hold the train up, even for a few more days, than fail.  Or worse, to pass the small package, and get tricked into leaving the “Biden Plan” behind.

What’s At Stake

It’s not just about the future of the world climate.  Or about getting kids the best opportunity to succeed in the 21st Century.  Or even fixing the bridges that are falling down, the roads that are dissolving, or the airports that are overcrowded and delayed.

It’s about assuring the nation that there is a reasonable alternative to the Party of the Insurrection. That the “squabbling” Democrats, in the end, can govern. And on that, may hang the fate of our Democracy.

Get on Board. 

Since 1800

Dirty politics has been around for a long time.  Last week, I pointed out “dirty” campaigning of the early 1800’s (Monticellian Sally), as the nation dealt with its first major ideological split.  The differences between the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republicans were deeply held and often ugly.  They also sometimes became tragic.  Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr, a Democratic-Republican, and former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, a leading Federalist, had long standing personal issues.  But the political differences made the personal animus even worse, leading to the spectacle of the next in line to the Presidency killing a leader of the opposition party in a dual in New Jersey (“everything’s legal in Jersey”). 

Mike Pence didn’t shoot Nancy Pelosi, and Kamala Harris isn’t counting off against Steve Mnuchin:  so I guess things could be worse.  But we certainly are in another era where all’s fair in love, war, and politics.  And it’s not only on the national level.

Etna

The current political ugliness, where truth is often a casualty of potential political profit, extends to local politics here.  Etna Township, a division of Licking County in Central Ohio just east of Columbus, is in the middle of as ugly a campaign as I’ve seen for a very long time.  What used to be insults and innuendo in the newspapers is now full blown attacks – and it’s all on Facebook for the world to see.  

Etna faces some very real issues.  What was a rural community a half-century ago, farms divided by I-70 and US 40 with soybeans on one side and corn on the other, is long gone.  Now Etna, adjacent to Franklin County and “next up” in the ever-expanding Columbus metro area, is dealing with competing visions of growth. 

Powers

The “old power” of Etna are the remaining farmers.  There are still great tracts of land in the township planted in crops.  And, as one of those farmers put it to me, the land is their retirement plan.  They don’t have 401-K’s chock full of investments.  They have their acres, and those acres are worth so much more as suburban housing or giant Amazon-style warehouses than as fields of corn. So they want to sell, and head to Florida, or farther out in the countryside where they can buy five acres for every one acre here.

The “new power” are those suburban voters, “newcomers” to Etna, but in our one-person, one-vote system, able to out-vote the “older” residents.  The “newcomers” wanted to move “out in the country”, though the “country” has long passed by most of this community.  A half-century ago there was a “tractor day” at the local high school: everyone brought their own. Now only a very few kids can tell the difference between a Massey-Ferguson and a John Deere.  

And in the center of the dual interest are the three Township Trustees, who hold the power to determine what zoning is allowed, and what can be built.   The current trustees are committed to industrializing large portions of the former fields.  Like the outskirts of many large cities in the United States in our era, industrialization means warehouses.

Visions

The suburban “newcomers” had a “vision” of what their community should be. And that vision didn’t include dozens of semi-trucks lined up on the local highways, waiting for their turn at the loading dock of a mile’s long warehouse structure. But that’s what they got. Etna Township now has multiple “giant” warehouses: Amazon (two), Kohls, the Ascena Group, FedEx (almost completed) and some giant project called “the Cubes”. Oh, and a new truck stop on the interchange (Loves) as well as soon to open Starbucks and Chipotle. The state is rebuilding US 40, the National Road, but the rest of the county roads are groaning under the weight of fully loaded semis delivering their goods. We even have a local “gas price bubble”. Our prices are hiked by a line of little Amazon vans lining up to refill: supply and demand in microcosm.

And it’s not just the warehouses.  What kind of suburban growth should there be in Etna?  When the farmer sells his one-hundred acres, does that equal one-hundred homes with acre lots, or four-hundred homes on quarter-acres? Or, “heaven forbid”, apartments –  almost everyone opposed to that – with all the racial undertones involved.  It’s up to the three township trustees to decide.  

As you might expect, this much growth creates financial questions as well, and it’s not just for the remaining farmers.  So much money is flooding into “little Etna”, that it raises concerns about who is benefitting or pocketing.  

Trustees

So we have the two current trustees up for re-election, one with decades in the township and the other a life-long Etna resident.  And we have “suburban insurgents” running against them.  For the current trustees, it’s been business as usual – a small government that nobody used to care about, doing their best to take care of the “voices” they listen to – mostly the old power structure.  And for the “insurgent” candidates, it’s claims of corruption and “selling out” what Etna was supposed to be.

How ugly is it?  Campaigns used to be waged in the local paper, The Pataskala Standard.  The Standard moderated the debate; if things got too far out of control Tom Caw, the editor, would simply not print it.   But Mr. Caw and the Standard are in the past. Now the campaigns are waged in social media, specifically in this community, on Facebook.  There is no moderation, no filter.  Sitting at the keyboard folks feel that they can say anything they want, without regard.  I call it the “punch in the nose” rule.  If you said some of those things twenty years ago, you would get punched in the nose.  But the keyboard and screen protects you from that kind of personal responsibility.  

So folks say everything.  We know about bankruptcies and how marriages broke up.  We even have fake entities “weighing in”.  One side created a new Facebook page claiming to be a “free online news publication” about Licking County politics.  The page then solemnly intones “endorsements”, as if they were The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.  But they have only existed since yesterday (literally), and no actual names are associated with it.

Impact

It isn’t just the “fate” of Etna Township at stake.  Etna is part of a greater Western Licking County, all countryside being subsumed by metro Columbus.  How many kids will be in the schools, how many Sheriff Department cruisers will be on the roads, how many more sewer pipes will be laid:  it impacts all of us nearby, not just those in the Etna boundaries.  So while I don’t have a “vote” in Etna; what happens there will affect me as well.  Whoever ends up as Township Trustee, a part-time job that pays $22,000 a year, will also inherit the ugliness of this campaign.  That, the competing power interests and the real problems of growth, won’t be going away anytime soon.  

The “winners” will earn every dollar.

Everybody Loves a Clown

It became the national joke.  “America’s Mayor”, Rudy Giuliani, held a press conference at the “Four Seasons” in Philadelphia.  Not at the world famous hotel – but in the parking lot of a gardening center. It was right beside an adult “book” store.  Later, there was another “sweaty” press conference at the Washington headquarters of the Republican National Committee.  He quoted from the movie My Cousin Vinnie with hair dye streaking down his face.  And there was his drunk witness testifying to a friendly state legislative committee in Lansing, Michigan.

There were scores of lawsuits, literally laughed out of court at every level, even the Supreme Court. Texas’s Lt .Governor offered rewards for voter fraud. He had to pay off -for fraudulent Trump votes. It was all a “clown show”, not to take seriously. But like so much of the world around Donald Trump, while the clowns were stealing the show out front, something sinister was going on in the background.

Tears of a Clown

The signs were there soon after the election. The “vengeance” tour: firing various officers in the Executive Branch who earned Trump’s ire prior to the election. He removed the civilian leadership of the Defense Department and replaced them with folks whose main qualification was undying loyalty to Trump. There was the drumbeat of the “Stop the Steal” campaign, ginning up “masses” against the very foundation of America’s democracy, free and fair elections. Trump campaign fundraising generated even more millions. That money was directed to mass demonstrations in Washington and across the country, demanding that the results of the election be overturned.

And there were all of those political leaders who refused to simply acknowledge the results. From McConnell and McCarthy to multiple state Governors, they couldn’t say Biden won.  What we didn’t know, was in the background there was a “legal theorist” creating a structure for denying the electoral will of the nation.  The Trump strategists attempted to delay the final certification by Congress. They tried to build more pressure on the state Governors and legislators to ignore the actual votes, and give the election to Trump. If they only had more time – they thought – they could keep Donald Trump in the White House.

Send in the Clowns

Even on January 6th there still were “clowns” up front. Congressman Mo Brooks was calling on the crowd to “kick ass”. He thought things might get crazy, so he wore “body armor” just in case. And Don Jr, Congressman Madison Cawthorn, and the head clown Giuliani himself was there, as well as the biggest clown of all, President Donald Trump.

But the “realist” in the bunch of speakers that day was lawyer John Eastman. He was the author of the legal “structure” to justify changing the outcome. It was Eastman who wanted Vice President Pence to throw out the electoral votes from Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. And it was Eastman trying to persuade Senators to go along with his legal fantasy.

This week the curtain is getting pulled back.  It’s being revealed that “The Insurrection” was not simply a mob gone wild.  There was a strategy with multiple options, all based on delaying the Congressional certification of the election.  It was all about gaining time to gain momentum. One way or another, Donald Trump,would remain in the White House after the Inauguration.

And before my more right-wing friends claim that I’m pulling out my Foil Hat (not my clown wig), much of this section is also described in the Rolling Stone article of October 24th and the book by Woodward and Costa – Peril.

Clown Posse

There were multiple possibilities, but the “primary” plan was Eastman’s.  His legal brief stated that the Vice President had the Constitutional authority to accept or reject state electoral ballots.  He, along with multiple Congressmen and a few Senators, hoped that when Trump-friendly House and Senate members objected to the electoral ballots from the pivotal states, Pence would reject those ballots outright. He then could accept “alternative” ballots supporting Trump. Or he could reject all the ballots from those states, denying any Presidential candidate the 270 vote majority needed.  

That would throw the election into the “tie-breaking” House of Representatives.  Rather than vote by Representative, the vote is taken by state, with a majority of states choosing the President.  Since the minority Republicans controlled twenty-six state delegations, Trump would remain President.

But should Pence be unwilling to take on such powers (Eastman was the only Constitutional lawyer proposing he had them) there was an alternative.  If “the mob” could postpone the Electoral certification, perhaps enough pressure could be put on the Republican governors of Georgia and Arizona to withdraw their electoral ballots. Or pressure could be exerted on the Republican legislatures of Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to overturn their own election results.  Either way, the resulting chaos might cause the election to end up in the House of Representatives.

Death of a Clown

Then there was a final, “nuclear” option.  If the Insurrection was so devastating that the Capitol remained occupied, then the President could turn to the US military to “retake the building”.  Martial law could be declared and Congress prevented from acting.  That’s why the “vengeance tour” of the Pentagon was more than just getting back at Mark Esper and his crew.

President Trump would order his new Acting Secretary of Defense to send in the 82nd Airborne or some such force to “regain control”, and his loyalists at Defense would do it. And with the military now directly involved, who knows how that would end. Coincidentally, pardoned felon Mike Flynn proposed a similar idea a few weeks before at a White House meeting. (This was reported in January, and was the subject of an essay here, Seven Days in December). And even more coincidentally, his brother, General Charles Flynn, was part of the Defense Department “command team” during the crisis.

Most Generals, led by Chairman Milley, were particularly concerned about this possible use of active duty forces during the Presidential transition. It will be up to the House January 6th Committee to find the real story of the planning leading up to January 6th, and what was actually intended that day on the Mall when the mob was sent to the Capitol. 

 One thing for sure – they weren’t clowning around.

A Black President

When I was in my twenties it was hard to imagine that a Black man could be President of the United States.  Actually, it was still unbelievable when I was in my late forties at the turn of this century (boy – does that make it sound like a long, long time ago).  And while I don’t blame President Obama, I do think that part of the polarization of the nation occurred because so many Americans weren’t ready, and maybe never would be ready for a President of color.  

But the road to Barack Obama was paved by many heroic figures, and foremost among them was Colin Powell.  General Powell, as he wanted to be addressed, died last week.  And, as is befitting our polarized times, even in death Powell became both a force for education, and a force of division.

Example to the End

We all knew that the General had prostate cancer in the 2003.  He was a role model for men, as he immediately and openly dealt with the disease, and underwent surgery.  What lasting effects prostate removal had on Colin Powell we don’t know, but he came back to a full life, including continuing his service as Secretary of State for President George W. Bush.  But what we didn’t know was that in the last years, he had both Parkinson’s Disease and multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer.  

So when the fully vaccinated Powell died of Covid complications, the right-wing media were hot on the subject.  “The vaccines don’t work” they cried, “look at Powell”.  But the reality was that Powell was susceptible, even though vaccinated, due to the effects of both the cancer and its treatments.  His immune system was compromised, making him easy prey for the disease in spite of vaccination.  Powell’s fate highlights the reason that everyone else needs to get vaccinated:  to reduce exposure for those most susceptible.

An American Story

We’ve all heard the Colin Powell story:  born of Jamaican immigrants in New York City, he went to New York public schools and attended CCNY (City College of New York).  There he participated in the ROTC program, and became an Army Officer in 1958.  He served twice in Vietnam, first as a Lieutenant early in the War when he was wounded, then later as a Major. 

 Powell worked his way up the ranks, receiving his first “star” as a Brigadier General in 1979.  He served multiple roles both in the military and out:  as Deputy and then National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State.  He received his fourth “star” in 1989, making him a full General months before becoming the Chairman.

As JCS Chairman he oversaw both the invasion of Panama, and the First Persian Gulf War.  It was Powell who helped developed the two pronged assault into Iraq. And Powell also advised President George HW Bush to NOT overthrow Saddam Hussein because it would destabilize the region. 

He directly served four American Presidents:  Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush.

A Good Soldier

Powell was the first Black man to serve as National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Secretary of State.  Throughout his military career he was non-political, but after he retired from the military in 1993, he affiliated with the Republican Party.  He considered running for President himself in 1996, but felt that threats to himself and his family created too high a risk.  

As Secretary of State for President George W Bush,  Powell’s reputation in the Nation and World was so powerful, that the President virtually ordered him to present the “evidence” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations.  As it turned out, the “evidence” was slanted, biased by Vice President Cheney to support the conclusion of invading Iraq.  But Powell, a soldier trained to  follow the orders of his Commander-in-Chief, delivered the message, and got the  United Nations’ backing for the Second Persian Gulf War.

A Giant

There is a quote from Sir Isaac Newton:

“If I have seen farther then it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants.”  

Powell stood of the shoulders of other Black men who fought their way up the military chain of command to rise to General.  Powell rose above them, reaching the pinnacle of military service as Chairman, and also the highest levels of Government as Secretary of State.  And Powell “softened the ground” politically.  Like Dwight Eisenhower, Powell would have been a serious contender for President for either political party.  

That acceptance by many Americans made it conceivable for the first time that a Black person could be President – leading to the historic candidacy of Barack Obama.  America lost a giant last week, but the results of his career will continue to benefit our nation, as others “stand on his shoulders”.   

This is another in the Sunday Story series. No political implications here, just some stories about National Security from a Son of a Spy.

Son of a Spy

I didn’t know it until I was fourteen – but I was a son of a — spy.  Mom was a part of Special Operations Executive (SOE) in World War II.  They were Churchill’s personal spy group, specifically trained to sabotage and disrupt Nazi controlled Europe.  Their goal was to keep hope alive, distract Nazi troops, and prepare for the eventual Allied invasion.  Many of the SOE agents were killed in the war, but Mom was a survivor.  I’ve written several stories about her missions, and she told many stories as well (Dahlman Papers).

But she was also under the restriction of the British Official Secrets Act.   It prevented her from discussing her activities for twenty-five years.  The War ended in 1945, so it was 1970, the summer I turned fourteen, that she began to open up about her past.  It’s one of those times that I remember – exactly.  We were driving in our 1964 Ford station wagon, a “Country Squire” with the fake wood paneling on the side, down the Dixie Highway just South of our home in Dayton, Ohio.  Mom may have been a spy, but she didn’t drive (another secret, and one I don’t think I really got to the bottom of, something about a horrific wreck in 1942).  So my sister Terry was driving, and I was in the back seat.

About Mom

Mom started to reveal her past.  It was kind of, to use a 60’s expression, “mind blowing” experience.  This little lady with the English accent (I was already five inches taller) was talking about jumping out of burning airplanes, learning secret codes, and blowing up troop trains. And later, Dad verified (of course we asked) what he knew, though he learned some of  Mom’s “secrets” for the first time as well.  And I do think there are stories Mom took to the grave, so difficult that she didn’t want to remember them anymore. 

Spying, and secrets, and national security was in my “blood”.  I’ve already told a lot of Mom’s stories.  So, here are some stories about my “brushes” with National Security over the years, beyond the amazing stories Mom told us.

Out for a Ride

Like a lot of teenaged boys before they get driver’s licenses, my bicycle represented my freedom.  By the time I was twelve I had a serious “touring” bike, a ten-speed Raleigh.  And I had no fear about riding that bike everywhere.  At one point, when we’d moved to Cincinnati, I went out for a Saturday ride, and ended up back in Dayton.  When I called home from the Dayton Mall to let them know where I was, my parents were confident enough to tell me to have a safe ride home.  That was the first time I rode 100 miles in a day.

But we were still living in Dayton when I went out for a ride “in the country”.  I was headed out  towards Oxford, home of Miami University where my sister Terry was enrolled.  I tried to avoid the major highways (there’s another story about getting blown off the road by a passing semi), and in that age before “Siri” directions, I often had a county map tucked in my belt. 

Mutual Assured Destruction

So on some back road in Preble County, I was cruising along between corn and soybean fields, when I saw something coming out of the ground.  I braked to a halt, as the tip of a missile came up from in a concrete lined hole, and slowly rose to ground level.  It was not a “toy”, it was a full sized Minuteman missile like the ones I saw at the Air Force Museum back in Dayton.  Steam rose from the engine, but it didn’t look like it was going to launch. 

Maybe it was a drill, or they were giving the missile a bath, or maybe just airing out the silo.  But there, in the middle of a field in western Ohio, was a part of the United States’ nuclear deterrent, a missile poised to launch at whatever enemy dared to threaten the US. And back then there was only one nuclear threat, the Soviet Union.

I realized this probably wasn’t a “spectator event”.  Whatever was happening, a fourteen year old kid on a bike probably wasn’t in the “security protocol”.  So I stood on the pedals and got out of there, waiting for the launch behind me, or the military MP’s in Jeeps to track me down.  And for the rest of the ride there was one additional worry.  Missiles were up, was our way of life and world as we know it about to change?  The dark joke was, “Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven.” Would I even make it to Oxford before the end?

Driving from Cleveland

In 1974 I was still in high school, driving my “original” car, a 1969 Plymouth Fury III.  The Plymouth was a great first car, a “boat” with bench seats for six, or eight, or even more in a crunch.  I was as senior, driving by myself from my sister’s in Cleveland back home to Cincinnati on a Sunday morning after breakfast.  My only listening choice was AM Radio.  I did have an FM radio in the Fury, but at that time FM signals didn’t travel very far.  On the long stretches of I-71 through the Ohio countryside, the only entertainment was WLW radio, the “clear channel” station from Cincinnati.

There wasn’t a Bengals game that day, they were playing the Dolphins the next night on Monday Night Football.  So I was just listening to whatever music WLW offered.  And back then, there was news on the half hour, every half hour. 

So I was about at the Lodi exit on I-71 around noon, when the first news break hit.  A TWA flight bound from Columbus, Ohio to Washington DC, had disappeared off of the radar.  Back to music as I cruised towards Mansfield.  Then the next 12:30 “on the half hour” news break.  Trans World Airline (TWA) flight 514, with 92 on board, had crashed on approach to Dulles Airport.  It was down in the mountains of Virginia (Wikipedia).  

Even as a senior in high school I was very aware of politics.  And a Sunday flight to Washington, DC from Columbus might well have Representatives on board.  So I got concerned about that.  And while plane crashes happened more in those days, it was still a big deal when a regular domestic aircraft went down.  So, between the listening to “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas and “Cats in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin, I was driving and wondering what happened, and who was lost.

Security Breach

I was just passing Sunbury when the 1:00 news hit.  TWA Flight 514 crashed into Mt. Weather, a National Security facility in Virginia.  The news explained that Mt. Weather was the evacuation point for Congress and the President if Washington was threatened by a nuclear attack.  And as I approached Columbus, I thought, “I really don’t think that the government would want the whole world to know about that; ‘if you’re going to blow up Washington, they’ll all be at a mountain in Virginia, aim there next.’”

Getting through Columbus those days was a bit of a trick.  The freeway bypassing the town, I-270, wasn’t even completed.  Even what today is I-71 through town wasn’t done (and if you live in Columbus, you know it still isn’t!).  What was then I-71 is what today is called SR 315.  So as a young driver I had to make sure I kept my directions straight to get through town.  I wasn’t paying much attention to the radio until I cleared the small town of Grove City, and was on the last long stretch of I-71 to home.

Clean Up

It wasn’t until the 2:00 pm news that I was paying attention again.  And this time, it was very different.  Someone had made a phone call, or as I imagined it, the FBI had stormed into the studio, tearing up scripts and threatening long imprisonments.  The news reporter spoke of TWA Flight 514, down in the “heavily forested land” west of Dulles Airport.  No mention of Mt. Weather, or nuclear war, or any national security protocols.  And for years, the exact purpose of the location was kept quiet.  But I was in on the secret, along with whoever else was listening to WLW at 1:00 pm on Sunday December 1st.  In the event of nuclear war, our government will be on Mt. Weather.

Dinner at the Dahlman’s

My parents were well known for their Saturday dinners.  There was always amazing amounts of food, and plenty of wine to go with it.  But what really made their dinners special were the people around the table.  Dad, at the head of the table, was changing the television business with his success with the Phil Donahue Show.  Mom, at the other end, was a former SOE agent and represented “England” to the world.  And the guests might include Federal Judges, Proctor and Gamble Engineers, exiles from the Soviet Union, and even a woman who communicated with ghosts.  

After the roast beef or the Cornish hens, there would always be a special desert.  And we would sit around the table, working through bottles of wine, and talking for hours about the events of the day, or the latest trip overseas, or politics (but never religion or the Queen – Mom’s rules). 

Pole Vault Poles

One night in the mid-1980’s, a former Navy Commander and material engineer, and I were talking about my pole vault coaching.  He was interested in the construction of poles, how the fiberglass stored energy, and what the athlete did to enhance the effect of the “slingshot” up over the bar.  He began describing a different material than fiberglass, one that was lighter but had greater energy “storage” capacity.  As a coach, I was fascinated.  We were going to change the whole sport, right there over a bottle of Pinot Grigio and the remains of a chocolate cake.

Abruptly he changed the subject, leaving me “hanging” on the new material.  I think he realized he’d stepped beyond the “security” boundaries of his corporation, and was too close to giving away “trade secrets”.  I was, frankly, annoyed.  He got me that far – it was clear we weren’t having a “theoretical” discussion – but stopped.  No amount of cajoling got us back on topic.  To this day, now thirty-some years later, whatever that material was hasn’t been revealed. 

Secrets Revealed

But beside him was another engineer, this one an aircraft engine specialist who worked for General Electric.  He’d been particularly interested in the conversation, and also in a bottle or two of  a California red.  So when he noticed my annoyance, he brought up some different materials that he worked with.

He began to describe an aircraft that couldn’t be seen on radar. It was made of  material designed to absorb radar waves instead of bouncing them back, and the work he did to fit the engines into the small profile body.  He went onto describe material that wasn’t metal, but a composite of materials, that made the plane, as he put it “stealthy”.  He’d spent months away from home in California.

The room got quiet.  Everyone realized that we were hearing about something that we didn’t know about,  for a reason.  I got that creeping feeling that the FBI would soon burst through the front door, and we would be in for a long interrogation.  But, though national security was definitely breeched that night in Cincinnati, it was a secret safe with us. No one was going to find their Soviet “handler” and pass on the information from “loose lips” about what we know now as the B-2 Stealth Bomber, manufactured in Palmdale, California with General Electric engines.

Secrets Safe

The B-2 “Batwing Bomber” was first publicly announced a few years later in 1988.  

Thirty-five years have passed since that dinner party, sharing secrets around the table in Mom and Dad’s dining room.  The “Officials Secrets Act” didn’t apply, but the time is passed.  And so has everyone sitting around that table, except for me. I don’t think the FBI will be visiting Pataskala anytime soon. At least I hope not.

The Sunday Story Series

• 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 – 10/24/2021

The Play

The “play” has been clear for a long time.  Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, developed his own “Voting Rights Act” for the Senate.  It’s basically the lesser of two sent from the House of Representatives, the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act”, with some further modifications (the “For the People Act” was the other).  

It’s not that modification was needed to get the rest of Democratic Senators signed onto the bill.  But Manchin believed that with his changes, he could entice ten Republicans to join in and vote to allow, for the purpose of debate, the bill to go forward.  After all, it isn’t really much more than an updated version of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law the Senate reaffirmed in 2006 by a 98-0 vote. It requires sixty votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.

Profiles in Fear

But those were the days before the advent of “Trumpism” and the “Stop the Steal” lie.  The former President and the leadership of the Republicans in the Senate, led by McConnell of Kentucky, have made it clear.  Vote for voting rights, even a simple update of the 1965 law, and you are flying in the face of Trump’s rhetoric.  A huge majority of the Republican voters still support the 45th President. A wayward Republican who in any way supports Manchin’s bill is  likely to find a primary opponent backed with the full force of the man from Mara Lago.

We used to talk about Senators who were “Profiles in Courage”, willing to risk their political careers for principle.  But those “profiles” now seem to only exist in John F. Kennedy’s book.  Time and time again, today’s Republican Senators are willing to accept almost any lie, any position, as long as it keeps them in good stead with the former President.  Even the “courageous” Senators; Romney, Cassidy and Sasse, are unwilling to risk the opprobrium of the masses led by Trump.

So they don’t.  The Manchin bill was “filibustered”, unable to even come to the floor of the Senate for debate.  It was a straight party-line vote, fifty Democrats for, fifty Republicans against.  And since the magic number was sixty – the motion failed and with it, Manchin’s compromise. 

Existential Threat

For Democrats, passage of the Voting Rights Act is an existential struggle.  In twenty-six states, Republican state legislatures have already passed restrictive voting laws.  All the nonsense about “securing elections” aside, those laws make it more difficult for folks who tend to vote Democratic to actually cast their ballot.  “Stop the Steal” really means restrict voting access.  If Democrats can’t vote, they can’t win.  Ask Republicans in Georgia, whose 2020 elections laws made voting easier.  Not only did Biden win the Presidential election, but two Democrats won the Senate races. The Republican Georgia legislature has fixed that – it won’t happen again if their laws stand.

In the “Schoolhouse Rock” version of America, we are a nation where every vote counts.  The phrase “one-person, one-vote” is a fundamental principle.  But in reality, that has never been true.  The voting process was slanted against “them”, whoever “they” were. European immigrants in the 1800’s, the formerly enslaved after the Civil War, Asian Immigrants in the 1920’s, all were denied the vote.  

Stop the Vote

There were overt attacks by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and more “subtle” attacks through restrictions on voter registration.  Today, the modern day equivalent of the poll tax or literacy test, is to make the polling place far away, or so crowded that several hours are required to cast a vote.

More restrictive voter identification, gerrymandered electoral districts, and reduced mail in balloting all serve to disenfranchise voters.  And since many of those are likely to vote for Democrats, it is a “legal” way of stacking the vote in the Republican favor.

But “legal” is a subjective term.  And that is the issue that the John Lewis Act would define:  what is legal in terms of voter access and identification and what is punitive.  So it’s simple,  either Democrats protect the right to vote by passing Federal law, or states will restrict the right to vote in order to for Republicans to control the outcome of elections. 

End of the Line

Majority Leader Schumer might be fly fishing in the high meadows of the Appalachians. He gave Senator Manchin all “the line”  he could.  Manchin believed in bipartisanship, believed he could bring ten Republicans into the fold, believed that the Senate could be 2006 instead of 2021.  And Schumer let him run out the line. But now the man in the middle, the Democratic Senator from the most Trump supporting state in the Nation, has failed.  What happens next?

Joe (and Kristin), it’s really all up to you. It’s your turn to be a Profile in Courage. The Republican “stonewall” is not cracking, regardless of how much “almost heaven, West Virginia” common sense is applied.  The political courage you expect of your Republican colleagues is sorely lacking.  Even Toomey, Portman, Burr, Shelby and Blunt, all retiring from the Senate, are unwilling to buck McConnell.  And even if they did, that still would only be half of the ten needed to overcome the filibuster.

Carve Out

There is another way.  The filibuster is just a rule of the Senate.  It was agreed to by a simple majority vote when the Senate was organized in January, it can be removed or restricted by a simple majority vote as well.  And the Democrats technically already have that majority, with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Harris.  Schumer can “reel in” Manchin; it’s a simple deal.

The Senate doesn’t have to completely give up the filibuster.  There already are “carve outs” for  executive appointments and budget reconciliation.  It would require one additional carve out for the most important function of American government – protecting the right to vote.  And it would require that the “traditionalist” Democratic Senators led by Manchin, the others invisible behind his back, accept that voting rights are so important the ultimate weapon must be used to protect it:  majority rule.

It’s what McConnell would do.