tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943232050982353502024-03-18T23:35:48.145-04:00My Write StuffThis is an opportunity for me to clear my mind of clutter. To observe. To comment. And to write stuff.Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.comBlogger708125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-81711483946639008192024-03-17T08:27:00.008-04:002024-03-17T14:04:06.378-04:00Masters of the Air<p>I had been waiting patiently – perhaps nearly a decade – for the production of <i>Masters of the Air</i> to finally make the television screen. <br /></p><p>It finally happened eight weeks ago when AppleTV+ aired all nine hour-long episodes, based on the 2006 book of the same name by Donald Miller, a professor of history at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. The final installment came this past week, depicting the end of air war in Europe.</p><p><i>Masters </i>was the third prong of the Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks produced World War II trilogy. The first was the exceptional <i>Band of Brothers,</i> which came out in 2001 and detailed the exploits of Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne. The miniseries was television at its best.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAtirR_XGoKNIlTuR15h9mFdl_39i2p74E3AGaPQiy_ZlB-nbWkREQBQKXPW2d0842JxbXKvujSmIIY0GUGPgr7hjZz65ff-L46ityfeMxX7hFmYOZm6mxWnzKBfIiJfI_4fJ3nxo21sjMMJyeGFXyEP18l9TNYb7H-0SKEnrolBzVtiecO5vOIRSdcY/s600/masters.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="397" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAtirR_XGoKNIlTuR15h9mFdl_39i2p74E3AGaPQiy_ZlB-nbWkREQBQKXPW2d0842JxbXKvujSmIIY0GUGPgr7hjZz65ff-L46ityfeMxX7hFmYOZm6mxWnzKBfIiJfI_4fJ3nxo21sjMMJyeGFXyEP18l9TNYb7H-0SKEnrolBzVtiecO5vOIRSdcY/s320/masters.jpg" width="212" /></a></div> Taking advantage of <i>BoB's</i> success, <i>The Pacific </i>was released in 2010. The 10-part series was also successful, although arguably not on the same level as <i>Band of Brothers.</i><br /><p></p><p>Then came <i>Masters of the Air.</i></p><p>On the whole, I enjoyed the series, although I have a few nits to pick.</p><p>The United States Army Air Force had two primary heavy bomber types in World War II: the B-17 and the B-24. Thousands upon thousands of B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators were built during the war, but only a handful remain today and even fewer are airworthy. Consequently, the miniseries depends heavily on computer graphic imaging – CGI – to depict the massive 1,000-plane bomber formations that darkened the skies over Europe and the horrific missions flying through anti-aircraft fire (flak) and German fighter planes.</p><p>There seems to be a bit of overproduction when movies use CGI, almost to the point of overkill. The skies are vast and wide open, able to accommodate all manner of aircraft at once. The skies in <i>Masters</i> appear to be unrealistically crowded. I don't know. Maybe they were. I wasn't there. I base my assumption on actual combat footage that I've seen and there appears to be plenty of spacing between aircraft.</p><p>But if the object here is to show the absolute brutality of the bomber campaign and the toll it takes on human beings, I guess CGI is the way to go. That's where the miniseries succeeded, I think. The unimaginable horror.<br /></p><p>The series also pulls away from too much aerial combat and occasionally drifts away to prisoner of war camps, rest and relaxation centers, and even a romantic dalliance shared by navigator Harry Crosby (who wrote his own book about his experience titled "A Wing and a Prayer"). It seemed a distraction.</p><p>What I was hoping to see were more tidbits from Miller's book. Like, for example:</p><p>1) Technical Sergeant Arizona T. Harris, who was a top turret gunner on the B-17 <i>Sons of Fury.</i> Harris died on Jan. 3, 1943 when his plane was shot down and ditched in the Bay of Biscay. One eyewitness account reads: "...two guns were still blazing, Harris' twin .50s. As sheets of white water rolled over the wings and the plane began to drop out of sight, the top turret guns were still spitting flame as fast as the feeding arms would pull the shells into the guns. Arizona Harris was trying to protect the pilot and co-pilot, who were in the water and under fire from (German) FW-190s. Harris must have felt the winter water fill his turret and climb to where it cut off his breath, yet he kept firing until the sea swallowed the hot muzzles of his guns."</p><p>Unbelievable.</p><p>2) Maynard "Snuffy" Smith received the Congressional Medal of Honor when he was filling in for another man as the ball turret gunner. Smith had never flown in the turret before this mission, which was his first. On the way back from a bomb run over St. Nazaire, his plane was hit by flak and then attacked by FW-190s. Then a fire broke out near the rear of the ship, with ammunition exploding. Then another fire broke out in the radio room in front of him.</p><p>Now out of the turret, Smith got a fire extinguisher and doused the flames in the radio room. As he was doing this, he saw his wounded tail gunner crawling toward him. Smith broke out a morphine vial and applied it to the crewman despite the cold wind, fire and the crewman's heavy clothing.</p><p>Smith turned back to the fire and when the extinguisher was empty, he urinated on the fire and then tried to smother it with his hands and feet until his boots began to smolder. All this while under fighter attack. Smith then manned a waist gun to shoot back at the German.</p><p>All this was witnessed by the crew of an accompanying bomber.</p><p>Smith, usually a total screw-up on base, almost missed his own award ceremony because he was doing KP duty for coming in late after a pass.</p><p>Why wasn't this in <i>Masters</i>?</p><p>3) Incredibly, on the same mission as Harris, ball turret gunner Alan Magee was blown out of his B-17, <i>Snap, Crackle Pop</i>, without a parachute at 22,000 feet. He fell four miles before crashing into a glass roof of the St. Nazaire railroad station. He survived but suffered lung and kidney damage, several broken bones and nearly severed his right arm. He ended up as a prisoner of war.<br /></p><p>There are other stories to tell. My friend, Lee Jessup, interviewed his father, Dalma, who was a tail gunner on a B-17 and flew an incredible 40 missions for the 15th Air Force. His plane was down by an FW-190 and Dalma had to bail out, the first time he ever used a parachute. Lee said his father never flew again after that experience.</p><p>And Lexington's Bill Mitchell, now deceased, flew 30 missions in a B-24 as a group lead bombardier, including a perilous mission over Kassel. Mitchell invited me to his house shortly after I had written a newspaper story about my flight in a B-24 that had come to Lexington. Mitchell showed me a box that he opened that was full of jagged metal pieces. "That's shrapnel from flak," he told me. Then he pulled out another box. </p><p>It was his Distinguished Flying Cross.<br /></p><p>I kind of wish the <i>Masters of the Air</i> miniseries included stories like these.<br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-9174445079994974182024-03-10T08:26:00.000-04:002024-03-10T08:26:00.819-04:00The next Herschel Walker<p>Congratulations, North Carolina Republicans. You've just nominated the newest iteration of Herschel Walker in a bid to become our state's next governor.</p><p>That happened Tuesday during the state's Super Tuesday primary elections.</p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCO7vdPwT-UkpsL6-JeDEy8XbYk0ZUQYaoGkUy6_u1aek5ZiHoA9w2JGUEpIw3R9Q-hIkiWJf0wjOmrjWc5N9V4-avhQpqPiGnZkuoSb92NE6GphCGl5MfkYOjshZgpylnPrPz9KPaoew-DXq_ORVyORWKZcsucwJs13FySszMyM_WABl5kI-IdT7wVSo/s271/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="180" data-original-width="271" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCO7vdPwT-UkpsL6-JeDEy8XbYk0ZUQYaoGkUy6_u1aek5ZiHoA9w2JGUEpIw3R9Q-hIkiWJf0wjOmrjWc5N9V4-avhQpqPiGnZkuoSb92NE6GphCGl5MfkYOjshZgpylnPrPz9KPaoew-DXq_ORVyORWKZcsucwJs13FySszMyM_WABl5kI-IdT7wVSo/s1600/th.jpg" width="271" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Robinson<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> Walker, you might remember, was Georgia's effort to put a MAGA Senator in Congress. But Walker turned out to be pretty much a political functional illiterate who ultimately lost his bid to Democrat Raphael Warnock in a race that was closer than it should have been.</p><p>Now, we here in North Carolina have been presented with Mark Robinson, the current lieutenant governor who is not only an election denier, but a Holocaust denier, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-Muslim, anti-abortion, anti-gun control, civil rights/voting rights mocker and conspiracy theorist who thinks both 9-11 and Jan. 6 were government plots and humanity really didn't put men on the moon.</p><p>He's got enough baggage here to start his own TJ Maxx franchise.</p><p>His list of offensive remarks for most people is longer than my arm, (just Google "Mark Robinson" to find out for yourself). There are several of his remarks I want to comment on.<br /></p><p>The first is the Holocaust, which in 2018 he wrote "this foolishness about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash."</p><p>And this coming from a guy who studied to be a history teacher.</p><p>Another is his view of the LGBTQ+ community, whose people he calls "that filth." After calls for his resignation as lieutenant governor, he said that he wasn't ashamed of his remarks.</p><p>Shortly thereafter, Robinson, said straight people are superior to queer folks. Sounds a little Hitlerish there, don't you think?</p><p>Also, there's a video clip where he pines for a time when women didn't have the vote. I have to back up here a bit. That clip is only a snippet and taken out of context. Robinson was actually presented with a question by conservative commentator Candace Owens during a Republican Women of Pitt County event in 2020.</p><p>Owns asked Robinson "Which Americas would you want to go back to? One where women couldn't vote or one where Black people were swinging from trees?"</p><p>Robinson, a Black man, took the bait and said he'd rather live in an America where women couldn't vote.</p><p>The better answer would have been to ask what the hell type of question was that to ask in 2020? And then not to answer it at all. Next question.<br /></p><p>The fact that he did give an answer – which will now serve effectively against him in the upcoming campaign – calls into question his ability to make rational decisions for this state.</p><p>Robinson will be going against Democrat Josh Stein for the state's governorship in November, and on the surface, at least, Robinson looks to be unelectable. But, as events have shown, even extremists seem to be electable these days.</p><p>Be careful. Be informed.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-69647080092095405042024-02-25T07:57:00.003-05:002024-02-25T08:31:53.600-05:00My friend Bernie<p>It was the standing joke between us that sometime in the near future, Bernie finally would write a lengthy letter telling me all that's happened in his life since we first met as childhood friends.</p><p>This promise happened year after year, Christmas after Christmas.</p><p>We did, in fact, exchange Christmas cards every year, complete with little notes inside updating key moments in our lives: surgeries, cruises, teams we liked, whiskeys we sipped, books we read, movies we saw. Stuff like that.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLwYtM_KJGzlrd9deQIctUf_rB1FQQsbTVbjD86CyJqRC3cQgjNcHxKfzorXBjGwcoI9x2hNcX_C9JAe47oMPUeJ3hOXzJcl_j1tp3gpAgG2Z3xxPtfImgNP8r57rxJfWgMF990fIWvXeaVTbH_aLWg4kR7eFMPKNqMQvpKeZjU8WL8NrkGbFGAMOvinM/s400/Bernie2.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLwYtM_KJGzlrd9deQIctUf_rB1FQQsbTVbjD86CyJqRC3cQgjNcHxKfzorXBjGwcoI9x2hNcX_C9JAe47oMPUeJ3hOXzJcl_j1tp3gpAgG2Z3xxPtfImgNP8r57rxJfWgMF990fIWvXeaVTbH_aLWg4kR7eFMPKNqMQvpKeZjU8WL8NrkGbFGAMOvinM/s320/Bernie2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bernie and I toast our friendship.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> We first met more than 65 years ago in a little town – a borough, actually – named Fountain Hill, PA, which was snuggled comfortably in the hillocks between Allentown and Bethlehem. Interestingly enough, I don't remember the particulars of our first meeting. But I'll bet it was in the borough playground, which was just across the street from where we lived on Stanley Avenue. I was probably 6 years old, Bernie was 5.<p></p><p>In those days, the playground was the beating heart of the Fountain Hill community and I'm guessing we might have met on the swings or the sliding boards of what most of us Hillers now fondly remember as this incredibly magical place to live. I swear it was a kind of Heaven on Earth that somehow helped mold us into the people we are today. Most Hillers still swear to that.<br /></p><p>Anyway, no matter how Bernie and I first met, the friendship stuck. It stuck through measles and chicken pox. It stuck when Bernie got hit by a car while crossing the street to get to the playground (he escaped serious injury and was back on the playground within days). It stuck even though we went to two different schools – he went to St. Ursula's and I went to Stevens.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRNmfMQwc2MiXh7dr3mY65kZrapp26uzcKXQXg8btEkmWIvo9uQpX5xiZ5R9ITREZA1t4mF-SuwtSuWuw-osr2PkKwpCnZf-wfDEryo4-hXV-D9E4KYaMln0zchZv_N_ivFesqdul6D0vZnPepPhv4GNsiiFNWkKfz3RZponRLXwd0_qwE5cuDDZzXcsU/s259/Gillen-Bernard.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="198" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRNmfMQwc2MiXh7dr3mY65kZrapp26uzcKXQXg8btEkmWIvo9uQpX5xiZ5R9ITREZA1t4mF-SuwtSuWuw-osr2PkKwpCnZf-wfDEryo4-hXV-D9E4KYaMln0zchZv_N_ivFesqdul6D0vZnPepPhv4GNsiiFNWkKfz3RZponRLXwd0_qwE5cuDDZzXcsU/w153-h200/Gillen-Bernard.jpg" width="153" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bernie Gillen<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> We'd flip baseball cards on the front porch of our house. We'd play in the little runoff creek that bordered the playground across the street from us, building beaver-type dams and catching crayfish. We'd play army in the woods nearby and run the bases on the Little League field next to the playground. We were inseparable.<br /><p></p><p>But it didn't last. Dad changed jobs, we moved to Portsmouth, NH, and consequently, Bernie and I lost touch. Kids don't usually write letters to each other. They usually don't pick up the phone and call. Instead of each other's shadow, we were now each other's ghost.</p><p> This separation lasted for years, and even though our family returned to Bethlehem so that Dad could attend Moravian Theological Seminary, Bernie and I never reconnected. Ghosts.<br /></p><p>But then this happened: Because Dad had been assigned a church in nearby Coopersburg, I'd gone to Southern Lehigh for high school. Twenty-five years later, I decided to go to our 25th class reunion and so Kim and I drove the 500 miles up to Pennsylvania from North Carolina. We were milling around the banquet hall when, out of the blue, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and this pleasant looking fellow said, "Bruce, do you remember me?" </p><p>I didn't. I had no clue. There was no name tag.<br /></p><p>"I'm Bernie Gillen."</p><p>I took a quick look into his face as the memories flashed by and I could see it was him. We embraced. I nearly cried.</p><p>But how could this be? Bernie did not go to Southern Lehigh. He went to Bethlehem Catholic. How could this be?<br /></p><p>Do you believe in serendipity? Do you believe in synchronicity? Do you believe in magic?</p><p>It turns out Bernie had married a girl in my class, Betsy Heimbach, and that's why he was here. And maybe, for this moment, that's why I was here, too. What were the odds?</p><p>We talked, we reminisced, we exchanged numbers and addresses and promised this time to stay in touch.</p><p>And we did, mostly through Christmas cards.</p><p>Bernie's Christmas cards were an adventure. His handwriting was atrocious and his little notes inside those cards were written in what amounted to be an undecipherable code. It could have been Latin, for all I knew. Didn't matter. I usually got the gist. A key word here and there always helped.<br /></p><p>This kept up until my 50th class reunion approached five years ago. I asked him if he and Betsy were going, but he thought probably not. Then Kim suggested that we meet on our own while we were in Pennsylvania. And better yet, why not meet at the playground?</p><p>And so we did. We shared more memories, he treated us to a Philly cheesesteak lunch. And, at the alcohol-free playground, I broke out the champagne that I brought and we toasted our friendship, which was then in its 63rd year.</p><p>A few more Christmases came and went, complete with notes but never the lengthy letter. Typical.<br /></p><p>The card we got this past Christmas had his shortest unreadable note ever.</p><p>"Why don't you just pick up the phone and call him?" scolded Kim in all her wisdom. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said. "Maybe later."</p><p>On Thursday, Kim called me from work. She'd been on the "You Know You're From Fountain Hill" site on Facebook, where the RIP's were piling up under Bernie's class picture from 1966. My throat clenched.</p><p>A little later, a friend of Bernie's from the Fountain Hill days, Bob Spirk, called me at Betsy's request to confirm that Bernie had passed. Bernie was 71 and had died of heart failure.<br /></p><p>Our friendship ultimately spanned 68 years. I think about that. The corporeal friendship is over now, but the spiritual friendship will last into perpetuity.</p><p><i>Quieti tam amicus meus.</i></p><p>Rest well, my friend.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-80313134074786244982024-02-23T13:01:00.000-05:002024-02-23T13:01:44.851-05:00Liz and Jon<p>Back in December, my friend Mark Loper texted me asking whether or not I'd be interested in going to a speaker forum to be held at Wake Forest University's Wait Chapel. He had two tickets available, but Karla, his wife, was unable to attend.</p><p>So he thought of me.<br /></p><p>The two scheduled speakers on the program were Liz Cheney and Jon Meacham.</p><p>Holy cow, I thought. This is great.</p><p>"I'm very interested," I texted Mark. "Thanks."</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBN08FGEb46v7ejNdnCfR0BWIJGSTz-X7DSenZ78-sgX2CTSGba3SVOWtlDMkCf5Mzq8_UwE6bMdzAD3HEQkecdtsd-9EX1uTjGSmJQh3iEFI05Pv18jnRTmCTKbVr8N2obJIFhT5EWpZf-pLH2kfQBsabopK2g7eHwCgW_9ai2S1xOhuhkgOQM_VkmUc/s2048/liz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBN08FGEb46v7ejNdnCfR0BWIJGSTz-X7DSenZ78-sgX2CTSGba3SVOWtlDMkCf5Mzq8_UwE6bMdzAD3HEQkecdtsd-9EX1uTjGSmJQh3iEFI05Pv18jnRTmCTKbVr8N2obJIFhT5EWpZf-pLH2kfQBsabopK2g7eHwCgW_9ai2S1xOhuhkgOQM_VkmUc/s320/liz.jpg" width="240" /></a></div> And so, Thursday night, we sat in our assigned seats in the balcony of sold-out Wait Chapel for the third Face to Face forum of the season.<br /><p></p><p>Cheney, of course, served as Wyoming's at-large U.S. representative from 2017 to 2023. She was the House chair for the Republican Conference, making her the third-ranking person in the Republican House leadership.</p><p>She also lived through the January 6 insurrection (which makes her an eyewitness to history) and has since served as a vocal and dedicated thorn in the side of Donald Trump.</p><p>More pointedly, she served as Vice Chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. <br /></p><p>Meacham is a presidential historian and a Pulitzer Price winning author of several No. 1 <i>New York Times</i> bestsellers and who sits in the Rogers Chair of American Presidency at Vanderbilt University. He often appears as a thoughtful, witty and knowledgeable commentator on MSNBC, especially on matters of politics or religion ("I am probably one of the last six Episcopalians left in the United States," he joked last night).</p><p>Meacham more or less served as the interviewer, asking Cheney numerous probing questions and follow-ups about her experience on Jan. 6. Some of the questions were direct and some were philosophical, which required Cheney to pause and think hard before answering.</p><p>What most of us in the audience probably came away with, if we couldn't have guessed already, is that Cheney is guided by a deep and abiding passion for the U.S. Constitution. Sensing that American democracy is under fire by Trump and his authoritarian minions as it hasn't seen since the Civil War, she warned of the dangers of a potential autocracy that lie ahead. Although she hesitated and would not commit when asked if she would vote for Joe Biden for president in November, she said she would never vote for Trump.</p><p>As the program neared its conclusion, Meacham acknowledged Cheney's courage in the face of Trumpian retribution, thanking her for standing by her principles and not for temporal power. That brought the 2,200-member audience (probably the largest gathering of left-of-center voters in the state at that particular moment) to its feet in an ovation that clearly touched Cheney.</p><p>Mark and I left the forum feeling satisfied by what we heard. It had been a while – decades actually – since I set foot on a college campus for an intellectual moment of stimulating thought that did not include Civil War study.</p><p>It felt good.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-1801678619413283922024-02-18T07:57:00.000-05:002024-02-18T07:57:16.306-05:00Wow, what a week<p>Sometime around rapist Donald Trump's first term in office as president of the United States, a friend of mine said that one of the reasons he voted for him was because Trump was clearly such a successful businessman, which was a particular quality this country really needed.</p><p>I tried to point out in my rebuttal that Mafia Don had had several bankruptcies by then and how was bankruptcy a skill set we needed in the presidency?</p><p>I thought of all this when, on Friday, New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the odorous rapist to pay a fine of $355 million for fraud, specifically for fraudulently misrepresenting financial figures to get cheaper loans.</p><p>A pre-judgment interest covering the dates he received benefits from his fraud adds another $100 million to the overall fine. </p><p>That's a lot of dough.</p><p>All of this comes on the heels of Mafia Don being required to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her. It's not easy to lose a defamation case. Mafia Don managed to pull it off twice against her. It's Carroll, incidentally, whom a judge ruled was violated sexually by the rapist Trump.<br /></p><p>Anyway, add it up. That's around a half billion dollars in fines. What a businessman.</p><p>I suspect the rapist will find a way to skate around this. He almost always does. He plans to appeal Engoron's ruling, of course. But his miraculous Houdini-like escape will come when a foreign entity – Saudi Arabia, perhaps, or Putin's Russia's – surreptitiously puts the money in the rapist's account to pay the fine, leaving Mafia Don solvent still.</p><p>It's how you undermine democracy.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">• • •</p><p>We also learned on Friday that Russian dissident and Putin opponent Alexei Navalny was found dead in the colony in which he was imprisoned as a result of "sudden death syndrome." Yep. Sudden death syndrome. That's the official cause of death coming from Russian authorities.</p><p>There's a lot of sudden death syndrome in Russia these days, what with political poisonings and dissidents falling out of windows from Moscow high rises.</p><p>In a world of conspiracy theories, let me offer this: I think Putin found this to be an opportune time to murder Navalny, especially with the Republicans in Congress doing all they can to halt further financial and military aid to Ukraine, the sovereign nation in which Russia invaded and is involved in a brutal war. Thanks to the rapist's Republicans, it's a perceived show of American weakness for Putin. Now was the time to strike and rid himself of the annoying Navalny.<br /></p><p>Hey, it's a small world, and it's getting smaller. Everything is connected and it's easy to draw a line from Putin to Navalny's death to the war in Ukraine to obstructionist and recalcitrant Republicans.<br /></p><p> It's how you undermine democracy.</p><p style="text-align: center;">• • •</p><p>In something of an invisible story, we learned on Thursday that a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov (geez, more Russians) has been indicted by the Justice Department for lying to Special Counsel David Weiss, who is investigating the so-called Hunter Biden/Burisma scandal.</p><p>Smirnov allegedly lied to Weiss about Hunter Biden, thus putting the Republicans' ongoing impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden into question.</p><p>The GOP was counting heavily on Smirnov's testimony to help impeach Joe Biden, but now all of that seems to be in question. What a clown show.</p><p>Republicans are so beside themselves that they are now calling for an investigation of the FBI.</p><p>When nothing goes right, investigate the agency that protects you. It's not the first time Republicans have called for this when something explodes in their faces.<br /></p><p>That's how you undermine democracy.<br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-6948867768155253852024-02-11T08:30:00.003-05:002024-02-11T08:30:48.674-05:00Swifties, er, Chiefs 31, 49ers 21<p>I really don't have a dog in today's Super Bowl fight, but my level of interest in what otherwise might be a "meh" game for me accelerated proportionally when singer Taylor Swift entered the picture.</p><p>That's because Swift – whose boyfriend, Travis Kelce, is a standout tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs – is sending any number of extreme right wingnuts into tailspins and nose dives. Their claim is that the Super Bowl is rigged, and it's been rigged in an effort to allow Swift-Kelce to conduct their psy-op where if the Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers, the pair will use the post-game celebration to endorse President Joe Biden in his re-election bid over Mafia Don (see <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/ar-BB1i1qMH" target="_blank">here</a>).</p><p>Mostly, I just want to see if this actually happens. That is really my primary interest in the game. I love conspiracy theories. Hells bells, I'm still trying to figure out if Paul is really dead or not.<br /></p><p>Two weeks ago, the Chiefs defeated the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 to win the American Football Conference title, thus sending them into the Super Bowl. Suspicious enough, since Baltimore was a preseason favorite to win the Super Bowl this season, much less the AFC title.<br /></p><p>Then, last Sunday, Swift claimed her fourth Album of the Year award at the Grammys (no artist has ever won four), thus reinforcing the conspiracy. Swift-Kelce are winning everything, and not only that, they're vaccinated liberals.</p><p>So there. The outcome of today's game is a foregone conclusion. Therefore, so is the election in November. Place your bets. Never mind that this year's Super Bowl is being played in Las Vegas (which should germinate a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories in its own right).</p><p>I do anticipate an interesting game, despite all the sideshows. Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, at the age of 28, is the youngest QB to play in <i>four</i> Super Bowls before age 30. Not even Tom Brady has done that.</p><p>If nothing else, Mahomes brings a ton of Super Bowl experience to the game. What will be interesting to see is if the Chiefs' receivers catch the ball. Dropped passes was an issue for them earlier this season. Not so much now.</p><p>If the Chiefs win (and they will, because the NFL has rigged all this), Mahomes is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. <br /></p><p>San Francisco QB Brock Purdy has the ability to shred the Chiefs defense if he's not pressured , but that remains to be seen. The pressure on Purdy will be part of the chess game between the lines.<br /></p><p>Kelce, for his part, is one of the best tight ends in the NFL. But, for that matte, so is San Francisco's George Kittle. But Kittle doesn't have Taylor Swift on his side. But he has his own social influencer, wife Claire.</p><p>The 49ers have an amazing running back in Christian McCaffery, a former
Panther who could be a game-changer all by himself. I don't know how he
does it. He finds holes in the line. He catches passes. He blocks. He
plays the game as if he's receiving instructions from God. So Divine
Intervention could be a factor. <br /></p><p>The coaching matchups are interesting, too. Kansas City's Andy Reid is near Bill Belichick status, which means don't ever underestimate Reid. </p><p>San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan, like Reid, is also a proven winner, but there's some bad luck he needs to shake. He's been in two Super Bowls – once as an assistant coach – and has lost both. It could all change today.</p><p>Having said all this, I'm picking the Chiefs, 31-21. <br /></p><p>I really don't give a flip who wins, but it will be interesting to see what happens if the Chiefs do win. In this case, the post game might be more interesting than the game itself.<br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-6754022585380961522024-02-04T07:59:00.004-05:002024-02-04T20:34:29.885-05:00Taylor Swift and the NFL<p>Really? </p><p>This ongoing negative reaction to Taylor Swift and her boyfriend Travis Kelce enjoying each other's company is the best real-time entertainment I've had in months.</p><p>She's a singer, for Pete's sake, and he's an NFL football player for the Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs. So what?</p><p>But I think I know why this is happening. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqNMZxSQF58ZSky1vIP9T6aX4ZsqLpiqrcUS7Rk5bOxQcwzzJx65tGMg-DmVOtAWUX9XzCIwDSkBt3N8hp9xRtN9g50JuRman44TU9eQ9ZMQ4JNgLKrFcFF_SLbienPIVu0hTWLW24SqCR2DZ51Ynqxn_ghIjK3F5wQ34ajwzaLwK9bCc9hGq0otj5Qo/s1024/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-kiss-jan-28-2024-billboard-1548529054-1024x677.webp" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="677" data-original-width="1024" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqNMZxSQF58ZSky1vIP9T6aX4ZsqLpiqrcUS7Rk5bOxQcwzzJx65tGMg-DmVOtAWUX9XzCIwDSkBt3N8hp9xRtN9g50JuRman44TU9eQ9ZMQ4JNgLKrFcFF_SLbienPIVu0hTWLW24SqCR2DZ51Ynqxn_ghIjK3F5wQ34ajwzaLwK9bCc9hGq0otj5Qo/w400-h265/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-kiss-jan-28-2024-billboard-1548529054-1024x677.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in a private moment.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The first instance of blowback came early, I believe, and it came mostly from NFL fans about 13 or 14 games ago when it first became publicly clear that the power couple were dating. If Swift was in the stadium's VIP suite to watch Kelce play, any of the networks covering the game would cut to the glass booth to show us a few seconds of Swift jumping up and down like a high school cheerleader, especially whenever Kelce scored a touchdown. It's the kind of intrusion that television does best.<br /></p><p>The thing is, this happened game after game where Swift showed up to support Kelce. It was, perhaps, getting a little tiresome. Predictable even. So what?</p><p><i>The New York Times</i> did an analysis recently that showed Swift, on average, appeared for 25 seconds in each of those three-and-a-half hour broadcasts. OMG. Saturation.<br /></p><p>Swift is an international singing star of gigantic proportions. If she wins the Grammy tonight for Album of the Year ("Midnights"), it'll be her fourth trophy in that category. Nobody, and I mean nobody – not Elvis, not The Beatles, not anybody – has ever won four times. She already has 12 Grammys overall, as well as 40 American Music Awards (the latter the most ever by an artist).</p><p>And yet, I read where one exhausted NFL/music fan wrote "she is what's wrong with music today."</p><p>Ummm, OK. Sure. </p><p>I'm trying to figure out what it is that is so wrong. Swift is clearly a role model for young women, as her packed concerts can attest, giving many young girls a sense of empowerment and direction (she recently encouraged 35,000 of her fans to register to vote). As far as I know, she is not a drug user. I've never seen, heard or read where's she's gotten drunk. Although I am not a person who would purchase her music (I'm still lost in the 1960s), her lyrics are clear to the ear and her melodies, while sometimes repetitive to me, are still catchy.</p><p>At 34, she is also a shrewd business woman. She re-recorded her first six albums to reclaim ownership of those songs when she lost the copyright to those masters. Now she has copyright ownership over the new master recordings.</p><p>And she's a billionaire. <br /></p><p>Is that what's wrong with music today?</p><p>The story took a crazy turn after the Chiefs defeated the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 in the American Football Conference title game last Sunday, sending them to the Super Bowl next week against the San Francisco 49ers.</p><p>MAGA world, doing what it does best when nothing else works for them, instantly cried "rigged" and "conspiracy" because now Swift will show up at the Super Bowl, the Chiefs will beat the 49ers, and then Swift and Kelce together will announce their endorsement of Joe Biden over Mafia Don for president during the postgame celebration. It's clear as day.</p><p>Kelce's good with this because he's a spokesman for Pfizer and taking the Covid vaccine.<br /></p><p>I can't see the NFL orchestrating any bit of this, but I'd bet my last bean dip chip that it's enjoying the free publicity of a megastar in its VIP suites, possibly creating even more football fans to its product.<br /></p><p>Maybe even enough to replace the football fans who promised to give up watching the NFL after Colin Kaepernick started taking a knee during the National Anthem years ago.</p><p>These boycotts never work out well.</p><p>I don't have a dog in this fight, but I think I might be pulling for the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl, even though I'm still mad at them for beating the Eagles last year. And I hope Swift brings home another boatload of Grammys tonight, just because.<br /></p><p>Really.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-28772005753901257662024-01-28T07:37:00.000-05:002024-01-28T07:37:33.947-05:00The historical view<p>In spite of his entitlement, his upbringing, his privilege (white or otherwise), Mafia Don has to cough up millions of dollars more ($83.3 million, to be exact) as punishment after losing his <i>second</i> defamation case against writer E. Jean Carroll.</p><p>It's his second loss in a defamation claim to Carroll, because he immediately defamed her after being made to pay $5 million when he lost his first defamation case against her. That was the sexual abuse and defamation case where U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan said, by any standard, Trump raped Carroll.</p><p>I'm wondering if it's just a matter of time before Trump, in an uncontrollable fit of rage, defames Carroll for a third time. I hope so. The $88.3 million total in damages so far represents nearly a quarter of the cash Trump says he has on hand. I hope so. Keep talking, Don.</p><p>What's remarkable about all of this is that Trump, a former president of the United States, is running for that office once again. The fact that he is within a hair's breadth of winning the Republican nomination is phenomenal to me: A judge has said that Trump is a rapist. Trump went through an unprecedented two impeachment hearings as president, and he is currently fighting 91 – count 'em, folks, 91 – criminal charges spread over four indictments. Some of those charges are for stealing top secret documents. Some of those charges are for election tampering. Some of those charges are for instigating an insurrection.<br /></p><p>Losing just one of those charges could result in jail time. No wonder Trump is claiming that a president should have universal immunity, even for "crossing the line." <br /></p><p>And yet, he is the darling of his Republican MAGAt base as well as a morally-corrupt Republican Party that keeps running to the rescue of a rapist.</p><p>As I sometimes do, I wonder how history will look back on all of this. Say, maybe 50 years from now.</p><p>If our democratic republic survives the Republican threat to take over our Constitutional government by fascist tactics this election cycle, I suppose scholars and historians will look back on this time as a curious anomaly where we narrowly avoided disaster.</p><p>I wonder if they'll wonder how a cult figure could generate such an intense and devoted following, completely devoid of facts and, well, even common sense. I guess it's easy to point to social media as a source of transmission for "alternate facts," but even Hitler generated a cult without the Internet, so it does go deeper than that.</p><p>It goes to the soul. It goes to the soul of the candidate, and it goes to the soul of in informed electorate to divine the truth from what they hear.</p><p>It goes to the heart of what is right.</p><p>I hope so.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-81799247160210108642024-01-21T08:09:00.001-05:002024-01-21T08:21:41.003-05:00Good-bye, SI<p>A few months ago I wrote about possibly not renewing my 55-year-old subscription to <i>Sports Illustrated.</i> I'd just gotten my third renewal notice and the time for making a decision whether to renew or not was drawing nigh.</p><p>Then, on Thursday, I received my fourth and final notice. Or so it said, with "Final Notice" written in big block letters across the envelope and in smaller letters telling me what a deal I could have for being such a loyal subscriber.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmKcZ_qkeyRGBYRH9wWwYlvflr2RABEtvhAXpUdik9yUIdTDK_ulQn8sJR_DIxHEqsWfXKzXyj2D6Nj5rDKbt0Rbe17pEH1pRP0EFfgtO2bK3IzKMP7COX4WPVDzNFgM24s4P7Jusz3NRfpih0e4aqRktyqcKsFsO9JQ8bPyyqhiu2PAX3TtI5WqxBkY/s2048/SI.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmKcZ_qkeyRGBYRH9wWwYlvflr2RABEtvhAXpUdik9yUIdTDK_ulQn8sJR_DIxHEqsWfXKzXyj2D6Nj5rDKbt0Rbe17pEH1pRP0EFfgtO2bK3IzKMP7COX4WPVDzNFgM24s4P7Jusz3NRfpih0e4aqRktyqcKsFsO9JQ8bPyyqhiu2PAX3TtI5WqxBkY/w400-h300/SI.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of my favorite issues of <i>Sports Illustrated.</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> I'd pretty much made up my mind that I was not going to renew when the very next day, Friday, a story crossed my computer's news feed that <i>Sports Illustrated's</i> publisher, The Arena Group, was laying off some of the magazine's staff after <i>SI</i> failed to make a $3.75 million payment to its license holder, Authentic.<p></p><p>"Whaaaaat?" I asked myself.</p><p>The first thing I thought of was that this had to be some kind of joke. I mean, <i>Sports Illustrated </i>had been one of the country's most respected platforms for sports journalism – no, for journalism, period – for decades. The writing was crisp, original and incisive. The photography was world class and involved. There was nothing else like it. I awaited each weekly issue for the mail to arrive with great anticipation and often carried around copies as if they were the Bible (which, in a way, they were).<br /></p><p>The reason I thought this might be a joke is because <i>Sports Illustrated</i> played one of the most notorious April Fool's Day hoaxes ever on its readers – and others – when celebrated writer George Plimpton wrote a story about a baseball phenom named Sidd Finch, a Mets pitching prospect who could throw a baseball 168 miles per hour without warming up and while wearing only one shoe (that should have been a clue right there).</p><p>I halfway believed the story because, you know, it was in <i>Sports Illustrated</i>. I halfway couldn't believe it because it was so unbelievable. Peter Ueberroth, the MLB commissioner at the time, even contacted the Mets to find out more about this guy.</p><p>When it became clear this whole thing was an April Fool's hoax (April 1, 1985, was the cover date), I briefly wondered if the solemn, unspoken contract between journalist and reader for providing the truth above all else had been broken.</p><p>Then I got my swimsuit issue and all was forgiven.</p><p>But the recent news that <i>Sports Illustrated</i> was furloughing its staff was unnerving, even though the magazine was losing its relevance for me. Like much of print journalism, it was foundering in murky waters created by the Internet, social media and AI. Weekly issues became biweekly, and then, monthly.</p><p>Some of my conservative friends, who thought the mag was too liberal to begin with what with transgender swimsuit cover models, shook their heads and said, "See what happens when you go woke?"</p><p>I don't subscribe to woke paranoia, but I can no longer subscribe to a magazine that is trying to find its niche with a younger crowd that Tik Toks its way through the sidelines.</p><p>It's still unclear if this is the actual end for <i>SI.</i> There's a chance it could hang around for another three months or so before a solution is found, but that remains to be seen.<br /></p><p>Steve Huffman, a friend of mine and a former sports writer himself, recently wrote in a Facebook post that "if <i>SI</i> existed as it once existed, people would continue to support it. I know I'd continue to subscribe."</p><p>Hear, hear.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-10644131555329400622024-01-14T08:12:00.002-05:002024-01-14T08:15:53.783-05:00Snow field<p>Shhhh.</p><p>But word is out that there's a chance for a local snow sighting, perhaps sometime late Monday night or possibly early Tuesday morning.</p><p>You know. While you're still in bed.</p><p>But the very suggestion of snow is getting some people excited. Sid Proctor, the acknowledged amateur guru of weather prediction from Welcome (he's amazingly accurate) has written in his latest Facebook post on Saturday that "Our first chance of a snow event is in the forecast late Monday into Tuesday." He then goes on to talk about polar vortexes and low pressure systems that involve North Carolina. He provides convincing weather maps and graphs. It could happen, I guess.</p><p>(Keep in mind that we didn't get so much as a flake of dandruff last winter, much less snow.Yay, I say. No snow is one reason why I moved south from snowbound Pennsylvania.)<br /></p><p>Anyway, some people around here have taken hope of finally seeing some snow after going a whole year without it.</p><p>And they're doing anything they can to encourage it.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEemj5XZ-98AEwH1BlJTBOFt3fqqGXYxHX0ETWbRILp3R9F8Vf1d0_4E22dsZukg2yNVX3Ow7ZRtM5ljsYlmYMlqOvPCQ6NH0Jsj-X29WabprSidHZhLLKQ1seSYKWK9iw7iXHrgyfvJ-yEXBJoe0O7Qdaj_m-dyr3izT_-N7WKLnefO1RzW9Vagmaig/s2048/crayon.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEemj5XZ-98AEwH1BlJTBOFt3fqqGXYxHX0ETWbRILp3R9F8Vf1d0_4E22dsZukg2yNVX3Ow7ZRtM5ljsYlmYMlqOvPCQ6NH0Jsj-X29WabprSidHZhLLKQ1seSYKWK9iw7iXHrgyfvJ-yEXBJoe0O7Qdaj_m-dyr3izT_-N7WKLnefO1RzW9Vagmaig/s320/crayon.jpg" width="240" /></a></div> One of my neighbors religiously puts a white Crayola crayon on a window sill when snow is in the forecast. I say "religiously" because I don't know if there's prayer involved, but there might be.<p></p><p>"Oh, God. Let there be snow." <br /></p><p>I think she's done this for years. <br /></p><p>I'd never heard of this snow ritual before. I thought it might be a Southern thing, but my southern-born wife, a native of Lexington, said she never heard of doing this, either.</p><p>So I Googled "white crayon for snow" just to see if there was such a thing, or if it was something only my neighbor knew about. And practiced. Religiously.<br /></p><p>And, lo, not only was there an explanation for the white crayon ("...if you put white crayons on your window sills then you could possibly see a picture of snow outside your window the following morning."), there was a whole list of tricks to encourage Mother Nature to shake her flakes.</p><p>More of those in a moment.</p><p>It's not clear to me whether one white crayon on one window sill is enough to bring on a snowfall, or if you have to put a white crayon in every window of your house. My friend lives in a large house with hundreds (seemingly) of windows. She might not be doing enough.</p><p>There are other avenues to follow:</p><p><b>Wear your pajamas inside out.</b> This one makes absolutely no sense to me, but apparently it's regarded as one of the most accurate of snow superstitions. But I, for one, refuse to wear my boxers inside out...<br /></p><p><b>Sleep with a spoon under your pillow.</b> Okay. This one doesn't make much sense to me, either. Plus, the spoon has to be frozen. That's a no-go right there.</p><p>The spoon thing might be used in conjunction with <b>Place a spoon (or white crayon) in the freezer.</b> You don't have to sleep with it. Just leave it in the freezer.</p><p>Those last two suggestions give me a whole new dimension to spooning that I can't now get out of my head. And I used to like spooning...</p><p><b>Flush ice cubes down the toilet.</b> Not sure what the root source is behind that one, either. A similar plan is to throw ice cubes on your porch, but I see some liability issues there.</p><p><b>Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand.</b> This makes no sense. What if you're amphibious (ambidextrous)? No chance of working.</p><p><b>Sleep backwards.</b> At first glance, I didn't know what they were going for here. But apparently if you sleep with your head at the foot of your bed, you get snow the next day. Presumably you do this wearing inside-out pajamas. Or boxers.</p><p><b>Snow dance:</b> This one might have some substance. Native Americans, specifically the Southern Ute Tribe in Colorado, are said to do this. So does Snoopy in <i>A Charlie Brown Christmas</i>.</p><p><b>Run around the dining room table five times:</b> We got yelled at as kids when we ran through the house, so I see no hope for this one. I sure am not doing this as an adult. Vertigo.</p><p><b>Shake a snow globe:</b> Of all the non-scientific related-to-weather rituals there are, this one makes the most sense to me. Seems obvious.<br /></p><p>I don't know. Maybe you have to do all of these things at the same time.</p><p>I have this fear I might go up to Weathervane Winery in the next few weeks and see white crayons in all of Sid Proctor's windows. Yikes.<br /></p><p>As a child of the North, I loved snow when I was a kid. We built snowmen and snow forts and had ginormus snowball fights all day long. Plus, it got us out of school. Even to this day, I like to watch a silent snowfall, as long as it melts when it hits the ground.</p><p>But the moment I had my own car, my view of snow changed drastically. Driving in the snow in your $30,000 vehicle amongst all those other crazy drivers who know nothing about driving in the snow – even in Yankeeland – is harrowing.</p><p>I can't remember if we had rituals to prevent snow. Like heating spoons and putting them under your pillow. Or green Crayola crayons on the window sill.</p><p>I think I'll just take Sid Proctor's word for it. He is, after all, da (snow) man.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-53028043469945546282024-01-07T05:57:00.001-05:002024-01-07T22:05:31.516-05:00Deciding for democracy<p>Saturday marked a seminal moment in U.S. history.</p><p>It was the third anniversary of the second coup attempt on the nation's government. It is now known simply as January 6. When you say Jan. 6, everybody knows what you mean. It's like when you say 9-11, or Dec. 7. You just know.<br /></p><p>The first attempted coup came 163 years ago. That one was called, simply, the Civil War. Nearly a million Americans (civilian and military) died in a span of four years in an effort to resolve whether we were really the United States, or otherwise a loose collection of states more or less independent of each other. Or, more to the point, whether we'd be a democracy, where each person is a free agent, or a slavocracy, where not all men are created equal. (Yes, Nikki Haley, slavery was the cause of the Civil War. The South said so itself. Just read their ordinances of secession <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#Mississippi" target="_blank">here</a>. The word "slavery" is littered across their documents).</p><p>Now, a century and a half later, democracy finds itself on the precipice again. This year, 2024, is a general election year. The choice of candidates is binary: the Founders' democracy, as embraced by President Joe Biden, or autocracy, as promised by former president Donald Trump.</p><p>Biden gave an uplifting speech in Valley Forge this week, standing on ground where George Washington once trod, illuminating the success, so far, of the American experiment in democracy. </p><p>By comparison, Trump as asked for the suspension of the Constitution. He paraphrases Adolf Hitler. His platform is retribution against his political enemies because the Republican Party, as such, is a party of grievance that has other no serious agenda to present to the people. He rapes women, he separates nursing children from their mothers, he wants to imprison women who try to take responsibility for their own health care, he celebrates his failed coup attempt with a Big Lie, he accepts bribes from other nations. Why is he even a viable choice for president to so many Americans?</p><p>If you disagree with Biden's policies, or you think he is just too old to run (he's only three years older than Trump), or any other perceived flaw in the man, that's fine.</p><p>But for the first time that I can remember, this election will not be so much a choice of personality or individual character. It will be, rather, a choice of ideology. It will be a choice between democracy or autocracy, plain and simple.<br /></p><p>It's your choice.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-89067227508532695942023-12-31T07:33:00.001-05:002023-12-31T07:33:36.041-05:00Happy New Year<p>Here we are, on the verge of something called 2024.</p><p>I'm not sure what to think. But here goes.</p><p>For a person like myself who was born in 1951, the very concept of 2024 seems, well, otherworldly. Maybe even unattainable. It seems like the very date could be someone else's vision of science fiction, and maybe from the perspective of an earlier decade, that could have been true. Perhaps in the way George Orwell saw <i>1984</i> when he published his dystopian novel in 1949. But here we are, about to live in our rapidly advancing future, coming at us minute by minute.</p><p>So how am I to negotiate my way through this future fog?</p><p>Good question. </p><p>I want to say I'll take it as it comes, because that seems to be the most logical approach to me. It's the way I've always done things, I think. I mean, life comes zipping at you from different angles like a variety of pitches from a Cy Young winner. A year ago at this time, I was getting ready to have my <i>second </i>gall bladder surgery, even though I had the gall bladder removed years earlier (there was a remnant that still produced gall stones). Who saw that coming?</p><p>One thing I'll do is still go to the gym, arriving as I do every morning at 5 a.m., as I have for the past eight years. It's not so much an annual resolution to lose weight (well, it kinda is) as it is a way for me to keep my overall health in check. So far, all my wellness exams to date have pleased my doctor.</p><p>But there are no guarantees, of course. Future fog.<br /></p><p>Having said that, I guess the best that we can do is try to prepare ourselves the best that we can. That's why my wife and myself have all our current vaccinations: Covid, flu, RSV – we took all of our shots in the same day. In the same arm. And, as it turns out, we are part of the mere 18 percent (as of Dec. 9) that has taken the Covid update. So is it any surprise Covid is once again on the rise?</p><p>I'm seeing more and more people voluntarily wearing masks again, and I think Kim and I will do the same on our next grocery store visit. We have attended several seasonal social functions, but went with the knowledge that the crud is still out there, so we try to limit our exposure. We still try to observe the 6-foot proximity rule, too, when we can. It only makes sense.</p><p>And, of course, 2024 is an election year. We need to prepare ourselves for that, too. Arm ourselves with actual knowledge and not conspiracy theories. Decide which candidate prefers democracy or fascism (and learn the difference) and then the nation can move forward.</p><p>Ready or not, here it comes: 2024.</p><p>Happy New Year.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p> <br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-45703680834303794802023-12-17T08:32:00.003-05:002023-12-17T18:21:00.320-05:00A commercial Christmas<p>You've probably seen these two Christmas commercials already, but that's not my point. I mean, how many times have you seen "It's a Wonderful Life" but you still can't wait to see it again?</p><p>Point made. So there's this:</p><p>Chevrolet came out with this emotional heart-tugger back in November, and it depicts an elderly woman – a grandmother – who is suffering from Alzheimer's. She's lost. She's confused. She doesn't even recognize her husband.</p><p>But then her granddaughter takes her out for a ride in their classic 1972 Chevy Suburban and somehow the experience rekindles a flame, a memory, in the old woman. John Denver's "Sunshine on My Shoulders" drifts from the eight track.</p><p>Flashes of her memories return when she sees the house in which she was born, the high school where she met her husband, the kiss they shared at the drive-in theater.</p><p>The whole sequence describes something called Reminiscence Therapy that can be used to help Alzheimer patients to experience moments of clarity. The old lady returns from the drive down memory lane and soon shares another tender moment with her husband, whom she now recognizes. What a Christmas present. (See <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/chevys-emotional-holiday-ad-features-210921267.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall" target="_blank">here</a>. Scroll to the middle of the text for the actual commercial).<br /></p><p>The ad is amazing. Chevy doesn't brazenly throw its brand or its logo around and yet it tells a heartwarming story. The Suburban subconsciously tells you who's paying for the ad while it's bringing you to tears. Brilliant.<br /></p><p>The version of the commercial I linked in this post is over five minutes long and that's probably not the one you've seen on TV. You probably saw the 60-second version, which has several gaps in the story here and there. This commercial only really works in the long version.</p><p>Amazon came out with its beauty at about the same time as Chevy. This one shows three elderly women, clearly lifelong friends, wistfully watching children sledding down a hill in the same way they once did as kids.</p><p>Then one of them gets an idea. She places an order to Amazon – the only time in the spot where the company surfaces – and the next day the women are seen gleefully sledding down the hill. In one brief satisfying moment, they are transported back to their childhood.</p><p>All of this is done to the tune of The Beatles "In My Life," only the song is done as a beautiful slow-tempo piano solo. I could listen to it all day. It's a "wow" moment for me. (See <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFnUm6Owt7M" target="_blank">here</a>).</p><p>Like the Chevy commercial, this ad also has multiple versions. The 30-second spot erases the moment the women become young again. It might as well be a different commercial. The longer version, meanwhile, tells a story that moistens your eyes. <br /></p><p>Both commercials, I think, are aimed at an older audience. Probably us Baby Boomers, who are now growing nostalgic with our own touches of memory loss. The songs are a clue.<br /></p><p>I normally don't get keyed up over Christmas commercials, but these two grabbed me by the throat.</p><p>It's Christmas commercialism at its best. <br /></p><p>Merry Christmas.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-42678547939007987812023-12-10T07:06:00.005-05:002023-12-11T18:21:28.820-05:00Ralph Brinkley<p>Shortly after I moved to Lexington in 1976 to become the new wet-behind-the-ears sports writer for The Dispatch, I was assigned to do a story on Welcome's Ralph Brinkley.</p><p>It seems that Ralph was something of a local legend even by then, winning modified stock car races at Winston-Salem's unique Bowman Gray Stadium at a prodigious rate. In 1976, at the age of 37, he'd won the third of what would be an incredible eight championships on the unbanked quarter-mile asphalt track. Before his career was over in 1998, he'd won 64 feature races there (a record that lasted seven years).</p><p>Like I said, local legend.<br /></p><p>For my part, I knew next to nothing about stock car racing. I was a 25-year-old Yankee from Pennsylvania who grew up on baseball, football and basketball and regarded almost everything else as an unworthy diversion.</p><p>And so when I went out to Ralph's automotive machine shop in Lexington for my first ever interview with him, I told him all that. He smiled. He said he'd learn me.</p><p>Did he ever.</p><p>Ralph died on Wednesday at the age of 84, and while I always thought we had a terrific professional relationship between athlete and journalist, I also felt that he was a friend. He just made most people feel that way, I guess.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7l_FvFChOHPxcixwXfymVrgGJcU2RJrdjaxHcNtQE27s92ryOTHwHSajE8iZFp_jDSM3wVDO-foiA0i1Sb9MXRJHkKQn9M1MHGUKi3YmBpVBC6eHpFwk27pViVW50mBAtlnc847jg1hXEODZ2zWF9-Vt_7es95vVEmejPhH8Mkqp98dS3q4_TWw0S_fc/s200/brinkley.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7l_FvFChOHPxcixwXfymVrgGJcU2RJrdjaxHcNtQE27s92ryOTHwHSajE8iZFp_jDSM3wVDO-foiA0i1Sb9MXRJHkKQn9M1MHGUKi3YmBpVBC6eHpFwk27pViVW50mBAtlnc847jg1hXEODZ2zWF9-Vt_7es95vVEmejPhH8Mkqp98dS3q4_TWw0S_fc/w200-h200/brinkley.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ralph Brinkley<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> Over the years, Ralph would explain to me some of the nuances of auto racing to help give my motorsports stories some depth. I began to appreciate the sport a bit more because of his generous insights.<br /><p></p><p>A few years later, I was assigned to do an in-depth piece on Ralph. That meant riding with him and his crew to Bowman Gray Stadium, watching them set up the car (a modified Corvair), watching him race from the pit, then from the stands and then talking with his fans. It was an incredible experience. We didn't get back home until midnight.</p><p>What amazed me more than anything is that Ralph was as successful as he was in spite of being blind in one eye. When he was nine years old, he lost his right eye to cancer. Logically, you'd think that depth perception would be an issue for a one-eyed stock car driver, but that never seemed to be the case for Ralph, who would later get a private pilot's license to fly his cherished Piper Cherokee.</p><p>There's a great story out there that highlights both Ralph's personality and life perspective. He was once asked by fan Mark Benson if having one eye hindered his racing. "No," replied Ralph. "I just close my good eye and look out of my glass eye."</p><p>When Kim and I purchased a classic 1966 289 Mustang convertible, we needed to have the engine overhauled. The guy that was working on the car for us subbed it out to Ralph Brinkley & Sons Automotive. "Oh," I said. "I know Ralph. Thanks for that."</p><p>When I ran into Ralph a bit later, he told me several of the pistons had hairline fractures in them. He replaced them with durable racing pistons. The engine was never a problem after that.</p><p>He later went on to build his own airplane, an RV 7-A that he put together from a kit in the Lexington airport hanger. </p><p>He also became a certified advanced scuba diver. Never saw that one coming, but I think the endeavor established him as something of a multifaceted renaissance man. Something more than a stock car driver anyway.<br /></p><p>But the best part of all came in 2012. I was the secretary on the board of directors for the Davidson County Sports Hall of Fame back then. I added Ralph's name to the list of candidates for that year and we, the board, unanimously voted him in without debate.</p><p>When it came time for the induction ceremony, Ralph was as grateful and as appreciative as any inductee we ever had. He brought his family. He brought his pit crew. He brought a large number of his fans. He even brought his race car, which he had on display outside of the building that evening.</p><p>During the ceremony, Ralph easily spoke to the audience without notes. He was a natural speaker who was comfortable within his own skin. He regaled us with racing tales, with humor and with sincere emotion. By the time he was done, he had us in tears, including himself. Tears of happiness, mostly. "Who would think a person with one eye could ever be inducted into a sports hall of fame?" he asked, seemingly incredulous about his own induction. </p><p>I will always remember his induction ceremony as one of the best we ever had, if for no other reason than the sheer joy he exuded that night. I'd never seen anything quite like it before.</p><p>The other day, Kim called me from work. She'd seen a story about Ralph's passing and she wanted to let me know. I felt a tinge of sadness, of course, but it also occurred to me that Ralph had lived his life to its absolute fullest. And so I smiled.<br /></p><p>What more could a man ask?<br /></p><p> </p><p>.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-87742820667281310522023-12-03T07:44:00.000-05:002023-12-03T07:44:29.010-05:00A new fence<p>Like most people who face something that requires throwing lots of money at it, we kept putting off replacing the old, flimsy, worn down lattice fence that defined the property line in our backyard with that of our next door neighbor.</p><p>Kim and I had talked about doing this for years, and even had an idea of what kind of fence we wanted to put up.</p><p>Just not now.</p><p>But "now" had finally arrived.</p><p>So we made the leap. Because we live in the Park Place Historic Neighborhood, I had to check in with the City of Lexington to obtain a certificate of appropriateness. This is now a simple and logical process that no longer requires historic district board approval. It's simply an administrative matter and the project was almost immediately approved by Trey Cleaton of Business and Community Development. Easy peasy.<br /></p><p>We also hired A&K Quality Fencing out of High Point to do the work. This was a great decision because the company was also doing the fencing for our neighbor. It was kind of a two-for-one project.</p><p>At any rate, here is a brief photo essay of our new fence:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb8sIJbi-WzmY3O-Hojofq0K7nvw6DuNHQKC6P8_geH00ixM7lgy-Ox2ha2ovBJbTBTbHoNRmpwZCQZs9GCB3gpqRaGNHx1dMDUjBXAb_18sYOWl5fyb5yCx3rPeoQ8aeb7cnOkxZzkIapmjfdcbX9RW0J0rA8OmzCI3t0A2BLWtd0AM2o6z8DjiKgBdQ/s960/fence.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb8sIJbi-WzmY3O-Hojofq0K7nvw6DuNHQKC6P8_geH00ixM7lgy-Ox2ha2ovBJbTBTbHoNRmpwZCQZs9GCB3gpqRaGNHx1dMDUjBXAb_18sYOWl5fyb5yCx3rPeoQ8aeb7cnOkxZzkIapmjfdcbX9RW0J0rA8OmzCI3t0A2BLWtd0AM2o6z8DjiKgBdQ/w400-h300/fence.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>1). This is what our old lattice fence looked like. The posts were never grounded in concrete and the fence itself was bowed and coming apart in several places. Encroaching ivy creeped through the fence and some animals, like ground hogs, were able to burrow through and raid our vegetable garden. It had to go.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMfycWRRZH2hC410Wc_tegqc8sVSjfyTKEUlyL0xidNbGrLCHBmmQwawN-SEdZlQLjUs6GtC43jdG9aUiBiC7eJvPh9_d27Qp8Vs9_YucZCUFIrz37JcB5mis3QfkX5d0y9PK9NTPjYkRSpeM8rVMhvuC72oSluhwlSWF7dBhub0JEx2bUu1nbKAo-DBY/s960/fence1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMfycWRRZH2hC410Wc_tegqc8sVSjfyTKEUlyL0xidNbGrLCHBmmQwawN-SEdZlQLjUs6GtC43jdG9aUiBiC7eJvPh9_d27Qp8Vs9_YucZCUFIrz37JcB5mis3QfkX5d0y9PK9NTPjYkRSpeM8rVMhvuC72oSluhwlSWF7dBhub0JEx2bUu1nbKAo-DBY/w400-h300/fence1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>2). The old fence is down. There's a property line in there somewhere. The old fence post holes give us a clue, but at this point, it feels really odd to share a free-range yard with my neighbor.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcCVj0IhJXZHXbYLzXH_k4yFPPN6-3sk-W4ppLLXqlXM9qpQ3l1CbJObV1nHt-GE9SxY50J2DTMvYg8n9ghGm4wN70hVdc2VQ9rhH2BDGoNUBDWnzpacprHR9iLgesjefJNQ92ntEBzUc2Q99R3U_0q5R3NKOa7JRuqm1OoZsJt-IevKO1N5dry7O9_h0/s960/fence2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcCVj0IhJXZHXbYLzXH_k4yFPPN6-3sk-W4ppLLXqlXM9qpQ3l1CbJObV1nHt-GE9SxY50J2DTMvYg8n9ghGm4wN70hVdc2VQ9rhH2BDGoNUBDWnzpacprHR9iLgesjefJNQ92ntEBzUc2Q99R3U_0q5R3NKOa7JRuqm1OoZsJt-IevKO1N5dry7O9_h0/w400-h300/fence2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>3). The new fence is up. Technically, it's a pine wood dog ear fence four feet high with a lattice header that adds another foot to the total height. It's tall enough that I can peer over the top with my hat and eyeballs like Wilson in Home Improvement. Sort of. It is regarded as a privacy fence, but the lattice header makes it more of a semi-private construction. We hope it keeps the ivy out and that the ground hogs don't know how to engineer tunnels under neath it (wishful thinking, methinks). But the fence is sturdy, with the posts solidly anchored by concrete into the ground. We are told this fence is good for at least 25 years. Great. I'll be 97 when we need a new one.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ-KWhncoMrXATlUkgvcQSiaG-rEDi1ns1SP5tAuuDh5nQq1ehsf6ATSBWXuEBfwtKbTMXtkdfdcXQMcPdGO7Nm4sUU4vwYrfRVStvfBJgi9n19a1lw7fOAFhoBV_xx7ttrDEazU1Tg0Poitk5s7Hyn9_2W6vKWAEe_DmIYSBn6mhZFKmRg1mAMmOhcFE/s960/fence3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ-KWhncoMrXATlUkgvcQSiaG-rEDi1ns1SP5tAuuDh5nQq1ehsf6ATSBWXuEBfwtKbTMXtkdfdcXQMcPdGO7Nm4sUU4vwYrfRVStvfBJgi9n19a1lw7fOAFhoBV_xx7ttrDEazU1Tg0Poitk5s7Hyn9_2W6vKWAEe_DmIYSBn6mhZFKmRg1mAMmOhcFE/w400-h300/fence3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>4). Here is the view from the other end.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaK1Gb2S_Y5eMk_GlsiodcuCoLCbN3PPKth-Jg8kGN7ug3c4iUWQMwfEDMDVhVBmnp0FZU5JzxxVnZz4x9c85kvNEJyew8mH5XBl0bzv56Y56Xs5ypjNh_Jtrgyb-pUe-wjWCbg9ht5HOW5jNWcslRa-gDnsFg0F6Xml0Ddxg-RtX-6O-EALNHGLNVvlQ/s960/fence4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaK1Gb2S_Y5eMk_GlsiodcuCoLCbN3PPKth-Jg8kGN7ug3c4iUWQMwfEDMDVhVBmnp0FZU5JzxxVnZz4x9c85kvNEJyew8mH5XBl0bzv56Y56Xs5ypjNh_Jtrgyb-pUe-wjWCbg9ht5HOW5jNWcslRa-gDnsFg0F6Xml0Ddxg-RtX-6O-EALNHGLNVvlQ/w400-h300/fence4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>5). Here is a view of the total fence line, minus a couple of yards or so. The decision now is to decide whether or not to paint it, stain it or let it age naturally. If we stain it, we'll probably go with white. But I like the idea of letting it weather with age. I think aging might make the fence appear to be a more natural part of the landscape.</p><p>Disregard the arbor that is in serious disrepair. That'll be our next project.</p><p>In the meantime, many thanks to Nico Barrientos and the crew from A&K Quality Fencing. They did superior work (See <a href="https://www.akqualityfencing.com/" target="_blank">here</a>).<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-58586745402821981352023-11-19T07:41:00.000-05:002023-11-19T07:41:35.000-05:00Recycling history<p>I never thought I would hear these words coming from an American citizen, much less a presidential candidate for the United States of America.</p><p>Can it possibly be true?</p><p>Let's try this simple quiz:</p><p>1. Who said, "I will get rid of the communist 'vermin'?"</p><p> a) Donald Trump</p><p> b) Adolf Hitler</p><p> c) All of the above.</p><p>The correct answer is C, all of the above.</p><p> </p><p>2. Who said, "I will take care of the 'enemy within'?"</p><p> a) Donald Trump</p><p> b) Adolf Hitler</p><p> c) All of the above.</p><p>The correct answer is C, all of the above.</p><p> </p><p>3. Who said, "Migrants are poisoning the blood of our country?"</p><p> a) Donald Trump</p><p> b) Adolf Hitler</p><p> c) All of the above.</p><p>The correct answer is C, all of the above. Well, actually, Hitler said "Jews and migrants are poisoning Ayran blood," but that seems to be a difference without distinction between the two.</p><p><br /></p><p>4. Who said, "One people, one family, one glorious nation?"</p><p> a) Donald Trump</p><p> b) Adolf Hitler</p><p> c) All of the above.</p><p>The correct answer is C, all of the above. And again, there is a slight difference without distinction when Hitler said, "One people, one realm, one leader."</p><p><br /></p><p>Shockingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, Donald Trump uttered the first two of those nearly identical-to-Hitler verbatim comments during a Veteran's Day speech on Nov. 11 at a rally in Claremont, N.H. The other two came from Trump at various speeches across the country over the past few years. These are astonishing words coming from the Republican presidential candidate who is seeking a second term in office.</p><p>In my mind, they represent some of the most unAmerican rhetoric I've ever heard from an American politician.</p><p>I know, I know. How can I legitimately compare Trump to Hitler? After all, Trump has not practiced genocide like the Nazi leader, who exterminated six million Jews and another five million "undesirables" during his fascistic reign of terror in the 1930s and 1940s.</p><p>But, right now, the danger remains in the rhetoric. Hitler's ideology, memorialized in his book <i>Mein Kampf</i> (My Struggle), unveiled his blueprints for world domination. And we saw the results: concentration camps, book bannings, deportations, secret police.</p><p>When people tell you who they are, believe them. <br /></p><p>Trump is already paving the road for his retribution ideology should he win a second term next November. He's already made clear he is prepared to round up undocumented persons and detain them in holding camps across the country. He's already attempting to break down our institutions, especially the rule of law that defines our democracy. Yet for now, it all remains mostly rhetoric.</p><p>Who's to say that if camps like this ever became an American reality, when do political opponents become incarcerated along with the immigrants? When do executions begin under the premise of journalists committing treason?</p><p>Learn from history, people. It's happening before your very eyes. The danger is there, camouflaged as political rhetoric.<br /></p><p>But the rhetoric can easily become the reality for a duped and desensitized electorate.</p><p>Just like Hitler.<br /></p><p>(For a deeper view of the Trump-Hitler similarities, see <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-donald-trump-adolf-hitler-viral-quote-comparison-accurate-1843501" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-51255693649248275652023-11-12T06:59:00.001-05:002023-11-12T06:59:38.159-05:00License renewal time<p>The panic attack came when I got the notice in the mail that it was time for me to renew my driver's license.</p><p>What, already? Seems like I just did that.</p><p>Well, I did. Five years ago.</p><p>But there it was, printed in red capital letters across the top of the notice: "It's time to renew your driver license!" There was no possessive on "driver," but there was that exclamation point, implying some sense of urgency and that I better take care of this matter right now. Right now, dammit!</p><p>The last time I had my license renewed, I think I had to take a relatively simple identify the road signs test. You know, what does a red sign mean? What does a yellow triangular sign mean? What kind of information is given on a white sign? Stuff like that. The quiz might have also served as the eye exam as well. At least, as a test for color blindness.</p><p>I had until February to renew my license, but I wanted to get this thing out of the way. I decided to go online and study road signs and road markings, but it wasn't long before I learned that North Carolina stopped giving the road sign identification test for renewals years ago.<br /></p><p>Uh-oh. Now what? Surely there was some kind of test I had to take. Multiple choice? True or false?</p><p>So I googled NC driver's license renewal exam. There were several kinds of tests for which I could practice. I didn't know what to do. I asked some friends what they remembered from their last renewal, and they all seemed kind of foggy about it.</p><p>I'm not a person who tests well. I get apprehensive. Edgy. But I wanted to get this over with. So I took a couple of the practice exams until my head started swimming. Enough. Let's do this.</p><p>The DMV gives you the option of making an appointment for your renewal, or coming to the local DMV as a walk-in and take your chances on waiting for hours before your number is called, or you can renew online.</p><p>The thing about renewing online is that according to my initial renewal notice, if you renewed online last time, you must renew in-person this time. I quickly did the math in my head: if I'm 72 years old now, and my next renewal comes in five years when I'm 77, it might be better to go in person this time.</p><p>So I did.</p><p>The next day, I drove to the Lexington DMV for my in-person renewal, and sure enough, the parking lot was jam-packed. It was already 1:30 p.m. I didn't want to be there all day.</p><p>I was once told that things move more quickly in Mocksville, so that's where I headed. Twenty-five minutes later, I'm in the Mocksville DMV waiting room. There are 10 people in there, three of them waiting for their road test. About 35 minutes later, my number was called.</p><p>And then it was happening. My palms were sweaty. My heart was racing. Just like my wedding day. </p><p>Here it comes: the exam.</p><p>"Sir, will you please look in the viewer and read the letters on the top line of the eye chart for me?" I was asked.</p><p>"M, Q, E, P, C, F, W, ummm, Deee?,Z,G,O."</p><p>"Thank you, sir. Will you please stand with your back to the screen so we can take you picture?</p><p>Huh? That was it? All that fretting and anxiety for an eye test?</p><p>Whew.</p><p>Easy peasy.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-62800529645731976472023-11-05T08:15:00.001-05:002023-11-05T08:15:52.072-05:00Antisemitism<p>More than 55 year ago, if I recall, our church's confirmation class took a field trip to a synagogue. This had to be in the early 1960s and I was a young teenager just beginning my high school years.<br /></p><p>We were living in Bethlehem, PA, a deeply historic Moravian community, and I think the visit to the synagogue was a cooperative venture between the two houses of worship.</p><p>We weren't there for a service, but rather for the educational experience. I really don't remember much about that evening. And yet, there are some things that happened that night that have stayed with me all these decades later.</p><p>The rabbi gave all of us males yarmulkes to wear on our heads and I remember thinking this was cool. But I don't remember why we wore them. He then went on to give a brief history of Judaism. While he was speaking, I looked around the synagogue and remember thinking how surprisingly similar the interior looked compared to our own Moravian church. Candles. Pews. The difference, of course, was there was no Bible, but there was a Torah.</p><p>And not once did the rabbi discuss the Holocaust. Maybe the 1960s were still too close to the horrific history of the 1930s and '40s.<br /></p><p>I think I came into the visit expecting to see something strange and exotic. I was probably mixing up Hasidic Judaism with Orthodox Judaism and not knowing the difference. I was probably expecting everybody to converse in Hebrew. And yet Dad had to learn some Hebrew while in seminary to become a Moravian minister.</p><p>When the evening was over, I remember coming away thinking there were more similarities among us than I expected. The three great faiths – Christianity, Islam and Judaism – are tightly entwined, rooted as they are in the same Middle Eastern geography: they all use the first five books of the Old Testament as sacred scripture, they all draw their lineage to Abraham, and they all believe in one God.</p><p>In essence, we are pretty much the same. Pretty much the same.</p><p>Fast forward to today.</p><p>Given our similarities, there is an obvious worldwide rise in antisemitism, which is defined as the hostility or prejudice against Jewish people. The FBI says the rise in hate crimes against Jews in the United States is rising with disturbing frequency.</p><p>Which brings the Holocaust into focus. It is estimated there are only 16.1 million Jews in the world, which is an exceptionally small number in a global population of more than 8 billion people. Jews represent just 0.2 percent of the world's population.</p><p>The Holocaust murdered six million Jews. If there had been no Holocaust, it is estimated that there would be 32 million Jews on the planet now. Hitler was deadly efficient.</p><p>For such a small sect, Judaism draws disproportionate amounts of ire, and has for thousands of years. Illogically, Jews are accused by their persecutors of controlling the world's banks, the world's media, the theater and cinema, and so on and so on. I guess it's just a convenient – and lazy – way to label a people they can't understand.</p><p>If nothing else, my evening in the synagogue showed me that Judaism is just a different way to worship God by a people who breathe the same air, bleed the same blood, cry the same tears as we all do. What's so hard to understand about that?<br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-59710603486096070982023-10-29T08:16:00.000-04:002023-10-29T08:16:48.360-04:00Are we nuts?<p>As far as I know, the United States is the only country on the planet that has a Second Amendment, which in its most basic terms is interpreted as the Constitutional right to bear arms.</p><p>And as far as I know, the United States is the only country on the planet that continues to slaughter its own people with a horrendous butcher's bill of nearly two mass murders a day. So far, there have been over 560 mass murders in this country this year alone (the Gun Violence Archive, a highly referenced non-profit research group, defines a mass shooting as four or more people who are shot or killed, not including the shooter.)</p><p>Is there a correlation between all of this carnage and the Second Amendment? I guess that depends on who you are and what you believe and how you draw your correlation lines to connect the dots.</p><p>All of this grief and sorrow bubbled up to the surface again with last week's mass slaying of 18 people in Maine, perpetrated by a gunman using a military-style AR-15. The rifle is basically a weapon of mass destruction, usually holding a magazine clip of 30 rounds. The gun is generally chambered for 5.56x45 mm ammunition or .223 Remington ammo, with a muzzle velocity of 3,300 feet per second, which just so happens is fast enough to break the sound barrier. <br /></p><p>Created in the 1960s, the lightweight weapon was used in the Vietnam war. It's sole purpose is designed to kill human beings. A single round can mutilate the human body. At the speed of sound. At the speed of an innocent and desperate cry.<br /></p><p>Curiously, handguns are still the primary weapon of choice in mass murders. They are used in about 78 percent of mass murders from 1982 to August 2023, according to Statistica. Fairly or not, the AR-15 probably has earned its bloody reputation if only for the havoc its creates.<br /></p><p>So here we are, once more wondering how we got to this place while the rest of the world wonders the same thing.</p><p>Second Amendment proponents (I always thought the Second Amendment was designed to create a well regulated militia as opposed to a loosely regulated armed citizenry) point to mental illness concerns with many of the shooters, and while there might be some substance to that argument, it makes no sense when the rest of the world also deals with mental health issues within their populations but suffers little to no mass murders at all. In my mind, the rest of the world renders the Second Amenders mental health argument as invalid.</p><p>The Supreme Court weighed in on firearms in 2008 with the Heller v. District of Columbia decision. In that case, the conservative court favored Dick Heller – who opposed a ban on handguns in the home – by a 5-4 decision.</p><p>Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority opinion, added to the limited nature of the ruling, "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. (It is) not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."<br /></p><p>Scalia's opinion could see into the future. We seem to have more open carry laws than ever before. Some states no longer require training, certification or any other form of registration to carry a weapon. Even age restrictions are being lowered in some states to purchase a weapon.</p><p>Why? What are we afraid of?<br /></p><p>We seem to be traveling a dangerous path and it's becoming more fraught with fear by the moment. </p><p>And there's no reasonable end in sight.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-25400256490652502482023-10-22T07:26:00.003-04:002023-10-22T07:26:41.053-04:00Wow, what a week<p>What is wrong with the Republican Party?</p><p>OK, OK, I know that is a loaded question. But does it really take more than three weeks to elect a new Speaker of the House?</p><p>For that matter, did we even need to elect a new Speaker?</p><p>Because Republicans are searching from within their own caucus for a nominee, and apparently can't find one, does that mean even they have to admit their party is drowning in chaos? </p><p>And now, the search for a Speaker comes at a perilous time for this nation, what with international democracy-threatening conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. And, of course, there's that little matter with a previous president who is overwhelmed with indictments while trying to run for re-election.</p><p>To my mind, the whole mess began in January when Kevin McCarthy, so transparently eager to become Speaker, agreed to terms whereby if he was chosen, his position could be ended by a vote of the House after a single motion to vacate the office.</p><p>Big mistake to agree to that, Kevin. <br /></p><p>But that's what happened. Congratulations, Kevin. You outdid yourself. You're the first Speaker in American history ever to have his seat vacated by House vote. See ya.</p><p>Incredibly, Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican bomb thrower who is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for a number of allegations, including violating sex trafficking laws, presented the motion to vacate. You can't make this stuff up.</p><p>After a harried search for a nominee to replace McCarthy, the Republicans came up with ... Jim Jordan? Well, there's a winner for you. He's been in Congress 17 years, and has yet to sponsor a bill that has become law. So why does he keep getting re-elected? Do they not teach civics in Ohio? Jordan is also a bomb thrower and a Jan. 6 election denier (or rather, Big Liar) to boot. Just who you want to run the House and be second in line for the presidency, right?</p><p>But he, too, failed to gain the necessary 217 votes to become Speaker. In fact, after three ballots, he kept shedding votes. He eventually became the first Speaker nominee in modern history to fail to reach the 200-vote level. And this after apparently trying to bully other members (the Republican way, it seems) to vote for him. Ha.</p><p>Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you. <br /></p><p>So now what? The House can't vote on anything unless it has a Speaker. Which means, for the time being, funding for Ukraine and Israel is on hold. Funding to keep the U.S. government operating runs out in November, so there's that. And God knows what else.</p><p>Unless the GOP comes up with a consensus candidate, the best solution I can figure is some kind of shared government leadership with the Democrats. That would mean, heaven forbid, concessions, cooperation and compromise. Imagine that. A true democratic government that actually works for the people. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-89031010752704923742023-10-15T07:53:00.003-04:002023-10-15T07:53:41.187-04:00History repeats...again<p>Given the current state of the world, I wish I knew more about the conflicts between Jews and Muslims, about Judaism itself, about the creation of the modern state of Israel. </p><p>Or is it Palestine? Or is it Canaan?<br /></p><p>I'm not quite sure what Hamas is. Or Hezbollah. Are they more than terror organizations? Are they states? Are they governments? From where do they get their power? From where do they get their financing? From where do they get their endless flow of arms? With whom do you negotiate?<br /></p><p>The recent brutal assault by Hamas against Israel has thrown all these questions into my head. Israel has declared war, but war against an organization. I think. Wars are generally declared between states. Between governments.<br /></p><p>And all of this is happening when Ukraine (who is led by a Jew) is fighting for its sovereign survival in yet a different upheaval. So just where are we in world history? Are these conflicts ultimately interconnected? Is it all about oil money? What does this all mean?</p><p>Because I am something of a World War II buff, I guess my first serious introduction to antisemitism was Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews and the subsequent Holocaust in the 1940s. But even the Holocaust is really just a pinpoint on the million-year timeline of Jewish persecution.</p><p>So is the Holocaust why Israel was carved out of Palestine by the United Nations in 1947? One has to think that while the concept of a Jewish homeland was noble, perhaps in the end it wasn't so clearly thought through if the result is never-ending conflict. Is shortsightedness the reason why we are where we are right now?</p><p>All I know about the creation of Israel can be found in the movie "Exodus." I should be better than that. </p><p>To me, the most sorrowful thing from all of this is the generational fighting between the combatants. It really does go back a million years, perhaps more. The conflicts serve to magnify human bias, human hatred, human capacity for brutality, continuing as they do from one generation to the next.</p><p>Where does it end?</p><p>How does it end? <br /></p><p>When do we learn?<br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-40163063786532715552023-10-08T08:20:00.002-04:002023-10-08T08:20:38.398-04:00Topped off<p>Remember the hail storm we had back in June?</p><p>Well, trust me. We had one. And it was pretty significant, dropping hailstones about the size of golf balls. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, and I'm an old guy.</p><p>The storm caused considerable damage. Both of our cars were peppered with the stuff and had to be repaired for thousands of dollars of dent damage.</p><p>Fortunately, our insurance paid for everything except the $100 deductible, and both of our cars look great. Kim got her car back about a month ago, and I got mine back about two weeks ago.</p><p>But then there was the roof on our house...</p><p>We had the roof put on about 19 years ago, shortly after we moved in, but there was no way it was going to survive the pelting it received from this storm. It was due up for a new one. I had four roofing companies look at it before we decided on Wimmer Siding Windows and Roofing. And, once again, our insurance came through.</p><p>But we had to wait about a month or so before Wimmer could pencil us in. That's how busy they were.</p><p>In the meantime, of the nine houses on our block, five of them already had new roofs installed. It was like we were living in a new construction site. We'd even reached the point of paranoia worrying about roofing nails all over the place. We figured it would be a minor miracle if we could get through the summer without a flat tire.</p><p>Anyway, the roofing crew arrived last Tuesday, happily hammering away, and within 30 hours, we had our new roof.</p><p>Here's a photo essay about the process:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglEQYAiIg_sqXVgJA1kSYW7Fvk2qRx7bTzLUkQaYo1Rh1apzOoai-0rXVe9uy9f4ueVQWnafoQkJ_PcwtmW6_e9xOpaKAXzR9ZrfxAlWTr0zrJzlo9QiNwShEQ418kd0ip7fx3wenAqSmKtNSj7ov53nuy2T12X0PZ_5iR-ydt6WlnxXqGyf3gxmkTKM0/s960/roof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglEQYAiIg_sqXVgJA1kSYW7Fvk2qRx7bTzLUkQaYo1Rh1apzOoai-0rXVe9uy9f4ueVQWnafoQkJ_PcwtmW6_e9xOpaKAXzR9ZrfxAlWTr0zrJzlo9QiNwShEQ418kd0ip7fx3wenAqSmKtNSj7ov53nuy2T12X0PZ_5iR-ydt6WlnxXqGyf3gxmkTKM0/w400-h300/roof.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1. The house before the crew arrives.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg31I6qlzKBo7CD4ERGsMDowgNMAWklWnVa0NfeP60UCEHN3YuzPkSw_31sqSUKlwhhoO6oNP1Aobq04uDbvqQ9ihZTZD1ICmg1cEK-zl1fYFpzvGPl142NIaNeB3IvwV9hRYv-2O18W0JHi08y2bhCYP9Wto6ECSrv_jwh8Wn7OGHHwx0qQzjSNsB4Gbo/s960/roof1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg31I6qlzKBo7CD4ERGsMDowgNMAWklWnVa0NfeP60UCEHN3YuzPkSw_31sqSUKlwhhoO6oNP1Aobq04uDbvqQ9ihZTZD1ICmg1cEK-zl1fYFpzvGPl142NIaNeB3IvwV9hRYv-2O18W0JHi08y2bhCYP9Wto6ECSrv_jwh8Wn7OGHHwx0qQzjSNsB4Gbo/w400-h300/roof1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2. The six-man crew begins work early in the morning.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJH-lDXVZqL55Ow3UnOZH4oyCEfDlp5ffKYvKTbZLejp_WfYDEu0YQvEL2FSDgcf_mapGBskToEAy3dhQxXPUJ1OQqWpEWcHl8lzBtz3VmG4eaek65hzC0a7f_7egDNN9k5D47NsfKygrIPsrTJgEaegR4yO3KgsY1LyMIQbamJgOxMUoye7I7DWEzsdc/s960/roof2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJH-lDXVZqL55Ow3UnOZH4oyCEfDlp5ffKYvKTbZLejp_WfYDEu0YQvEL2FSDgcf_mapGBskToEAy3dhQxXPUJ1OQqWpEWcHl8lzBtz3VmG4eaek65hzC0a7f_7egDNN9k5D47NsfKygrIPsrTJgEaegR4yO3KgsY1LyMIQbamJgOxMUoye7I7DWEzsdc/w400-h300/roof2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">3. More shingles come flying off the front of the house.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ib2YAQh7qs96Gh08JyqplzGdFSEokxkB8jnalw6-_3ZjvdV4-WfMVuHTjhoiJjI7GXfEPi6zWdd63xoS1TXW720P21xOkTGUA7tPWDhIHisHiqKZvg4aMWB7YQSe_Jh0zPkn9GFjTtB1ALykAfDqeOrEeWeoBSx3UGzmTUDpvYQ90QQi9CKjGUzZTRI/s960/roof3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ib2YAQh7qs96Gh08JyqplzGdFSEokxkB8jnalw6-_3ZjvdV4-WfMVuHTjhoiJjI7GXfEPi6zWdd63xoS1TXW720P21xOkTGUA7tPWDhIHisHiqKZvg4aMWB7YQSe_Jh0zPkn9GFjTtB1ALykAfDqeOrEeWeoBSx3UGzmTUDpvYQ90QQi9CKjGUzZTRI/w400-h300/roof3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">4. Roof underlayments go up. Progress.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD6e_h4uJqP5gIMS2OyO7IpYmU-i1NoiMA0zzDxZl9g-M1t0x-1yejhDSPfUbG5z3U0AAhW7yeFlvQ3vEIYEGcf6ost86zH-gHL5UczybMEq7IGkb2TcS47NLq5gs-ehkMKiCVmcmzHTn9XzlTHvS7WWfSVKuj33UF4dARcCx9cNsG7mld8VcT2yvPe1k/s960/roof4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD6e_h4uJqP5gIMS2OyO7IpYmU-i1NoiMA0zzDxZl9g-M1t0x-1yejhDSPfUbG5z3U0AAhW7yeFlvQ3vEIYEGcf6ost86zH-gHL5UczybMEq7IGkb2TcS47NLq5gs-ehkMKiCVmcmzHTn9XzlTHvS7WWfSVKuj33UF4dARcCx9cNsG7mld8VcT2yvPe1k/w400-h300/roof4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">5. The shingles go up. Starting to look like something now.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WADO_2bB9Utg2FJQe5IM08dQjwy5bYc7qrGXFO5RyVWIzo2ooLBKa47PXxtH0ABDy5gk90-oAhv-0xCpduj19hGxELs6n9npR_DE7-Zg3ItoySBh1m_eS9HQhvx-vnAiKDCE1l_N7as0VHWaEjvG4lvITmBida7p2uVyEJWDOZWqEVLbmKlXnuj0nBA/s960/roof5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WADO_2bB9Utg2FJQe5IM08dQjwy5bYc7qrGXFO5RyVWIzo2ooLBKa47PXxtH0ABDy5gk90-oAhv-0xCpduj19hGxELs6n9npR_DE7-Zg3ItoySBh1m_eS9HQhvx-vnAiKDCE1l_N7as0VHWaEjvG4lvITmBida7p2uVyEJWDOZWqEVLbmKlXnuj0nBA/w400-h300/roof5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">6. Here is the finished roof. Looks good.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaOrOnJ-jxSpR-QYClathLJLmCuj7VD26qK4GOsC4-gLEMYMc7C8qlc-_6saF4UzSk4M9M2RcrjZRKRgCp_FBMn-K5edHz0t4ebxImKboSYZL5D16JbfoA6Q2ZShnv5AlRIVhqYD3XgIQCjSx_I7U9tju8bqvhjRnL-BV650qJxTX2XhecSlvglHPVnAI/s2048/hail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaOrOnJ-jxSpR-QYClathLJLmCuj7VD26qK4GOsC4-gLEMYMc7C8qlc-_6saF4UzSk4M9M2RcrjZRKRgCp_FBMn-K5edHz0t4ebxImKboSYZL5D16JbfoA6Q2ZShnv5AlRIVhqYD3XgIQCjSx_I7U9tju8bqvhjRnL-BV650qJxTX2XhecSlvglHPVnAI/w400-h300/hail.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are the hailstones that caused all the trouble in June.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>So now we have a new roof. We feel pretty safe, secure and dry at this point, although time will tell.</p><p>The crew cleaned up after itself when the job was done, carting off old shingles and using magnets to pick up most of the loose roofing nails. But there will always be loose roofing nails. We did our own cleanup afterwards with borrowed magnets and I found 20 more nails, including five in the street.</p><p>So I suspect I'll be paranoid for at least a year. But at least I'll be dry.<br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-50088251734336484232023-10-01T07:08:00.000-04:002023-10-01T07:08:01.514-04:00Stiff as a board<p> It's been years since I picked up a golf club. Maybe even a decade. Maybe longer.</p><p>That wasn't how I envisioned my retirement. Back in the days when I was a working stiff, I would hit the golf course with a certain amount of regularity, perhaps hitting the links twice a week. I'd even reached a degree of competency, scoring in the mid- to high 80s on most courses. Every once in a while, I'd even break 80. You know, just enough to keep me coming back.</p><p>But then something happened. I'm not quite sure what. I thought when I retired, I'd end up playing golf more often. You know, all that fresh air and exercise. The camaraderie of being with your friends. The pure and primal exhilaration of hitting a ball with a stick. It was all there.<br /></p><p>And then it wasn't. Instead, I practically stopped playing the game.</p><p>"Why don't you play some golf?" asked my wife. "You don't play anymore. Go play some golf."</p><p>I think she actually was trying to get me out of the house. But I always had an excuse.</p><p>"It's too hot" or "I'm too tired" or "I've got yard work to do" or "I'm watching something on TV."</p><p>This was so unlike me 10 years ago.</p><p>Then, earlier this week, I got a text from my friend and former Dispatch colleague Donnie Roberts:</p><p>"Any interest in reviving your golf game?"</p><p>Back in the day, Donnie and I would hit the course once a week or so, which helped tremendously to break the stress of working deadlines at The Dispatch. But he quit playing, too, following surgery and other diversions. Donnie drives 18 wheelers for a living now, so his stress level is still there. My stress level is wondering if I should cut the grass today or not.</p><p>But, what the heck? I suggested to Donnie that we should hit the driving range first. You know, to kick off the rust. We could do a golf course some other time.<br /></p><p>So we did. Yesterday we met at Hit 'n Run in Linwood. When I pulled up, Donnie had a large bucket of balls waiting for me.</p><p>Both of us wondered if muscle memory would kick in. Nothing with the word "memory" in it is a guarantee at this point in our lives, but remarkably, after a couple of mishits and wormburners, we started hitting golf course-worthy shots. About 90 minutes later, after we worked our way through our buckets, we decided to play a round next week and see what happens.</p><p>In the meantime, I'm dealing with a different kind of muscle memory. I'm stiff as a board. I'm sore. My back won't rotate. My shoulders won't work. My wrists are shouting at me.</p><p>I forgot I'd gotten older, but I shouldn't have worried. My body is reminding me.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-86428668848491724912023-09-24T07:36:00.000-04:002023-09-24T07:36:09.706-04:00Decision time<p>My third notice came in the mail just the other day.</p><p>Traditionally, I don't let my magazine subscriptions run out. Whenever I get a notice, I almost always renew the subscription immediately. I did this for <i>Time</i> magazine. I did it for <i>Civil War Times</i>. I still do it for <i>Monitor</i>, another Civil War publication.</p><p>I like getting magazines in the mail. It's like getting a little Christmas present whenever they arrive. <br /></p><p>But I may not do it this time. So I'm in a quandary.</p><p>I mean, it is <i>Sports Illustrated</i>, after all.</p><p>The fact that I'm considering not renewing my subscription to <i>SI </i>is shocking, even to me. I've been a loyal subscriber to the magazine ever since I was a junior in high school. We're talking 1968 here. That's 55 years of uninterrupted loyalty.</p><p><i>Sports Illustrated</i> was the first magazine I ever subscribed to. I'd get my latest copy, take it to school and read it cover to cover in study hall when I should have been, well, studying. Every week, I'd grab my latest <i>SI </i>and read the editorial, the table of contents, Faces in the Crowd, even the publication statement on the contents page. My subscription even had my name on the cover's address stamp. It was mine.<br /></p><p>I read about baseball, football, golf and basketball, but also about sports I didn't really care about. Hockey. Soccer. Auto racing. Horse racing. I felt I was becoming well rounded, if not actually aware.</p><p>Because I was subscribing to <i>SI </i>in my formative years, I acquired an appreciation for scintillating, incisive and perceptive sports writing. I didn't know back in high school that I would end up a sports writer myself, but maybe, just maybe, I absorbed a little bit of style and panache from the likes of Frank Deford or Dan Jenkins or Curry Kirkpatrick or Robert Creamer or George Plimpton or Tom Verducci. Maybe it was osmosis. Or maybe it was a dream.</p><p>But somehow, I became a sports writer, covering not only baseball, football, golf and basketball, but also soccer, volleyball, bass fishing, Hawg Runs and auto racing. Maybe <i>SI</i> helped prepare me for this. </p><p>In the last five years, though, <i>SI</i> has gone through a significant change. Like most print publications, it finds itself dealing with the Internet, as well as all the other information platforms, that have virtually erased print media from our very eyes. The once weekly magazine now shows up in my mailbox once a month. That's 12 issues per year.<br /></p><p>My subscription doesn't even include the swimsuit issue any more. I don't know how that happened.<br /></p><p>But I understand. Even I am distracted by other news sources to where <i>SI </i>is now mostly out of sight, out of mind. I hardly even read my <i>SI</i> anymore when it does arrive, and certainly not cover to cover.<br /></p><p>So now my 55-year-old subscription hangs in the balance. I'm doing a lot of downsizing these days in an effort to whittle away of some of the clutter in my life, and <i>Sports Illustrated </i>might be a victim of that downsizing.</p><p>I'm wondering if I'll get a fourth notice?</p><p>But the times are always changing, and this might be one of those times. <br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494323205098235350.post-54846571800804514592023-09-17T07:59:00.001-04:002023-09-17T08:00:17.978-04:00Blown away in Blowing Rock<p>For one three-day weekend every year, Kim and I head up to Blowing Rock for a quiet little getaway in the mountains.</p><p>We do this either in August or September, mostly to escape the heat of summer for a bit. The weekend we choose is the one Saturday of the month in which they offer Art in the Park, where craftsmen and artists offer their talents for sale and appreciation. It's literally cool stuff.</p><p>This year offered us something different.</p><p>The mom-and-pop motel we were staying at featured a large gazebo that offered a gas fire pit and so, even though we were a little worn out from the day of travel and shopping, we decided to join the two other couples and a single who were sitting there.</p><p>I like doing stuff like this. You're going to meet people you'll probably never see again. What could possibly go wrong?</p><p>It was actually pleasant for a while. When the conversation stalled, Kim suggested we go around the circle and tell each other where we're from and our ages, because, you know, we're nosy.</p><p>Amazingly, that went well. We all started feeling a little more comfortable with ourselves and less like strangers.</p><p>But then something happened. To this moment, I'm not sure exactly what. I mean, I wasn't expecting a U turn. But the single guy quickly went political, especially with the older couple opposite him. Suddenly, the conversation became about transgenders, and particularly, transgender children. A culture war issue.<br /></p><p>There was a back and forth between them, growing more and more heated. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The couple directly opposite us tried to play peacemaker, but the temperature at the fire pit was rising incrementally. Suddenly, the wife of the targeted husband – who said she was 70 years old – blurted out to the single guy, "You're an asshole." She said this several times.<br /></p><p>My brain stopped processing. I wanted to leave. But I couldn't because I was watching a car wreck and car wrecks usually have witnesses.<br /></p><p>"Oh, really," said the single guy. "I was just trying to learn how you think, but all you give me is deflections. You're unteachable."</p><p>Kim and I remained mute, trying to become invisible. I was thinking of what my father told me some 50 odd years ago that you never talk politics or religion with strangers, and now I saw why.</p><p>"C'mon guys," pleaded the peacemaker. "We're supposed to be on vacation. Let's be civil. Chill."</p><p>The older couple, frustrated, got up and left. Shortly after that, after additional comings and goings within the group, we took our leave.</p><p>Back in our room, I had to think about what just happened. The 70 year-old-wife should never have resorted to base name calling, but why did the other guy think he was a teacher in this episode? Teaching what? His view?</p><p>But even on a deeper level, I was floored. Within 20 minutes, complete and total strangers were at each other's throats. How did this happen?</p><p>I'm trying not to turn this into a metaphor for where we are in this country, but it seems rather obvious what's happening. We've pretty much lost our civility. One of my friends suggested that confrontational reality TV has helped usher us to this point. So has unrestricted social media. I happen to think a poisoned political atmosphere has given us license to be unthinkingly rude to each other.<br /></p><p>We've seemingly lost some of the values taught to us by our parents, by our teachers, by our churches. Heck, even our churches have become politicized despite the Founders' vision of separation of church and state.</p><p>And I don't know what the answer is. Well, for me, it's to keep my mouth shut in socially inflamed situations, especially when I'm bumping my aura with somebody else's.<br /></p><p>No name calling, for sure.</p><p>Be kind.</p><p>All you need is love.<br /></p><p> <br /></p><p> <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Bruce Wehrlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01105565466859552186noreply@blogger.com1