Above Sunset Boulevard

Winding Down

2008-12-30T22:16:00.004-06:00

In fewer than 2 days, a new year will have arrived, 2009. That number looks like something out of science fiction, but I can remember when 1984 sounded just as futuristic. I don't remember much that's memorable about the new year holiday, except that I was married for the first time on 12/31/59. I suppose that makes it memorable on a permanent basis, though that marriage ended many years ago.

I do remember taking notice of 1950 coming in as I listened to the radio (yes, radio) as the grownups talked and, I'm sure, drank. But other than 1950 and 1959, I've met the arrival of a
new year with little notice, much less excitement. Since I'm a recovering alcoholic, I'm sure I was blitzed more than once on that auspicious eve. But I'm taking notice of this one more than usual because it could very well be my last one. And I say that without self-pity, more with a matter-of-fact.

Back in February 2006, I spent a month in hospital at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. I entered through the emergency room, as I was having a difficult time breathing. I wasn't there long before I went into respiratory failure and was put on a respiratore, life-support for those of you who follow "ER." I stayed hooked up for 15 days, and I feared that I might not survive. Dr Schroeder promised I would leave the hospital under my own power, and I did. The lung infection was finally diminished, and I went home to a life of oxygen use for the remainder of my time on earth.

Well, just a few weeks ago, I came down with another lung infection and was admitted to The University of Minnesota Hospital, though this time without the respirator. While I was being treated with antibiotics, a 70% occlusion in my Main Coronary Artery was discovered, and I underwent an angioplasty and received a third stent. I suffer from what is called Interstitial Lung Disease, and I will use oxygen for the rest of my life. But what I've noticed from this last infection is that my lung capacity has diminished, and it will never get back up to where it was.

In other words, each time my lungs get sick, my breathing will be affected on a permanent basis, so "getting well" takes on a whole new meaning. This will continue until there's no breath left. My particular condition just doesn't "improve." Of course, I brought this on myself with 44 years of smoking cigarettes. But that doesn't make it any more acceptable or any less scary.

Maybe I'm luckier than most in that I at least know what will kill me; I just don't know when. I don't dwell on all this, but it helps to write about it. Maybe there are others out there who are similarly afflicted. If so, drop me a line at giddocliff@yahoo.com. Happy New Year!

How Do You LIke Your Blue Eyed Boy Now, Mr. Death?

2008-12-19T05:46:00.005-06:00

December has been, and it's only 2/3 over, a difficult month. I returned home Wednesday after 8 days in hospital, a locale at which too much of my life has played out over the last few years. On 12/9/08 I felt myself short of breath beyond normal, so my wife took me to the ER at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, as the memory of my complete respiratory failure in 2006 is yet quite fresh. I was admitted after 9 long hours, and I was soon put on a regimen of powerful antibiotics for a lung infection. Tests were run, blood was drawn, EKGs and Echo Cardiograms were performed. The medical professionals feared that my heart condition had worsened, and they were right.

An angioplasty was performed, and a stent put into a 70% occluded artery. I now have 3 stents, of which I'm justly proud, as they saved my life, a procedure that wasn't even available just a few years ago. I picked up a load of prescriptions on my way out of the hospital, and I now take what seems like dozens of pills every day. A good friend back in Los Angeles helped me out with some cash relief, and I was able to purchase them all. It's really a shame what outrageous prices the pharmaceutical companies charge for medicine that one really needs. Part D of Medicare was not our lawmakers' finest hour. But I'm alive.

This time I'm truly going to have to alter my eating habits, cut down on salt and fats. I was told that the site of the new stent must remain open. The alternative is simple: death. Although my many years of smoking brought all this on, there's nothing scarier than being short of breath and not be able to do anything about it. I'm grateful to all the medical folks and also to those who make the machines that help me maintain an acceptable level of oxygen. I wish Santa could bring me a new pair of lungs. One of my children told me that if I had made better "life choices" that I wouldn't be in this pickle. Hell, if I had made better "life choices," she wouldn't be around to criticize me.

In any case, I'm home and looking forward to a quiet Christmas. We'll dine with the other seniors here, and I'll say thank you one more time. Merry Christmas.

California Dreamin'

2007-02-19T11:54:00.000-06:00

My first trip to California was in 1949. I was a kid from Alabama who had never been anywhere but Panama City, Florida, the Redneck Riviera. I spent most of that summer in Fontana, California, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, and I never recovered. Southern California entered my bloodstream like an invisible parasite, settled in, and waited.

Later, I was to spend almost 20 years in Los Angeles, entering the Golden State through a double rainbow arching over Indio, California, then never living more than a mile or so from Sunset Boulevard. Though born and mostly raised in Alabama, I spent more years of my life within walking distance of the Sunset Strip that at any other place on this green earth.

Even in 1949, California was excess compared to Alabama. During this visit, I saw for the first time all day movies and cartoons on Saturdays. The children around me seemed happier than those I knew back home; at least they seemed to be having more fun. Excess! What a concept! I embraced it without knowing exactly what it was, and I've never looked back.

I yearned for California for years and years thereafter until I finally arrived for what I thought would be forever. However, I realize now that it wasn't so much excess that attracted me. In fact, I probably mislabeled what I felt in the moisture starved air of the Los Angeles Basin. It wasn't so much excess as it was total freedom, the freedom to be left alone, the freedom to be whomever I wanted to be with little or no interference.

And that's what I miss today as I look out over the Minnesota snowpack, the sun glaring off the frozen white canopy that covers the cold ground around me. I miss the freedom.

Semper Fi

2007-02-19T20:46:00.000-06:00

More years ago than I'd like to admit, this is who I was. It's a silly pose I struck, but what I had just learned during 13 strenuous weeks of boot camp wasn't silly at all. Although I joined during peacetime, our training was a preparation for war.
I joined the United States Marine Corps when I was a senior in high school. I arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina, just after midnight on August 1, 1958, on a Greyhound bus filled with young men who were nervous or in complete denial.
When I joined the military, the Commander-in-Chief was neither a coward nor a moron. My Commander-in-Chief had led the largest military invasion in world history on June 6, 1944, D-Day. And as President of the United States, he didn't plunge us into war; he removed us from one. He truly knew the ramifications of sending young men into combat.
I ache for my young Marine brothers today because their civilian leadership, if it can be called leadership, is probably the worst in the history of our great nation. And our current civilian leadership has the audacity to denigrate the accomplishments of those men and women who have had the courage to serve when the bullets were flying, in Vietnam, in the Persian Gulf, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. Our current civilian leadership is without courage, without shame, without conscience, without souls.

George W. Bush Should Go to Hell

2007-02-24T12:05:00.000-06:00

When I was a kid there was something called a Cold War going on. As a result, we used to have regular air-raid drills at our schools. This meant going to the floor, squatting, wrapping arms around legs, and putting heads down on knees to protect our pretty little faces. Never mind that if an atomic bomb had actually exploded, we might as well have been kissing our asses goodbye.

The politics of fear is nothing new. It's been around since somebody decided he should be in charge of somebody else. During the Cold War, our leadership was able to convince us that the Soviets had so many nuclear weapons that we just had to keep pace, bomb by bomb, until we could've destroyed a hundred worlds over. And it was all one lie after another, just as the justifications for our current war are all just lies.

The Vietnam War was also based on a lie, the lie that one of our naval vessels had been attacked by the Communists in the Gulf of Tonkin. And off we went for over a decade of killing and the loss of over 55,000 Americans. The lies fed to the public during the Vietnam War were even more egregious than the lie that got us into it; it's a list too long for this brief commentary.

Finally, the lie that got us into Iraq was simply another example of political fear-mongering: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; better to attack Iraq now than to awaken to a mushroom cloud, a lie quite similar to the one used all those years ago to fuel the Cold War. And it's probably the lie that will be used in the future as an excuse to murder people of color around the world and to keep our local body bag industry afloat. But are the body bags even made in America anymore?

Colored

2007-02-24T16:56:00.000-06:00

I don't remember how old I was when I first noticed the signs. But they were everywhere: if not "Colored," then "White Only." I spent most of my youth and young adulthood in Birmingham, Alabama, once described as the most segregated city in the country. Hyperbole perhaps, but if so, only slightly.
Years later in Southern California, it was hard for my students to believe what everyday life was like where I grew up. They were incredulous when I explained that a co-worker and I couldn't sit down in a restaurant and have a cup of coffee and conversation because he was black and I was white. The least that would've happened was that we would've been asked to leave. I don't need to describe the worst.

My co-worker at the United States Postal Service, Charles, told me that his father had had to sit down and have "the talk" with him, "the talk" that would help him avoid the wrath of the redneck. There were things black folk couldn't do, places they couldn't go. I myself remember that only on the last day of the Alabama State Fair, Saturday, were black families allowed to enjoy what whites been enjoying all week. As hard as it is to be a decent father under any circumstances, imagine what it would be like to have to tell your children that they aren't as good as children of a lighter skin color.

I remember going to the movies many times as a youngster, admission one thin dime. The black patrons sat only in the balcony if they got in at all, and I never saw a black person at the refreshment counter or in the bathroom. It was "normal," just as it was "normal" to see all the black people crowded into the rear of a city bus even if the front seats were unoccupied.

Thank God Charles and I lived long enough to see all this change. We lived long enough to share a meal in the restaurant of our choosing in Birmingham, Alabama. We lived long enough to attend together a Stokely Carmichael speech on the campus of an all-black college in Birmingham, Alabama. We lived long enough to see all those ugly, dispiriting signs come down. But Charles is gone now, and I haven't lived long enough to see the hatred disappear that put those signs up in the first place.

Truth

2007-03-14T16:10:00.000-06:00

It seems that Republican has become a synonym for liar. These people simply can't tell the truth about anything. And they try to smear, even destroy, anybody who does tell the truth. If there were a burning hell, each of these despicable right-wing nuts should roast in it slowly, on a spit, like a turkey, whether feathered or suited.

Your Table Is Ready

2007-03-21T16:10:00.000-06:00

One of the things I miss most about Los Angeles is the food, any kind of food you could possibly want. Since there are over 90 languages spoken in L. A., one can rest assured that the choices in cuisine are many. But it wasn't haute cuisine that gave me the most joy in this multi-cultural city

First of all, I'll address the obvious. There aren't many American cities that can offer the quality of Mexican food that Los Angeles can, and one of my favorite meals was in East L. A. at a mom and pop restaurant the name of which I can't remember. They spoke no English, but fortunately I was brought there by a good friend whose surname was Ruiz. It was a fine meal in an authentic atmosphere.

Another spot for Mexican food is a chain called Baja Fresh, one location of which was only minutes from my home, on Sunset Blvd. near Crescent Heights. The food was prepared as one waited, and it was not only fresh, it was delicious. I enjoyed taking the food home, as there were just simply too many Hollywood "wannabees" any time I went in.

Let me not forget the best individually owned Mexican restaurant that I patronized, El Coyote on Beverly Blvd. The crowds speak for themselves, as the quality is excellent, and the portions are large. If you go during the dinner hours, you'll probably have to wait for a seat. A friend of mine once celebrated a 20th anniversary here, and he paid for everybody's meal! Great food, great friend.

An institution in Los Angeles is Pink's Hot Dogs. There's always a line around Pink's, which has been serving the public for over 64 years. My favorite was a chili dog with cheese. You can see Pink's in a new Volvo commercial and in a commercial featuring the guys from "Entourage."

Of course there was quite a variety of seafood in this port city. One famous place, Gladstone's, was located on the beach at the very end of Sunset Blvd on Pacific Coast Highway. It's worth the trip, especially if one can be seated at one of the windows overlooking the beach and the Pacific Ocean. The food is well above average and priced within the reach of working folks. The portions are large, so prepare to take something home with you.

Just north on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu is a smaller, less fancy place called The Reel Inn. I prefer it over Gladstone's, as the food is better and no more costly. You order, wait, then take your basket to a seat inside, or outside on the patio. I could eat here at least once a week. It looks like a shack from outside, but don't be fooled.

Deli food is also easily available in this food heaven, The City of Angels. Canter's Delicatessen, in the Fairfax District, is open 24/7 and has been satisfying local palates since the 1930s. I simply adore their Reuben sandwich. It's so large that it's hard to get my mouth around it. Add some cole slaw or potato salad as a side, and slide into a kind of fugue even better than drugs! This is one of the reasons I'm "slightly" overweight.

I'm adding another deli, Jerry's Famous Delicatessen on Ventura Blvd. in Studio City. I must, as it served the best Cobb Salad I've ever had and also provided desserts that were truly magnificent. I'm sure you can get a good pastrami sandwich, too.

Being a southerner, I love good meatloaf. And the best place I found for this was Kate Mantalini's, an upscale eatery on Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills. Add the garlic mashed potatos, and feel true southern comfort. After the world premier of "Driving Miss Daisy," which I attended, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, I tasted Kate's food for the first time. A close friend who worked for the producer of the film, Richard Zanuck, invited me to one of the most enjoyable evenings I had in my time in California. When one of my old college professors from 1970 came from Alabama to visit his daughter, a local attorney, I picked Kate Matalini's to break bread with him.

To complete my tour, I take you over Laurel Canyon Blvd. from Hollywood into Studio City. At the corner of Ventura and Laurel Canyon Boulevards is the home of the best pancakes in the world, yes, in the world, DuPar's Restaurant. Add a side of "crisp" bacon, and you know that God is a chef. I had my first DuPar's pancakes in 1980 during a visit to one of my oldest friends who had left Alabama, my early home, to become a professional actor, which he did. When I could think of no place I really wanted to eat, DuPar's was always the answer. When I first enjoyed these wonderful pancakes, I could eat a full stack, 5 pancakes. When I left L. A. in 2006, I was able to finish only a short stack, 3 pancakes. But it wasn't for lack of trying.

How I miss the good eating in Los Angeles! An addendum to the variety of food in L. A. is the fact that one could order almost anything delivered to his home. What wonderful culinary memories I have.

An Apple a Day-Part II

2007-03-27T03:59:00.000-06:00

My first class as an English Instructor, at Valencia Community College, Orlando, Florida, was Introduction to Literature:

1/3 poetry; 1/3 prose; 1/3 drama. And I did the very best I could to keep an even distribution. One of my surprises during the semester was how well the class responded to Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller's classic comment on modern life. Since Valencia is a community college, many older students come back to school, and there's always a good mix of ages and opinions, one of the reasons I like the community college setting. The night I went home after the final exam, I wept because it was over, as I wasn't prepared for the kind of bonds that can quickly form in a classroom, but my grief was shortlived as the assignments for the next semester were quickly given out.

I was hired over the telephone, sight unseen, given my textbook the night of the first class, and wished good luck. It wasn't the most auspicious of beginnings, but I got through by doing what I always did -- being myself. A class can spot a phony a mile off, so just be yourself.

I stayed at Valencia Community College as a adjunct instructor, then was hired on a tenure track, full-time position in 1986. By this time I had also spent a year teaching the the University of Central Florida. We part-timers couldn't have enough jobs. A laugh-out-loud thing happened in one of my Valencia composition classes after I told the class to write about anything they wanted. One young woman asked, "Anything?" I said, "Anything." I should've known better. Her paper turned out to be a detailed description of a birthday present she had given her boyfriend -- a threesome. If you don't know what that is, it's okay. Suffice it to say that I never let my classes write about "anything" again.

I left Florida for California in December 1986, and I didn't get another teaching job until 1990, when I was invited to work as an adjunct at Los Angeles City College. This was truly the Los Angeles teaching experience, as I had students from all over the world, all struggling to get a foothold in the land of opportunity. My first class was a remedial English class that from a teacher's point of view was almost perfect. They were hungry to learn, to "do it right," and they worked hard, listened intently, and joined in every discussion. When this wonderful class was over, they gave me a teddy bear and a Lakers' shirt. Of course I still have them.

I would've stayed at City College forever but for the exigencies of working as a part-timer during budget cuts in education.

It was also at City College that I received my all-time favorite student essay. It was entitled "The Village We Left Behind," and it was as sweet a posting as I had ever received before or since. A young Vietnamese woman had had to leave her homeland as the Americans left, and she wrote about it in an honest, evocative way that still brings tears to my eyes. It's good that she wrote it before some idiot writing instructor had ruined her naturally beautiful style forever! I liked the Vietnamese women in my classes, one of whom had been born in an underground shelter in Hanoi as U. S. bombers blasted the earth above them.

One of the things that Chair of the English Department told me when I was first hired was that most of my students will have never been told they can succeed, will have never been encouraged. Part of my job was to convince them that they could. I worked hard at teaching them both English and an attitude, the attitude that they could go out in this big world and have a life. It was difficult at times, especially when their own parents had discouraged them from pursuing higher education. I'm sure that some of them heard me, and I miss them still. It's too bad that intellectual achievement isn't revered in all cultures.

Good news on the education front today is that my son's M. S. Thesis in Psychology has just been appoved by the Provost of his university. He's 44 years old and has earned this degree while working full-time and being a father and husband. I received my M. A. in English at the age of 43, having worked full-time and having tried to be a husband and father. I'm really proud of my son because I know how hard it is. Way to go!

An Apple A Day-Part I (Originally Published 3/23/07)

2007-04-25T22:05:00.000-05:00

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I enjoyed nothing more than teaching, which I worked at for only about 20 years of my working life. I came to it late in life, at the age of 43, but I came to it with a passion. There were several reasons why I finally chose the path that I had been thinking about for years and years.

The first reason is probably the fact that I, myself, loved going to college and graduate school. I was lucky, too, in that I had almost 100% excellent professors and instructors, no matter the subject. I was an excellent student when I wanted to be, which was most of the time, and I had always been intellectually curious. Another reason is that as I worked in other fields, I missed the give and take which had always been a part of my classroom activity as a student. Finally, I wanted to continue learning in an active way. And I did learn from my students, at least as much as they learned from me.

After a tour in the U. S. Marine Corps, I returned to Birmingham, Alabama, and went to work for the U. S. Postal Service. I was 21 years old, and it was the best job I'd ever had. But early on I knew that a career in the post office wasn't for me. So I took the requisite tests to enter the University of Alabama Extension Center on the southside of the city. This was several years before it all became The University of Alabama at Birmingham (U. A. B.), which was to become my alma mater. I entered the Extension in September 1962. I graduated in the second graduating class at U. A. B. in 1971 with a B. A. in English.

When I entered that first English class in the Fall Quarter 1962, I met a woman who would change my life, Elizabeth Brock, PhD. Dr. Brock was a formidable intellect, a great teacher, and the first truly liberated woman I had ever seen. Any student could see that she believed without qualification in what she was doing, so it was easy for me to believe in it. She encouraged me in my writing, pushed me to keep polishing it. Things she said to the class I still remember clearly, and I decided that if majoring in English could develop such a person as she, then it was for me. Someone once asked me what I was going to do with a major in English. My reply was simple, "Enjoy it." I was able to contact Dr. Brock a few years ago at her retirement home and tell her what she had meant to me. We both enjoyed the conversation very much.

In the summer of 1964, I transferred to a well-respected, private, liberal-arts college, Birmingham-Southern C0llege. Once I adjusted to the pace of the place, I even made the Dean's List while working full-time and trying to support a family. However, I also partied too much, lost my job, and left school. In the Fall of 1969, I returned to U. A. B. with a resolve to finish, which I did. In June 1971, with my wife, 3 children, and grandmother present, I walked across the stage and took my degree. I was worth every late night study session and every sleepy day.

After getting a job in the federal service, I began graduate school at U. A. B. on a part-time basis in the Fall of 1972. Again, I loved the study, and I loved the academic atmosphere. I studied on a graduate level until I transferred in my work to Florida in December 1975. Of course, my graduate study was interrupted -- until September 1976, when I began a course of study at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, another well-respected, private, liberal-arts university. I finished my course work in 1979, but due to family problems, didn't submit my thesis until November 1983. It was quite well received, and I was quite relieved. My grandmother attended that graduation, too. And the M. A. led to my first teaching job in September 1984 at Valencia Community College, Orlando, Florida. I walked into that first class scared out of my mind, but a few sentences later, I was right at home, happily at home, feeling that I should've been there all my working life.

I Still Miss Los Angeles

2007-04-25T22:50:00.000-05:00

I know L. A. is crowded. I know that the traffic is horrible. I know that people aren't friendly, sometimes even rude. I know the city is fueled by narcissism. But I still miss Los Angeles.

My wife, Jane, and I were living a regular, mostly pleasant, life in Winter Park, Florida, in 1986. We had friends. I had a tenure-track teaching job at Valencia Community College, and my wife was employed in alcohol-drug rehabilitation. We could've easily gone on like that until retirement. But in our mid-forties, we wanted a new adventure. The place we chose to have it, after some serious consideration, was Los Angeles, California.

I had been to L. A. many times over the years, and I had enjoyed each and every visit. Without being able to explain exactly why, I always felt better there. I always enjoyed the atmosphere in every sense of the word. And I had wanted to live there for a very long time. In 1981, before we married ourselves, we were invited to an old friend's wedding, a man I had known since 1964, when we were poor college students in Alabama. He had come to L. A. to become an actor, which he did. Having just received a small inheritance, Jane agreed that we should go. So we did.

My old friend and his lovely bride were married on the beach as the Pacific Ocean gently slapped the sand. It was a lovely ceremony, and the restaurant facing the beach housed the reception. Sorry to say that this nice beachfront eatery was destroyed by one of those awful Pacific storms which occasionally threatens everything on or near the water. Anyway, on that wedding day, a good time was had by all. Jane loved Southern California, and we subsequently talked often about returning. We finally made the decision in 1986.

We drove into SoCal on January 6, 1987, under a double rainbow that arced over Indio, California. It seemed like a good omen, if you believe in stuff like that, and what followed was almost 20 years of the best and worst times of our lives. In Los Angeles, my wife's professional life simply soared. She serendipitously entered a very special field which not only paid well but was very interesting, too. I was able to experience the best years of my work life teaching at several community colleges and universities in the area. I also worked a couple of years at Paramount Pictures, where I saw things I never dreamed I'd see. The worst times need no description, as they were far outweighed by the best.

However, one very, very important reason for our going to Los Angeles had to do with our ongoing abstinence from alcohol. My wife and I have been members of a well known "self-help" group since the 1970s. Becoming a part of that group saved our lives, as it has hundreds of thousands of others since its founding in 1935. So, when we attended my friend's wedding in 1981, we, of course, attended some meetings of this group in the city, and what we found figured prominently in our decision to move there. It was the best we had seen in our many years of affiliation.

Even though the principles and guidelines for living that this group espouses are the same all over the country and in the many nations in which it is also active, some areas are simply stronger, in a word, better. We're still members of this wonderful organization as we live in Minnesota, but we both miss the way it's done in L. A. We always will.

The Golden Years

2007-04-25T23:10:00.000-05:00

As people age, the most striking and disturbing aspect of the process is, for some, the usually slow, but sometimes sudden, loss of independence. And a person simply cannot understand what that means until he or she experiences it.

In 1962, I started college as a married father of two, soon to be three. I had completed my military obligation and was working for the U. S. Postal Service. I attended college at night. My grandfather, born in Southwest Georgia just before the turn of the 20th Century, was slowly fading, approaching that long night we all face. His health would never improve, and he would die in his own bed during one of my infrequent visits with him.

During his decline, I contributed little to his comfort, ran no errands for him, took him nowhere. I did take some of my precious time to visit him during his last hospitalization at the Veteran's Administration Hospital. It was convenient, as the hospital was within walking distance of the University of Alabama Extension Center, which I attended. Later I went to the house which he built and I grew up in, and I shaved him, as he simply couldn't do it for himself. With no tone of anger or reproach, he asked me if I could visit him more often. I said yes, of course. But I didn't visit him more often. I spent more time with Chaucer and John Keats than I did with the man who had given me so much and had tried to teach me how to be a decent human being.

I look back on all that now with some added clarity, for my own world has grown smaller as my health has begun to decline. I'm in no way as sick as my grandfather was, but my degenerative spinal condition and my lung disease have definitely made me more dependent on others than I ever thought I'd be. It would be very difficult for me to live alone today, and my wife does things for me that I used to not even think about as I went about my daily life. At the time of my grandfather's death, I was healthy, robust even. I often worked 50+ hour weeks in a physically demanding job and attended college, too.

There is nothing I can do to change the way I acted in the past. I can only hope that my grandfather somehow knows how much I regret my selfish behavior. I still say to him how sorry I am.

As W. B. Yeats wrote, " 'All that's beautiful drifts away/Like the waters.' " Yes, it does.

Fortunate Son

2007-05-05T08:35:00.000-05:00

For those of you not old enough to remember, the title of this piece is taken from a song sang loudly and angrily during the Vietnam War. It refers to young men whose fathers were lawmakers themselves, which spared the sons the opportunity to get killed in the muck of Vietnam. The rest of us had no such protection, though some, like the coward Dick Cheney, managed to get, I think, 5 student deferrals. He said he had other priorities. I'm sure the 50,000 plus listed on the Vietnam Wall had other priorities, too. Not one of the architects (which falsely implies an actual structure) of this senseless war in Iraq served his or her country.

Republicans are good about that, about asking someone else to do the fighting and dying. George W. Bush hid behind an Air National Guard commission, which his influential father had arranged. Cheney, of course, simply hid, as he continues to do. Karl Rove avoided military service, as did Paul Wolfowitz. This is nothing new, I know. But when are the American people going to stop allowing their sons and daughters to be sent to slaughter without demanding the same sacrifices of our leaders and their children? It isn't patriotism to swallow the propaganda of selfish, short-sighted, power-hungry, moral dwarfs. In fact, it's patriotism to question constantly, to challenge the official pronouncements of such men, if they can be called such, as Bush, Cheney, Rove and Wolfowitz.

And it would be nice if our fellow citizens who work in the Fourth Estate gave us a little help for a change instead of parroting the latest White House press release. The media helped get us into the quicksand; they should help get us out.

The Way We Were

2007-05-15T19:51:00.000-05:00

I'm not a nostalgia buff. Really! But the world was, in many ways, a better place when I was growing up than it is now. At the very least, the war I was born into had a real purpose: to save civilization

But there were other aspects of life, too, that were better. Even as a kid of 10 or 11, I could get on a city bus alone, or with a friend, ride to downtown Birmingham, Alabama, go to a movie at the majestic Alabama Theater, eat at The Krystal or Krispy Kreme, or both, visit the magic shop, just spend the day in fun, and arrive home safely.

I'm sure there were people dangerous to children then, as always, but I just don't remember hearing much about it growing up. Was it not reported to the authorities? Were there not newspaper articles about it? Of course, my family had no conversations about such things. We didn't talk about much of anything important, though my grandfather gave me wonderful life lessons that I still remember, but probably applied too little in my life.

Schools, too, weren't the cesspools so many of them have become. You went to school, you obeyed the teacher, and you did your lessons. If you didn't to these things, you found yourself in the Principal's office, and maybe later facing an even sterner parent or grandparent. Being a drop-out was a sign of cataclysmic failure in the eyes of most kids back then. I'm glad it was. I didn't think about quitting school until I was a senior in high school. But school certainly wasn't a place to be a smart-ass or a trouble-maker, not unless you wanted to find yourself in juvenile hall. School was quiet enough to learn, and I'm thankful for that. And I'm grateful for the teachers who gave me a good foundation and didn't put up with any crap from me.

People were definitely more polite back then. There wasn't the rampant anger I've seen grow over the last several decades. There was civility, an accepted standard of civility which has been lost. People today are often rude, sometimes angry, and occasionally downright dangerous simply because they've not been taught any manners, any restraint, any ability to postpone gratification, and any concerns for the rights and welfare of others. They want what they want, and they want it RIGHT NOW.

We might, too, have had one student in school whom we labelled a "bully," but we didn't have gangs of worthless punks who terrorized us. And usually even the "bully" eventually got his ass kicked by somebody. There was, on top of this, a decidedly lower pregnancy rate among teens in the post-War forties and the fifties. I don't think that was such a bad thing, though my guess is that I came into this world unplanned in that way. I'll allow this one exception.

No, I'm not some old fogey who looks back on the "good old days." Hell, these are the "good old days." These are the days we're living now, looking forward to a few more. And today I'm at least not unhappy about being here.

Memorial Day - Part I

2007-05-24T13:36:00.000-05:00

It pains me to know that we're going to have so many more young men and women to remember this Memorial Day than last. And it pains me to know that George W. Bush will be participating in nothing more than a photo-op as he puts a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. Bush doesn't honor our fallen military when he shows up on Memorial Day -- he dishonors them. "Cut and Run" was his modus operandi during the Vietnam War, and his political murder of so many thousands since we invaded Iraq is unconscionable. George W. Bush is not only a coward, he's a war criminal. Jimmy Carter was right when he described Bush's foreign policy as the worst in history. And to compare Carter's administration, as bad as it was, to today's Republican gang of thugs is vile. God Bless our men and women who serve, even if their "leader" is a dim-wit.

Memorial Day -- Part II

2007-05-28T11:51:00.000-05:00

As you enjoy your holiday activities this Memorial Day weekend, please take time to remember those who died in defense of our liberties. I joined the U. S. Marine Corps during my senior year in high school on what was called a delay basis. I arrived at Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training on August 1, 1958. In many ways I was fortunate in that there wasn't a war for me to fight at that time. And nobody started one during the three years of my military service. But many were lost in war before I arrived, and many would be lost after I was discharged. So I ask you to remember them today, not as a publicity stunt or a photo-op, but as a sincere prayer for those young men and women who never got the chance to fulfil their dreams, to grow old, to live a full life as I've done.

It's difficult to talk of politics in these times, as our leaders have no sense of shame and no connection, however tenuous, to reality. On the worst day of life loss in Iraq, we can easily be told that the situation is improving. On a day when a normal man would be completely embarrassed by his past actions, our president can voice support that this man keep his job as our top law enforcement officer. In a period when science offers us an opportunity to cure some of the most insidious diseases, our president ensures that stem-cell research is thwarted. And the world is about 6,000 years old!

Send your prayers wherever you send them, but remember our fallen troops of all our wars, both necessary and misguided. I'm just so sad and angry that I can hardly write without falling into polemic. Enjoy this holiday, but remember.

California Dreamin' Two

2007-06-19T19:47:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the elephant sits in the room for months and months before anybody says anything. That's what happened with me and my wife once it really hit us that we really are living in Minnesota. Today, after my physical therapy, I came home to pick her up and take her to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for a flight to Cleveland for her company. I'd been fighting back tears all day, not exactly sure why, so when she sat down on the day bed across from my favorite chair, I just lost it.

After I let the pressure out, I said, "I hate it here." She replied immediately, "So do I." Finally! Both of us had been feeling this for quite some time, but neither wanted to say it, so as not to cause the other to feel bad or worry for the other. Now we were able to talk about it. We both agreed that almost everybody we know and love is in Los Angeles, where we lived for almost 20 years and left a year ago. We came to Minnesota for good reasons and with all the information we could've had at the time. But this isn't home and never will be.

Regardless of all the negatives you've probably heard about the City of Angels, it's a fascinating place to live. There's so much more to do in L. A. than most of its citizens ever get around to. There are restaurants of every variety and price range. And the A. A. in Los Angeles is the best in the world, not to mention that our oldest and dearest friends are there.

I don't know what we're going to do, at least for a while, as my wife's very good job is only three months old. Lucky for us, her multinational employer also has locations all over the United States.

For now, we'll take it one day at a time, do what's in front of us, and let the future unfold as it will. Wish us luck.

Turn Your Clocks Back 100 Years

2007-07-15T22:13:00.000-05:00

I'm going to Birmingham, Alabama, tomorrow. If it weren't for the fact that my youngest child is visiting from the Middle East, I wouldn't even consider it. I look forward to seeing her and her 4 beautiful children, as it may be the last time I see them in this life, but I am near nausea thinking about being in that city. I hope you had a Happy Bastille Day.

Enola Gay

2007-11-02T09:16:00.000-06:00

The man pictured in the pilot's seat of the most famous B-29 in history is, of course, the pilot, then Col. Paul Tibbets. On August 6, 1945, the first atom bomb used in war, called "Little Boy," dropped from this airplane (named for Tibbets' mother) and exploded 1,890 feet above ground zero at Hiroshima, Japan. This one plane which dropped one bomb is said to have hastened the end of World War II, avoided an invasion of Japan, and saved hundreds of thousands (or more) lives of our young soldiers, sailors, and marines. Oddly enough, I had yesterday talked to a man who had participated in the atom bomb testing at Bikini Atoll in 1945.

As I am wont to do, I engaged a man in conversation while waiting for new prescriptions at Walgreen's in Bloomington, MN. The man was obviously quite my senior, and it turned out that he had served in the U. S. Navy during WWII. As we talked, he told the story of watching his father's farm being auctioned off during The Great Depression and subsequent years of itinerant living his family endured almost to the beginning of that great war. I then learned that he had served his country, had seen the U. S. S. Saratoga sink, and had been part of the testing of the a-bomb. He hadn't heard the news of Paul Tibbet's death, and it definitely had an effect on him.

He said something I've heard many times over the years. Dropping those bombs (a second, called "Fat Man," was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945)) saved more lives than were lost in the blast and its aftermath. Given the history of our government's lies to us over the last 60-plus years, one must be skeptical of all official versions of history.

However, I come down on the side of those who say the bombs should've been dropped. Invading a country of people who thought their leader was "divine" isn't a prospect I would relish, as their fanaticism and visciousness in the conduct of the war was almost beyond belief. One interesting fact I gleaned from my casual study of my favorite period of American history is that one had a more than 30 times chance of dying in a Japanese P. O. W. camp than in a German P. O. W. camp. Of course this comparison is primarily military, but the Japanese were truly viscious.

So, my conclusion has for some time been that we did the "right" thing, if you can call such a conflagration "right." One can't negotiate with a "divine" emperor or a leader who thinks he speaks to God.

In any case, I experienced yesterday afternoon something I've experienced a great deal over the years: people will tell you a lot about themselves if you'll just listen. And more often than not, what you hear is usually interesting and sometimes exciting.

Almost As Bad As The Day After Christmas

2008-11-30T01:08:00.002-06:00

You remember that, don't you? Every possible package has been opened, colorful paper and ribbons are strewn all about the common areas, and everybody seems to have sunk a little deeper down in their chairs. It happens each time we have a family holiday involving gifts. It's just a riff on the old theme, "what have you done for me lately?" You can't get rid of it. Don't try. Ignore it. Eat more. Get sick. Take a nap. But don't let the letdown let you down. Happy Thanksgiving!

Give Thanks

2008-11-27T03:56:00.006-06:00

Here it is Thanksgiving Day about 4 A. M., and I'm temporarily awake. Today we share our first Thanksgiving meal with our new community here at Ebenezer Tower Apartments; I hope there are many more to come.

On Wednesday I received news that I had been approved for Minnesota Medical Assistance, which means that I'll be covered even better than I was with Medicare. It also allows me to choose a new prescription drug plan better than anything Medicare offers. This is truly a big deal for us, as we're now living solely on our social security income, though my wife is going to try to work here in the senior building helping set up meds, cleaning, and taking non-drivers shopping.

For so long, we've had a run of lousy luck, mainly health problems, which resulted in extreme financial problems. Since 1999 I've had two heart attacks, two stents put in my heart, spinal surgery, and a near deadly lung infection, which left me using oxygen in order to have any quality of life. And because of the spinal surgery, I walk with a cane and can walk only short distances. As I have, my wife has also suffered clinical depression, fell on her face with an acute kidney failure attack, and undergone emergency dialysis. While in hospital, she was discovered to have congenital heart failure and underwent robotic heart bypass surgery.

During none of this have we been offered any real or lasting assistance by our children, so living in a community as we do now makes such a difference. Because of contacts we've made at both senior group therapy and in the senior tower, I wound up with the aforementioned aid from the State of Minnesota. I must say that Minnesota treats its seniors better than most places, and my wife and I are very grateful. The case workers have been tireless and unrelenting in getting all the paperwork done, and I've expressed my appreciation to them.

Of course, the ideal is not to have to use any of these wonderful services, but that's not realistic. At a certain age, one's health generally declines, even if it's just a little. Mine and my wife's has jumped and begun rolling down a hill. But fortunately we're in a location that doesn't abandon its old folks. It feels funny when I say "old folks," as I just don't feel old. My mind feels much the same as it did 30 or 40 years ago. Well, that's enough pre-holiday blather. All of you have a wonderful time with food and family. And be well.

The Smoke Starts to Settle

2008-11-10T23:51:00.007-06:00

Nothing yet seems different, but it's very, very early. The whirlwind of activities around President-Elect Obama are surely going on, and we learn about them through intermediaries and assorted aides who tell only that part of the story they want us to hear. Of course, news streams day and night, and we have to then decide what to cut off or what to listen to. Even still, some of the relentlessness of the campaign has settled, and some of us entertain some questions of how things will be. I'm certain that they'll be better! How could they get much worse!? We, of course, think about how much better things will be specifically? Will more people get to live in a 1 family dwelling? Will the economy return to even a portion of what it once was? Will we make progress in the War on Terror? Will we be able to send our children to the many fine but expensive colleges and unversities in our nation? Yes, we are wondering.

We know that dedicated people are working very hard right now to bring these positive change about. They come from a wide range of education, a wide range of competence, and a wide range of intelligence. Let us hope that Barack Obama wants around him the best and brightest he can get, not just cronies and college chums. And I also hope that these people will see public service as an honor, a chance to serve, a chance to give back to this country some of what it has given to them. Let's hope. I believe that Barack Obama wants these good things for us. So, in addition to hope, let us do what we can to bring about this better society that he talked about during this longest campaign in history.

As far as I'm concerned, one's political preferences say as much about him as anything. I know, without hesitation, that I couldn't live with a conservative, as their basic attitudes have everything to say about their attitude toward people. And it's not an attitude I could live around, much less live. I used to joke that I won't fly on an airplance if it doesn't have two left wings. While that elicited chuckles, even laughter, it's not far from the truth. I know that the television show, The West Wing, was fiction, but I could hope. And depending on what happens in real time politics over the next few years, I just might find my policitical life totally satisfied.

As Thanksgiving approaches, we can all be satisfied enough to give thanks that our government will no longer be run by unprincipled thugs and hacks and know-nothings. If nothing else, Barack Obama can bring intellect and intelligence and curiosity back into the White House and the working of government. He will surround himself with very capable people, all of whom have minds of their own. And this President will encourage their use, rather than hide from an answer he either disagrees with or from a question he doesn't understand. This is going to be a thinking man's government. It's about time.

Mr. President

2008-11-07T17:04:00.005-06:00

Barack Obama's election this week to the highest office in the land and the most powerful office in the world was near earth-shattering. It just hasn't been that long ago when such a proposition was unthinkable, even laughable to some. But it happened, and we are so much the better for it. I was born in 1940 in Alabama and grew up (some would allege otherwise) there. The living conditions for black people was abysmal, and I don't hesitate to compare the Alabama I grew up in to South Africa and its system of apartheid. Whites in much of the American South simply had the power of life and death over black people.

I was fortunate to have had a role model, my grandfather, who never judged a human being by any measure but the content of his character. He taught me that people are pretty much the same all over, and he treated everybody with respect. But I never could have wildly imagined that a man of African descent would be elected president in my lifetime. Unless you know how horrible life could be for a black person back then, you can't know what a wondrous thing has taken place. It feels like my beloved country is getting its soul back.

Halloween Nightmare

2008-10-30T22:18:00.004-06:00

Here it is Halloween, and I don't have the money to purchase the medications that my wife and I need. These aren't recreational drugs; these are prescribed drugs for specific conditions. I used to wonder what older people did when they couldn't afford their medications. Now I know. They don't take them. They do without, and risk their health. Of course I have Medicare Part D, but that doesn't help but a small part of the year. Then you're back to paying retail.

We now live totally on our two Social Security checks. I know that we should've planned better, but we didn't. But that doesn't mean that we're undeserving of a thoughtful, balanced, and affordable health care system, including prescriptions. The politicians of our great nation have failed us miserably as regards health care. Barack Obama says he will change this, and I hope he has the guts to push hard because greedy pharmaceutical companies and greedy doctors will be pushing back by buying more Senators and Representatives.

If we give our mandate to Obama, and it's a mandate we'll need, we then must hold his feet to the fire until we get Universal Health Care in this rich nation. Go out and VOTE! on Tuesday next.

It's That Time Again.

2008-10-21T00:00:00.010-05:00

It's late Semptember when it begins, when one feels that first nip of cool weather. Then tree leaves turn red, yellow, orange, brown, oftentimes creating a gloriuosly bright surrounding in which we go about our daily tasks. Even though this is a season of "dying," autumn strikes me as very much alive. The colorful leaves we see every day will soon fall, one by one, to the earth below. The death will have been completed. Until that time, there's a changing, daily show for us, as no tree stays the same. And until this "lying down to rest" is completed, the show will go on.

A phenomenon which is a part of this process for me almost every year is the slight surprise I feel when all the leaves are down. In my busy life, I probably didn't stop to see the kaleidescope of colors, at least as not often as I should have. Then, poof! It's all gone. And we're left with the starkness -- which has its own beauty. But it seems as if one day I'm driving down the street admiring the lovely colors, and the next day I'm looking at bare limbs, limbs being held out to cradle the coming snow.

And soon after, I'll awaken one morning to see the serene beauty brought by the soft, white snow on those stark tree limbs which just a few weeks ago had been blazing with color.