Category: Uncategorized

Stupid Human Tricks

This is the next in the “Sunday Story” series – no politics here – just a story of what this “stupid human” managed to do to himself.

Three Score and Six

So I turned sixty-six last week.   Sixty-six…that’s two-thirds of a century.  Four years to go until the Biblical “end” at three score and ten.  I don’t plan on seventy as an end, but there’s no fooling that sixty ain’t the “new forty”.  There are some things that change.  

I worked a Cross Country meet last week, my favorite, the McGowan at Watkins Memorial.  There I was, one of the gray-haired guys at the finish line, when two runners came over the ropes.  That’s not allowed; we keep the finish area clear for just the incoming runners.  But those two seemed to feel entitled.  I went up to them, politely, to suggest they get back over and out of the finish area.  It wasn’t until I got closer, almost face to face, that I realized they weren’t kids at all.  They weren’t even “kid coaches”, they were older than that.  So I have become “that” old guy, I can’t tell coaches from athletes anymore.

Florida Man

One of my goals was to not be the “headline” old man.  I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines:  “Sixty-six year old man falls off roof”, “Sixty-six year old man dragged down road while walking dog,” “Sixty-six year old man hit by tree he cut down.”  It’s almost as bad as being a “Florida Man”.   I just didn’t want to be that guy, that headline.  But here’s my headline:

“Sixty-six year old man flips lawn tractor.”

How many times in the past forty years have I put a vehicle onto a trailer – many.  But this was obviously one too many.  Long story short – I drove a lawn tractor up onto a tilted garden trailer, which was supposed to fall to level when the tractor got in the middle.  The trailer went down,  and I hit the brake.  But it went back up – and the tractor rolled off of the back and flipped over backwards – on top of me.

M.D. – MD

I am actually incredibly lucky.  I could have literally broken my neck, or back, or whatever.  As it was, Jenn and my neighbor helped get the tractor off of me, and I jumped up.  My head was a bit muddled from the impact, and my elbow was scraped.  But otherwise – I was OK – I thought.  After a few minutes to re-group, we got the tractor back on the trailer, and went off to do the work we planned.

But as I was working, I noticed that my left shoulder wasn’t functioning in a normal fashion.  In fact, lifting my arm above my shoulder seemed to be an issue, and a painful one at that.  As the day went on, I figured that I damaged my rotator cuff – the tendons that hold the top of your arm bone, your humerus, into the shoulder joint (after all, Marty Dahlman, MD!!).  

Unfortunately I was “righter” than I thought.

Dr C

The shoulder progressively got worse.  Ten days later, I was visiting my “on call” Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr. C.  He already operated on my knee a few years ago, cleaning out the cartilage I tore kicking mulch on the cross country course.   Scheduling the visit itself was a “modern miracle”.  I  went to the website, found my surgeon, and all of his available appointments all over town popped-up.  I chose a close location, and was all set. No waiting on hold, no need for a referral. I wish the rest of my medical consultants had that plan.

Being sixty-six changes medical attitudes.  I didn’t realize that until my first appointment with the Dr. C.  He had a young resident working with him, and that guy got the first “crack” at  checking my shoulder.  He did all usual tests:  “Lift to here, press to there,  squeeze – did that hurt?”  And after, before Dr. C came in, he gave us his conclusions.  It started with:  “We usually don’t do surgeries on sixty-six year olds.  You have a serious “deficit”, but the rest of your arm is working.  Maybe a cortisone shot, a few months of rehabilitation, and we can see what is going on.  And I don’t think you need an MRI…” – here’s the kicker – “…that would just ‘muddy the waters’”.  

Then Doc C. comes in and does the same series of tests.  At the end, he says some similar things, but also says, “If we really want to know, you need an MRI”.  

I really wanted to know.  

Results

Five days later, I’m falling asleep in the MRI machine (they woke me up and told me to stop twitching).  I got a DVD of the results, which I carefully carried  back to the Doc C.  I was taken to an exam room, and as I passed the office, I saw both doctors intently viewing a colorful computer screen.  There were pointing at one particular spot.  Finally Doc C came in to my room, and said with his customary bluntness – “You need surgery.  The tendon at the top of your humerus is completely detached.  You are too active, and  you won’t be happy with anything else”.  

Shoulder surgery – six weeks in a sling that includes a pillow to keep your arm away from your body and a ball to squeeze to maintain lower arm strength.  Sleeping sitting up – no chance of moving the arm in my dreams. And, by the way, it’s my left shoulder, and I am left handed.  So there’s all of that.

Stupid Human

The surgery is scheduled in ten days.  Of course, my “regular” doctor has to sign off (that’s Tuesday) and my Cardiologist too (that’s next Monday).  But if all goes “well”, I’ll go “under the arthroscope” a week from Wednesday.  Then I’ll spend the next six weeks in the “sling”, and the next six months in rehab.  

My goals:  we’re smoking the turkey for Thanksgiving, something that will be difficult to do with only one arm.  And I’ve got an indoor track meet to officiate scheduled for the first week of December.  And I’ve also got to keep Jenn from killing me in the meantime. 

So if essays on “Our America” seem to slow down – remember – pain killers and one handed typing.  And meanwhile, no more stupid human tricks – at least for a while.  But there will be outdoor Christmas lights.  And those gutters always need to be cleaned!!

The Sunday Story Series

Too Cute 

A Different Race

Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida are both running for re-election against high profile opponents.  Abbott faces Beto O’Rourke the well-financed populist from El Paso.  DeSantis is running against Charlie Crist, a former Governor himself and now Congressman. Both are just barely leading the polls, a percent outside the margin of error.  You’d think they’d run to the center and try to lock down their second terms. 

 But they aren’t. In fact, neither Abbott nor DeSantis are campaigning for the offices they hold. They are both running to the right, to their own base.  Those folks are already secured for this November. 

But they are running against each other, for an office in the near future. They are gambling their Governor seats in a “highest stake” bid. They are betting that Donald Trump can’t or won’t run (hopefully  jailed) and they can inherit the whirlwind he created. Each Governor wants to be the “Trumpiest” candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2024. 

If they lose their home states in November, game over.  But instead of Abbott dealing with mass shootings and utility upgrades, he’s shipping migrants by bus to New York City.  And instead of DeSantis worrying about rising sea levels or even Florida’s failing public education, he’s borrowing migrants to fly to Martha’s Vineyard.  He found them at Lackland Air Force Base, just outside San Antonio, Texas, Abbott’s state.

Helpless

Let’s get a few things clear here.  There is really nothing so helpless as an illegal migrant  getting to the United States border.  The reality is:  most migrants are leaving their homes in Central or South America, because the living conditions are intolerable.  Some are leaving dictatorships like Venezuela’s Maduro.  Some are running from climate conditions that no longer allow them to till fields and produce a crop.  And some are running from nations so corrupted, that gangs are the only form of “governing”.  They are all running for their lives, for their children, and for a better future.  And like generations of immigrants, including the ones that founded our Nation, they are coming to America.

The migrants risked the long walk through the jungles of the Darien Gap in Southern Panama.  They paid exorbitant fees to “coyotes” to get them on trains or trucks across Mexico.  They slept in doorways and tents, shelters and sometimes just on the street.  And all to try to improve their lives by getting to the United States.

Are there drug smugglers among them?  Perhaps, but by far the millions who are coming to America are trying to improve their lives.  For most; they get across the border, either legally at the crossings, or illegally wandering through the Texas or Arizona drylands, and present themselves to the authorities.  They are NOT criminals.

Pawns

Nor should they be pawns in the DeSantis/Abbott political “games”.  They deserve compassion, and justice, and if their case is right, asylum and a chance here in the United States.  And if you want to know, “what’s in it for me?”, the answer is simple.  We are suffering from a labor shortage, and they are a ready source of labor, willing to work harder than most Americans at jobs most Americans don’t want to do.

Instead, the good people of the states of Texas and Florida (and Arizona) are spending millions of dollars to serve the political causes of their Governors.  Two passenger airplanes rented to the state of Florida, going to Texas to pick up migrants (under false pretenses) and ship them to Martha’s Vineyard.  All to prove that those folks “up North” should have to deal with people crossing the border.  DeSantis chortled in front of a fawning crowd, proud of taking these Venezuelans who escaped the Maduro dictatorship, and shoving them up the Northern Liberals’…island.  

Race to the Bottom

Is he any better than the Coyotes who charged them thousands of dollars to ride in a crowded freight car across Mexico?  Better than the guide who threatened to leave them in the Darien Gap, with the snakes and the swamps, if they didn’t pay an extra fee halfway through?  Better than the drug smugglers who hid out among the migrants as they crossed the Rio Grande?

And to add insult to injury, the Republicans in the Florida legislature may have used Covid Relief money to pay for the planes.  They are so pleased to “stick it” to the Biden Administration, I expect they’ll try it again.

DeSantis has “out-shined” Abbott, who only sent busloads of migrants to Washington, DC, and dumped them on Massachusetts Avenue outside the National Observatory and drove away.  The Observatory also is the home of the Vice Presidential mansion.  A nearby church rushed to take the migrants in, just as the good people of Martha’s Vineyard found shelter, food, and are helping “their” migrants in moving on with their lives here in America.

Reckless Cruelty

DeSantis and Abbott have made their clear decision.  The people of their respective states aren’t really that important.  What is important:  to score political points with helpless migrants and get a “leg-up” on the 2024 Republican nomination.  They both want their fifteen minutes on Fox News, and maybe an hour on OANN and Newsmax.  I hope the good people of Texas recognize the millions they are spending for this, isn’t going to guarantee they have heat next winter.  And I hope the powerful Venezuelan Miami political machine takes note of who the pawns are in this latest gambit.

One of the famous phrases in American History was said to Senator Joseph McCarthy in a Senate hearing.  McCarthy was terrorizing the Nation with false accusations of Communism, so much so that even President Eisenhower felt powerless to stop him.  But a lawyer named Joseph Welch publicly called McCarthy out in front of the nation.  That statement equally applies to Governors DeSantis and Abbott.

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness… You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

When it comes to DeSantis and Abbott – the answer is clearly no.

Whip Hand

You can still see them in “Amish Country”, only an hour’s drive from here in Pataskala. The Old Amish drive buggy’s and wagons using reins and a short handle with a length of leather attached at the end. What starts as a “branch” ends as a whip to “encourage” the horse to greater speed or strength.  Farm animals aren’t “pets” to the Amish – they are all business. 

Dodds

On June 24th, 2022, more than half of the nation’s citizens lost a right to control their own bodies. Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and the Federalist Society got their “fever dream” wish when the US Supreme Court overruled Roe v Wade.  In Dodds v Jackson Women’s Health, they returned the determination of women’s right to access abortion to state legislatures. The “black letter law” of the United States for forty-nine years – that women have the right to choose abortion up through the fourth month of pregnancy – was abruptly ended. 

The Court stood behind a veneer of returning power to the states.  But the six majority justices were well aware that over half of those states would immediately move to ban abortion.   Five of the six were completely comfortable with the idea.  Chief Justice Roberts looked for some compromise that would continue Court supervision of that “right”, but failed to win any takers from either side.  

No Right to Privacy

The Majority attacked the “right to privacy” in the Constitution.  They applied their “Original Intent” argument. Much like the Old Amish, they argue that if the founding fathers didn’t specifically say so, then there is no “extrapolation” allowed to add Constitutionally protected rights.  The obvious hypocrisy of the original authors, who saw making enslaved people three-fifths of a person for the purpose of taxation and representation but failed to grant them three-fifths of a vote, didn’t seem to be a problem, for the founders, or the current Court Justices.

So, while the Old Amish stretched their religious beliefs to use steel or rubber tires on their buggies, the idea that women would have right to their own bodies doesn’t pass “Constitutional muster” to the Majority.  They fell back on the Tenth Amendment:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

But Congress still has “the power” to enact national legislation.  A Democratic majority of the House of Representatives and of the Senate already agree that the basis of the Roe decision should be made into national law.  But the arcane filibuster rule of the Senate, requiring sixty votes to pass most legislation, has stopped that bill from reaching the President’s desk for signature into law.  

Mid-Terms

Which, of course, makes the upcoming mid-term elections all the more important.  If Democrats retain control of the House and gain two more Senators willing to change the filibuster rule, at least for this issue (and voting rights), then the doctrine of Roe can be written in national law.  But elections have consequences.  Should Republicans gain control of the House or Senate, then obviously that chance to “right the wrong” of Dodds won’t happen.  

The Dodds decision seems to be electrifying the voting public.   New voter registration for women is out-distancing men’s by several percent.  In “Red – Red” Kansas, an August state constitutional amendment to allow for banning abortion drew as big an election turnout as the Presidential election of 2012.  By a 59% to 41% margin, the amendment was rejected.  Democrats are looking for that kind of turnout throughout the nation, hoping to turn an expected “Red Wave” into a Blue one.

Even if Republicans were to take both Houses of Congress, the President would maintain his veto power over legislation.  And no “fever dream” sees this narrowly divided nation electing a two-thirds majority of either House to override a Biden veto.  But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from imagining ways to create a national abortion ban.  

Old Lindsey

Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina, recognizes the drastic impact Dodds may have on voting turnout and November’s results.  So he’s offered up an “olive branch”, a proposal for a new national law.  His proposal:

“I think we should have a law at the federal level that would say, after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother…”(WAPO).

You can see his thinking.  Allow fifteen weeks of “choice”, then exceptions afterwards for rape and incest.  That “compromise” would allow pro-choice Republicans  like those in Kansas, to stay with their Party instead of crossing over to vote for “pro-choice” Democrats.  It’s an “olive branch” of compromise, or so he says.  His problem; so much of his own Party is committed to absolute abortion bans. It’s problematic that he could garner even his own Republican support.

And the “olive branch” is more of a “whip” in the end.  It continues to recognize Dodd, allowing states to make more restrictive abortion laws on their own.  In fact, what the Graham proposal would do is restrict those states that allow abortions, including Kansas, New York, and California, to his proposed Congressional standard. It would leave the others with almost total bans alone.  And it tears down the veneer of “Tenth Amendment”, and shows the real Republican view of women’s rights.  Lindsey Graham, Justice Samuel Alito and the rest want to be the “whip hand”, holding the reins and driving the country back into the last century, stroke by stroke.

Make Your Bet

It should come as no surprise to readers of “Our America” that I closely follow political polling. While I don’t agree with their particular editorial bias, Real Clear Politics does an excellent job of compiling information from races all over the nation.  If you want to see where the polls stand – from Alaska to Wyoming – check them out.

The Polls

I first learned about polling in history class with the famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” Chicago Tribune headline after the 1948 Presidential election.  Of course, the paper was being held up by a smiling Harry Truman – the actual Presidential winner in 1948.  What went wrong?  It was a telephone poll, and overwhelmingly went for the Republican Dewey. But not everyone had telephones in 1948, so the resulting unbalanced sample unintentionally biased towards the Republican.  Truman won.  The lesson:  polls aren’t always right.

My next polling experience was while working for the Carter/Mondale campaign in 1976. My boss, Michael Jackson (he looked a lot more like the lineman from Nebraska he was then the singer he wasn’t) wanted an idea of how  Carter was doing in the Cincinnati area. So one night we shut down our twenty line phone bank and acting as “ABC Polling” (named after his previous employer – the “Anyone But Carter” coalition). We made a thousand phone calls. We randomized our calls by calling every fifth name in the voting list, and looked up their number in the phone book.

I don’t know the “mathematics” of polling, by Mike knew that 1000 responses would give us the rough numbers to see where we stood.  He figured a 5% margin of error.  And unlike the 1948 poll, by 1976 almost everyone had an in-house phone line.  So the phone book actually was an accurately “random” sampling of the voters.  The results showed we were close, and in fact, Carter did win Ohio by a narrow margin, icing his electoral victory over Ford.

Modeling

Polling has dramatically changed since those days.  First, the days of in-house phones, listed in the phone book, are over.  Less than 40% of Ohioans have “land lines” anymore (NBX).  So calling from the “phone book” would be an irretrievably biased sample of those who still managed to have land-lines, with whatever political conclusions that might mean.  Certainly, if nothing else, it would be a much older “sample” then the general public.

So pollsters had to find a different way to reach out, rather than just taking “mass samples” like we did in 1976.  New polling depends on developing “models” of what the electorate will look like in the next election.  For example, if the model predicts that 15% of the voters in the upcoming election will be between 18 and 25, then they need to get a sample that includes that age group.  And of course, they have to get enough in that sample so that one or two “outlier” answers won’t skew (or screw) the ultimate results.  But no matter how many 18 to 25 year old’s they talk to, it will never be weighted more than 15% of the total outcome of the poll.  That’s what modeling is all about.  

Using that tactic, polls in the 1990’s were highly accurate in predicting election outcomes.  The whole “trick” was getting a good “model” for the next election.  But with the 2004 Presidential election, poll modeling got a lot trickier, and the polls themselves became less  accurate.  So what happened?

Wedge Issues

In 2004 John Kerry was the Democratic candidate for President.  Ohio was a crucial state for Kerry to win, and pre-election polling showed Kerry in the lead (though not with a 50% majority).  But the Republican Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell, pushed a state Constitutional amendment onto the ballot, banning gay marriage.  That amendment drastically altered the voter turnout in 2004, making the polling “model” inaccurate.  Folks showed up to vote against gay marriage who generally didn’t vote, and it led to a Bush victory.

It’s called “wedge” politics; finding issues that are so energizing that it brings out folks who haven’t voted in the past.  In 2004 it was gay marriage.  In 2022 it’s likely to be the Dodd Decision by the US Supreme Court, overruling Roe v Wade and granting the power to control abortion laws to the individual states.  

What Model

There was a lot of criticism of polling in the 2016 and 2020 elections.  Some of that criticism is justified:  many of the pollsters used models that didn’t include the power of the “MAGA” movement, undercounting Donald Trump’s expected vote.  In addition, a new kind of poll subject came about – the liar.  Folks know that polls effect campaigns, and some take advantage of the pollsters by answering questions the opposite way than they will vote.  Some are doing that because they are embarrassed to be “MAGA” supporters.  But other “MAGA” supporters say that the pollsters are invariably against Trump, so why not skew (or screw) their product.  

In both 2016 and 2020, the actual Presidential results were much closer than the polling indicated before the vote.  When you look at the polling for 2022, you have to wonder:  do the current models take into account the surge of women registering to vote, many to vote against the Dodd decision results (and therefore Republicans)?  Look at the outcome of the August Kansas referendum to give the legislature the authority to ban abortions.  It not only lost by a huge margin, but an August election had a turnout verging on the November Presidential election of 2012.  Here in Ohio, women newly registering to vote is up 7% since before the Dodd decision (Axios).

The Race

I am a track coach.  The 400 meter sprint is the race that takes one complete lap of the track.  I’ve had runners who charge to the lead, and hold on for the full 400 meters.  I also had other runners, just a successful, that waited until the last 100 meters to make their charge down the “home stretch” to take the lead and win.  So I am well aware that you can’t necessarily “call” a race when it’s half over at the 200 meter mark.  I don’t know whether the front runners can hang on, and the pursuers are just waiting to surge ahead.  The “winner” at the 200 is often NOT the winner of the race.

Polls, even at their most accurate, are merely a “snapshot” of where things stand at that moment.  They are most useful to campaigns to target “the rest” of the race, whether they are holding on or surging.  They aren’t designed to predict an outcome.

Home Stretch

Cornell Belcher was the leading pollster for the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaigns.  He made a very important point in an interview last night.  The media, and Americans, look at polls as “outcomes” rather than as “snapshots”.  Belcher made the observation that if your winning 46 to 43 – it means that 11% haven’t made up their mind – and there’s no reason to believe they’ll split the same way.  If they split 8 to 3 against you – you lose by two percent. 

When the poll shows you winning by more than 50 % – that’s different.  That’s still not a guarantee, but at that “snapshot”, it would be a win.

So polls in September don’t predict wins in November.  They simply show where a candidate stands now.  And they are wholly dependent on good modeling.  So don’t count any candidate out just yet – we haven’t even hit the “home stretch”.

Today’s Snapshot

  • Don’t forget the margin of error +/-2% – and the undecided 
  • Ohio Senate – Ryan (D) 47, Vance (R) 46   (undecided 7)
  • Arizona Senate – Kelly (D) 47, Masters(R) 45  (undecided 8)
  • Georgia Senate – Walker (R) 47, Warnock (D) 44  (undecided 9)
  • Florida Senate – Rubio (R) 47, Demings (D) 44   (undecided 9)
  • North Carolina Senate – Budd (R) 47, Beasley (D) 44   (undecided 9)
  • Pennsylvania Senate – Fetterman (D) 49, Oz (R) 44  (undecided 7)
  • Wisconsin Senate – Barnes (D) 49, Johnson (R) 47   (undecided 4)

When Winter Calls

The Clock is Running

There is so much taking up our attention.  Just last week we saw the legal battles of Donald Trump, the upcoming elections for control of Congress, and here in Columbus, another police shooting of an unarmed black man.  And, of course, the Queen is dead, long live the new King. 

It’s easy to forget that war still rages in Ukraine.  It started with the incredible Ukrainian resistance to the first Russian assault.  Then there was all of the early media “hype”.  But the battle turned into an ugly artillery duel and World War I type trench warfare along a more than five hundred mile front, and has dragged on for months.  

For Ukraine the clock is running.  They are depending on continued NATO support. They need sophisticated weaponry, but just as much, they need the basics: bullets and artillery shells.  And at least as important, there are looking to the West to continue the economic pressure on Russia with ongoing sanctions.  And, for the moment, everyone and every country is on board.

The Cost of Heat

But winter is coming.  And with winter, the NATO “price” for the sanctions will grow, as Russian natural gas is cut off from flowing to heat European houses.  Folks aren’t going to freeze – but they are going to pay a high price for energy.  Will the NATO governments still be willing to support Ukraine and sanction Russia  as costs go up and the snows blow in from the eastern steppes?

Ukrainians know winter too.  The cold wind will blow there, across the battle ravaged wheat fields in the east.  And while Russia has been embarrassed by the Ukrainian resistance and their own incompetence; in a war of attrition Russia still holds the advantage.  Ukraine needs to do whatever it can now to “close the deal”.

The Change in Strategy

It began a month ago.  Russia was trying to drive to the Ukrainian seaport of Odesa, and close off the last open sea access to export Ukraine’s main product, the wheat harvest.  It looked like Ukrainian forces were simply counter-attacking, trying to cutoff Russian troops on the west side of the Dnieper River from their supplies on the eastern shore.  The Ukrainian Army next upped that attack, driving to  reach the critical city of Kherson near the mouth of the river.  Russia rotated troops from other sections to the southern front.

And then, in a surprise assault, Ukraine struck at the opposite end of the line, in the north near the city of Kharkiv.  That attack, just in the last couple of weeks, regained over a thousand square miles of the Russian occupied eastern provinces.  Video shows Russian forces racing to get away, headed east towards their own border.  And the battle continues around Kherson, with Russians have to decide to hold their ground and get cutoff, or retreat.

No one thinks this is the “end” of the war.  The Russian’s will retreat, but ultimately will regroup closer to their own borders.  And Russian missiles continue to attack Ukrainian civilian targets, anywhere in the country, recently including power generators in Kharkiv, the second largest city in the nation.  

The Ultimate Threat

And there still is the greatest threat to Ukrainian civilians.  The battle line runs directly through the largest nuclear plant in Europe, near the city of  Zaporizhzhia.  All six nuclear reactors are shut down, cutting off a major power source for Ukraine. And even worse, the reactors still require power to maintain cooling of their nuclear cores.  External lines to the plant still function, but should they fail, backup diesel generators only have a ten day supply of fuel.  After that, the cores will overheat, and begin to meltdown.  

Meltdowns have happened before:  at Fukushima, Japan after the tsunami, and at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.  But the worst commercial nuclear disaster was at Chernobyl, in Ukraine just fifty miles north of Kyiv.

The Ukrainian people lived that nuclear disaster.  There is no way or really knowing the death toll of Chernobyl.  The old Soviet Union claimed that only thirty-one died, but more recent estimates are in the tens of thousands or more.  The Ukrainian government recognizes 36,525 women as widows of men who suffered from Chernobyl (BBC).

Autumn Leaves

Chernobyl already was the site of a Russian military encampment, abandoned in the first retreat.  And it only had four reactors. Now the Russians occupy Zaporizhzhia.  It’s a “safe” base for them.  Reasonably, the Ukrainian Army is unlikely to attack there, the risk is too great. And as the war rages, there is an ultimate threat that the Russians could “arrange” for a nuclear “accident”.  

The pressure on Russia is constant, but Putin seems determined to allow his people to absorb any damage.  And with his iron grip on protest and dissent, it’s not likely that they will have much say in the matter.  But the pressure on Ukraine to “stop” and “negotiate” will grow.  Success on the battlefield and recovery of stolen territories help.  And getting all that done now, before the “autumn leaves start to fall” is crucial.  Ukraine don’t know who will still be beside them, “when winter calls”.

Ukraine Crisis

Twenty One Years Ago

It’s September 11th.  That particular date is burned into the minds of everyone who was alive twenty-one years ago.  Like my parents’ generation and December 7th, 9-11 is for many of us our “inflection” point.  It was the day the America was attacked by terrorists.  

It’s hard to imagine:  children born the day of the attack are “reaching their majority” today.  If generations are marked by twenty years, then 9-11 was a full generation ago.  Maybe a long time, but it still takes almost no effort at all to see the visions of the planes striking and the buildings tumbling down.  The empty, hollow, shocked feeling is just there, right under the scar tissue of emotional protection.

Over the past six years I’ve been writing essays here in “Our America”.  That’s several 9-11 anniversaries.  Here are parts of two of those essays in honor of those we lost, and the now distant unity we found, as the planes crashed into our lives in September 11, 2001.

Key Largo

Fifteen years after 9-11, we retired. Like many couples, my wife Jenn and I wanted to do some travelling.  So in 2016 we decided to take a week on the Florida Keys.  We flew down to Miami, rented a Jeep, took the top down and headed to Key Largo to hang out with the iguanas by the swimming pool, look for manatees by the dock, and learn to love a drink called “mojitos”, a mix of rum, mint, sugar and lime.  

We managed to make it down to Key West for a day, a place that we both would like to re-visit and spend more time.  It’s a town that can make a party out of the sunset, with hundreds gathering on the pier and cheering as the sun drops below the horizon.  There’s a few mojitos served there as well.  Maybe more than a few.

We also took the glass-bottomed boat tour out of Key Largo, to see the coral and sea life.  As we waited on the dock to board the boat, an older oriental couple sat down beside us.  We began a casual conversation with the man, Mr. Young, who was from New York.  We were headed to the “Big Apple” the next week, and he was excited to tell us about his city, and the restaurants, and how to get authentic Chinese food.

Red Bandana

Then he started to talk about his wife, who was sitting there beside him.  He introduced us to her, Ling Young.  She was a 9-11 survivor from the 78th Floor of the World Trade Center, saved by a hero of that day, the man with the “Red Bandana”.   Ling was badly burned when the plane struck the building, and was surrounded by the bodies of those instantly killed in the attack.  Through the smoke came a young man with a red bandana over his face.  He picked her up and got her to the stairwell, and down to the 61st floor.  

Then he urged her to continue to safety, and turned around and went back up to the fire.  With help, she managed to escape the World Trade Center.  The young man, later identified as twenty-four year old Welles Crowther, did not.

Mrs. Young had horrible burns, and told us there she endured more than twenty surgeries.  She became a leader of the 9-11 survivor movement.  She wanted to help the victims, but also keep alive the memory of heroes.  Mr. Young told us how she didn’t like to speak in public that much, but, as he said, “When Vice President Biden calls on the phone and asks you, you go”.  The horn sounded, and then we boarded the glass bottom boat.  We enjoyed the trip, but learned so much more about strength and real heroism, than coral and barracudas.

Shanksville

Two years later, in the summer of 2018, we loaded up our new camper and heading out on the road. That week it was to Pennsylvania, and while our ultimate destination was Gettysburg (where I transformed into the history geek Jenn’s always worried about) first there was a stop in Shanksville.

Shanksville has a population of 232. It is a rural village in the hills and dales of the Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Shanksville is all about coal and farming  and definitely is Trump country. And if that name sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Twenty-one years ago the quiet little village of Shanksville was ripped out of rural tranquility and placed front and center onto the world stage of terror.

Into a Field

In an old strip mined field of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the fourth airliner hijacked on 9/11, United Flight 93, came hurtling into the ground at 543 miles per hour. It was bound for the Capitol Building in Washington, 19 minutes out, when the passengers decided that they were going to take control of history. They revolted against their terrorist captors. As passenger Todd Beamer was heard to say (on an airphone left connected) “Let’s Roll.” As they battled to take  control of the aircraft, it flew, inverted, full power into the ground.

It was an act of desperation.  They knew from phone calls that the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers had already been hit.  The passengers understood that this was not a “hostage taking” exercise; they were in a flying bomb. They determined on an act of ultimate courage, willing to take the last chance, or at least choose their way of dying. It was forty passengers and crew versus four hijackers, and as the black box recording showed, the heroes succeeded in breeching the cockpit, as English and Arabic yells and curses mixed, and the hijackers, rather than be overcome, crashed the plane.

National Memorial

There are two memorials near Shanksville. The United States has created a National Memorial and a Visitors Center near the crash site. That Memorial has low black limestone walls surrounding the debris field, and a high white memorial wall, names of the passengers and crew etched in stone. The shape of the wall follows the plane’s path of descent. In the center of a large field, a boulder represents the covered impact zone, originally thirty feet deep, filled in as the final resting place for the fallen.

The Visitors Center gives a visual history of that day, from the clear blue skies that welcomed the children at the Shanksville school that morning, to the step-by-step realization that we were under attack, and finally the shocking assault from the sky. It is a National Monument to the heroic action of the forty, and it is an historic lesson so that the growing number of people who have no memory of 9/11 will learn. As Lincoln said, “…it is all together fitting and proper that we do this.”

The Chapel

But down the road is the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel. It isn’t mentioned at the National Memorial. It was an old church, turned into a grain barn. After the crash a local priest determined to buy it, and create a space for those who wished to mourn, meditate, and remember. “Father Al” with help from the Hardy Family of 84 Lumber, remodeled the chapel in time for the first anniversary of the crash. Here was where the families of the forty originally came. It is filled the not only with their memorabilia, but the gifts of thousands:  stained glass from a Jewish temple, a US desert camo uniform from Iraq, a United Airlines service cart. Outside, United’s own monument to the passengers and crew is placed. A memorial bell vintage 1861 is rung, loud enough to be heard at the crash site four miles away.

While the National Memorial represents the history and honor of the nation, the Chapel represents the heart and soul of the people of Shanksville. It is their ongoing gift to the families of the fallen, and also a memorial to their own loss of innocence.

With the political divide our nation is faced with today, where we can hardly stand each other across the chasm of differing beliefs, it is strengthening to realize that there still is an America where we can reach across our differences to unite. We can celebrate both the strength of the forty, and the strength of the folks in Shanksville in dealing with this tragedy. We can believe in America once again.

Mom and the Queen

Forever England

My Mom passed away in 2011 in Cincinnati, her home for sixty-five years.  But she was born in England, in a suburb of London.  And while she lived in the United States from 1946, she remained a citizen of the United Kingdom throughout her life.  At her request, on her tombstone is the opening sentence of the Rupert Brooke poem, The Soldier:

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. 

Mom was a warrior in World War II, a member of the clandestine Special Operations Executive.  She served as an agent, a go-between from headquarters in England and operatives in France, Belgium and Yugoslavia.  Mom was dropped off in dark pastures by small aircraft called Lysanders, and even had to bail out of one on fire over Belgium. 

She took the ultimate risks for her homeland. And she lost her fiancé (not my father) flying a Spitfire aircraft in the Battle of Britain.  Mom shared her dedication early in her children’s lives.  When I was a boy, we lived in Dayton, Ohio, home of the US Air Force Museum.  Our family would go to tour the aircraft.  Mom would pause for a moment to touch the wing of the Spitfire, shedding tears for the memories in her past.  And she would point at the Lysander hanging from the ceiling, telling me that was “her” plane.  It wasn’t until later, twenty-five years after the War ended, that I knew the reason why. So Mom was as British as British could be – even as she loved the United States almost as much.

A Magical Place

Mom loved the symbols and ceremonies of royal England.  As a kid we made trips “home” every few years.  Mom took us to watch the trooping of the color outside of Buckingham Palace; the red-coated soldiers with their great bearskin hats, the armored Horse Guards with their silver helmets.  We went to Windsor to see the “Crown Jewels”, and the tower where Mary Queen of Scots spent her last days before losing her head.   As my sister would say, Mom made England a “magical place” for us kids.  It was Mom’s home, with aunts, uncles and cousins spread throughout the country.  And it was always warm and welcoming, always smiling and familiar to us.

My Mom didn’t “know” the Queen, but she admired her.  Mom was a decade older, but respected the young Princess who learned to “turn a wrench” as a teenaged mechanic during World War II.  And she empathized with the twenty-four year old Princess turned Queen. 

Inheritance

The Queen wasn’t “meant” to be the Monarch.  Her father was the second son, out of direct line for the throne.  But her uncle, Edward, abdicated the throne “…for the woman he loved”, and Elizabeth’s father became King in 1936.  Elizabeth went from a “member of the Royal family” to next in line for the throne.

Then as Princess, she was living a youthful lifestyle with her soulmate Prince Phillip Mountbatten and their young children when her father died young at fifty-six. She then assumed the burden of the monarchy, and the sacrifice of her personal life, for her country.  Mom, from her wartime experience, knew what it was like to almost instantly go from a carefree young adulthood to awesome responsibilities.

Pomp and Circumstance

Mom reveled in the pomp and circumstance of the British Royal family.  She watched the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, the “fairytale” wedding in London, and the funeral for Diana far too soon afterwards. And while we had an “open” dining room table, where conversations ranged around the world both geographically and politically,  she brooked no criticism of the Queen, not even by others who carried the Royal Coat of Arms on their passports. 

My mother and the Queen were of the same era.  I didn’t realize how much so, until just the other day.  My wife was watching the scene of the Queen meeting the new Prime Minister at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.  She noticed that the Queen’s sitting room looked a lot like Mom’s living room; the same style of chairs, settees and end tables with lamps carefully placed.  It was the typical “formal” living room of their era, different from a more relaxed “family room”.  I’m sure the Queen didn’t have fresh cigarettes in the box on the “coffee table”. Her father was a heavy smoker who died of lung cancer.  But I remember in the 1980’s when Mom finally stopped stocking them for visitors, decades after Dad quit smoking.   

The Queen Speaks   

And both Mom and the Queen spoke with the same “High British” accent, Mom’s carefully crafted in private boarding school, and maintained through decades of American experience.  The Queen and her sister Margaret were the last of the Royal family educated at home by private tutors.  But their accent was the same.   When I heard the Queen speak, I was always reminded of Mom.

Thursday morning it was announced that the Queen was under “medical supervision”, a euphemism for a severe health crisis of a ninety-six year old.  Her son, Prince Charles, was at her side, along with her daughter Anne.  Her other sons Andrew and Edward, and her grandsons William and Harry and the rest of the family were making their way to Scotland.  When everyone is called in, it’s clearly serious.

We’ve all been there.  When Mom’s time finally came, we hurried family from all over the country.  Mom bravely hung on, wanting to have a final say and goodbye to all her children and grandchildren.  I’m sure the Queen had final commands and goodbyes as well.

But Thursday afternoon the word came out – Queen Elizabeth II, reigning monarch for seventy years of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has died.  Her son, the seventy-two year old Prince of Wales, is now King.  Whether he’s King Charles the III, King George the VII, or chooses some other name, I know what my Mom would say.

The Queen is dead – Long Live the King!!

Update – It’s King Charles the Third!

A Distinction with a Difference

In the Mail

Oddly enough, I receive a great deal of “right-wing” email.  I’m sure in my quest to try to understand “the other side”, my address landed on a saleable list.  Now I hear from Hillsdale College and Praeger University (one a real school, one a right-wing training site).  I get plaintive fundraising requests from Marco Rubio, Korey Lake and even JD Vance. And I also get mail from several “news” websites, carefully taking pieces of mainstream news and crafting it to their message.

I read a lot of it, because I do think it’s important to hear what they have to say.  And what they are saying about President Joe Biden is telling.  

Sure there are the insults:  old, demented, addled.  Those often conflict with the “crafty, old liberal” message, though they call Biden a “puppet” of his far-left backers.  Puppets don’t have to understand what they’re saying.  I guess they haven’t heard from the real far-left powers, who are almost as disgruntled with Biden as they are.   So, no matter how they spin it, Biden is “baaaaad”.

Mirror Images

And with the President now being up-front and honest with his concerns for the survival of our Democracy, my “right-wing” sources are singing a common hymn.  They claim it’s all just politics, Democrats versus Republicans.  They’ve been calling Democrats radical-left-wing-socialists for so long, they simply see the President in the mirror.  They say he’s calling “them” semi-fascist authoritarians, and he’s insulting every single one of the 74,224,319 voters who chose Trump over Biden in 2020.

It’s a common political tactic:  paint your opposition with a “broad brush”, and include as many on “your side” as you can.  Convince every single Republican that Biden is talking about THEM:  THEY are fascist authoritarians.  And if they don’t quite get what that means (Trump loves the uneducated), think Hitler.  He’s calling you Nazis.  

They know that message can work.  When Hillary Clinton used the unfortunate term “deplorables” to describe some of the Trump supporters, the right-wing used it as a wedge to drive the voters apart and to the polls.  If deplorable worked, semi-fascist authoritarian might work even better.  The fact that Clinton was describing the folks we now identify as the Proud Boys, or the Oath Takers, or the Three Percenters,  didn’t matter.

Damaging Democracy

Of course, that’s not what Biden’s doing at all.  He’s saying that those Republicans who are denying the results of the 2020 election, claiming out of thin air that the election was rigged, are damaging American democracy. He’s saying that those who look at all of our institutions:  boards of elections, Secretaries of State, local, state and Federal courts; and say they are all complicit in “the steal” have already undermined our nation.  

Biden’s message is actually pretty simple:  if elections don’t work, then democracy can’t exist.  If the only answer to losing election is violence, then the American Constitutional experiment cannot survive.  That is the existential threat.  

And that would have been true had Hillary Clinton lead a mirror-image “Stop the Steal” movement in 2016.  It’s not that we didn’t think about it.  There are many who started down that “rabbit-hole” in the years after 2016.  I wrote three essays about it:  77744,  Put on My Foil Hat, and Foil Hat II.  But Democratic leaders, and particularly Hillary Clinton herself, saw it as their political duty to accept the results and move on.  They didn’t question the election, instead, they worked to win the next ones in 2018 and 2020.  And they did.

The Difference

So when President Biden calls for “MAGA Republicans” to stop, he is really calling on almost all of the Republican leaders who have conceded to Donald Trump.  Where is their “political duty”, their obligation, to protect the Constitution?  Biden isn’t “blaming” all 74,224,319 voters who chose Trump.  He is attacking those who attack our Constitutional democracy by undermining it for their own political gain.

They are deplorable.  They subvert faith in our democracy and our institutions.  And they are willing to use mob violence to achieve their own political ends.  

That’s who Biden is calling out.  That’s the distinction between “Republicans” (what the MAGA crew would call “RINO’s”) and “MAGA Republicans”.  It’s a distinction with a difference.

Pitchforks and Torches

“I believe people should just, just be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how low the liberal media has become. People need to decide ‘Am I going to put up with this? Am I going to tolerate this, taking somebody that gives money to churches or cancer research and use that as a hit piece in the media?’ I’m appalled. It’s disgusting.” – Tim Michels, Trump-endorsed Republican Candidate for Governor of Wisconsin

Frankenstein

The old black and white movie “Frankenstein” had the original sequence.   The mob, torches in hand are exhorted to track down and destroy the monster by their leaders.  The bloodhounds, bayed on the trail through the night.  And the women in their shawls clutched the young children, watching their “men” go off to destroy the Frankenstein.  I remember as a young kid, trembling at the spectacle of the Doctor’s creation.  No, I didn’t see the movie in the 1930’s theatre.  I watched it on black and white TV’s in the early 1960’s.

That mob was scary in the 1931 version.  They were more humorous in the Mel Brooks version, Young Frankenstein.  That came out the year I graduated from high school, 1974.  It was still in black and white. That was Brook’s  intentional choice, to recall the original.  But in 2022, pitchforks and torches are in “living color” and are symbolic of American politics today.  Tim Michels, the Trump-endorsed candidate for Wisconsin governor is calling out the mob against the “liberal” press.  

His campaign staff scoffed at concerns;  “only political hacks and media accomplices would freak out about Tim using a figure of speech.”  And if it was ten years ago, before Charlottesville, before the Insurrection, maybe we could buy that.  But it’s not.  We know exactly what torchlight marches look like – “Jews will not replace us”.  And we know that today’s “pitchforks” are metal flagstaffs, often with “Trump” emblazoned on the guidon.  There’s no scoffing in 2022 about violence in politics.

Random Violence

Saturday night in Wilkes Barre the disgraced former President promised “full pardons” for the January 6thInsurrectionists.  And he prophesized that the current investigations into his own actions would produce “…a backlash the likes of which our country had not seen before” (BBC).  He called the FBI and the Justice Department “vicious monsters”.   The specter of violence weighs on every decision.  It looms large when the Department of Justice brings charges against someone, or when the actual President, Joe Biden, speaks tough truth to the Nation, as he did on the campaign trail this weekend. 

Biden intentionally called on citizens to defend our Democracy, not through violence, but by casting out the “MAGA Republican” ideology.   Criticism of Biden was foreseeable.  Some said “Biden ran as the ‘uniter’, now he’s a ‘divider’”.  Others cried out, “He’s calling 71 million Trump voters Fascists”.   The President is not calling half the electorate Fascists.  He recognizes that Republican Party is divided, between those who are true Trump “believers”, and those who know better, but follow the “false prophet” just to get elected.  But he is warning that fifty million Americans are convinced as “MAGA Republicans”.  He isn’t calling for them to be “cast out”. He calling on their leadership to recognize their threat to Democracy, instead of conforming to an ideology  for convenience sake.  

Hard Truth

It is a divisive stand.  But it’s not creating division, it’s simply recognizing our current political reality.  In Biden’s view of leadership, the President of the United States has a duty and obligation to tell the Nation when things are wrong.  Biden would say, he promised to tell the truth, even when it’s hard.  It would be foolish to ignore this “elephant in the room”.  And in true Biden fashion, he is speaking from the heart.

It does indicate a change in the “Good Old” Joe who got elected in 2020.  Biden truly believed he could reach out across the divide, as he did so many times in the US Senate.  But after two years, the reality of Trumpism has set in, even for Joe Biden.  Just as the disgraced former President doesn’t seem to “fade away”, neither does his ideology.  And it’s not just Trump himself.  The far-right extremism that Trump represents is catching fire in many world democracies.   Biden’s words are a recognition that this is not about one man, but a much more dangerous and seductive view of world governing.

Biden is telling America the hard truth.  Trump, and his ilk, are countering with not-so-vague threats of violence.  Either one could still be America’s future.  It is our choice.  

A Day in the Life

Here’s this week’s addition to the “Sunday Story” series. No politics here, just a story about sub teaching in the local high school.

My First Day

It was MY first day of school on Friday.  I always struggle as a substitute teacher, when to “break the ice” and get started once again.  No one wants to “sub” the first week of school:  the kids don’t know what they’re doing, and neither do you.  That’s all about just “hanging on”.  After thirty-five and a half years of teaching and “Dean of Students-ing”, I really don’t need that.

But now it’s been three weeks.  If I’m going back into a school, the longer I wait the harder it gets.  There’s a Social Studies teacher looking for a sub, on a Friday.  If I don’t take that job, I guess I’m just not subbing anymore.  

So here I am.  The hardest part of subbing is like any first day of work – your life schedule is completely upside down.  Instead of the dogs waking me, it’s the alarm waking us all.  Lou and CeCe were so sleepy, they weren’t even interested in food.  And it was still dark.  CeCe, the puppy, doesn’t really like the dark much.

But we managed to get going, get breakfast (dogs and me), and down three cups of coffee (just me).  I felt awake and alert.  But that still didn’t prepare me for the “shock”.  Jenn and  are retired. I might not talk to anyone until Jenn gets up (I’m the early riser, Jenn’s the night owl). So walking into a school of 1300 kids, and conversing with old friends and staff members at 7:10 am, is a jolt.  

As a sub, you’re at the “service” of the front office.  My Social Studies teacher had a first period conference.  That meant he didn’t have a class.  But subs don’t get conference periods, and so I was assigned to cover for the choir teacher.

Empty Rooms

Watkins Memorial High School is a big, almost-brand-new building that opened last year.  My social studies teacher’s room is on the second floor of one wing at the extreme end of the hallway.  The choir room, on the other hand, is on the first floor at the extreme end of another wing.  To get there – well – “you can’t get there from here”, at least not directly.  

So I arrived at the Choir Room, a full minute after the bell (buzz, tone, sound?) rang.  And no one was there.

I’ve lost classes before, but it was back in the 1970’s.  In those days we had a lot more teachers than classrooms, and I had no seniority at all.  So I was a “floater”, moving from room to room throughout the day.  Seven of us were crammed in a big storage closet for our teacher office.  We called it the “Looney Bin”, and while we had some fun, not much work got done in there.

Stolen Class

Back then, I was racing from my class at the new end of that old building (now scheduled for demolition) to my next class in the “old” wing.  And I was late, maybe three minutes late.  My freshmen decided that was a good time to “disappear”.  I came in the door to an empty classroom, and I panicked.  How could I explain to Mr. Nix, the intimidating principal from Alabama, that I lost my class?  He would give me that stare, and drawl “…well, Mr. Dahlman, part of your job duties is to NOT LOSE YOUR CLASS!!  Other teachers don’t lose their classes.  What if everyone lost their class.  GO AND FIND YOUR STUDENTS!!”

I decided to skip the preliminaries, and just find the kids.  The question is, where do thirty-six kids go?  They can’t leave – their freshmen.  And they can’t keep their mouths shut either, so I should be able to track them by noise.  

I went out in the hallway, and stalked the neighboring classrooms.  Two doors down was one of my “Looney Bin” compatriots.  Her class was oddly quiet.  Odd, because her students were always rambunctious, the walls throbbing with activity.  But when I approached – “shhh”, followed by silence.  I stuck my head in the door – and the room exploded with freshmen laughter.  No good being mad, my comrade had “stolen” my freshmen.  Not a lot of work got done that day.

Lost Class

So here I am, forty-four years later, a low ranking substitute.  And I’ve lost a class again. Where would the choir go  — assuming they weren’t hiding in five different rehearsal rooms – or stolen.

And then I realized.  As I was rushing down the stairs and through the halls, the Alma Mater was being sung on the PA system.  I thought it was the 2010 version we used for years at games and assemblies.  But when I saw a herd headed down the hall towards me, I realized:   they performed on the PA live – the choir was here.  I was the one lost, not them!

Subbing choir at Watkins Memorial High School is a pleasure.  The kids know what they need to do, and they sing.  Listening to forty-five minutes of rehearsal was good for the soul of this retired (old) social studies teacher.

The bell (sound, tone, buzzer?) rang again, and it’s another adventure back to my social studies class.  Lucky for me, one of the choir kids is headed that way, and shows me a shorter route.  He can’t take me there though, his girlfriend needs a minute at the top of the stairs.  He still makes it to class before I do.

Current Events

The next class are juniors in government.  That’s where I started, forty-four years ago, though back then government was a senior class we called “POD” (principles of democracy, or, as my classes called it, “Problems of Dahlman”).  And they’re doing current events.  The teacher has it all set for them, find articles on the Chromebooks, write an essay about the issue.  There’s no teaching involved for this substitute.  At least, there’s not supposed to be.

But there is a question.  And all it takes for me, is one.  The question is, what’s happening that involves government.  If you’ve read “Our America” at all, you know I’ve got a lot to say about a whole lot of issues and events in America.  But a classroom in this era isn’t the time or place for deep political discussions.   And they don’t know anything about me.  No time to establish the rapport and trust it takes to have a “real” classroom discussion.  So I answered the question briefly, and sent them to their Chromebooks to work on the assignment.

After that, it was an uneventful day.  Sure there were the kids who wouldn’t pay attention, but not many.  I did exercise the only real form of discipline I have as a sub (short of declaring a full-blown emergency and calling the my friend and successor, the current Dean of Students).  I wrote down two names for the regular teacher.  I’m good with misbehavior, after all, I am “just” a sub.  But I struggle with disrespect.

Hey Rickenbacker

But all-in-all a good day at Watkins Memorial.  I got a minute to see old friends, remembered how quiet this new building is, and got a surprise when a kid yelled “DAHLMAN” down the hall.  After all, it’s been eight years since I taught, and five years since I’ve coached.  The very few kids who know me might remember the “Zoom” classes I held as a long-term sub during Covid.  But even that was over two years ago, and I was just a badly lit figure droning on about history as dogs interrupted on the small screen.

Oh, and then there’s the “Rickenbacker” kids.  They remember me from subbing history class last year.  I  explained why Eddie Rickenbacker was particularly important to Columbus, Ohio (born here, and buried here).  And when they saw his picture, they somehow linked him to me.  They don’t know my name. I’m just the sub who they thought looked like Eddie Rickenbacker – thus “Hey Rickenbacker” in the hallway, and even in Kroger’s from time to time.  

It takes a second, but I usually answer.

The Sunday Story Series

Screw the Pooch

NASA

Monday morning I was all set.  I had the “big” TV on the NASA channel, ready to watch the Artemis space vehicle launch from Cape Canaveral.  It’s the most powerful rocket ever, destined to orbit the Moon.  This was the first test, un-manned, in preparation for America’s return to space exploration. I can’t help it – “to boldly go where no human has gone before”.  Well, we have been to the Moon, but it’s the first step back into space, and onto Mars. 

While I was all ready to go, the Artemis was not.  It has four massive engines, fueled by super-cooled liquid hydrogen.  One engine wasn’t cooling enough.  The NASA managers determined that their best idea was to “scrub” the launch, and fix the problem.  I’m sure there was a lot of pressure to “light the candle”, and see what happens.  But there is an old NASA saying, “Don’t screw the pooch”.  It’s simple – don’t make a huge, dramatic, public mistake.   And the folks at NASA knew that it was better to figure the problem out, than chance blowing up billions of dollars of space vehicle, on the launch pad, on national TV.  They’ll try again on Saturday afternoon.  I’ll be watching.

Checked Boxes

It was just a month ago that I wrote an essay about the Democrats called “Check the Boxes”.  That was the day after Senate Majority Leader Schumer and West Virginia Senator Manchin announced a deal on a portion of the former “Build Back Better” plan.  It was re-configured as “The Inflation Reduction Act”, based mostly on a $300 billion paydown of the National Debt.  That debt is over $30 trillion, so while $300 billion is a big sum, it’s still a drop in the bucket, exactly one percent.  

But what the now enacted Inflation Reduction Act did do was address a variety of concerns.  It was the biggest environmental expenditure in United States history, $369 billion, paid for by requiring big corporations to pay a minimum of 15% on income.  It reduced Medicare costs by allowing Medicare to do what every other health insurer does:  negotiate for drug prices.  And it guaranteed that Medicare recipients will pay no more than $2000 in drug costs annually.  

And last week, the President announced $10,000 of student loan debt would be forgiven, $20,000 for those who were income-eligible for Pell Grants.   It was a controversial decision.  Many declaimed it as “unfair”:  what about those who paid their way, or paid their  loans, or didn’t go to college?  It will cost $24 billion a year.  In a nation that forgave $900 billion in PPP loans to businesses in the past two years, $24 billion doesn’t seem to be that big a deal. And one-third of all student loan borrowers will be completely cleared of their obligation, thirteen million Americans.  

Labor Day

It’s the first day of September.  This weekend is Labor Day, the traditional “kick-off” for political campaigns (though in this era that doesn’t seem to ever stop).  And Democrats, with the two glaring exceptions of voting and police reforms, have “checked the legislative boxes”.  The political party that seems to spend so much time trying to “eat itself”, managed to unite long enough to do a fundamental function of American leadership: they governed.

And now Democrats are on the offensive.  The Trump Supreme Court overruled Roe v Wade, and many states are making abortions virtually illegal.  That battle line there is very clear:  Republicans want to control what women do with their own bodies, Democrats want women to have a choice.  It is a simple as that.

Flip the Script

President Biden tried to flip the script on Republicans when it comes to “support the Blue”.  Republicans have for decades, been the Party of “law and order”.  They still are running racially tinged ads about “lawlessness” in “Democrat cities”.  But Biden put it bluntly.  You can’t be for law and order and support the Insurrection of January 6th.  You can’t be for law and order  and want to “defund” the FBI for searching Mar-A-Lago.  Biden proposed greater support for local policing.

And Biden has made it plain.  A vote for Democrats is a vote to uphold democracy.  A vote for Republicans is a vote for insurrectionists, a vote against American traditions.  

Democrats go into “opening day” of the 2022 elections with a good head of steam.  Last night, Alaska sent a Democrat to Congress for the first time in state history.  Last week, a Democrat won a “bell-weather” district in New York state.   

November 7th

It’s a long way to November 7th.  There are many critical elections, for the House of Representatives, for the Senate, and for statewide offices.  But back in a time – long, long ago in June; Democrats didn’t have a chance.  Today, by getting things done in the Congress, the over-reaching of a Republican Supreme Court and Republican state legislatures, and the constant shadow of a former President dominating the Republican Party:  Democrats actually have a shot to gain in the mid-terms.

We are Democrats.  Historically we’ve shown – we can mess things up.  But maybe, just maybe, America will see the clear choice that the President presents.  Maybe we will move towards democracy.

Maybe we won’t “screw the pooch”.

Patience

Probable Cause

So let’s say the police have probable cause to believe there are illegal drugs in my home.  Probable cause is simple – they have good evidence to show that the drugs are there.  They get a judge to sign a warrant, allowing them to search for those drugs.  That is the essence of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, we have a right “…to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures…”.  A reasonable search is one supported by a warrant based on “…probable cause supported by Oath or Affirmation”.  

So the police come in my house, and they search.  They look in my office, they go through my desk drawers, and find bricks of heroin.  In order to demonstrate that the bricks were found in the desk, they take pictures of them in the drawers, and then more pictures of the bricks stacked on the floor of my office.

So what’s the likelihood that the police take the bricks, give me a receipt, then just leave the house?  It’s more likely that they take the bricks, handcuff me, and we all go “away”. 

Need to Know

I am not the former President of the United States, and the documents pictured on the floor of Donald Trump office weren’t bricks of heroin.  They are much more dangerous to the United States, documents of the highest classification, held by the former President at his Florida country club against government subpoena and Federal law.  Some of the documents are so sensitive that, even if there is a trial, they will never be placed in evidence.  A jury can’t see them.  They are just that secret.

I’ve never handled government “secret” documents, but as a teacher, coach and administrator, I’ve known information that was confidential.  Knowing confidential information is a responsibility and a burden.  It required recognition that I “need to know” to make decisions and do my job, but I also need to make sure others don’t.  I guess being “in the know” was a privilege, but it was also a liability.  Often, “not knowing” would have been easier.

But once I retired, I no longer “needed” to know.  And that raises the question:  what did Donald Trump “need to know” as former President of the United States?  Why was he keeping these secrets, clearly some of the most classified secrets of the Nation? 

Having Secrets

There are only a few reasons to have them.

Let’s be clear about one thing – Donald Trump isn’t keeping these secrets to write his memoir.  He’s not a writer.  All the books with his name as the author were written by “ghosts”.  Back in the Watergate era, Richard Nixon “bugged” his whole White House.  He did that, so he would have exact transcripts of what was said and what was done when he wrote his memoirs.  Unfortunately for him, he recorded himself and his staff committing felonies.  So maybe Trump is keeping stuff “away” from the rest of the world, incriminating information of some sort.  

Or, perhaps as part of Trump’s denial of the 2020 election results, he simply kept them because they are what “Presidents have”.  There’s a delusional issue there that makes it clear he shouldn’t have them.

Maybe the former President simply wants to demonstrate that he still is “in the know”, even though the actual President of the United States, Joe Biden, revoked his access to security briefings and secure documents a few weeks after he took office.  And potentially there is some form of “kompromat”, secure information that could be used against the former President’s enemies.  A heading in the document list of secret information about the French President comes to mind.  Or the legendary files of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, with “dirt” on any politician that got in his way.

Finally, information, particularly highly secret information, has monetary value.  Donald Trump has always recognized “how to make a buck”.  Maybe he sees the documents as a way to “cash in”.  

Obstruction

So if the police found bricks of heroin in my office, there wasn’t any question that I violated the law.  My possessing the bricks, for any reason, is in fact illegal.  And if I heard the police at the door, and went and tried to hide the bricks before they came in, I was simply adding to the violations.  I was committing the crime of “obstruction of justice”. 

Maybe I had the bricks  “for a friend”.  Maybe I was keeping them to “study”.  Or maybe they were just for my own personal use.  But most likely, I had the bricks to sell, to make a profit.  But all of that really doesn’t matter.  The fact that I was in possession, and the fact that I obstructed the search, was far and away enough to take me off to the jail.  

In the same way, there really is no need to have a “reason” for the former President to have the secret documents.  He was knowingly in possession, without having a legal right.  And, as we are discovering, he went to great lengths to hide them from the government.  And the government bent over backwards to accommodate the former President.  They asked, nicely, over and over again.  They subpoenaed the documents.  Then they sent the head of the FBI national security detail to his home.  The former President and his staff assured the Justice Department that all of the documents were returned.  But they weren’t.

He was in possession of national secrets of the highest classifications, without permission.  Those documents were stored in a careless and insecure manner.   And when he was asked, over and over and over to give then back, he refused to do so.  And he even tried to “hide” the documents from the government.

Patience

They didn’t handcuff anyone when they searched  Mara Lago.  And the FBI still hasn’t arrested anyone.  The Department of Justice is struggling.  Do they, for the first time in American history, arrest a former President of the United States?  And if they don’t, do they ignore a clear violation of American law, just because he was President?  Shouldn’t the law apply to everyone, regardless of former employment or financial standing?

It is a serious dilemma for the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland.  It’s likely they will, eventually, bring charges against Donald Trump, but forgive them if they want to wait.  The government needs “all its ducks in a row”, and they need to get it right.

We all need to show patience.

Riot in the Streets

Dahlman Tennis

My parents spent the last decades of their lives “snow-birding” from Cincinnati to Florida.  Mom and Dad found a condo in a “tennis community” called Sea Oaks near Vero Beach on the Atlantic shore.  It had everything they wanted.  Mom had miles of ocean beach to walk, skirting the waves and giving her cheery British accented “Good Morning!” to all she encountered.  

And while Mom was walking, Dad was playing tennis, a regular in the daily Sea Oaks “Walking Wounded” game.  Dad had five bypasses on his heart, and his fellow players ranged from artificial knees and hips to even more serious heart conditions.  But they still played hard; Dahlman tennis we called it. No cheating – but winning was important.  This was not “gentleman’s tennis”; drop shots or a forehand slam to an opponent at the net who made a bad approach shot was expected.

And so was lunch at the tennis club after the game.  Mom would come off the beach, and meet up with the tennis crew.  Club sandwiches, maybe a drink or too, and lots of conversation.  Then walk back to the condo, for an afternoon nap.

Thanksgiving 2000

I was teaching school and coaching, but I tried to get down to see them as often as I could.  Mom was adamant about coming home for Christmas, but Thanksgiving became a Florida affair for them.  Mom was a good cook, but they always had to spend the rest of their required “allotment” at the “Club” around Thanksgiving.  So we dressed up and got in line at the Sea Oaks buffet. There was fresh carved turkey and prime rib, grilled fresh salmon, all of the fixings and, of course, Key lime pie.

Thanksgiving in Florida was always good, even when Dad chewed me out for not going for the “kill shot” in the Walking Wounded doubles game.  “But Dad, if I hit him in the chest, I might really kill him!” I whined.  “Well, we’d win the point, wouldn’t we?”, was my eighty-two year old father’s retort:  Dahlman tennis.  

Hanging Chads

So I was in Vero Beach for Thanksgiving in the year 2000.  Just eighty miles south the fate of the nation was being decided, at the Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Boards of Elections.   Democratic candidate for President, Al Gore, had a half-million more votes nationally than Republican candidate George W Bush.  But that half-million lead didn’t matter.  Electoral votes were all that mattered, and the winner of Florida would win the Presidency.  Our afternoons and evenings were spent dozing in front of the minute-to-minute television coverage. 

Out of almost six million votes cast in Florida, the margin between Bush and Gore was less than 500.  It was such a narrow difference, that even with recounts, the “winner” could swing based only on inevitable counting errors.  And in West Palm Beach, there was a ballot “snafu”.  Voting was by “punch card”:  voters had to physically punch out a pre-set hole in the ballot to cast their vote.  Some of the pre-set hole-fillers, called “chads”, didn’t fully come out.  In addition, the pre-set holes weren’t perfectly lined up.  Some voters thought they were voting for Gore, but instead voted for a third party candidate, Ralph Nader.

Count ‘til You Win

The election came down to those ballots where the decision was unclear.  Did they voter intend to vote for Gore, or Nader, or did they intend not to vote for President at all?  The phrases “hanging chad” and “dimpled chad” entered our speech – along with the pictures of a bleary eyed election officials trying to make the determination.  Farther south, in the Miami-Dade Board of Elections, they were preparing to do a hand recount of every ballot.

Republican operatives knew that, as things stood before recounts, Bush had a slim advantage.  Bush lawyers were in state and federal court, doing everything they could to stop all counting.  They wanted the Republican Florida legislature to confirm Bush’s electors, and the Republican governor, brother Jeb, to sign off on the certification.  Their attitude was:  count until we’re winning – then stop counting.  (If that sounds suspiciously like the Trump 2020 strategy of declaring victory the day after the election, even though many millions of votes were still to be counted – it should). 

A Well Dressed Riot

The Bush campaign felt this wasn’t a time to play “by the rules”, or to be “fair”.  They played their version of Dahlman Tennis. Whatever it took, to the edge of the “rules”, was fair game.  One Republican operative in Miami was from New York.  Roger Stone had the ignominy of being the youngest operative to be questioned by Federal authorities in the Watergate “dirty tricks” investigation.  Stone now led a contingent of other operatives and lawyers from all over the nation, who came to Florida to do anything they could to make sure that Bush won.  And they meant “Stop the Count”.

 Miami-Dade needed more space, so they moved the re-count operations into a bigger room, farther away from “observers”.  The operatives, nick-named the “Brooks Brothers Brigade” for their natty apparel, started chanting, yelling, and charged the doors to the facility.  Miami-Dade Sheriff’s deputies were hard pressed to keep them in check, and the Board of Elections stopped the counting process until peace was restored.  By the time they were ready to begin again, there was no way they could meet a court mandated deadline for the final tally.  So Miami-Dade abandoned the recount, and submitted their original first count.  

Bush lawyers took their case to the Supreme Court. They asked that the nation’s highest legal authority put an end to counting.  In Bush v Gore, five Republican justices to four Democratic justices, determined to stop the count. Bush’s 500 vote win was the final outcome.  The next day, Vice President Al Gore conceded the election.

Who really won Florida, and the Presidency in November of 2000. Here’s what the Chicago Tribune said a year later. And for a different view – here’s what The Guardian said.

MAGA Wear

We now know to what lengths Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and others were willing to go to win the election of 2020.  Like the Bush team in 2000, they wanted to delay the final count.  But unlike 2000, they weren’t winning, and they crossed over the line of “hardball” to lawbreaking.  They stirred a mob to attack the Capitol, not in “Brooks Brother’s” apparel, but in MAGA wear, to stop the electoral count.  Extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were “standing by and standing ready” at Trump’s public request.  When they received the call – “a wild time”; they came to battle for him.

It’s hard to say – what if they had stopped the Congressional confirmation of the electoral count, and prevented the timely inauguration of Joe Biden? What would a six Republican to three Democrat margin on the Supreme Court say this time?  Even if Chief Justice Roberts stood firm, how much faith could anyone have that the three Trump appointees plus Alito and Thomas wouldn’t “stand by and stand ready” to support Trump?

And now as the long-arm of Federal justice is finally ready to reach the actual person of Donald J. Trump, the threat of violence is raised again.  Lindsey Graham said on Sunday, “…if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump…they’ll be riots in the streets” (Guardian).  Trump himself has offered to “lower tensions”, (WashTimes) what many see as a not-so-veiled threat if those tensions continue.  Trump World is still calling on their steadfast loyalists to “stand by and stand ready” one more time.  When Trump is finally held accountable for his actions – don’t be surprised if our world explodes.  They aren’t playing Dahlman tennis, pushing the rules. They are willing to “burn down the Republic” in a final “glorious” MAGA stand.

Adulting

Grow Up

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who envisions himself in the White House come 2025, needs to grow up.  It’s not “Presidential” to verbally abuse teenagers to score political points about masks; even though the Trump years tried to make that “OK”.  But that’s what he did, badgering them to remove masks in his presence. Good for one of the kids, who decided to put his mask back on in spite of the Governor’s annoyance.

But this week in a rally, he went even farther, stating about Dr. Anthony Fauci, “…someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac” (YouTube).

Like any effective speaker, DeSantis picked his words carefully.  How does a “big man” (I’m not calling him fat, but…those oversized suits) belittle a smaller man?  And how does he make Fauci a cartoon character rather than a formidable intellect from Holy Cross and Cornell that would take Yale and Harvard educated DeSantis apart in a debate?  Make him an “elf”,  then throw-in the dreaded “midget tossing” imagery.   And DeSantis has to hurry.  Fauci, at eighty-one, is retiring from his Directorship at the National Institute of Health.  He won’t be around for DeSantis to “pick on” anymore.

Leading 

DeSantis doesn’t really have much of a choice.  He has to attack Fauci.  The Governor made his national political “bones” in standing up to Fauci and the national strategy for dealing with the Covid pandemic.  The “Free State of Florida” went its own way with Covid, and the over 79,000 Floridians dead from the disease have DeSantis’s to thank.  More importantly, DeSantis led the Republican “opposition” to the national strategy, giving “cover” to other state governors to take the same stand.  That leads to this statistic:  of the top twenty-five states in per/capita Covid deaths, nineteen had Republican governors and two more had Republican legislatures that hamstrung Democratic Governors.  And DeSantis led the way.

The new Republican talking point is that masking, vaccination, distancing and shutdowns didn’t do any good.   They argue that “…we wasted our time, ruined our economy and damaged our children…” by taking Covid precautions.  It’s the reiteration of the “…let Covid burn through and kill who it kills, and the living will be fine…” statements that we heard just as Covid reached our shores.  

DeSantis and his ilk are demanding apologies for mask mandates, city shutdowns, and school closings.  And they are using school closings like a cudgel to elect anti-mask, Critical Race Theory haters to school boards. It’s hard to imagine putting anti-science, anti-intellectuals in charge of education, but that’s today’s Republican Party.  

Science

Just as DeSantis and his imitators did their best to destroy America’s attempts to control Covid, Tony Fauci and “science” (yep – science) did their best to protect our Nation.  Did they have all of the answers, from the beginning?  Of course not.  Covid was a new situation, and since the Trump Administration did everything it could to eviscerate the government’s ability to recognize and respond to new viral threats, America was caught flat footed.  

Did masks work?  Sure they did, the same way the work every day in every hospital in the nation.  Did they work around your neck, or under your nose, or as a fashion statement scarf device? Nope – just like the seatbelts don’t work if people don’t wear them.

Did we discover new things about Covid?  Sure – thanks to Black Lives Matter.  They went out and protested George Floyd’s death, knowing best science said that crowds spread Covid.  For them, taking the risk of disease was less important than voicing their outrage.  And what we discovered was that Covid transmission was very low outdoors.  It took the Black Lives Matter “experiment” to prove the point. And, by the way, if you need the counter “experiment”, look at Donald Trump’s 2020 Juneteenth rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It started an outbreak of Covid in the state.  If you’re not sure about that, ask the Secret Service, or Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain.  Oh snap, never mind:  he died of the Covid he caught at the rally.

Schools

Should schools have been closed?  Absolutely, if not for the kids, then for the teachers.  And for those who claim that “dedicated, loving” teachers should take Covid risks; remember that even when schools reopened, there weren’t enough substitutes to fill the vacant chairs.  If we stayed in school those first months (I was Zooming from my home office as a substitute) we would have faced an even greater teacher shortage.

Being online and not in school, damaged kids’ education. That’s absolutely true, and thank goodness.  Teachers really can’t be replaced by a screen, can they.  I always knew it, now the country does too.  But there is no way to evaluate how many lives were saved by closing schools, especially in those first few months.  Kids will get through this, just as kids all over the world get through natural and manmade calamities that interrupt their education.  That’s what those living, breathing, capable teachers can do.

I’m not apologizing for trying to do what was right – for me, for my family, for humanity.  And just because others are willing to “write-off” the deaths of over a million Americans (so far), I’m not.

Did Dr. Fauci do everything right?  No he did not. But he did his best to follow the best science at the time.  When that science changed, he was straight-forward in telling us so.  And if a bully politician like DeSantis with Yale AND Harvard degrees doesn’t understand that – maybe they should revoke his diplomas.  He must have cheated.

If DeSantis thinks he’s going to fulfill his childhood dream of being President, he’s still got some growing up to do. It’s time for “adulting”.

Car Stories III – The Bus

This is another in the Sunday Story series – no politics here, just stories about, putting lots of kids (but “always” within the law) in vans!!

New Car

The Datsun

I bought my very first brand new car in 1983 – a Datsun (now Nissan) Sentra. It was a small four door, actually pretty stripped down. I bought it without a radio (I installed my own), and I did purchase one “option” – a rear view mirror (who thought that was an “option”?). But it was small, and quick, and new. Pieces didn’t fall off along the highway like the Volvo it replaced, and there weren’t any holes in the floorboards like the old Squareback.

It was a sweet little car, and I drove it hard for a few years.  But I was soon the head cross country coach as well as the head track coach, and coaching cross country means sending kids on long runs, miles out on the roads.  That got boring – there were only so many ways you could run “out and back” from the school.  If only we could just go out, or just come back, or even go somewhere else to run. It would make the whole process a lot more fun.

Hippie Van

The VW “Hippie” Van

So I needed a vehicle that had some room.  John McGowan, my mentor and the former head cross country coach, was selling his Volkswagen Bus.  If the first thing that comes to your mind is a “hippie van” – you’ve got the right one.  All it needed were flowers painted on the doors to make it complete.  It had the same rear engine that I had in my old Squareback (see Car Stories I), and I was right at home doing any kind of work on it. 

I could fit six kids in the seats, and a few more in the “back”, actually sitting on the engine lid.  So if I sent eight kids from school to the five mile mark, and drove eight more out to the five mile mark to run back – then everyone got a straight five mile run, and I could “supervise” the whole run from the driver’s seat of the VW Bus.   Add my assistant coach’s car to the list, and we could move half of the team, and pick up the other half at the end.

The VW Bus was exactly what I needed. But it had all of the VW “issues” too. The heat was OK, but in the dead of winter the air-cooled engine heating system wasn’t great. On the other hand, it had a rear engine and rear wheel drive, so it would go in the snow. In fact, I learned a serious lesson about that. Just because I could go, didn’t mean other vehicles on the road would.

White-Out

We were driving back from a February indoor track meet at Ohio State (just north of downtown, Columbus), when there was a blizzard, with a white-out on the highway. The wipers barely kept the windshield clear and visibility was a matter of feet. We made it to only a few miles from home, just east of Reynoldsburg on I-70, and we were “putting” along at ten miles an hour or so.

I had no problems controlling the Bus, but the person three cars ahead wasn’t so lucky. He was one of those “drive fast in the left lane in a blizzard” idiots, and spun out in the middle of the road.

The car behind him went left , and the car in front of me went right. I went right as well, and we’d have all been ok, but “spinner” stalled in the right lane. The car in front of me hit the guardrail – and with all four wheels locked up, I slowly slid into his back bumper. Behind us we felt another pretty good thump – the car behind us slid into us as well. Then another car smacked into the back of it.

Speed demon straightened out and took off. And there we were, four cars on the guardrail at the top of a hill in a whiteout blizzard.  The only thing I could think of was a semi-truck coming up the hill, not seeing us through the snow until it was too late.  So I told the six kids  to “Bail Out”, and jump on the other side of the guard rail.

BAIL OUT!!!!

Maybe I said that with a little too much emphasis. The kids popped the sliding door, and went out the side of the Bus like Airborne Rangers hitting the landing zone. Bill, a shot putter, was the first out. He hit ice, and immediately went down. The other kids didn’t have a good view, so they jumped onto Bill’s back, and vaulted over the guard rail. Finally we got Bill to his feet, and all clambered over the side.

 Matt, our team manager, statistician, bookkeeper and all-around caretaker; ran down the hill, climbed a chain link fence, and in this era before cell phones, knocked on the door of the neighboring house to call the police.  It was so cold his bare hands stuck to the top bar of the fencing, and he came back missing pieces of his palms – frozen into place on the fence.  

The car behind us had two women in it.  The driver was pregnant, in pain and panicked.  The impact, slow-speed though it was, drove her stomach into the steering wheel.  Behind them was a car with three high school track kids.  The driver was banged up pretty good.  He broke a rib on his steering wheel when he hit the pregnant woman.  They were also coming back from the meet, headed towards home in Marlington, Ohio near Youngstown. 

Taking Care

As we were tending to the injured, our other team van pulled up, full of kids.  I loaded my group into it.   We were only a few miles from school, and it was very cold and windy so I sent them on their way. Matt stayed with me to help out with the injured.

It took a while for the police, and then the ambulance to finally get to us. The Highway Patrol officers weren’t interested in writing tickets, they just wanted to get the injured to the hospital, the cars out of the way, and the passengers out of the cold. I was all in favor of that. I ended up with Matt and the two Marlington kids in the Bus, and we headed towards home. The Bus was a little dented, but nothing could stop it!

I dropped Matt at his house, and the two Marlington kids and I went to the hospital to check on their buddy. The ER bandaged up his chest and released him, but their car wasn’t going anywhere. The blizzard was getting worse, and they all ended up spending the night at the house with me. Thank goodness Mama Linda’s pizza place braved the blizzard that night as well.

No Left Turn

The VW Bus lasted for a few more years, but like all VW’s, rust was its ultimate demise. We were driving to a local meet, when all of a sudden the Bus wouldn’t turn left. It seemed to do right just fine, but no matter how much the steering wheel turned, straight and right were the only two choices.

I managed to get it home – as long as you can go around the block you can find a “right” way, but I lost all confidence in the vehicle.  We had an annual summer Cross Country yard sale at the house, and I put a sign in the window.  Some guy pulled up, put $250 down, and stuck a clamp on the steering tie-rod.  He drove off down the road – and that was the end of VW Bus era.

Next Sunday Story time  – I’ll tell you about the Big Blue Van!!!!! 

The Sunday Story Series

Cost of Education

Denison

I am a proud 1978 graduate of Denison University in Granville, Ohio.  Denison was a perfect place for me:  an academic “castle on a hill” in a small rural town.  I could focus on academics, gathering my thoughts as I hiked the hills and forests nearby.  The Denison professors were challenging and incredibly helpful, and the community knew how to have fun as well as study.  Denison gave me the academic freedom to explore all of subjects that fascinated me – the intersection of history, government and politics in American life. 

A bigger institution wouldn’t have “flexed” their program the way Denison did.  I managed to graduate in four years, while I spent a semester as a political campaign operative, a semester studying in Washington, DC, and a semester student teaching.  While I did have some early struggles, in the end, it was the perfect place for me.

I attended Denison from the fall of 1974 until the spring of 1978.   In the Great Depression, my Dad worked his way through the University of Cincinnati, living at home.  Mom went to London University staying at home as well.  It was my parents life-goal to take care of all three of their kids’ college educations.  So I was privileged to not be saddled with college debt, and my parents were able to afford the room, board and tuition of less than $18000 a year.  It was a great gift for life.  I still managed to build a student loan debt, but it was in graduate school. I ultimately paid that off.

Cost of the Dream

Today to attend Denison, it costs $73000 a year.  There’s lots of financial aid available, and a high percentage of students take advantage of that.  That’s no surprise:  it’s hard to imagine being able to afford to pay for a four-year college degree costing almost $300000.   It’s still a great education, and small liberal arts colleges still have an important place in American education.  But the costs are truly amazing.

To send my son to a public university a decade ago, was $40000 a year.  America’s reality is, no one is “working their way through school” the way my Dad did in the 1930’s.  In order to get a four-year college degree today, there are only three alternatives:  be so gifted in some way that you get a scholarship, be so wealthy that you can pay, or borrow the money.

At the same time, the educational requirements for getting and advancing in the workplace increasingly require a four-year degree.  And this is the “American dream”:  working to gain an education in order to advance.  Parents would love to “gift” this to their children the way my parents did for me, and we did for our son.  But to do it today, most have to borrow the money.

Loan Forgiveness

Yesterday President Biden announced that $10000 of college loan debts would be forgiven.  In fact, if a student qualified for Pell Grants, an income based award, $20000 will be forgiven.  Forty-eight million Americans owe college debt today, a total of $1.75 Trillion.  The loan forgiveness President Biden offered will reduce that by $500 Billion.  

Biden compared his student loan forgiveness program to the PPP program for businesses during the Covid pandemic.  In that program $800 Billion was loaned and forgiven to businesses to maintain employees’ wages.  Biden made it clear that he recognized that in any program like this, there would be unfairness.  Some businesses went under during Covid despite the PPP program and some businesses survived without qualifying for PPP.  With student loan forgiveness, there’s always going to be those who “would’ve gone” or “wouldn’t have paid” if they had known.  

“If I had known there was going to be a PPP program, I would have started a business.”

“If I had known there was going to be student loan forgiveness, I would have borrowed more.”

There’s no way to be “fair” when solving a problem that’s gone on for far too long.   There are always those that suffered before things were improved – we should still fix the problem now.  Student loan debt has saddled millions, stifling their economic lives.  They can’t start families, they can’t buy houses, they can’t participate in the economy.  They can just make their monthly payments to MOHELA or the other student loan services.  The only “big winners” from the student debt, are the loan companies. For the good of our society, we need to resolve this problem.

The Real Problem

But it does mean we should look at the greater issue; the cost of education.

In the United States we “guarantee” free public education, Kindergarten through twelfth grade.  But in our modern, technical world, we find that thirteen years simply isn’t enough to prepare both a workforce and an intelligent voting citizenry.  We need to add four more years to the program, two years of pre-school, and two years of post-high school education.  The two years after high school could be the first two years of a four year program, or it could be some kind of vocational education or certification.  But to take eighteen year-olds just out of high school and say “It’s all on you now”,  in our modern highly technical and highly expensive society, just doesn’t make sense.

And the cost of college education soared well beyond inflation in the past forty years.  Certainly easy access to student loan money was part of that spiral; and the entire way we pay for higher education should be up for examination.  But in the meantime, it’s good that the government is taking steps.

So thanks President Biden for addressing the problem. You’re going to take a lot of “guff”.  Some are going to say that it’s the “…plumbers and construction workers…” who are going to pay for those “snotty college kids”. But we know that’s not how it should be – it should be those multi-billion dollar corporations who don’t pay any income taxes that should be picking up this tab.  

I know you’re working on that one too.

PostScript

A little note to those “local” to Pataskala. Gas prices from 270 east on Broad Street – $3.13 a gallon – until you reach “downtown” Pataskala – then it’s $3.64. That’s our “Amazon” price bubble!!! And it’s all down more than a dollar from a few months ago. Oh – and the Columbus Teacher’s strike that I wrote about yesterday, was settled last night. Hope they got what they needed!!

On Strike

First Day of School

It’s the first day of school today in the Columbus City Schools.  As a teacher, I know how important that first day is.  Sure, it’s mostly “organizational”, making sure kids are in the right places, pronouncing names and creating seating charts, and helping them negotiate their way to the next class or figure out lunch.  As a teacher in middle and high schools, I always thought of that first day as setting the “tone” for the rest of the year.  In each class there was always an opportunity to establish “the atmosphere”, and demonstrate what I wanted for our class.  My goal for the first day was respect for each other, and myself as the teacher, and an openness to questions. 

But teachers in the Columbus City Schools are on strike today.  I can absolutely guarantee that not one of those teachers wants to be on a picket line, instead of in the classroom.  They are teachers because they have a mission,  and a job, to educate and to nurture.  And there’s little nurturing going on walking the picket line.

Instead, Columbus is starting school “online”, with seven hundred substitutes and administrators.  You can count on it:  nothing much is getting done.  I guess you can show a “movie” on Zoom, but why would the kids watch?

The Association

I was a “teacher association” member (read: union member) my entire career.  I served my time as an officer in our Local; as the “campaign” guy, Vice President, and ultimately President of the Association.  Even when I became the Dean of Students of the High School, I remained a member.  The Association refused to let me go – they maintained that while they wouldn’t back my actions as an “administrator”, they wouldn’t let the position become non-union.  So, like it or not, I was in the Association for my entire thirty-five and a half years.

We never had to strike.  We did pack up our classrooms and take all of our personal stuff home. That was a lot, even for a high school teacher.  For elementary teachers it was more than half of the supplies.  The rooms seemed empty.  We “educationally picketed” school board meetings and even in front of the buildings before school started.  We took strike votes that overwhelmingly passed.  But our negotiations teams and the school board always found a “deal” that kept us in the classroom.  We never had to take that final step.

Just for the record, striking is generally not a “positive” financial move.  If the District can remain open, then days on strike are “no pay” days; money lost forever both in-pocket and in retirement.  Insurance payments and other benefits are suspended.  Only if the schools are forced to close their doors and make up the days later, do teachers makeup some of what they lose on the picket line.  If things go on for a long time, the Association will pitch in to help in emergencies, but when we considered striking, I made arrangements to borrow money against my home, just in case.

Not About Money

So why are the Columbus teachers on strike today?  It doesn’t seem to be about money.  Columbus teachers already have a decent salary schedule, with entry teachers paid $45600 a year, and the “top of the scale” over $100,000.  (For contrast, my old District salary starts at $40,203 and tops at $92,487).  It’s not directly about “pocket” money.  

Columbus teachers are striking over building conditions.  Buildings that are over a century old,  without adequate ventilation in the post-Covid world. Schools that are without air conditioning in mid-August in Ohio, schools with falling ceilings and moldy walls.  

And they are striking about class size.  They want the District to commit contractually that kindergarten through fifth grade classes will have no more than twenty-eight kids. Currently Columbus can have elementary classes of thirty and middle school and high school classes of thirty-five.   (In my old District, class size is K-3 is twenty-two; 4-5 twenty-seven; and no more than thirty 6-12.)

Why does class size matter?  Studies show that the more individual attention students get, the more success they have in learning.  Especially at the youngest levels, smaller classes give kids the best opportunity to improve, and teachers the best chance of intervening to resolve learning issues.  But class size is the most expensive solution to improving education.  And that’s why school districts will raise salaries, but refuse to lower class size, even though it is absolutely the most effective way to improve educational “outcomes”.  

Shared Goals

Columbus teachers are striking because they don’t want to be packed into steaming (or freezing) classrooms with too many kids.  Sure that’s uncomfortable as a teacher (and as a kid) but more importantly, it’s a lousy way to learn.  Columbus teachers want to fulfill their mission, to educate the best way they can.  And they need the District to provide conditions that will let them achieve that goal. 

Ninety-four percent of Columbus Association members voted to strike.  They are hanging together.  Now the school district needs to figure it out.  Administrators say they are committed to making building and class size improvements as well, they just don’t want it in a contract.  Maybe putting it in writing “confines” them too much.   But the Columbus City Schools need to be more committed.  After all, teachers and administrators are all trying to achieve the same thing.  As my old mentor and principal used to say – it’s time to do what’s right for kids.  

Right Track, Wrong Track

“Now, generally speaking, would you say that things in the country are going in the right direction, or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?”  – (Morning Consult, right track, wrong track poll question). 

Concrete Rules

I’ve been a student of politics since Mom pinned a “Kennedy for President” button on my blue sweater. I was three years old and it was in 1960.  And there are “age old” rules in politics, that proved themselves accurate over the more than sixty-five years of my lifetime.  One of those, concrete, indisputable rules is this.  If the majority of the nation think the country is on the “wrong track”, then the Party in control of the government will be the “loser” in the next election.  That makes a lot of common sense.  Democrats control the House, the Senate, sort-of, and the Presidency.  On August 15th, 70% of the country said that the United States is on the “wrong track”.  

Morning Consult breaks this down by political party affiliation.  47% of Democrats thought we were on the “wrong track”, 78% of Independents, and 91% of Republicans agreed.  And that fits perfectly with the “age old” rules.

So I’m a lifelong Democrat.  I can count on the finger of my right hand, not including the thumb, how many Republicans for any office I’ve actually voted for.  I actively campaigned for ten different Democratic Presidential candidates, including working on the professional campaign staff of one.  So if you’re looking for what a “Democrat” thinks, I think I should count.

I think the United States is on the wrong track.  And I don’t blame Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or Chuck Schumer a bit.

Driving that Train

So will the “wrong track” poll make me vote Republican, or even make me not show up to vote in November?  Are you kidding me – I haven’t missed a contested election since 1974 (when I turned eighteen).  And I am more motivated than ever to go out and support my candidates.  Just as importantly, I am motivated to do everything I can to stop those that I blame for our Nation being on the “wrong track”:  the Republican Party.

It’s not a matter of policy disagreement, though there are a whole lot of Republican policies I disagree with.  I disagreed with a lot of Republicans all of my life.  But through most of that time,  I felt that we shared a common goal:  the good of the United States.  My Republicans friends (and family) just had a different view of how to get to that goal, and I respected our differences.  In our current era though, for the first time in my sixty-two years of politics, I don’t feel that we share a common goal.

Blocking the Tracks

I don’t even need to get into the “MAGA” Party that dominates Republican life.  Senator Mitch McConnell is the embodiment of establishment Republicans, called by many of his fellow party members a “RINO”, Republican in name only.  And yet his avowed goal, since Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, is to stop all Democratic legislation.  He isn’t interested in governing, and wasn’t able to get much done even while he had the reins of power in his hands.  But he absolutely wants to prevent anything and everything from happening.  Failure of the Democrats is enormously more important to him, then the good of the nation.

Give him his due; while McConnell had power, he was able to achieve two “stellar” legislative actions.  He passed a trillion dollar tax cut.  By definition, tax cuts cut taxes for those who pay the most, so the wealthy got the most benefit.  And he transformed the Supreme Court into a branch of the Federalist Society. they now promote a view of America as “set in legal concrete” at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.  

But past that, McConnell sees the Senate as a political battlefield, without a larger view of serving the good of the nation.  It’s that obstructionism that motivates me to go out and vote for any Democrat I can find.  And I haven’t even gotten to MAGA.

Jump 

Our country is definitely on the wrong track.  One of the two major parties is the engine leading us down that track. They are headed away from “small d” democracy, and towards a more authoritarian and oligarchical (gotta love that word) society.  While it’s easy for even the “good” Republicans to disclaim the extremists that control their locomotive, what they don’t seem to get is the entire Party is enabling America to race away from our core values. 

There are a few:  Liz Cheney, John Kasich, Larry Hogan; who tried to change the direction of the Republican train. They want to “pull the switch” and move their party back from the “crazies”.  But, like a car stuck at the crossing as the freight comes through town, they’ve been swept aside, hardly even slowing down the MAGA juggernaut.

The only way for us to get on the “right track”, is to  jump from that train.  And that’s the critical fact that may break the “concrete, indisputable” precedent of electoral life.  I’m hoping my fellow Democrats, and the rest of America, do that in November.

Meanwhile, In the World

 1974

What I most remember about 1974 was graduating from high school and starting college.  But as far as “the world” was concerned – it was the House Impeachment hearings, Nixon’s resignation, and Ford’s pardon.  How much of an impact did all of that have on me, a budding politician?  When I had the “freshman blues” at Denison, I put a sign on my wall – Allenwood Prison Farm.  That was the minimum Federal security facility where many of the Watergate principals were serving their time.  (Allenwood was closed in 2005, and now, fittingly, is part of a landfill).

What I don’t remember much about – is the end of the Vietnam War, the “opening” of China, pirates seizing a US ship off of Cambodia, and whatever else happened in the world.  Like much of America, I was too focused on our internal politics and issues.  The rest of the world had to wait – we were busy trying to save the nation.

Return to Normalcy

Fast forward to 2022.  The “return to normalcy” offered by Joe Biden can’t happen, because the election of 2020 is still far from over.  Now I haven’t turned into a conspiracy theorist or a Stop the Steal believer.  But until we finish the “business” of 2020, our nation will remain looking inward.  The concern:  there’s so much going on “out there” that we’re missing, and might well be missing us.  Polling this week shows that the number one issue for Americans is “the threat to democracy”.  Numbers two and three are about the economy.  What’s happening in the world isn’t even on the list (NBC).

For a brief moment, the Russian invasion of Ukraine caught our attention.  We watched the “rookie” leader Zelenskyy grow in his Presidency to become the savior of his nation.  We were stunned as the “Goliath” Russian military machine ground to a halt, stopped by the “David” Ukrainian forces. All our long held beliefs about Russia invulnerability, reinforced by old black and white movies of Russian tanks driving the Nazis back to Berlin, dissolved as that seventeen mile convoy was a sitting duck for weeks.

We cheered the Ukrainian defense, and backed them with massive amounts of aid and weapons.  Putin’s strategy of decapitation failed, but he wasn’t done.  Now, six months later, Russia is grinding out an artillery campaign, trading shots without the massive tank movements we expected.  No one is willing to estimate the casualties, especially civilian deaths. Putin is betting the “West” will lose interest.  And in the US, that’s actually working.  We all knew about Mariupol and the valiant defense of the city. But we can’t even pronounce Zaporizhzhia (Zap-or-rhee-sha).  The largest nuclear reactor in Europe is literally the battle line there – but Americans show little interest in news about that.

China

And on the other side of the world, China seems to be doing more than just “saber-rattling”.  For the past several years, China has expanded its territorial “waters”. They claim more and more of the South China Sea (the water between China, Vietnam and the Philippines).  China even went so far as to build artificial islands to claim as “territory” – demanding 200 miles of the sea around them.   The United States consistently opposed those claims. We fly US aircraft and sail our Naval vessels in China-claimed territory to demand freedom of navigation and overflight. 

And now China is threatening to invade Taiwan, again.  The US policy is purposely vague:  we support a “one-China” policy, but also support Taiwan’s independence.  If China determines to invade Taiwan, like Russia did in Ukraine, will the United States go to war against them?  I think so, and I think we want China to think so.  But in an era when we are so distracted by our own internal struggles, China, like Russia, sees an “opening” to achieve their goal of conquest.  No wonder they were so upset when the third ranking American leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, went to Taiwan to pledge her support.

Final Answer

Europe, like the US, is trying to stave-off burgeoning authoritarian movements.  Some of those movements have been successful, like Victor Orban in Hungary or the success of Marie LePen’s party in the French legislature.  Other countries have rejected authoritarianism, and some, again like the US, have done both.  LePen’s Party had tremendous success in the National Assembly elections in June, but LePen herself was rejected as a Presidential candidate.

Iran and the US are negotiating again.  The US is demanding the Iran return to the Obama Administration’s JCPOA plan to prevent nuclear weapons. That was the plan abandoned by the Trump Administration.  But there’s a lot of “water under the bridge” since President Obama announced success. The US assassinated Iranian General Soleimani, and Iran in turn tried to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  So it’s hard to figure how that will turn out, or whether Congress will approve an agreement even if one is reached.

With all of this is going on, nothing really is much different at the US Southern Border. Except, thank God, we aren’t ripping kids out of parent’s arms.  But we are still so focused on the 2020 election, even here in 2022.  Election deniers are running for office trying to get votes that will deny if they lose. We are poised on the edge of our own authoritarian crisis.  November will point what direction we are headed as a nation, but it won’t be until 2024 that the “final answer” will be called.

I hope the world can wait, but I expect it won’t.  

New to the Pack

This is another in the Sunday Story series.  No politics today, just another “dog” story, with a twist.  There’s a new member to the Pack!

Alphas

If you know anything about dogs, you know they are “pack” animals.  They develop complex relationships among themselves, and with others in the home.  We have five dogs, and so there are lots of interactions.  Among our dogs, Buddy is the “Alpha Emeritus”.  He’s over ten human years old, and while he’s not going to win fights anymore, all the others show him respect appropriate to his age and status.  They’re happy to pay him attention, but leave him to himself when that’s what he wants.  That’s not much fight left in him, but he can still let out a mean “hiss” when he needs to.

Then there was the big “upset” in the house.  Louisiana, our battered rescue from, well, Louisiana, fully recovered from his injuries and “felt his oats”.  The titular “Alpha” was our six year old Yellow Lab Atticus, who ascended with Buddy’s aging.  But Lou and Atticus had a couple of “interactions”, and now Lou is clearly number one.  The saying goes, “If you ain’t the big dog, stay on the porch”.  Atticus spends a lot more time on the porch with Jenn and me.

The Ladies

Keelie, our rescue from Kentucky, is the “mother” of us all.  When someone yelps or yells “OW”, Keelie immediately comes to investigate and ameliorate.  And when someone gets in trouble, dog to dog or dog to person, Keelie is compelled to intervene and “make things better”.   And Keelie “knows” where everyone is supposed to “be”, especially guests in the house. Sit at the kitchen table; otherwise anticipate an escort suggesting you go back where you “belong”.

Which leaves us with CeCe, our year and a half old “Baby Yoda” puppy.  She’s not so much a puppy anymore, but she’s still fearless when it comes to the other’s in the pack.  She took her lumps early, but she really is everyone’s puppy. She’s even found a way to relate to Buddy, who enjoys the attention.  CeCe gets away with a lot. She chases Lou who towers over her, making dreadful noises. And she treats his long tendinous back legs like chicken bones.  He might be the Alpha, but he ends up on the porch from time to time too.

CeCe is wonderfully lovable, but she has an affinity for eyeglasses.  Whenever there’s downtime, she will seek out any pair of glasses she can reach, prescription or sunglasses, or most often, my reading glasses.  Then she will efficiently chew the ears off ’em.  So far, I think she’s destroyed eight pair of my Amazon “cheap” reading glasses.  I’m wearing a pairs with dramatically shortened ears now, and she got my good bifocals as well.

No mistake, Jenn’s the “Alpha” of us all, dogs included.  I come in as “Associate Alpha”, good for breakfast in the morning, early morning romps, and more than willing to fulfill most dog demands.  

New Addition

And we added another “player” in the dynamic Dahlman domicile. No – not another dog, five is by far enough.  This character is low key but determined, keeps her head down and does her “business”.  She knows where she sleeps, when she’s hungry, and when it’s time to “go potty”.  And she has a name – Roomba!

Yep – we got a Roomba, one of the IRobot independent vacuum cleaners that purposely goes about the house cleaning up the messes.  It’s a pretty amazing device, mapping out the layout of the house and then determining the most efficient way to cover the entire place.  It goes where Jenn and I seldom go with a vacuum:  under the cabinets and the stove, and even under the couch.  Our house has five dogs:  hair is everywhere (we call them “tumbling tumbleweeds” after the Roy Rogers song).  It requires daily sweeping – and while we were worried that the volume would be beyond Roomba’s capabilities, so far, so good.  Roomba knows when she’s had enough, and heads back to her docking station to “dump” and to recharge when needed.  

It wasn’t the cheapest cleaner, but IRobot guaranteed it could handle hair (and maneuver around any dog accidents – without a dreaded smear).  And so far, she’s lived up to her billing.

Finding Her Place

And where does Roomba fit in the “pack”?  Well, Lou is scared to death of her.  He heads for other rooms, up on the benches and chairs to stay away from the relentless hissing and bumping.  And when Roomba “relieves herself” in the docking station?  Lou breaks for a door to get outside, away from the rocket launch sounds.  Keelie doesn’t seemed bothered, and Atticus just stays with me, out of the way.  

CeCe, the house defender against all brooms and vacuum cleaners, doesn’t really mind Roomba.  It seems that they are all giving her space, kind of an “Alpha-like” status.  Roomba can clear the room.  That works, as she then cleans the room as well.

Oh, and Buddy – well he and Roomba don’t get along so well.  You see, Roomba followed Buddy into his sanctuary, the bathroom.  And when Buddy flopped down next to the air conditioning vent, Roomba had the audacity to drive up to him – and BUMP him!!  Well that’s unheard of in this house – and Buddy with all the dignity of his equivalent seventy dog years, struggled to his feet, and stormed out of the room – to the bathroom on the other side of the house.  That wasn’t on Roomba’s programming for this run.

The jury is still out on the Roomba.  We will see how long she can handle this, a five-dog, two-person load.  Jenn won’t let her come in my office, afraid that might be too overwhelming for a newly programmed IRobot.  I’m sure that’s not a compliment, but Jenn is the Alpha or us all.  Who am I to argue with the Boss?  I think I now fit in about third – behind Jenn and the new Roomba.

Want to know more about our dogs? Check out Origin Stories Parts I and II on the list below.

The Sunday Story Series