On the (LSB) beam

Although I worked as a part-time employee in the mail room at Newbridge Bank (formerly Lexington State Bank) for five years after my retirement as a sportswriter for The Dispatch, I never grew a serious attachment to the place.

I always thought that kind of loyalty was reserved for the long-term, full-time employees – like my wife, Kim, who spent 31 years there. Those 31 years represent nearly half of her life on the planet.

But times change. Nothing lasts forever.

Consequently, when the current demolition of the main office building began about a month or so ago, I didn't feel much of an emotional impact. Each evening, when we took our daily walk together, Kim and I would stop and look at the debris from that day's reduction. Kim never shed a tear, but I could sense her anguish. How could it be otherwise? Clearly, she was weeping inside. "It's just so sad," she would say.

And then: "I wonder if they know about the beam?"

Signatures decorate a recovered I-beam at LSB.

 I knew about the beam. Back in 1987, when the new towering Center Street addition was being built, a steel I-beam was cere-moniously signed by most of the employees and board of directors and then raised to be installed on the still-to-be-completed fifth floor. It was a crowning moment for all and the gesture was meant to be a keepsake for posterity.

Turns out posterity lasted 34 years.

Kim told Deric Brady, a former Newbridge colleague and the current branch manager of what has now become First National, about the beam. Deric hadn't been hired yet when the beam was signed, but he was aware of its existence. Deric passed the information on to the workers of D.H. Griffin, the wrecking company hired to take down the building, telling them to keep an eye open for a special I-beam and where to look for it.

Then, on Monday, I got a call from Kim.

"They're knocking down the fifth floor," she said. "You better get over here."

I arrived about a half-hour later. Kim was already back at work, but I ran into Cathy Wilkerson, a former LSB/Newbridge employee. She was taking pictures and videos of the demolition, which featured a long-armed machine that looked like something prehistoric. A Caterpillarsaurus Rex (Wrecks?), maybe.

"Did you see the beam?" asked Cathy.

Here's a closer look at some of those names from 1987.

 And there it was, lying in the parking lot inside the enclosed (de)con-struction compound. It was a little bent and dusty, but not so bad off, all things considered. You could clearly see the 120 or so names written in silver or white marker.

I instantly went into time travel mode. Suddenly, Haynes Sherron, Bob Lowe, Kearney Andrews, Ronnie Hartzog, Wayne Kimbrell, Kathy Oakley, Cindy Norman, Earl Snipes, Ardell Lanier, Bob Timberlake, Dothan Reece, Jo Peoples, Steve Weeks, Robin Huneycutt, Max Church and a lengthy host of others were standing right there with me.

I rushed home to get my phone, which I had been charging. When I came back to take pictures, Deric was there.

"I did my job," smiled Deric, taking his own pictures of the beam so he could post them on the Legacy LSB & NBB Bankers group Facebook page. "Yes, you did," I replied. "Great job. And thank you."

As I was walking home, all that sentimental emotion that I couldn't find in earlier trips to view the demolition grabbed me by  the throat: What it meant for Kim. What it meant for me. All those names, some of them now gone. Ghost names.

It made everything personal. Very personal.

And it occurred to me, those names not only signified the people who worked there, but also the heart and soul of that business.

And I held back a tear.

Afghan sunset

It's been awhile since I've had such conflicted opinions, but the situation in Afghanistan is bewildering, to say the least.

On the one hand, I'm delighted to see us withdraw our military from the region. The United States has invested – and lost – $85 billion over the past 20 years trying to train and equip the Afghan army to defend itself against the oppressive Taliban regime. And what was the return? At least 2,500 lost American lives and an Afghan army that couldn't defend itself or its country.

Sounds a whole lot like Vietnam, doesn't it? Why didn't we learn from that experience? Or even the Russian adventure in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which also proved to be equally fruitless for them. Why wasn't that a clue for us?

And while I'm pleased to see us leaving the region, I can't help but feel appalled and let down by an apparently ill-conceived evacuation process that has left tens of thousands of Afghani allies in peril. How in the hell did it come to this? Wasn't there a better way?

This is all very complicated and nothing is in black or white. I'm not in the military, nor do I sit in meetings with the Joint Chiefs or with White House advisors. There are strategies and considerations that I'll never know about, much less understand.

All that I have are the images I see in the media.

The original mission in Afghanistan was to disrupt Isis and the Taliban from using the region as a training ground for terrorism in the wake of 9/11. And the mission was working, sending the Taliban into full flight. But somewhere along the way, the mission somehow shifted from terror busting to nation building, and that's where the quagmire develops. Our withdrawal is coming 19 years too late, it seems to me.

Because a whole generation of Afghans – and particularly women – were given a measure of Western-style freedom from Sharia law, our withdrawal seems particularly heartless as the Taliban returns with its raging male-centric brutality.

And, yet, it was way past time to leave. Recent polling shows that 65 percent of Americans approve of the withdrawal, if not its execution. Will the subsequent absence of American security mean that the Taliban will use Afghanistan as Terrorism Central once more? Probably. But I suspect ever-evolving American technology, featuring drone and air strikes, could hinder and disrupt future terrorist plans.

As it is, we have enough on our plate with our own home-grown terrorists trying to dismantle our democracy.

It all leaves me confused and conflicted. Depending on the time of day, I can give you a different answer to the same question. That's where I am on Afghanistan.

My frustration, anger grow

 

I'm posting this picture for a reason. There are so many aggravating things about this image (found floating around on social media) that I felt I had to respond. It encapsulates all the frustration and anger I have inside of me as we muddle our way through this fourth – and perhaps most dangerous yet – iteration of the Covid-19 virus.

Wait. What? The fourth iteration? What, are we stupid or something? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? 620,000 dead. Do we need a fifth iteration and even more deaths to knock some sense into our heads? What more proof is needed?

Kim said to be careful, because the image could be a fake. Or professionally posed. And she may have a point. But even if it's all of that, the photo still illustrates my position.

So here goes.

If the image is fake, then it's meant to further divide us. This would also suggest the presence of foreign influences, like Russia or China, who are reaping easy dividends off our internally warring and conflicted tribes and rattling our democracy. The very fact that this image came off an unregulated social media also compounds the issue. What is a lie and what is the truth?

But I'm assuming the image is real. The background is flat and scrubby, which suggests a southern red state like Florida, or Texas, or even Arizona, where anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are royally screwing things up for the rest of us while killing themselves. And us.

The woman is wearing scrubs, suggesting she is a healthcare worker. Her sign hints that she is proud that she is not vaccinated, but that while she is in the medical field, she doesn't care if she might be asymptomatic. She has no way of knowing if she is carrying the virus and passing it on to someone else. Like a child. Or an elder. Or a colleague. And if that's true, she is not smart. She should be fired.

Where is her empathy? Where is her morality?

Why is she smiling? Does she enjoy working in a place where patients are overloading the system, raising the cost of health care? So even if she is helping, she is not helping. She's a hypocrite. Great picture.

Asking that her choices not be mandated makes her protest political. She no doubt thinks her freedoms are being compromised by government mandates (like seat belts, right?). In fact, the key word in her protest – "I" – actually unveils her irresponsibility. Covid-19 is a nationwide – no, a global – healthcare emergency, and therefore requires a national (and global) response, such as masking and taking the vaccine. Individual freedoms also require a responsibility to the greater good of the whole – the "We," if you will, as in "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

We are where we are right now because the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers have given the original Alpha variant enough time to mutate into the current Delta variant. Which begs the question, how far away are we from the Lambda variant and perhaps a total resistance to the vaccine? Already, breakthrough infections are occurring at an unnerving pace. School is about to start and children under 12 are not eligible for the vaccine – yet. But they can catch the virus and give it to somebody else.

If something isn't done soon, look for a resumption of lock downs and mandates. If that happens, we have nobody to blame but ourselves – and the unvaccinated.

The current rate of death and suffering are, to me, the result of unbridled selfishness, not a misplaced sense of patriotism.

So this is how I feel. We are in a very, very strange and dangerous place these days.

The eyes have it

Several weeks ago I was weeding my gardens and throwing down mulch, wondering how much longer we were going to be sweating in the oppressive summer heat.

I actually don't mind sweating. Sometimes, I even like sweating. I gives me a sense a accomplishment, like when I complete my 90-minute recumbent bicycle fitness routine, or when finishing up in the garden for the day.

So when I quit mulching the other day and went inside to cool down and watch a little TV, a little black dot surreptitiously floated across the vision of my right eye.

Great. An eye floater. How annoying.

I've had floaters before, but they usually disappear in a few moments or so.

Not this one. A couple days later, it was still there, criss-crossing across my field of vision and stubbornly refusing to go away. It was particularly aggravating against bright backgrounds, like a clear blue sky on a sunny day, or reading a book printed on bright white pages. There it was.

So I made an appointment with my optometrist, Dr. Cathy Fulp. Cathy's been my eye doctor for probably 25 years or so, ever since she had her own practice here in Lexington.

I like Cathy. She's as nice as they come, and more importantly, she knows that I'm the squeamish eye guy. I hate messing with my eyes. I hate getting drops in them to dilate my pupils. I don't like looking into optometric eyepieces when they almost touch my eyeball. Eeeewwwww.

Cathy knows this. So when I made my appointment with Triad Eye Associates (where she now practices with several other doctors), I requested that Cathy, and only Cathy, check out my eye. She knows how to put me at ease in the optometry chair.

Meanwhile, I made the mistake of Googling eye floaters in an ill-advised self-diagnosis. Suddenly, I'm reading stuff about detached retinas (requiring immediate eye surgery), macular degeneration and other causes of potential impending blindness.

I was on edge. Worried. Crap.

But when it came time for my appointment, Cathy almost instantly put me at ease. An associate put drops in my right eye, per Cathy's instructions. Then Cathy came in. She had me read an eye chart. I peered through eyepieces. She did an eye check with some kind of magic hand-held magnifier (or something) that lets her look inside my eyeball. One machine even took pictures of the inside of my eye.

She had me describe my floater. In my case, it looked like a small black doughnut that was hollow in the center and partially fuzzied up my vision in that eye.

"That makes sense," she said. "Everything else looks good."

What I had, said Cathy, was something called vitreous detachment. This is when the vitreous fluid in the eye begins to deteriorate as we age and floaters develop. There's a 70 percent chance that 70 year olds will get this. It's basically harmless and, with luck, a persistent floater can eventually move out of your field of vision over time.

It's not a more serious retinal detachment, which is usually accompanied by flashes or streaks of light. Then you might have issues. Like eye surgery.

You don't want to mess around with your eyes. I made the appointment to make sure there was nothing more serious going on.

Take it from me – the squeamish eye guy.

Market time

 If you looked closely enough, you could see the years virtually rolling off Lee Jessup's face as if he was in some kind of time warp. Or perhaps, more precisely, on some kind of magical mystery tour.

He was back at the historic Lancaster (PA) Central Market, taking in the scents, sights and tastes that captured him more than 40 years ago and held him hostage ever since.

OK, OK. Disclosure time. The Right Reverend Dr. Lee Jessup, no doubt a familiar name to many, if not most of us Lexingtonians, was once the pastor of the First United Church of Christ before moving on to head up the local United Way chapter. And then there was that Lexington Barbecue Festival gig as the official emcee where he performed for X number of years, not to mention a memorable stint as a Blues Brother with local attorney Roger Tripp. That Lee Jessup.

He's also a Civil War buff, and this year, he was able to tag along with our breakaway Civil War Institute group of rogues, which includes fellow Lexingtonians Chris Ripple, Jay Egelnick and myself, as well as Arkansan Paul Becker and Pennsylvanian Richard Solon. The five of us have met in Gettysburg on our own for the past five years or so because we felt the CWI week had become too expensive and was not as battlefield oriented as it had been once in the past. So we broke off on our own and we now follow our own agenda.

Lee Jessup makes a stop at Long's.

In gratitude (I'm guessing), Lee took Ripple, Solon and myself to Lancaster on our free day on Friday to visit the theological seminary from where he graduated. The seminary is smack dab in the middle of the campus of beautiful Franklin and Marshall University, so that was a treat in itself.

But it was fascinating to see Lee visit his former classrooms and haunting grounds. You could see that it brought him great joy, and he was pleased to share this experience with his friends. Perfect.

On a personal note, we met the outgoing president of the seminary, who told us that they were merging with Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, PA. It seems like a fitting marriage. Moravian will now have access to a doctorate level program, which I think (as a Moravian) is a good thing.

Anyway, after about an hour, we headed to the market. This is a huge place (20,540 square feet) that has been in the current building since 1889. The big draw, of course, are the baked goods and produce from Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch farmers and bakers, but there's also a cultural mix of Greek, Korean, Caribbean, middle Eastern and Slavic goods from which to be tempted.

On a historical side note, King George II chartered the site as a marketplace in 1730, thus making this the oldest public marketplace in the country until 2005, when it became part of the non-profit Central Market Trust.

Lee and I broke off on our own and we promptly scouted all five aisles of the building. Then we were ready. We headed to the Long's booth (who are third generation vendors at the market), where Lee and I both purchased some locally famous Long's horseradish. At some point in the past, Lee probably wrote a column about the market and the horseradish for The Dispatch.

We also purchased some Long's Hair of the Dog Bloody Mary mix. Enough said.

Then it was off to Weaver's meats, located in the upper section of the gentle sloping market. Lee made a serious purchase of some sweet and regular Lebanon bologna, a Pennsylvania Dutch treat that only occasionally makes it out of the region. The guy behind the counter sliced off a sample for both of us, and we were momentarily transported to taste bud heaven. I decided right then that it's always good to have a minister with you when you go to heaven.

We shortly joined up with Chris and Richard outside for a deli lunch, and then it was back to Gettysburg.

The market was all good, but to me, the best part of it was watching Lee roll back the years. That's always Lebanon bologna for the soul.

The drinks are on me

I swear to you, this is how it went down:

Our cluster of six Civil War buffs were enjoying our last night together dining at the historic Mansion House 1757 Boutique Inn in Fairfield, PA, just a skedaddle away from Gettysburg.

As it can sometimes happen, when six guys get together, our voices might carry just a bit in a restaurant. This time, they carried to the husband and wife sitting at a table across the socially-distanced aisle from us.

"Excuse me," said the gentleman there. "Did I hear you're from North Carolina?"

We told him that four of the six of us were. 

"Oh," he said. "I worked in Charlotte for 25 years."

We told hm that we were from Lexington, and isn't that amazing?

"Great barbecue there," he said. "By the way, do you know Ted Royster?"

 Ted was a District Court and then a Superior Court judge for our area and who recently passed away. He was also our former neighbor who lived on the block behind our alley.

So my head exploded. I mean, we're 400 miles from Lexington and we run into a guy who knows Ted Royster? Incredible.

Turns out, this gentleman worked with Tad Royster, Ted's son. I believe I covered Tad at some point in my sports writing years at The Dispatch when he played basketball at Lexington Senior High School. Gosh.

We talked with him for a while longer, and then when he got up to leave, he came over to our table and said, "Gentlemen, your next round of drinks are paid for." And then he left, walked out the door and faded into the early evening twilight like a Gettysburg ghost, presumably never to be seen by us again.

This would have been remarkable if nearly the same thing hadn't happened 48 hours earlier.

Wednesday was the day the six of us assembled for our annual three-day weekend in Gettysburg. We gather together at the Appalachian Brewing Company, arriving from points in North Carolina, Arkansas and Pennsylvania. We're usually a bit travel weary, in need of a nap, and hungry. Four of the six of us are in our 70s, and the other two are in their 60s, and we've made this trip to Gettysburg for more than 30 years, either on our own or as students at the Civil War Institute on the campus of Gettysburg College. We were dorm-mates when we attended the CWI each year for a week of seminars and field trips. That's how we met. A band of brothers.

But all of us showed up on Wednesday within an hour of each other, glad to have coalesced again after missing last year due to the pandemic.

While we're catching up at the bar, a gentleman comes in to order beer to take out (Pennsylvania liquor laws are archaic and defy explanation) and he notices that one of our group, Paul Becker, is wearing a Vietnam Veteran baseball cap. Paul, a Navy man, served on a destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin for two years during the mid-1960s.

Anyway, this fellow comes up to Paul and thanks him for his service and they start a conversation. This guy, it turns out, is a former Marine who put in 30 years, mostly as a master gunnery sergeant, and he's been deployed at various locations around the world. There's a little bit of good-natured Navy vs. Marine trash talking that ensues between the two of them, but no fisticuffs. (That might have been fun to watch, though).

He talks with us for nearly an hour and then, when he leaves, he pulls out his debit card and tells the barkeep that the next round of drinks are on him. I tell him, "Thank you, sir, but I didn't serve."

"It doesn't matter," he said, pointing to Paul. "You're with him."

Holy smokes.

I suppose I could have had my entire weekend paid for by others if I was devious enough and knew how to manipulate the circumstances, but as my wife pointed out when I told her these stories, "You know, this shows you that there's still good people in the world."

Indeed. Maybe even better than good.

 

Another blog about our Gettysburg experience will follow tomorrow. There's just too much to talk about for one entry. At least there is for me.