Aunt Ludie and Prince

I was reading the news on the Web and I ran across a story about a married couple who had been married for 61 years, and they died 12 hours apart. It reminded me of a married couple in my family. They lived on a farm in rural Sussex County, Virginia.

I was a kid when I knew them, and to me they looked old as grit. I remember them being really nice, cheerful people. The man was called Prince. I figured Prince was a nickname but never knew for sure. The woman was called Aunt Ludie. At least, that’s how it sounded to me. Maybe people were saying “Lutie.” I researched my family tree and didn’t find either name, but I found a Luana, and that might be her. They both looked a hundred years old, but part of that was due to many years of hard work under the summer sun. Their house lacked indoor plumbing. Yes, they had an outhouse. They also had a well. In the kitchen, instead of a sink and faucets there was a countertop with a cast-iron hand pump and a large bowl into which water was pumped for washing.

When we visited, my dad always took his .22 rifle and we would shoot cans and such off a fence post. Prince would join us but he just watched. Meanwhile, Aunt Ludie would prepare dinner on a wood-burning cook stove in her kitchen. Cast iron wood-burning cook stoves were not too unusual for farmhouses at that time. Until I was 6 years old I lived with my grandparents in the city, and my grandmother also cooked on a wood-burning stove. This was before air conditioning was common, and firing up a wood stove in your kitchen on a hot August day was quite an experience. It makes me wonder how people had been cooking food up to that point, if an ugly black iron stove that you had to build a fire in was considered a must-have high tech appliance. I hear one of those old-timers now: “Yeppers, I’m savin’ my money to buy one o’ them new-fangled wood-burnin’ stoves for my wife to cook on. She’ll be happier than a pig in mud!”

One weekend day, Prince drove into town on some errand. A man in the family – a son or nephew – was at the farm but he was working in one of the fields. He looked up and saw fire in the house. Aunt Ludie had been cooking and the stove had somehow ignited her dress. By the time the man reached her, she was badly burned. She died soon after.

Meanwhile in the nearby town, Prince suffered a massive heart attack and died. They both died the same weekend, maybe the same day. Neither knew the other was dying. Was it only coincidence? Was it something more? I don’t know. One thing I feel sure about is that neither of them would have known how to keep living without the other.

Movie Reviews

Trying to decide what flick to watch this week? Why go to a movie review website and read critical reviews and ratings, when you can simply take my word for what’s good?

To Blog Or Not To Blog

We had snow three times last week. Some days, the high temperature never reached freezing. Some days, the wind chill never got out of the teens. But not today; today the temperature is 77°F. Tomorrow is supposed to be the same. But a cold front is forecast to come through tomorrow evening and by the end of the week we might have snow flurries. This roller-coaster temperature is called “January in central Virginia”. January used to be a very cold month; it was February that was roller-coaster. But global warming has moved everything up a month. I have to start mowing my lawn a month earlier than I did ten years ago. So it’s understandable that February arrives in January.

Ellie Goulding

In 2010, English singer-songwriter and musician Elena Jane "Ellie" Goulding became only the second artist (after Adele in 2008) to both top the BBC's annual Sound of... poll and win the Critics' Choice Award at the Brit Awards in the same year.

Her debut studio album, Lights, was released in 2010. The album’s title track, “Lights”, was released in the U.S. in March 2011, and reached number one on the Billboard Pop Songs chart, number one on the Billboard On-Demand chart, and number two on the Billboard Hot 100. It remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for over a year and was eventually certified triple platinum.

The Day After

I watched the inauguration and now, the day after, I'm watching the TV news about the inauguration. Some ex-Presidents were at the ceremony. Bill and Hillary Clinton were there. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were there. George H.W. Bush just got out of the hospital so he didn't attend. His son, George W. Bush, also didn't attend. When contacted by phone, Bush reportedly said, “I’m tired of these stupid inaugurations. They're a big hassle. It’s always too cold. And besides, I don’t even like Obama.”

Just kidding, people. What Bush actually said was, “Because of my dad’s health I don’t want to leave him for an extended period. If only some form of transportation existed that could whisk me from Texas to the capital in two or three hours and then, after the ceremony, whisk me back to Texas.”

Don’t be silly, George. You’re talking science fiction. A machine like that would have to travel hundreds of miles per hour. Your body would be crushed.

There were a lot of people on the west front of the U.S. Capitol where the inauguration ceremony took place. Kelly Clarkson was there. Beyoncé Knowles was there. Katy Perry and John Mayer were there. Ke$ha was there, too. I have no idea how they got tickets to sit with the President and the VP and all the other nabobs. I guess you have to be a bigwig, or know a bigwig, or know someone who knows a bigwig. I called my Congressman well before the inauguration and talked with someone in his office. I asked for a ticket to the ceremony. I said I wanted to sit in the VIP section. The person I talked with wanted to know why I thought I was qualified to sit in the VIP section. I told him I have a cousin who lives near D.C. Well, apparently that’s not good enough if you want to rub elbows with the big cheeses. I didn't quite get everything he said, which was something about limited seating and riff-raff, but the end result was I could watch it on TV or I could stand in the cold with 800,000 other people and ponder how long the wait for the porta-potty was becoming.

I didn’t go. Their loss.

One Cold Flower

The temperature was 28°F when I got up this morning. As I type this blog, the National Weather Service says the temperature is 32°F and the wind chill is 22°F. Despite the sub-freezing early morning temperature, the rose beside my house still blooms. I just took this photo. It’s petals must be frozen but it’s determined to hang on. I hate to tell it this bad news, but it’s supposed to be 12°F tonight. And that’s actual temperature, not wind chill. There’s a chance we’ll have more snow Wednesday night, Friday, and Friday night. I just fired up the kerosene heater. With the heater in the room with me, I’m kept toasty. Toasty, I said, not toasted.

A Few Random Shootings

The National Rifle Association appears to have adopted a “Guns Save Lives” slogan. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that sometimes having a gun can save your life or protect your family. It happens. But the number of times a gun saves a life is very small compared to the number of times a gun takes a life. I was trying to locate a local news story in which a 4 year old shot his grandfather, so I went to Google and typed in something like “4 year old shoots grandfather”. Here are a few of the stories I found.

A 79 year old grandfather shoots and kills a 19 year old man who was beating his granddaughter. Score one for the good guys. (Story)

A 15 year old New Mexico teenager shoots 5 people to death, including his father, 3 young siblings, and a local pastor. (Story)

A Rochester man searching for an intruder shoots his 16 year old granddaughter. (Story)

A 7 year old Philadelphia boy gets his grandfather’s gun from a safe and his 8 year old sister shoots herself while playing with it. (Story)

A 15 year old Kentucky teen shoots his 14 year old friend while handling his grandfather’s gun. (Story)

A 2 year old Tennessee toddler shoots himself while playing with his grandfather’s gun. (Story)

A Texas man shoots his 3 year old granddaughter while shooting at a stray cat. (Story)

A 12 year old Missouri boy shoots and kills his 12 year old friend while playing with his grandfather’s gun. (Story)

A 4 year old Houston toddler shoots himself in the head. (Story)

A 13 year old Pennsylvania boy kills his grandparents for insulting his mother. (Story)

These stories represent a tiny sample of the gun carnage that happens all across America every day. In Chicago, 7 year old Heaven Sutton was killed by a stray bullet as she sold candy and cold drinks in her front yard. Heaven joined more than 270 school children that were killed in Chicago in three years and more than 4,000 people age 21 and younger who have been shot in Chicago in the last four years.

On a March evening last year, two Philadelphia teenagers were machine-gunned to death while riding a stolen ATV. Their bodies were riddled with more than 30 rounds from an AK-47 plus several shots from a Glock. A few hours earlier a 43 year old man was shot twice in the neck, once in the face, and once in the head. He died at the scene. That day wasn’t unusual; it was just another day in the “City of Brotherly Love.”

I never found the local story I was looking for, but I’m sure it’s on Google somewhere. Google says there are 4,340,000 more news articles like these.

Someone created a blog dedicated to child shootings. It can be found at “kidshootings.blogspot.com”. At the top of the page is this sentence: Every year, nearly 3000 children and teens die from gunfire, and nearly 14,000 are injured.

If it’s true that “guns save lives” then why isn’t America the safest country on Earth? After all, the civilian population has 300 million guns and we’re making more every day. We have more guns per capita than any other first world country. But the hard reality is that among developed countries, no country has as many gun deaths per capita as America. And no matter how many times people say “guns save lives” or stick the slogan on their car’s bumper or print it in huge letters on the side of their SUVs, I can tell you with certainty that repeating a slogan over and over won’t make it true.

I have my own slogan: “America’s children will be safe when people love their children more than they love their guns.”

The chart below shows gun murders per 100,000 people among countries in the developed world. The red bar represents the United States. Gun death rates in Japan, South Korea, and Iceland are so low that they are effectively zero.

Inauguration 2013

I watched today’s Presidential Inaugural ceremony which was held on the west front of the US Capitol. So I started thinking about the Capitol. Did you know the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid by George Washington in 1793? It was.

Here is what the Architect of the Capitol website says about the Capitol:

“The United States Capitol is located in Washington, D.C., at the eastern end of the National Mall on a plateau 88 feet above the level of the Potomac River, commanding a westward view across the Capitol Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument 1.4 miles away and the Lincoln Memorial 2.2 miles away.”

Did you know that the Capitol dome is made of cast iron? It is. The dome was built during the Civil War. There is a photo slideshow of the Capitol on Flicker. You can view it here and it is worth a look. There are many beautiful images in the slideshow; some taken in daytime, some taken at night, in summer and winter, and some that were taken while the Civil War was raging.

Atop the Capitol dome is a bronze statue of a woman. It is called the Statue of Freedom. It is the one object not shown clearly in the Flicker slideshow. So I’m posting a photo of it. Here it is:

Mid-January Day

It’s a mid-January day in central Virginia. I wish some climate-change deniers would come to my house and mow my grass. When I moved into this house nine years ago, grass mowing season began in early May. After a few years it had moved to April. Last year I began mowing the lawn in late March. Now it’s just January and while I have no intention of mowing my lawn in mid-winter, I can’t deny that it needs mowing. The grass hasn’t grown too much but the weeds are out of control.

Rose bushes bloom beside my house. The bushes are confused. They think it’s spring. I can’t blame them. The outside temperature was 61° F today and the sunshine made it feel warmer. But winter isn’t gone. It’s just hibernating for a spell. It will return. After all, it was only two days ago that we got snow.

The weather was too nice, the day was too pretty, to stay inside. I decided to walk around the ‘hood. On my walk I encountered Harley, a toy poodle. He was towing Mike, his human companion, at the end of a long leash. Mike and Harley walk past my house every day and usually twice a day.

I encountered a young man shooting basketball shots from the center of the street to a net set up at the curb. I walked past but then turned and asked, “Mind if I take a shot?” “Sure,” he said and bounced the ball into my hands. I took two shots and missed both. I hadn’t touched a basketball in five decades, plus it was a windy day. I decided the wind was the problem.

Later on my walk I encountered a black dog named Pepper. Pepper was accompanied by a youngish human female, name unknown. She (Pepper) was skittish but allowed me to pet her a little bit. I assumed she was named Pepper because she has black fur, and pepper, the spice, is also black. At least, black pepper is black. White pepper, on the other hand, is white. Black peppercorns and white peppercorns come from the same plant. Black peppercorns are picked green and dried in the sun until they turn black. White peppercorns ripen on the vine before they’re picked. White Pepper is also the name of an album by an experimental rock band named Ween. That’s a completely free nugget of information. You’re welcome.

I passed by two churches on my walk around the ‘hood. One is Baptist and the other is Presbyterian. The latter church had a sign which assured me that the next step was mine. It didn’t indicate what that next step might be. If I had extended my neighborhood walk by one more block, I would have passed by a third church. The church I didn’t pass was a Methodist church. I live within a veritable potpourri of Protestantism. Sola scriptura, sola fide.

I was almost back home when I encountered Paulette and Sippy Jane. I have earlier blogged about Paulette and her Shih Tzu, so no need to go there again.

All in all, a pretty nice day. A little cool, windy, lots of sunshine, people out walking their dogs. Back home, I watched the NFC title game. San Francisco beat the Falcons 28 to 24. That means San Francisco is going to the Superbowl. Last weekend, as I’m sure you’ll recall, the Falcons blew a 20 point lead to fall behind, only to make a comeback in the last half minute of the game to win. Today the Falcons blew a 17 point lead but this time there was no miracle comeback.

What am I doing now? I’m watching the AFC title game, of course: Ravens vs. Patriots. (It’s halftime.) The winner will play the 49ers in the Superbowl. I’ll let you know how it ends – just in case nobody on any of the TV news channels mentions it.

[Update] The AFC title game is over. Who won? Hint: Ray Lewis’ retirement just got postponed by two weeks.

Four Wheeling

Once I owned a Honda Civic. It was a good little front wheel drive car. It could turn on a dime and was thrifty with gas. It had what Honda called a “Honda-matic” transmission, which was a two speed transmission that the driver shifted, but there was no clutch pedal. Here’s how it worked: To start moving the driver would set the transmission to Low and give the car gas. When the car reached 10 or 15 miles an hour the driver set the transmission to Drive and kept going up in speed. One time I was driving along at a speed of 60 or 70 mph and I reached for something on the front seat. My elbow hit the shift lever and knocked it into Low. One would think there would be a lockout to prevent the transmission from entering low gear at that speed, but there wasn’t. The Civic decelerated hard and the engine whined with RPM well past the redline limit. If I hadn’t been wearing a seat belt my head would have hit the windshield. I quickly shifted the transmission back into Drive and the Civic settled down. Apparently, no harm was done. What a great car! But one day I knew I had to replace it.

I was driving to a friend’s house. It was a snowy day, but the Civic had never had a problem in snow – until this day. My friend lived in the country on the side of a mountain and his driveway was long and flat, then curved and went straight up a long incline that was so steep it was not easy to climb even in dry weather. The Civic got half way up the steep part of the driveway when the front wheels began losing traction. The Civic went slower and slower until it came to a stop. I slammed on the brakes, hoping to hold the car in that spot, but it was not to be. The Civic began sliding backward down the hill. As it picked up speed it began to spin until it was no longer sliding backward. Now it was sliding forward. The car reached the bottom of the hill where the driveway curved, but I knew it wasn’t possible, at the speed I was going, to steer the car around the curve. The Civic plowed straight ahead into deep snow which quickly brought the car to a stop. The Civic suffered no damage.

I got out of the car and began walking up the driveway. Partway up the driveway I slipped on the ice and wrenched my back. I made it up the hill and enjoyed my visit, but when I left the house I was unable to bend over to tie my shoe. I knew I needed 4 wheel drive.

I sold the Civic and bought a 4WD Subaru. I never again had a problem getting anywhere, rain or snow or ice. The only problem was that brakes don’t work well on ice, so I had to allow for a longer stopping distance when the ground was slippery, but as long as the snow wasn’t above the Subaru’s bumper, the car would take me anywhere.

One time I was driving on an unfamiliar road late on a rainy night. I came upon a curve and as soon as I entered the curve I knew I was going too fast. The Subaru went off the road and straight into a ditch and hit an embankment on the other side of the ditch. When it hit the embankment the engine cut off. I pushed in the clutch pedal and turned the ignition key; the Subaru started right up. I shifted the part-time 4WD gearbox into 4 wheel drive, put the transmission into reverse, let out the clutch, and backed out of the ditch and up and onto the road. Amazingly, there was no damage; not a scratch or dent to show for that little escapade.

When I sold the Subaru I bought a 4WD Jeep. Unlike the Subaru, the Jeep is full time 4 wheel drive. The gearbox has a Low range and a High range, but no 2 wheel drive mode. When it’s raining and I’m trying to make a left turn on a busy highway, and finally that small break in the oncoming traffic comes, I can step hard on the gas and the Jeep jumps across the highway. There’s no spinning of wheels or hesitation or drama. The Jeep just goes.

When I lived in the mountains I considered four wheel drive a personal necessity. I didn’t like being trapped by snow. I wanted the freedom to go wherever I wanted to go, whenever I wanted to go there. Now that I live in the flatlands, four wheel drive is no longer a necessity, but it’s still a nice-to-have. I’ve always said that I’d rather have four wheel drive and not need it than to need four wheel drive and not have it.

Good Morning Sunshine

Snow fell last night. This morning the sky is blue and the sun shines brightly. That’s the way it is after a snowfall. One day it snows and the next day is bright and sunny. The day after a snowfall is never cloudy, never overcast. The day after a snowfall is always sunny. Why is that? Is it a central Virginia thing?

My living room walls are painted with bone-white paint. I know that because I bought the paint and I painted them. But normally the walls look like they have been painted a very pale shade of green. That’s because the windows have awnings and so the light coming through them is primarily reflected off the green lawn or off green boxwoods below the windows. But now the lawn and the boxwoods are white, and the living room is filled with a brightness that never appears except on the lustrous day after snow covers the ground. The light outside is so dazzling that looking through a window hurts my eyes.

It’s late morning now, almost 10:30 AM, and the temperature is 37° F. Today’s high is supposed to be 41°. The snow is already melting under the sunshine. I hear an occasional thud as a patch of snow slides off the roof and strikes the awning below. By late afternoon it may all be gone. In the meantime, it makes a pretty day.

Soul Food

I never knew my dad’s father; he died when I was two. My dad’s mother lived a thousand miles away and I knew her only from the occasional visit. So when I talk about my grandparents I mean my mother’s parents.

My grandfather was born in 1884 and my grandmother was born in 1890, not very long after the Civil War. My grandfather’s parents were born in 1855 and 1860. My grandmother’s parents were born in 1838 and 1855. So, a mere three generations ago my ancestors (all white, I should note, lest you miss the point of this blog) were born before the Civil War. They were born at a time when it was legal for people to buy and sell other people in this country. Sometimes when I think about it, I’m amazed that only two generations of family stand between me and ancestors who were born at a time when slavery was an institution.

My great-grandparents grew up on farms. They ate what country people of their time ate: healthy food they grew themselves. They passed on to their children – my grandparents – their notion of what constituted proper food.

Every Sunday my parents took my brother and me to my grandparents’ house for dinner (as the midday meal was then called). To my eyes it was a feast, although I’m sure to my grandparents it was just Sunday dinner. Dinner consisted of kale, collard greens, spinach, black-eyed peas and butter beans (each cooked with a ham hock or bacon), buttered and salted corn on the cob (but not yellow corn; country people considered yellow corn fit only for livestock; we dined on Silver Queen), sliced tomatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon, pickled beets, sliced cucumber in vinegar, rolls or biscuits, corn bread (and sometimes “spoon bread”), fried chicken and country ham.

To me, this was ordinary food. It was what ordinary people ate. Didn’t everyone buy a bushel of butter beans at the farmer’s market and sit on the front porch while shelling them? Didn’t everyone buy snap beans and take them home to snap and “string”? (Most snap beans today don’t have this tough, fibrous “string” that has to be removed.) Didn’t everyone flavor their vegetables with ham or bacon?

Sometimes an evening would find me with my grandparents in their living room, and someone would produce a jar of pickled pigs feet. I was no more than five years old and I absolutely loved pickled pigs feet. It was the best tasting thing ever!

I grew up and went off to college where my meals were prepared by the university’s cafeteria. I ate most of my meals in the cafeteria because I had purchased a meal ticket, meaning I had paid the university up front for three meals a day whether or not I ate them. But sometimes a body has to take a break from institutional food, and I would escape the university and buy a BLT or a grilled cheese sandwich at a downtown lunch counter. None of it was the wholesome food my grandparents knew, but it kept me alive.

The summer between my second and third years of college found me working in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I found a really cheap place to live there. That place was Mrs. Yokum’s boarding house. Mrs. Yokum looked to be in her sixties or seventies. She owned an old three story house filled with boarders, mostly young males. Each room was occupied by two boarders. I shared a third floor room that was under the metal roof and above a kitchen, and on summer evenings it was sweltering. There was no air conditioning. One bathroom on each floor served all the boarders on that floor. It sounds dismal, but she provided a room and 3 meals a day for $15 a week.

Breakfast at Mrs. Yokum’s house was standard fare: eggs, bacon, sausage, grits. Maybe pan cakes, too. But lunch and dinner were special: country style cooking prepared by Mrs. Yokum and her helper, an elderly black man. This was summer and behind the house there were barrels of fresh vegetables purchased from local farms.

If you were not one of Mrs. Yokum’s boarders and you wanted to eat in her dining room, you could do that. The price of a meal was 90 cents. You paid your 90 cents and sat down at one of several round tables with a half dozen other diners at the table. Freshly prepared food was brought from the kitchen and placed in the center of the table. There was no menu, but there was plenty to choose from. Always, there were 3 or 4 meats (fried chicken and ham seemed to be always available), lots of country style vegetables, dinner rolls and biscuits, and several desserts to choose from. And, of course, iced tea came with the meal at no extra charge. You could eat as much as you wanted for 90 cents. If you ate everything on the table, they would bring more food out for you. When mealtime came, there were no empty seats in Mrs. Yokum’s dining room.

I don’t know what became of Mrs. Yokum and her boarding house. Needless to say, she did not get wealthy. She had an old car and one day she asked me to look at it. Until then, North Carolina had not required cars to be inspected, but the law had just changed. Now Mrs. Yokum had to have her car inspected and she wanted my opinion: would it pass inspection? I looked at the car and knew immediately that her old car would never pass inspection without repairs. I shook my head and wondered how Mrs. Yokum would be able to keep running her boarding house.

Another time, her kitchen sink developed a leak. I doubted she could afford to hire a plumber, so I went to a plumbing store and bought a tailpiece, trap, washers, and plumber’s putty. I replaced the old, leaking parts on the sink. It wasn’t a big deal. It was a small thing I could do to help an elderly lady who was supplying me with a place to sleep and three great meals a day.

Years later when I was describing life at the boarding house to someone, that person told me I had been eating “soul food”. Soul food? I don’t think so. I ate the kind of food that my parents and grandparents ate. I ate the kind of food that Mrs. Yokum’s parents and grandparents ate. It is called Southern cooking. It is widely known that Southern cooking is delicious due to its three major food groups: fat, cholesterol, and sodium. I don’t know about soul food.

A Few Quotes

"You taught me, baby, how the few who win, acquire what their hearts' desire. It ain't practice, it ain't skill. They'll help, but not as much as wanting will." –from the Broadway production Chess

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
–T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land

"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered." –Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

"In the book that is my memory, on the first page of that chapter that is the day I met you, appear the words 'Here begins a new life' ”. –Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova

"We must rise above the milieu into which we were born. Sometimes, doing that requires more strength than we can summon at that moment. Even so, we must try to remember that becoming a better person is our ultimate task. It is a task we may choose to put off today, to forget about tomorrow, but it is a task that will always await us and which circumstance will one day force us to confront." –VirtualWayne

"We aren’t supposed to understand all of reality. Quantum physics tells us there are some things in our reality that are unknowable. They’re unknowable not because we don’t have the right instruments or because our knowledge of our Universe is limited. Some things are unknowable in principle. They’re unknowable because the Universe won’t let us have certain kinds of information. They’re unknowable because that is the way our Universe is structured. Some kinds of knowledge, some kinds of information, really are, and always will be, beyond our grasp." –VirtualWayne

A Tale of Two Teams

You could take this story as an object lesson about life. You could take it as a story of good luck and bad luck. You could take it as a story of coincidences involving the number 31. It’s just an observation. Draw your own conclusions, if any.

You’ve probably heard of the Superbowl. (I said “probably” because I don’t know where in the world you live.) The American sport of professional football is in the middle of its post-season playoff games that will determine which two teams will meet in the Superbowl. This past weekend was the Divisional Playoff. I didn’t care who won but I watched anyway just to see some excellent football. There were four games over the weekend and I watched two of them.

On Saturday I watched the Atlanta Falcons play the Seattle Seahawks. It was a good game, and the closer the game clock got to zero, the more exciting the game became.

The Falcons took an early lead and were ahead 20 to 0 at halftime. The 4th quarter began with the Falcons leading 27 to 7. The Falcons seemed have the game well in control. Then the Seahawks started their comeback. The score went to Falcons 27, Seahawks 14. It went to Falcons 27, Seahawks 21. And with 31 seconds left in the game, the score went to Falcons 27, Seahawks 28.

The Falcons found themselves down by one point with just 31 seconds left in the game. What can a team do with 31 seconds and two timeouts? The Falcons’ coach, Mike “Smitty” Smith, knew his team needed only a field goal to win the game and he wanted that field goal. The Falcons came to life. They returned the kickoff to their 28. A pass moved the ball to midfield. Another pass moved the ball to the Seahawk’s 31 yard line, setting up a 49 yard field goal attempt. The ball sailed through the uprights and put the Falcons ahead, 30 to 28. There were still 8 seconds on the clock. The Falcons’ amazing, winning drive had taken just 23 seconds.

On Sunday I watched the Baltimore Ravens play the Denver Broncos. It was an exciting game – a crazy game. The score was tied 5 times. Late in the 4th quarter, the Ravens were down by 7 points, 28 to 35. The Ravens’ quarterback threw an incredible 70 yard touchdown pass to tie the score at 35. The Broncos got the ball back with 31 seconds remaining on the clock. What can a team do with 31 seconds and two timeouts – and the best quarterback in the league? The Broncos coach, John Fox, knew his team needed only a field goal to win the game. But the Broncos didn’t try to score. The coach told his quarterback to take a knee and let the clock run out. The coach may have feared his team, under pressure, would make a mistake that would lose the game in the final seconds. Better to let the game go into overtime. Better to play conservatively. So the Broncos let the clock run down to zero. The fans booed. The game’s announcers were incredulous. The game went into overtime. The Broncos lost.

Call Me Mr. Secretary

By now you probably have heard that Obama is going to nominate Jacob “Jack” Lew to be Secretary of the Treasury. And by now you’ve probably seen his signature which, if his nomination is confirmed, will appear on all of our newly printed paper currency. In case you haven’t seen it, the squiggle of loops below is Jack Lew’s signature.

Note that the name “Jacob Lew” contains 8 letters and the squiggle contains 8 loops.

It turns out that I have been signing Jack Lew’s signature for years and didn’t know it. I thought I was simply trying to get the ink to start flowing out of my ball point pen, when all along I was forging the signature of the man who may soon be our next Secretary of the Treasury. If Jack Lew knew just how many Post-It notes and grocery lists I’ve signed his name to, I might be in trouble. So, just saying: sorry about that, Jack. I won’t forge your signature again.

In the future I will use this entirely different squiggle whenever I need to get the ink to start flowing. Anyone can see that it bears no resemblance to Mr. Lew’s signature, thus eliminating any confusion as to which of us signed his name on my paper money and which of us scribbled out my grocery list.

You’re welcome, Jack.

No Death Star

I read that 34,000 people signed an online petition asking the US government to build a Star Wars–inspired Death Star. In Star Wars, the Death Star was about the size of Earth’s moon and could destroy an entire planet with an energy beam.

The Moon is 2,159 miles in diameter, so even a 1/20th scale model would be over 100 miles in diameter. But these folks wanted a full size Death Star. Obama’s science adviser estimated it would cost $850 quadrillion – that’s $850,000,000,000,000,000. Or to put it another way, that’s enough money to fully fund the federal budget at the 2012 level for 226,304,579 years.

However, the Obama administration nixed the idea. Quoting Paul Shawcross, a science advisor to the administration, “The administration does not support blowing up planets.”

Shawcross added, “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?”

I won’t discuss the coolness factor of being able to blow up planets, but you can’t argue with that last point. Still, when the day comes that astronomers spot a huge, killer asteroid heading toward Earth, we’re going to wish we had a Death Star.

Factoid

There is an archipelago – a group of islands – off the west coast of Africa called the Canary Islands. The islands are owned by Spain.

The Canary Islands (Spanish name: Islas Canarias) are not named after the canary bird. Rather, the bird is named after the Canary Islands.

When Roman explorers discovered the islands and found a fierce breed of dogs on one of the islands, they named the island Insula Canaria – “Island of Dogs”. By A.D. 300 the archipelago was called "Islands of Dogs".

Now you know.

The Walmart Extenuation

This morning cable news reported that Walmart was invited to send a representative to a meeting at the White House concerning possible gun laws. Walmart is America’s largest retailer and they sell guns, so it’s probable that they’re America’s largest seller of firearms. So what did Walmart do? They sent a message to the White House saying they couldn’t be there because everyone at Walmart was busy. To be accurate, they said there was a “scheduling conflict”.

The Walmart response reminded me of me asking a girl for a date in my younger years:

Me: “Would you like to go out this Saturday night?”

Girl: “Can’t. That’s the night I wash my hair.”

Me: “Well, how about Friday?”

Girl: “Can’t. That’s the night I get my hair ready for the Saturday night shampooing.”

And so on.

Who does Walmart get to write their lame excuses? Is it the guy in the mailroom? Come on, Walmart, you can do better. I can do better. I could write a better excuse in my sleep.

Here are ten possible responses Walmart could have sent to the White House:

We have a flat tire.
The company car is in a ditch.
The dog ate our invitation.
We’ll be out of the country that day.
We got lost in the woods.
We just took laxatives.
We have a migraine.
Isn’t that the Divisional Playoffs weekend?
We’ll be hung over that day.
That’s the day we wash our hair.

Now that I think about it, Walmart’s excuse for not going to the White House is just as good as the ten I listed. So never mind, Walmart.

Final note: After being laughed at by cable news all morning, Walmart changed their collective mind and announced they would send a representative to the meeting. Good thinking, Big W.

Another Modest Proposal

This country has two problems that are only going to grow.

Problem one: what do we do with the growing amount of nuclear waste created by nuclear power plants? Currently, the waste is being stored in pools of water at the nuclear plants.

Problem two: what do we do with our garbage after we run out of space for landfills? Cities and towns are growing and there is less isolated, unused land every day. No one wants a landfill for a neighbor.

Solution: we have a number of open pit mines. For example, the Bingham Canyon copper mine southwest of Salt Lake City is over 0.6 miles deep, 2.5 miles wide, and covers 1900 acres. When its copper is exhausted, let’s take our nuclear waste, encase it in cement, and put it at the bottom of this open pit mine. Then we start filling this huge pit with garbage from Utah and surrounding states. Eventually, after decades – if not centuries – the pit will become full and we can cover it with soil and move on to another exhausted open pit mine.

I know, I know … you have a better plan. Let’s hear it.

BCS Day

I went to my doctor this morning, to my PCP. I don’t like going to my doctor. She scares me. Specifically, when she reviews my blood work and she gets scared at the numbers and she says, “These numbers worry me”: that’s what bothers me. My blood lipids are so high that in an emergency you could substitute my blood for 90 weight gear oil. You could put a wick in my blood and light it, and it would burn for days. Oh well, it is what it is.

Tonight I watched the BCS Championship. I don’t follow college football rankings, so when I saw that Notre Dame was ranked #1 and Alabama was ranked #2, I felt like I had been transported to Bizarro World. In what system of reality is Notre Dame ranked higher than Alabama? In all the planets in all the galaxies in the Multiverse, Alabama should be ranked higher than Notre Dame. To be sure, Notre Dame has a good football program. But they’re not in the same league with Alabama.

As I write this, there are 4 minutes left in the game. The score is Alabama 42, Notre Dame 14. It’s garbage time. It’s time to let some of those guys that still have squeaky clean uniforms get off the bench and play in a championship game for a few minutes. Just so they can say, “I played in a national championship game.” And that’s what Alabama did. Good for them.

God’s Day Off

I have an excuse to not write a blog today. It’s Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. And God doesn’t like people to do certain things on the Sabbath. God is very keen on people keeping the Sabbath holy. In fact, remembering the Sabbath is God’s 4th commandment. This may cause you to wonder what kinds of things done on the Sabbath would annoy the Lord.

Ask any observant Jew and he’ll tell you that among the things God doesn’t like people to do on the Sabbath (though Jews have a different Sabbath) is any act that is creative. An observant Jew will unscrew the light bulb in his refrigerator – just for the Sabbath – so that opening the refrigerator door doesn’t create light. “Let there be Light” is strictly God’s deal, at least on the Sabbath.

But then Jesus came along and he said, “Man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man.” It’s enough to create confusion. (There’s that word again.)

There are an estimated 100 trillion trillion stars in the observable universe. And various observations suggest that the Universe we can see is an infinitely small fraction of what is out there. I figure a God big enough to create a Universe as big as ours isn’t likely to be concerned with what you wear, what you eat, and whether the light comes on when you open your fridge. But that’s me. Your mileage may vary.

I may go to Hell for this, but I’m clicking the Publish button on my blogging software.

A Modest Proposal

Under the US Constitution there are three branches of government. They are the Legislative Branch (the Congress), the Executive Branch (the President) and the Judicial Branch (the Supreme Court and Lower Courts). The three branches of government have equal power.

Which branch of the US government has the power to spend money?
Answer: Only the Congress has power to authorize spending. The President must spend the money that Congress orders spent.

Which branch of the US government has the power to tax?
Answer: Only the Congress has power to levy taxes. Congress writes the Federal tax code. The President must collect taxes in accordance with this tax code.

Which branch of the US government controls government borrowing?
Answer: The Congress controls borrowing by setting a debt ceiling. By law the government may borrow only as much money as the debt ceiling allows.

Spending = Taxes + Borrowing

The Congress controls all three of these factors. A problem arises because Congress likes to spend money but dislikes taxing and borrowing. The result of this behavior is that the equation gets out of balance; i.e., the left side is larger than the right side.

If the Congress orders more money spent than can be raised by taxes and borrowing, what can the President do? The President can ask Congress to cut spending (good luck) or the President can ask Congress to increase taxes and/or raise the debt ceiling. Who gets blamed when this happens?
Answer: the President.

I imagine the President is tired of always being blamed for trying to clean up the mess Congress makes. So I want to announce that, for the right amount of money, I’ll take the blame.  People can say, “Curses, VirtualWayne, look what you’ve done to our national debt!” I won’t mind as long the checks keep coming.

Shrinkage

I remember when one roll of toilet paper was one roll. Then the rolls got smaller on the outside and the cardboard cylinders they’re wound on got bigger. Finally a roll of toilet paper got so small it was ridiculous. So the companies that made toilet paper returned to making the original size roll but they called it a double roll. But it’s not a double roll, it’s just a standard size roll of paper. It’s the price that is double. No doubt the double rolls will get smaller and one day there will be a triple roll, or maybe a quadruple roll, depending on how far the paper companies want to stretch this fantasy that they’re selling multiple rolls of toilet paper wound on one cardboard cylinder.

I remember when a can of veggies was 16 ounces. Then the cans went to 15 ounces. Now the cans are 14.5 ounces. I wonder if the canning companies are in cahoots with the recipe-book publishers. What will you do when the recipe calls for a 16 ounce can of tomatoes and the only can you can buy is 12 ounces? You buy two cans and a new recipe book.

Not long ago a can of tuna fish was 6 ounces. Then one day all the cans of tuna fish became 5 ounces. Some companies went to 4.5 ounce cans. Today I bought a can of tuna and as I was putting it in the cupboard I noticed I could shake the can and feel the tuna shifting around inside the can. I looked at the label and saw that the net weight was 4 ounces. I expect that before long the net weight will go to 3 ounces, and shortly thereafter the companies that make the cans will go back to making 6 ounce cans and label them “double-size”. But we will all know it’s not a double size can of tuna; it’s a standard size can that sells for twice the price.

A quart of milk is still 32 ounces. There are no 29 ounce quarts in the stores, yet. At least, I haven’t seen any. But I bet someone in a dairy somewhere is designing one. And when they do, I bet they’ll tell you that you will get more milk for your money if you buy their new 59 ounce half-gallon.

NFL Post Season 2012

I wrote this mainly for diehard football fanatics’ wives and girlfriends who don’t understand what the playoffs are and wonder why they seem to be a big deal.

It’s like this, ladies. If your husband or boyfriend has a favorite team in the playoffs, that team is a potential Superbowl winner, at least until they’re beaten in the playoffs. That’s why it’s a big deal.

“How do the playoffs work?” I hear you asking. Simple. It’s like this:

The NFL (National Football League) has 32 teams arranged into 2 conferences called the NFC (National Football Conference) and the AFC (American Football Conference). Each conference has 16 teams.

Each conference has 4 divisions called North, South, East, and West. Each division has 4 teams. An NFL team may be identified by its conference and division, such as “the Washington Redskins are in the NFC East.”

At the end of the regular season, each conference has 4 division leaders who are the best teams in each division. Those teams go to the playoffs. They are ranked (or seeded, as it’s called) according to their won-loss records. The team with the best record is the number 1 seed. The team with the second best record is the number 2 seed, and so on.

Just to mix things up, the 2 best teams in each conference that are NOT division leaders also go to the playoffs. Those teams are called wildcard teams and they are seeded 5 and 6.

So each conference sends 6 teams to the playoffs.

This coming weekend, Jan 5 and 6, will be the Wildcard Playoffs. The #1 and #2 seeds receive a bye, which means they don’t play this weekend and they automatically advance to the next round of the playoffs. The #3 seed plays the #6 seed, and the #4 seed plays the #5 seed in each conference for a total of 4 games.

The following weekend, Jan 12 and 13, will be the Divisional Playoffs. The #1 seed will play the lowest surviving seed, either #4 or #5 or #6, and the #2 seed will play the remaining team, either #3, #4, or #5, in each conference, for a total of 4 games.

The weekend after the Divisional Playoffs is the Conference Championship. The two winning teams in each conference meet in the “title game” for their conference. So there are a total of 2 games played that weekend. The winners of these two games will be the NFC Champion and the AFC Champion.

The NFC Champion will play the AFC Champion in the Superbowl in February.

Told you it was simple.

NFC Playoff Teams
No. 1 Seed Atlanta Falcons (13-3) NFC South champions
No. 2 Seed San Francisco 49ers (11-4-1) NFC West champions
No. 3 Seed Green Bay Packers (11-5) NFC North champions
No. 4 Seed Washington Redskins (10-6) NFC East champions
No. 5 Seed Seattle Seahawks (11-5) NFC Wildcard
No. 6 Seed Minnesota Vikings (10-6) NFC Wildcard

Packers vs. Vikings	Redskins vs. Seahawks	Wildcard Playoffs
49ers vs. Packers	Falcons vs. Seahawks	Divisional Playoffs
49ers	Falcons	Conference Championship
San Francisco 49ers		NFC Champion

AFC Playoff Teams
No. 1 Seed Denver Broncos (13-3), AFC West champions
No. 2 Seed New England Patriots (12-4) AFC East champions
No. 3 Seed Houston Texans (12-4) AFC South champions
No. 4 Seed Baltimore Ravens (10-6) AFC North champions
No. 5 Seed Indianapolis Colts (11-5) AFC Wildcard
No. 6 Seed Cincinnati Bengals (10-6) AFC Wildcard

Ravens vs. Colts	Texans vs. Bengals	Wildcard Playoffs
Broncos vs. Ravens	Patriots vs. Texans	Divisional Playoffs
Ravens	Patriots	Conference Championship
Baltimore Ravens		AFC Champion

What the Yogi Taught Me

I never met the Yogi. But I met one of his acolytes when I returned from my long trip. I met him on Hilton Head Island where I didn’t live, had never lived, where from South Beach one can look out across the Atlantic Ocean and see distant tops of buildings in downtown Savannah rising from the waters like New Atlantis.

I was staying at the psychic lady’s house. I think her name was Dorothy. (Names have a half-life and it’s been much too long.) Dorothy’s paranormal ability was psychometry, the supposed ability to read a person by touching an object that has been in contact with that person, such as a house key or car key.

I met Dorothy through a friend. My friend and I had just completed a two month, ten thousand mile trek with my dog and my friend’s two dogs and the occasional hitchhiker and the occasional group of hitchhikers including the hitchhikers’ dogs. Sometimes it got loud. We were happy to stop at Dorothy’s home and unwind for a couple of weeks. And Dorothy was an angel for taking in what appeared to be a couple of hippie drifters and their three unmannered dogs.

One time – and this is just background – my friend pulled a train ticket out of his pocket and handed it to Dorothy. Dorothy knew nothing about the ticket. My friend had acquired it during a trip along the coast of Australia with ocean on one side of the train and mountains on the other side. Dorothy held the ticket in her hand and proceeded to describe to my friend the things he had seen on that trip, including the ocean on one side of the train and mountains on the opposite side. Later, when I had a chance to be read by Dorothy, I handed her my wristwatch. How did she do? She was good. She could have gone pro, in my opinion.

It was at Dorothy’s house that I met the acolyte, the follower, the teacher, a traveling salesman for the Yogi’s brand of meditation. It sounded interesting. I decided I was in. My friend was in. Dorothy was in.

We had to prepare. Each of us had to bring the teacher a small spiritual offering. I remember I brought an apple and one or two other small items. Maybe a handkerchief and a candle. That sounds about right. Oh yes, there was also a fee: cash or check, please. The acolyte of a Yogi can’t travel and eat for free. As the Yogi might have said to his followers, “You may be enlightened but you still need to fill out your income and expense reports.” Things were simpler two thousand years ago. Then you could shake the dust off your sandals and move on. Now we live in modern times and there’s a lot more paperwork.

There was a ceremony for each of us. I can’t tell you exactly what happened in the ceremony because I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to, even though I don’t recall signing a non-disclosure agreement. I can tell you this much: we received individual instruction in meditation technique and a personal mantra to be used in meditation. And the coolest part of the deal was if you paid for your instruction all at once instead of monthly you would get a deed to a square foot of land in Alaska!

No, you wouldn’t. I just made that up.

Yes, really, I did receive a tiny plot of land in Alaska that was blessed by the Yogi.

Kidding! There was no deed to any land in Alaska. Really.

Actually, there was. There really was. Now you’re confused, aren’t you? Meditation does that to you.

No, it doesn’t. Meditation makes you calmer and more clear headed.

And if you believe that, I’ve got a square foot of land in Alaska to sell you!

Okay, here’s the unvarnished, nitty-gritty truth. If you think no one got a deed to a tiny plot of land in Alaska, you’re absolutely right. The land was in Wyoming.

You’ll believe anything, won’t you?

New Year’s Day 2013

New Year’s Day has arrived like the first bookend on a shelf labeled 2013. We don’t know what books may be placed on the shelf between now and the arrival of the final bookend next New Year’s Eve. We’re hopeful that they will be nice, pretty books. But I think most of us live in the real world and we know it’s likely that somewhere on the shelf someone will place bloody, deranged books. We hope we don’t see those books this year, but with each passing year they seem to arrive more frequently, so I’m thinking we’ll see at least one. Be prepared.

This New Year’s Day is a grey, wintry day. It’s dark, and sometimes a cold rain falls. I read somewhere that centuries ago European peasants would go into their austere abodes at the beginning of winter and they would, basically, hibernate for the duration. They would get up to eat and take care of bodily functions, but then they would crawl back into their little nests and get under blankets and wait for spring. I don’t know if that’s true, but certainly there was little reason to be up and about in a cold house. There was no radio, no television, no shopping malls, no theaters, no cars, nothing but bare trees and frozen creeks and maybe a few animals to be fed. I think I’d hibernate, too.

I made a few New Year’s resolutions. It doesn’t seem like a real New Year’s Day without having at least a few resolutions that I can abandon at a future date. I can’t mention what my resolutions are. If no one knows what they are, then no one will know when I abandon them. I don’t want everyone to know that I ran out of willpower so quickly.

I didn’t buy black eyed peas, again. I never buy black eye peas for the New Year. If a serving of black eyed peas on January 1 really does bring good luck, then I suppose I’m a victim of my own karma. And I like black eyed peas. Both the legume and the group. So I have no excuse.

Though I don’t have black eyed peas, I do have Ezekiel bread in my freezer, and a few thawed slices in the fridge.  (You have to keep it frozen or it will spoil.) Ezekiel is supposed to have lived only on this bread for 390 days. The bread is said to be nutritionally complete. It’s not made from flour; it’s made from sprouted grains, which are more nutritious. I’m going to assume that karma will let me substitute Ezekiel bread for black eyed peas just this once. And perhaps some cream cheese on the bread? And a wee bit of blueberry preserves on the cream cheese? Karma, you rock!

Everyone, have a great New Year! Let’s try to make it through 2013 and come out on the other side in good shape. May we all receive, and create, good karma this year. Be good, do good.