Three Stone Cats at the Wall

For some reason, these two lions - a male and a female - have been guarding this building (which is part of the Great Wall) for several hundred years. How to tell the male from the female? Look under the lifted front paw of each - the male has a globe-like orb under his (right front) paw, and the female has a new-born lion cub, on its back, beneath her (left front) paw. But the "for some reason" is because while this pair of symbolic stone lions appeared in many in Beijing and Chongquig, lions live in Africa and India, but not in China, I think - and tigers are found in Asia and not Africa. So the mystery was why the ancient Chinese would have used lions as their icons, not tigers. But I assume the ancient Chinese would not have wasted so much precious stone and time making statues of the wrong cat. One person guessed that these WERE tigers, but tigers do not have manes.

Two Statues

Here is a strange one. In a park was this bronze statue of a woman with the head of a duck. Not a literal duck, but a stylized one. And right across the walkway was this blue statue of a popular Chinese TV cartoon character. These were the only two pieces of art in this park.

Toasting the CCP or something

Here we are, toasting our good health with the local Chinese Communist Party school chief (in the middle, wearing the sweater) after a meal of breaded squid rings with tomato coulis, roast eel, peanut milk, and other cool stuff like that. Meals were served either "lazy susan" style at a large table of 8 or 10 or buffet style. The advantage of the buffet style was that it usually included tags to identify the nature of the dish. At least, I assume the labels were accurate, because most of the time I had no idea what I was eating. Happiness at mealtime is knowing what you are eating. But at the lazy susan meals - where were the more formal meals - the wait staff brought plate after plate of stuff that bore no resemblance to anything I'd ever seen before and there were no labels. It was faith-based dining. On the last evening, even the China veterans in the group had there hunger blunted a bit when squid tenticles turned up in the first soup served - long, curly tenticles with all the accessories still attached. Fortunately, there was an Outback Steakhouse in the hotel, and many of the group gathered there afterward to have a burger and fries.

Students, writing

Here is a class of 8th graders practicing traditional Chinese letters. Just after I took this photo the student on the right came over to me and gave me a gift of the large ricepaper poster with Chinese letters that you can see her working on when I took the picture. She was very sweet. The Chinese students in general were spirited and friendly. One liked to break dance and put on a demonstration for us. The classrooms were unheated and very plain; you can see the white uniform windbreakers the kids are wearing in class. School building construction was primative by our standards, with single-panel wood doors, plastic door windows, and exposed electrical wiring. I did not see any fire extinguishers in either of the schools I visited. Both schools were large; the one at which this picture was taken had 12,000 middle school students.

Dragon in the Mall

One day our group went to an ancient marketplace (a lot of places in China are ancient) and I came around the corner and came face to face with this friendly dragon. The photo does not do it justice - the artwork on the face was very impressive. This was not part of a parade - it was a permanent part of the marketplace. There were thousands of shoppers in this maze of narrow alleys, most of whom were youngish couples. The little shops sold everything imaginable, from jewelry to Communist Party literature - there were even copies of Mao's Little Red Book and Korean War-era posters picturing US planes being shot down. In general, the Mao period and its images are still very much in evidence. Mao's picture is on the currency, and his photo was all over the hotel where I stayed. (One such photo - of Mao meeting with some Russians - had a caption that read: "Chairman Mao Zedong meets with leaders of the Union of Soviet Socialite Republics." Ha! No wonder the USSR went bust, being led by a bunch of socialites.)

19 to green; 17 to red; 20 to green

Note the timers on the traffic signals. All the traffic lights had these large count-down timers to tell drivers how many seconds remained until the light changed.

This photo was taken at about noon on a "sunny" day according to Weather.com. It was not raining, just the usual smoggy air...it always looked like concrete dust and smelled like a combination of mildew and diesel exhaust.

Great Wall

This is the Great Wall, near Beijing. Our guide said that about 1/3 of the Chinese who worked on the wall died while doing so. Apparently as soon as they were capable of heavy work locals were drafted into the Wall building force and they worked on the Wall until they dropped. From a distance, you can see how the giant masonry fortification snaked across miles of severe mountain terrain. It was build as much for transportation (of troops) as for point defense. The Wall is about 25 feet high on its "enemy" side. There were several soldiers from the Red Army standing around, one of whom seemed to like my hat. The ones they were wearing looked just like mine, except they had a little red star on the front. Note the very clear, clean air. This is about 60 miles northwest of Beijing.

Low Visibility

That is me, in the Winter Park Crew jacket, looking at the ancient Chongquig City Hall. Weather.com said it was "sunny" but the smog was so thick that large buildings only a few blocks away (like the Chongquig City Hall, pictured here, about 300 yards in front of me) were visible only in outline. And buildings more than 1/2 mile away were invisible. Many people wore masks over their nose and mouth not to prevent the spread of flu but to try to filter out at least some of the stuff in the air. After more than an hour or so in this air, one gets a dull headache. I hear that respiratory diseases are much more common here. In a country that makes many vivid impressions of all kinds, this one is the most vivid. It is like breathing through a damp musty wash cloth all the time.

Dee Clark, political consultant

Remember Dee Clark?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dee_Clark

He must have been a Republican, or a Chamber of Commerce advisor, or a Big Pharma guy, or a Wall Street tycoon, or a Blue Dog Democrat, judging from his advice for the current head of the national executive branch in the lyrics of his 1957 hit, "Just Keep It Up"... listen in...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G1wli82_Vk

"Well, one day baby
You'll be sorry
For the way you make people cry

It's not so funny
Not one bit, honey
One day you'll wake up and re-o-lize

Just keep it up
(Bom, ba-bom, ba-bom)
(Bom-bom-bom-bom)

Just keep it up
(Bom, ba-bom, ba-bom)
(Bom-bom-bom-bom)
Just keep it up
(Bom, ba-bom)

And see what happens."

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/d/dee_clark/just_keep_it_up.html

The End is Near!

The helpful sidewalk sign you see here is located a few blocks from my place near Medford, Oregon.

Just so you have more than one photograph to enjoy, here are a few other shots, taken at or near Crater Lake recently.

One photo shows how Highway 62 approaching Crater Lake looks like from the seat of a motorcycle traveling through the forest at about 55 mph while being ridden one-handed.

If you cannot tell which photo the one-handed motorcycle one is, just call me at my new local cellphone number (541.727.2591) and I'll explain.

World Traveler Already

A hand-written note, scrawled in a child's unmistakable handwriting, pinned to the 'customer comments' board at Soco's, a superb local Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, Oregon (near Medford) says:

"I have traveled the world and never tasted a better burrito. from Shad Brown 8 years old"

Here is the yellow line approximately in the middle of the road north of Winnemucca. The terrain in this area is high desert, very dry, with many steep up and down grades - some as steep as 8 percent, which is about as steep as a general use highway can be; one particular downgrade in southern Oregon, down the side of a mountain, had a 3,000 foot down overlook at the top of the grade - with no guardrail.

If you look very carefully in the haze at the end of the yellow line, you may be able to see Medford, Oregon 300 miles in the distance.

Transcontinental Jeep & the Imitaticus

Here is the very rare North American Roadsignacus Imitaticus standing by the Jeep, searching for wildlife, north of Winnemucca near the end of the transcontinental trip.

(See the post below for more information about the Roadsignacus Imitaticus.)

Speaking of the transcontinental Jeep, if you will look very closely you will see that the microchip on the throttle system is about to fail, and that the rear differential has a very slow oil leak – two things which will require a $750 repair at the Jeep dealership in Medford the following day. Thankfully, neither failed on this stretch of the road north from Winnemucca.

North from Wimmemucca

The road north from Winnemucca has signs of wildlife. Here are some photographs of them.

On the near left is a Pronghorn, which is a species of ungulate mammal and the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae. It is native to interior western and central North America. (Not a true antelope, it is often known colloquially as the Prong Buck or Pronghorn Antelope, as it closely resembles the true antelopes of the Old World and fills a similar ecological niche due to convergent evolution).

Speaking of convergent evolution, note particularly the accompanying photograph of a very rare North American Roadsignacus Imitaticus, the genetic merger of a high school varsity swimmer, petroleum retailer, and construction worker.

Here in Winnamucca

On a map of Nevada the old mining town of Winnemucca is at the place where Interstate 80 turns southwest toward Reno. Barry and I arrived here at about 3.00pm PST after driving 8 hours from Salt Lake City.

On the way, we passed by the south shore of the Great Salt Lake, which according to a local guide is over four time as salty as the ocean. Further west, the salt flats are literally caked with salt for thousands of square miles. At one point Barry (who was driving the Jeep) pulled over and we tasted it. Sure enough - it was almost pure salt as far as the eye could see.

Bicycling Cheyenne

Cheyenne, Wyoming

15 August 2009

The downtown was quiet and a cool & clear 61 degrees at 6.45 this morning. It is 4 miles from this motel to the airport, where Barry will be arriving at 1.06 this afternoon. Near the old trainstation a large farmers' market was getting started. One seller was roasting huge red peppers - each about foot long - in a long perforated drum fired by a dozen gas burners.

It always seems goofy for a city to make a sign like this - that expresses its population to the exact individual. At least they could have an electronic thing in the sign so that the city employee in charge of keeping city signs accurate could change the population with each birth, death, arriving new resident, departing former resident, changes in the city limit boundries, etc. I doubt that the elevation changes that much from day to day, but the population might.

Friday 14 August 2009
Cheyenne, Wyoming

This famous western town is 1,700.1 miles west of Schenectady, all on I-90 or I-80. I left Schenectady at 4.45am EST on Wednesday, the 12th, and set the cruise control on about 57 MPH most of the time. I rarely had to worry about passing another vehicle.

The drive out, once out of New York and Pennsylvania, was a long drive through corn and soybean fields. I did not know what soybeans looked like until I met a farmer while riding my bicycle near Milan, Ohio at the end of the first day. Malcolm Perkins’s soybean farm is about 8 miles east of Milan on Huron-Avery Road, not far past the turn off to the Erie County landfill.

On the bicycle ride to and from my talk with Perkins many of the farmers in the fields waved, and none of the farm dogs barked at me. That seemed too much just for mid-western friendliness; maybe I resemble someone who lives around Milan.

Tomorrow Barry arrives at 1.05pm MST. We will stay here in Cheyenne tomorrow and tomorrow night, and head for Medford Sunday morning.

More later.

3,000 Miles West

Saturday 8 August 2009

There is nothing like an odometer set to zero.

There are boxes everywhere waiting for the mover to arrive. The bicycle and motorcycle are lashed to the trailer. A big chapter is about to close and another open. More from the road starting Monday.

The law's forest

Margaret More: Father, that man's bad.
Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God's law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Information Purification Directives

The script of the famous 1984 Apple Super Bowl commercial:

[In walk the drones]

Big Brother: “Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. [Apple's hammer-thrower enters, pursued by storm troopers.] We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion.[Hammer is thrown at the screen] We shall prevail!” [Screen explodes, drones act stunned.]

On January 24th Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'"

We have had Communists, anti-Communists and anti-anti-Communists.

We have had terrorists, anti-terrorists and anti-anti-terrorists.

We have Americans, anti-Americans, anti-anti-Americans and now often on the
Left we see anti-American Americans like Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama.

We have capitalists and anti-capitalists, socialists and anti-socialists and anti-anti-socialists.

We have aircraft guns and anti-aircraft guns. We have submarine forces and anti-submarine forces.

My question is: when was the last time anyone saw or heard of an anti-French Frenchman?

Back to the Future.

Men who have lived in wars are branded by them.

In 1884 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Civil War veteran and great Supreme Court Justice, gave a Memorial Day speech and said, in part, "...Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing..." *

My war was Vietnam, a controversial one. It is fashionable among the fashionables to condemn that war, as if any war is pure good. But some things are worth fighting for, if we are to be morally solvent.

The late John Updike wrote this about the war in Vietman in 1966, after the full-scale American intervention was underway. It has something to say to us today, too, about surrendering to a world run by terrorists.

“...Like most Americans I am uncomfortable about our military adventure in South Vietnam; but in honesty I wonder how much of the discomfort has to do with its high cost, in lives and money, and how much with its moral legitimacy. I do not believe that the Vietcong and Ho Chi Minh have a moral edge over us, nor do I believe that great powers can always avoid using their power.

"I am for our intervention if it does some good -- specifically, if it enables the people of South Vietnam to seek their own political future. It is absurd to suggest that a village in the grip of guerrillas has freely chosen, or that we owe it to history to bow before a wave of the future engineered by terrorists. The crying need is for genuine elections whereby the South Vietnamese can express their will. If their will is for Communism, we should pick up our chips and leave. Until such a will is expressed, and as long as no willingness to negotiate is shown by the other side, I do not see that we can abdicate our burdensome position in South Vietnam."

* For the whole O.W. Holmes, Jr. speech, see
http://people.virginia.edu/~mmd5f/memorial.htm

That melancholy jailer

Do you ever want to know
Do all dreams go on endlessly?
Or do they just run down somehow
And gradually become the custody
Of that melancholy jailer, Father Time?

(Lyrics, "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind," by Bonnie Raitt; second verse.)

Bunga! Bunga!

Great Moments in Practical Joking: The “Dreadnought Hoax”

In 1910, a bunch of English intellectuals called The Bloomsbury Group tricked the British Navy into allowing them to tour its most famous, state-of-the-art battleship - HMS Dreadnought - while posing as members of the Abyssinian royal family.

"The Bloomsbury Group’s members included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey. Their work deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality." * None of which had much to do with battleships, but nevermind.

Disguised with skin darkeners and turbans (the main limitation of which was that the "royals" could not eat anything or their make-up would be ruined, they tricked the Royal Navy into showing them the RN’s flagship, the warship HMS Dreadnought, to a supposed “delegation of Abyssinian royals.”

On 10 February 1910 the trick began. The hoaxers had sent a telegram to the commanding officer of HMS Dreadnought, which was then moored in Weymouth, Dorset. The message said simply that the ship must be prepared for the visit of a group of princes from Abyssinia. The telegram was purportedly signed by Foreign Office Under-secretary Sir Charles Hardinge.

In Weymouth, the navy welcomed the princes with an honour guard. The Royal Navy did not have an Abyssinian flag, so the officers of HMS Dreadnought used the flag of Zanzibar, and played Zanzibar's national anthem; neither error seemed to faze the visitors.

The group inspected other ships in the fleet too. They distributed cards printed in Swahili and talked with each other in a broken Latin. To show their appreciation, they yelled invented words. They asked for prayer mats and bestowed fake military honours on some of the officers. One officer familiar with both Cole and Virginia Stephen failed to recognize either one, possibly because he heard the interpreter's strong German accent and was worried in case a German spy came on-board.

When they were on the train, one of the disguised imposters, Anthony Buxton, sneezed and blew off his false whiskers, but managed to stick them back before anyone noticed.

In London, the pranksters revealed the ruse by sending a letter and a group photo to the Daily Mirror. The Royal Navy briefly became an object of ridicule and demanded that the leader of the group be arrested. But, inconveniently, the jokesters had not broken any law.

During the visit to Dreadnought, the visitors had repeatedly shown amazement or appreciation by exclaiming, "Bunga! Bunga!" When the real Emperor of Ethiopia, Menelik II, visited England some time later, he was chased by children shouting "Bunga! Bunga!"

Ironically, the Emperor afterwards requested to view the Navy's facilities, but the senior Admiralty officer in charge declined to grant his request-possibly to avoid further embarrassments.

In 1915 during the First World War, HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank a German submarine. Among the telegrams of congratulation was one which read "BUNGA BUNGA".

* Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_hoax

Boil the ocean?

In business lliterature, to "Boil The Ocean" means to try to solve too many problems at once, or some other overambitious project, typically resulting in a complete failure…an attempt at something that is way too ambitious.

The phrase was popularized by Will Rogers, during World War I, who was asked what could be done about the problem of German U-boats. "Boil the ocean," he suggested. When pressed for exactly how, he is supposed to have said: "It's your job to work out the details!"

Some of us have given thought to those details, in case German U-Boats become a problem again.

Experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) figure that the world's oceans consist of 275 million cubic miles. The problem is simply one of finding the energy to bring it to a boil. To find out how much energy is needed, we consulted MichioKaku, professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York. He confirmed our worst fears: "It would take a lot of energy," he discovered, "about 4.7 x 1026 joules, give or take. It would probably require more energy than all the fuel on earth."

But perhaps, since "boil the ocean" has become a popular term in business circlese, a particularly powerful consulting firm might be able to do it. By our calculations, one day of really serious business consulting involves about 1 x 107 joules of energy. Assuming no vacations, this means every single person on earth would have to consult for more than 26 million years to actually "boil the ocean."

Anyway, what would happen if they succeeded? Jeffrey Chanton, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University offered us a discouraging opinion. "It would mean the end of the life we know on earth. It is a terrible idea."

Placing the garnish

My first client, when I became a CPA, was a restaurant owner in Florida.

Bob Cook was the founder of Holiday House Restaurants and my first and most significant client as a CPA. In the beginnings, being new, I had to do the grunt work of auditing - going into the walk-in freezers for hours to count the swinging beef and hamburger patties, and other fun things.

Then one day Bob Cook, who I later learned had taken a liking to me, came to me and said, "If you're going to audit my books, you need to know how a restaurant works," and asked me to come to the flagship restaurant at 6.00am the following morning, and told me to be prepared to spend all day. "All day" for Cook was 12-14 hours, I discovered.

So I did. 14 hours. He showed me all the tricks to restaurant profitability. How to reheat a leg of lamb. How to make chocolate sundae from yesterday's chocolate cake. How to time the grinding of coffee beans. How to manage labor costs. How to clean a chopping block and sharped a Forshner knife. I have had few more interesting days. What an artist he was! It was mesmerizing it was just watching him use a spatula to fold ingredients into a recipe, or put a garnish on a plate - he did not just put it on the plate; he placed it on the plate with the softness of a lover's kiss. There was an artist's flair to everything he did.

And his stamina! Goodness! He'd start at 6.00am for an 11.00am opening and not even look tired at closing, still fresh and excited until the lights went off late at night. And...in fairness, he was not the easiest man to get along with, demanded devotion from everyone around him, and he did not suffer fools lightly.

I think it was one of those few times with I was in the presence of greatness. It taught me the power that comes from a talented man who loves his work.

Have You Noticed Job? (March 27 text, revised)

When the Accusing Angel (AKA the Old Testament’s “Satan”) arrived at the Conference, apparently a little late, God asked him, “So, where have you been?”

The AA replies, “I’ve been looking all over the earth,” with a slight attitude problem, it seems.

God, curious, goes on to ask, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is as good a man as there is, perfect by human standards.”

Satan says, “Yes, I noticed him. Why shouldn’t he be so good? Look how it pays! It is not for nothing that your pet man Job is so perfect,” the Accuser responds. Take away his assets and I’ll bet he will tell you to go to Hell in a heart beat.”

God says, “It’s a bet! You can take all his family and assets away, and I’ll bet he will still worship me.”

So off goes the Accusing Angel to kill Job’s seven sons and three daughters and wipe out all his wealth. But all Job does is say, “Well, God gave me all this stuff so I guess he has the right to take it all away. Praise God.”

At the next Conference, God observes to AA, “Well, what do you think of my man Job now? You ruined him and killed his children and he is still loyal.” (Of course, because of Poet-Job’s fine dramatic irony, Job does not know about this unusual heavenly wager. If he did, he might have reacted differently.)

Upping the ante, the AA responds, “This is not a fair test. Ruin his health, make him fear for his life, and THEN we will see how “loyal” he is.”

God, not to be outdone, says, “OK, it is a bet; you can do anything to him short of killing him.”
(So God agrees to let the Accuser ruin and scare Job almost to death, just to win a bet. Pete Rose was kicked out of baseball for doing considerably less.)

Long story short: in the end Job stands his ground, manages to get God to come down and, in whirlwind speech – the longest speech directly from God in all of Bibical literature, admit that that all the pain and suffering that Job was having was God’s doing after all. And, Job shamed God into to replace all his family and wealth. (No mention of justice for the 10 dead kids. I guess every good form of Entertainment comes at a price.

Interestingly, God stipulates that Job's three new daughters are to have equal legal rights with their brothers, becoming the first women to enjoy equal rights with men. Who says the Bible is hopelessly patriarchal? )

But God gave as good as He got, however. He tells Job from his whirlwind podium, “This is my Creation, Job, and don’t you forget it! I made all this stuff, and lots more. I will do with it what I want. Spare me your ideas of moral management.”

So in the end the Accuser, Job’s wife, and Job’s pious orthodox friends all lose. The Accuser loses his bet with God and apparently leaves town. Mrs. Job, who counseled Job to "curse God and die," seems to go with the Accuser. And God would have punished Job's three comforting "friends" if Job had not intervened for them.

Great poetry. Tough stuff for the "His eye is on the sparrow" school. A Jesuit friend once said, "Job is a bootcamp for Christians."

So what is the point?

Do not conform mindlessly, even to God. Challenge authority when it is acting wrongly. Orthodoxies are often shells filled with mush. Creation favors the intelligent rebel, but do not expect a reward. There is no connection between sin and suffering, or virtue and reward. Always oppose unaccountable power...that power that does not put itself at risk. Like John F. Kennedy once remarked in a press conference, life is unfair. God is not in the justice business.

The Bad Judgment Hall of Fame

There are some questions that one just does not ask, ever.

The first time I sat on the dugout bench next to an actual New York Yankee baseball player I was a 10-year old kid batboy for a Yankee farm team. I had heard that he had played in Yankee Stadium, so I was impressed.

So out came the forbidden question: “Mr. Cerv, why did the Yankees send you down to Kansas City?” I seemed like a fair question at the time.

Bob Cerv had signed with the New York Yankees in 1950, after being a standout baseball and basketball player at the University of Nebraska. The Yankee teams of those years were very strong, so Cerv did not play much. He’d played in the Bronx but at one point he was sent down to the Kansas City Blues, which was a Yankee farm club. No major league player welcomes being “sent down,” and no one with any baseball sense asks a Yankee play, in particular, “How come you got sent down to the minors” and expects to live to tell the tale.

I recall Cerv replying, as he looked at the dugout floor, “Well, I guess I was not good enough...”

A hour or so later, another player (I have forgotten who) called me aside on the dugout steps. Calmly, but in tones that even an oblivious 10-year old could not misunderstand, this forgotten baseball player said, “Johnnie, never, ever, ask a baseball player a question like that. It is hard enough to get back to the Bronx without having some kid ask a question like that.” He looked at me with steel eyes for what seemed like a year, then he stood up and walked away.

It was the first big league moment for a 10-year old boy.

Cerv came out of it just fine. According to Wikipedia, following the 1956 season, he was sold to the new Kansas City Athletics, where he became a regular.

His best season was 1958, when he hit .305, hit 38 homers, and had 104 RBIs, was elected to the American League All-Star team, beating out Ted Williams for the starting spot. He also finished 4th in the MVP voting that year. He did all of this while playing injured part of the season. Cerv also participated in the Home Run Derby, where he lost to Frank Robinson.

He followed up in 1959 with 20 homers and 87 RBIs. Some say had Cerv not played back-up to such greats as Mickey Mantle he would have done so much more on the field. Cerv still holds Kansas City's major league record for home runs with 38.

"Good 'ol Exit"

"Do you feel kind of stuck in one place?
Are you in a place you really do not like?
Because you'd rather be outside just playing on your bike?...

"Is there someplace else that you would rather be?
Like in the park, or playground, or swimming in the sea?...

"You don't have to cry a stream, no need to throw a fit,
Just get right up and walk right out that good 'ol EXIT...

"Yes, EXIT, it is the way way out...way out.....
People let me tell it to you one more time...."

Just go to this link>>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylj9cEUQKXA

Have you seen Neal Boyd?

Have you seen the America's Got Talent clip of Boyd singing Nessun Dorma? If not, it is worth a look at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8oR91K7gZ8

FYI: the English translation of "Nessun Dorma"

Nobody shall sleep!...
Nobody shall sleep!
Even you, o Princess,
in your cold room,
watch the stars,
that tremble with love and with hope.

But my secret is hidden within me,
my name no one shall know...
No!...No!...
On your mouth
I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...
(No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.)

Vanish, o night!
Set, stars! Set, stars!
At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!

"A Crock of ..."

If you have not seen the “Tango Scene” in “A Scent of a Woman,” take a minute to watch it – maybe the most romantic scene in all moviedom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in5EPHVgcXg&feature=related

Pacino plays a blind former Army officer, who gives a young woman a tango lesson at The Oak Room, at the old Plaza Hotel in New York.

“…some people live a lifetime ‘in a minute’…would you mind if we kept you campany – just to keep the womanizers from bothering you…”

And while you are on You Tube, look at this great speech, in the same movie, when Al Pacino’s character (Colonel Frank Slade) exposes and demolishes the phony values of a “elite” New England prep school. In a great speech defending Charlie Simms from a vindictive headmaster, Pacino shows the headmaster to be a cowardly martinet, and accurately calls the school’s whole disciplinary proceeding “a crock of shit.”

See the speech at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scent_of_a_Woman and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKAxnB6Ap4o

This movie won Al Pacino the Best Actor award in 1992.

"The Forgotten Man"

"The Forgotten Man" by William Graham Sumner, and Amity Shlaes' book by that name.

Whole Sumner essay:
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Best/SumnerForgotten.htm

Excerpt:

“The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man…

“…(A and B) ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and, forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion - that the State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man…

“…The fallacy of all prohibitory, sumptuary, and moral legislation is the same. A and B determine to be teetotalers, which is often a wise determination, and sometimes a necessary one. If A and B are moved by considerations which seem to them good, that is enough. But A and B put their heads together to get a law passed which shall force C to be a teetotaler for the sake of D, who is in danger of drinking too much. There is no pressure on A and B. They are having their own way, and they like it. There is rarely any pressure on D. He does not like it, and evades it. The pressure all comes on C. The question then arises, Who is C? He is the man who wants alcoholic liquors for any honest purpose whatsoever, who would use his liberty without abusing it, who would occasion no public question, and trouble nobody at all. He is the Forgotten Man again, and as soon as he is drawn from his obscurity we see that he is just what each one of us ought to be…”

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (Paperback)
by Amity Shlaes (Author)

http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/0060936428/ref%3Dpd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226618565&sr=8-1

Blog posting:
3:13 PM PDT, October 12, 2008

Dear Readers, Emails have come in over the weekend asking about The Forgotten Man and other books to read as supplements. The Forgotten Man is a narrative book that tells the story of struggling policymakers to whom the usual happens: they go into government with ideals, compromise their ideas to get legislation, get blamed for the poor quality of the compromise, hate themselves, and have trouble in their marriage.

Or, it's about struggling businessmen and women in the same position making their way through the same kind of life, a mixture of farce, hope and tragedy. With the occasional joys. I.e., it's humans and events. I'm only being slightly flippant.

The supplements I recommend are more economic, texts to go along with the drama: Gene Smiley, Rethinking the Great Depression As I write this Gene is out of stock but my experience with amazon is that books arrive fast. Jim Powell's FDR's Folly. Lucid, to the point. Lee Ohanian's articles at UCLA are also excellent; he shows the nonmonetary ways in which government impeded recovery. The best book in the world on the absurdity of New Deal central planning is the out-of-print "Government Project" by Edward C. Banfield. The New Dealers' own Animal Farm.

What else? For being close to events, the late great Arthur Schlesinger, especially, The Crisis of the Old Order. I see Galbraith's volume on the Crash is selling well -- he provides the opposite view to TFM. Galbraith is a big favorite with me. My friend Prof Randall E. Parker is important; he's written around this topic quite a bit. An economist from the 1930s who saw it all for what it was: Benjamin Anderson of Chase. Economics and the Public Welfare is his book. Lawrence Reed of the Mackinac Center has some great shorter summaries of New Deal absurdities; his colleague Burt Folsom is at work on an important book.

Thank you again to readers.

To Steven Carroll

In celebration of the joyful life of
Steven Carroll
1962 – 1995
He enjoyed the view

Inscription on the brass plaque on the bench located at the intersection of Cobble Road and Cobble Lane, facing northeast, near Kent, Connecticut.

Hudson River Tugboat Race

The Great North River Tugboat Race and Competition
(The earlier name for the Hudson River was the North River.)

Sunday 31 August 2008 - 9.00 to 2.00
Pier 84 (West 44th Street and the Hudson River).

9.30 - Tugs gather near Pier 84. Spectator Boat departs Pier 83
10.00 - Parade of tugs from Pier 84 to the start line near the 79th Street Boat Basin.
11.00 - Race starts.
11.30 - Nose to nose pushing contests and line toss competition.
12.00- Tugs tie up to Pier 84 for lunch and awards ceremony.
12.00 to 1.00 - Special spectator contests
1.00- Awards ceremony.
2.00 - Tugs depart.

The best place to view the start is Pier I, near 72nd Street in Riverside Park South. The best place to view the middle of the race is Clinton Cove, 55th Street and Hudson River.

Metro North trains for Grand Central Terminal depart Poughkeepsie beginning at 4.33am, and arriving GST about an hour and 50 minutes later.

TJ's Fortification

Sunday 10 August 2008

"...Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world…The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives…If I am to meet with a disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life I shall have to wear it off…”.

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Page, Virginia politician and close friend; July 15, 1763.

All the world's a stage

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."
--From As You Like It (II, vii, 139-143)

U.S. 20

US 20 is the longest numbered highway in the United States. Its eastern end is in Boston, and the western end is at the Pacific coast in Oregon. The nearby posts report on a recent 2,340-mile motorcycle trip from Chicago to Boston and back, mostly on US 20 in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

A Lima Divided.

Sunday 13 August 2006, on U.S. 20, near Buffalo, New York.

U.S. Highway 20 is the longest road in the United States. It is 3,365 miles long, from Boston to near the Pacific coast in Oregon. It does not exist officially in Yellowstone National Park, not being signed as such there, but it is all the same road in fact.

Traveling along this route is like visiting pre-Interstate America. When they built I-90, which runs generally parallel and a little north of U.S. 20, most of the usual development went with it, leaving U.S. 20 quieter. It has acquired a preservation following similar to U.S. Highway 66 that used to run between Chicago and Los Angeles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_20

One place that shows the old and new well is Lima, New York, about halfway between Buffalo and Albany. When I passed through today, there were yard signs all over town, taking sides in a classic Wal-Mart conflict. Yellow “frowning face’ signs, with $s for eyes, said, “Never in Lima.” They designated the homes and businesses that opposed the building of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Lima. (As I discovered later, there are 2 or 3 W-M SCs in the villages to the east of Lima.) Then there were green yardsigns all over (somewhat fewer than the yellow ones) that said, “Wal-Mart Means Jobs.”

According to the convenience store clerk I talked to, Lima is divided between (1) the affluent people who love the retro life, the unions and their supporters, the tie-died back-to-naturists, and the small retailers, and (2) the new Hispanics and the other hourly workers who want cheaper prices than are charged by the boutique retailers in this quaint place. Very much a class struggle, it seems, with the unions siding with the more affluent side.

See: The Never In Lima Committee, at http://www.neverinlima.org/ and Lima Citizens for Responsible Development http://www.neverinlima.org/townletters/LCFRDLetter.html

The President Never Came

Sunday 13 August 2006, on U.S. 20, in Auburn, New York.

This is the home of William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State. Doris Kerns Goodwin write a wonderful account of Seward’s career and service in the Lincoln Administration in her latest book, “Team of Rivals,” which well worth reading. The two men fought each other for the Republican nomination in 1860, and Seward resented Lincoln at first. As the Civil War progressed, they became close allies and friends. When Seward was nearly killed in a carrage accident, not long before Lincoln’s assassination, the president visited Seward regularly, sitting on his bed, and read the day’s war dispatches to the injured Seward.

The evening Lincoln was killed, Seward was also attacked while confined in bed from the accident. He survived the knife attack, but was seriously injured. No one told the fragile man that his chief has been murdered. But when Seward finally was able to look out his window, and saw the flag at half-mast, he said, “It must be that the President is dead, because if he were alive, he would come visit me.”

See http://www.sewardhouse.org/

Who is there to mourn for Logan?

Sunday 13 August 2006, On U.S. Highway 20, in Auburn, New York

In 1852 an obelisk of native stone, fifty-six feet in height, was erected to the memory of Tah-gah-jute, or Logan, the celebrated Chief of the Cayugas, a tribe of the Six Nations. On the north side of this memorial a marble slab bears the inscription: "Who is there to mourn for Logan." The quote comes from this speech, given by Logan

“I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace.

“Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as I passed, and said, "Logan is the friend of the white man." I have even thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man, Colonel Cresap, who last spring in cold blood and unprovoked murdered the relatives of Logan, not even sparing his wife and children.

“There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This has called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice in the beams of peace.

“But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

See http://www.cayuganet.org/forthill/logan.html and http://www.cayuganet.org/forthill/

IN Walden Pond

Thursday, 17 August 2006, on U.S. Highway 20, in Concord, Massachusetts

Today I fulfilled a lifelong dream and swam in Walden Pond, a pause on the way to Fenway Park.

There were many other people there too. A good replica of Henry David Thoreau’s 10x15 cabin, where he lived from July 1845 to September 1847, is just across the road. The bookstore and gift shop nearby has lots of interesting information about Thoreau and his mentor, Emerson.

“Because of Thoreau's legacy, Walden Pond has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is considered the birthplace of the conservation movement,” reports the website for Walden Pond State Reservation (915 Walden Street; Concord, Massachusetts). The Reservation encompasses 400 acres, which includes the 102-foot deep glacial kettle-hole pond.

It is worth a visit, if you’re in the area.

Blue Red Sox

Fenway Park, Boston.

Friday, August 18; 4PM ET: This afternoon NYY beat BOS 12-4. Attended with Dan Lass, from UMass, Lisa and David Soleau, and Valerie Curtis, all BOS fans but me and Dan.

Saturday, August 19; 1:30 AM ET: In the double-header, NYY beat BOS 14-11 in the longest 9-inning game in MLB history.

Saturday, August 19; Again, a few hours later, NYY beat BOS 13-5.

Sunday, August 20; NYY 8, BOS 5.

Monday, August 21: NYY 2, BOS 1.

“…The last time the Yankees swept a five-game series against the Red Sox was in 1951, and the last time that happened in Boston was in 1943, while Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio and most young and healthy men were in military service…bashing Boston in outscoring them 47-25 over three days and two early morning, the Yankees relied on their pitching to win the sleepy series finale…” reported a satisfied New York Times.

See “A One-Sided Chapter Is Added to the History of a Rivalry”
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-BBA-Yankees-Red-Sox.html?hp&ex=1156219200&en=c96b23f381c7809b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

THE Longest game

"The Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the triple-A International League, played the longest game in professional baseball history in 1981 at Pawtucket's McCoy Stadium.

"The game began on Saturday, April 18, 1981, and continued through the night and into Easter morning before finally being suspended. Although most leagues have a curfew rule that would have suspended the game, the rule book that the home-plate umpire had that night did not contain one. So the teams continued playing until the president of the league, Harold Cooper, was finally reached on the phone sometime after 3 a.m. Finally at 4:09, at the end of the 32nd inning, the game was stopped and would be resumed at a later date. At this point, there were 19 fans left in the seats, all of whom were given lifetime passes to McCoy Stadium.

"The game resumed on the evening of Tuesday, June 23, the next time the Red Wings were in town. A sellout crowd and news media from around the world were on hand, partly because the major leagues were on strike at the time. On that evening, it took just one inning and 18 minutes to settle the game, with Pawtucket's Dave Koza driving in Marty Barrett for the winning run in the bottom of the 33rd."

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_baseball_game

Travels with Smedley - July 2006

Saturday 15 July; 7:00 am ct - Schaumburg, IL: Packed and almost ready to leave for Shanksville, PA (United 93), Gettysburg, PA (the battlefield), East Greenville, PA (The Irelands), Woodstock, VA (the Mays), Washington, D.C. (The Foundation Center seminar), back to Woodstock (the Jones, and the reenactment of Bull Run), when...either Baltimore or New York, then home. The high today on the first leg of the route (here to Wheeling, WV) is forecast to be in the mid-90s and clear. That's good traction and visibility weather. More tonight. jb

Saturday 15 July; 8:30 pm et - Cranberry, PA: 484 miles and 11 hours later. Hot, clear, dry weather all the way over on I-80 & I76. Tomorrow Shanksville (about 1 hour further SE) and then Gettysburg (2 hours further ENE). For the hot weather riding, I bought this long-sleeve solar yellow "UnderArmor" shirt...it fits like a think coat of paint, but the microfiber's wicking feature and the complete freedom from annoying flapping of excess fabric is very nice. The vivid yellow is very visible too, a good thing for motorers.

Sunday 16 July 11:00 am et - Shanksville, PA: The National Park Service ranger here recounted the reports of witnesses who saw United 93 approach Shanksville that day at over 500 mph, then twist upside down and hit the ground at a reclaimed strip mine. THe impact was so shattering that nothing larger than 2x2 feet was recovered - even the engines and landing gear were smashed to bits - giving rise to fringe theories that the airplane did not really crash there...visitors cannot approach the actual impact site, which is in view about 1,000 feet from the temporary visitors center.

Sunday 16 July 5:00 pm et - Gettysburg, PA: The road around the south side of the battlefield is the nicest part of the battlefield. The ride from what was the far right of Lee's line to what was the far left of Meade's goes through heavily wooded countryside to the saddle between the Round Tops, and up the south side of Little Round Top. This time, I had a good camera, so since it is a battlefield I spent most of the afternoon shooting the many 1863-era farmhouses and barns that are located on the battlefield.

Monday 17 July 8:30 am et - Gettysburg, PA., on Seminary Ridge: At one place on Seminary Ridge, you can stand at the place where Pickett's Charge began, and see the small clump of trees 3/4 mile away across the valley, on Cemetery Ridge, that Longstreet told Pickett to use as an aiming point during the charge. The actual trees are still there, On an impulse, I started walking from the crest of Seminary Ridge, through the fresh-cut pasture grass, straight toward the clump of trees across the way, along the line across that shallow valley that the 14,000 rebel troops used at about 3pm on July 3, 1863. It took me a short 20 minutes to get to the spot called the Highwater Mark of the Confederacy - just across the low stone wall at the place called The Angle. It is hard to imagine 14,000 men walking 3/4 of a mile into the muzzles of about 100,000 guns of all sizes and calibers. I think only about 2,000 made it to The Angle, and about 500 avoided death or capture to straggle back to Confederate lines on Seminary Ridge.

Longstreet told Lee repeatedly that it was insane to charge that blue line, but Lee ordered the attack anyway, and destroyed his army for all intents and purposes. It is hard to walk the attack route, and back, and still feel any admiration for Lee.

Monday 17 July 3:00 pm et Gettysburg, PA., at Meade's Headquarters: Shelby Foote's account of the Battle of Gettysburg includes a description of a meeting called by Meade late on the night of July 2. There were about 8 generals in a room that Foote describes as being about 10x12 feet, with only a few chairs, a waterpitcher stand, and a bed. No one was anywhere around when I arrived, so I walked up in the porch of the little house (that was hit by a cannonball the following day, in the pre-assault bombardment), and looked in the window of room where the meeting was held. Sure enough - it was small, and it took no imagination at all to envision the council of war that Meade held that night.

Sunday 23 July 10:00 pm ct Schaumburg, IL., at home, after 2,145 miles.

Ray Kinsella built it and I came.

The baseball diamond and farm where "Field of Dreams" was filmed is in Dyersville, Iowa ("Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa").

On the way north from whitewater rafting with Mike last weekend, I stayed at a Hampton Inn just north of Louisville, Kentucky. As I left the next morning for Chicago, I picked up the paper bag full of snacks that the Hampton Inns usually make available to early-departing guests. In the bag, in addition to a bottle of water, a breakfast bar, an apple, and a muffin, was a little bitty box of sugar-free mints. On the green box was a trivia question: "Q: Where is the Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams located?" On the edge of the box was: "A: Dyersville, Iowa."

That was news to me, so when I got home I watched the movie again (I have the DVD) and Googled "Field of Dreams" and sure enough - The movie site has a website, and the diamond and farmhouse have been preserved for visitors. So this morning I rode over to Dyersville - 180 miles oneway - and visited the place.

It was pretty special. The farm is about 3 miles northeast of Dyersville, which is just off Highway 20 west of Dubuque, Iowa. The 360-mile ride over and back was glorious. Highway 20 west of Rockford, Illinois runs along the top of a 50-mile long ridge that separates two wide, green valleys that fall away to both sides of the highway. It was picture-perfect cornfield America.

Turns out that the ownership of the baseball diamond itself is split between the Lansing family farm and another family. An overhead powerline runs through the diamond itself, roughly along the line from second base to third base. So the part of the field on the third base - left field side of that powerline belongs one family, and the part of the field on the first base - right field side belongs to the Lansing family. The well-known white frame farmhouse on the first base side, with the picket fence and porch swing, belongs to the Lansing family. The Lansings have owned the place since around the turn of the 20th century, as I recall from the sign by the house.

I got home about 7:00 PM today and watched the movie again. In the film, the diamond looks professionally dressed, with the traditional clay infield with bags and chalk lines. Today, in Dyersville, the infield was light gravel and there were no lines of bags. But otherwise it looked just like it did in the movie.

I arrived about 3:00 PM, and there were maybe 50-60 parents and kids playing catch, taking batting practice, and shagging flies in the outfield. There was no admission or apparent supervision - just folks throwing and catching baseballs and swinging bats. Very much in the spirit of the movie.

No sigh of Shoeless Joe, Mel Ott, Moonlight Graham, Terrance Mann, or any of the others. I knew not to even look for Ty Cobb, because the ghosts really did not like him in life, either. (He must have been a real horses ass, considering that baseball players - particularly of that era - are not the touchy-feely kind to start with.)

Filming lasted 14 weeks in the summer of 1988, which was so dry that the studio had to dam up a nearby creek to provide a way to irrigate the corn so that it would be high enough to allow men to disappear into the corn rows. Turns out that they overdid it, and by the time they started shooting the corn was taller than Kevin Costner. They had to build a long skinny platform between the rows so that they could shoot Costner walking down the rows, hearing The Voice say, "If you build it, he will come." (BTW, "he" is not Shoeless Joe in the movie, but John Kinsella, Ray's father, who in the plot had died while he and his then-college age son were estranged, as you'll recall if you've seen the movie.)

The place is maintained by donations and concession sales only. It is well worth a donation, and a visit if the opportunity presents itself.

All very cool...a great day trip from Chicago...check out the website at: www.fodmoviesite.com

That was the only day

“…It was like coming this close to your dreams, and then watching them brush past you, like a stranger in a crowd. At the time, you don't think much of it. We don't recognize our most significant moments while they're happening. Back then I thought, "Well, there'll be other days." I didn't realize that was the only day….


“…I never got to bat in the major leagues. I’d have liked to have had that chance, just once, to stare down a big-league pitcher. Stare him down, then just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That’s what I wish for. The chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes to look at it. To feel the tingle in your arms as you connect with the ball. To run the bases,
stretch a double into a triple, and flop face first into third. Wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish…”

Doc. Archibald (Moonlight) Graham, played by Burt Lancaster; to Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner; “Field of Dreams.”

Many 55,000 miles

Somewhere around Dixon, Illinois, on the way back to Chicago from Pikes Peak, the odometer on my motorcycle turned 53,000 miles.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the first mile, ridden with great fear and thrill over Storm King Mountain, near West Point, on the west bank of the Hudson, in November 2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks, 50 miles south. Since then, the bike and I have been all over the 5 boroughs of New York City, from Queens to Staten Island, up and down the New Jersey Turnpike, all over the Gettysburg battlefield, ridden from northern Maine to Vancouver Island, all over New England, from Orient Point, Long Island to Orlando to New Orleans and back, up and down the Ohio River valley, around Lake Michigan, and from Chicago to Colorado Springs, up and down Pikes Peak in 90 minutes, up and down the Illinois-Indiana border, from Chicago to Manhattan and back...these miles all four seasons, in rain and shine, and temperatures from 20 to 100. And in some great and happy times, and some bad and sad times.

Watch this space for an update at 110,000 miles.

1st Annual Sears Tower to Pikes Peak's Peak Motorcycle Race

Watch this space for reports, starting Friday June 9, 2006.

Report 1: 8:24PM CT Friday June 9. Iowa City, Iowa. 225 miles from Chicago. Left at 3:00PMCT, traveled I-290, I-355, I-55, I-80; arrived Iowa City at 7:15PM CT. Weather clear and traffic light once out of the Chicago area. Now at the Hampton Inn at exit 242, just west of Iowa City. 319-351-6600, room 231.

Report 2: 9:05AM CT Saturday June 10. Iowa City, Iowa. Raining here, but the western edge of this eastbound front is just 200 miles west of here - it is clear from in Omaha west until about sundown. So I am planning to get to Grand Island, Nebraska tonight, and on in to Denver/Colorado Springs on Monday. Now to get packed and head west.

Report 3: 8:00PM CT Saturday June 10. North Platte, Nebraska. 754 miles west of Chicago on I-80. About 90 minutes ago I stopped at Adair to refuel and to call Mike in Tallahassee for a weather report. He said a serious storm system was about 70 miles west of me, and headed east. North Platte was about 60 miles ahead, so I called the Hampton Inn there and made a reservation - the last non-smoking room, as it turned out. (The annual Buffalo Bill Wild West Rodeo, the annual Miss Nebraska Pagent, and the annual Nebraska Girls's Softball Tournament are here today! Most are staying at this inn...the lobby is a zoo.)

As I approached North Platte, large multiple bolts of think-bodied lightening were striking the North Platte area. Some were multi-branched and looked like flashing bright white trees, upsidedown from the sky. The storm was violent for about an hour, them moved on.

Report 4: 8:58 AM CT Sunday June 11. North Platte. Overcast and cool; the sun is starting to break through. The Colorado Rockies play the LA Dodgers at 1:00 MT, so I'll have 4 hours to make a 3.5 hour ride to the stadium for the game, if I decided to see it. I plan to be on the road by 9:45.

Report 5: 8:15 PM MT Sunday June 11. Denver. 1,081 miles west of Chicago. Today's game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Denver Rockies started at 1:05 PM MT, and I got there just in time for the last out in the 3rd inning. The Dodgers came from behind to win by 1 run. The run to Denver from North Platte - about 3 hours - was some of the most enjoyable motorcycling I have done lately - the weather was clear and warm (about 80 degrees), and the traffic was sparce and fast.

At one point, I fell in with a Chevy pickup and a Honda Odyssey that were cruising along at about 95 MPH. That lasted about an hour. The rest of the trip was at a leasurely 80 or so. Tomorrow, the weather favors an early run up and down Pikes Peak, so I will leave here at about 7:00 AM MT and get to PP at about 8:00 AM. After getting to the top and down, I'll turn east and head for Chicago.

Report 6: 7:12 AM MT Monday June 12. Denver. Weather clear and warm until isolated thunderstorms roll in around 3PM, according to The Weather Channel. High winds late yesterday afternoon tore the windshield off the bike, damaging the fastener on the lower left side of the molded clear plastic, but I was able to fix it. Maybe I'll stop in at the HD dealership near Pikes Peak and see if I can get a new one.

Report 7: 4:21 PM MT Monday June 12. Denver. The run up and down Pikes Peak took 90 minutes - from 8:58 to 9:45 going up, and from 10:10 to 10:50 coming down. It was beautiful - perfectly clear and noticably cooler with each 1,000 of altitude. At the top (14,110 feet above sea level, about 7,000 feet above the entrance to Pikes Peak Highway), I could feel the effects of the thin air; heart rate up, and a little lightheaded. The purple mountains were majestic, but I could not see any amber waves of grain today. Traction on the gravel and clay roads above 10,000 feet was a challenge, taking full attention, both upbound and downbound. Some of the switchbacks and most of the narrow gravely straightaways had no guardrails; looking over on the curves, when I dared, all I could see over the edge was little bitty tiny cars on thread-like roads about 5,000 feet below. To make it even more interesting, there were roadgraders and excavators working on a few of the tightest switchbacks.

Before getting to P.P., on the way south from Denver to Colorado Springs, just north of Castle Rock, the road turns a bend and opens on a valley that must be 10 miles wide. It stretches all the way from I-25 west to the base of the Rockies...way off to the west, in the bottom of the valley, I could see a very long train, headed by 5 locomotives, snaking through the valley...the cars stretched as far south as I could see, twisting around the contours of the land. It must have been 200 coal cars.

After getting down P's Peak, on the way back north on I-25, I noticed up ahead, off to the right, a gravel & clay road heading off to the east into the high mesas eastward. ("Hmmm...how do you get onto that interesting looking road?") So I got off the interstate highway at this boondocks exit, and I rode this dusty county road (Douglas County Road 47 (Greenland Road), as I recall, for about 10 miles. Then south on Mesa Road, then...on and on on a bunch of backroads. (Sigh: "35-acre homesites: $199,000.") The roads went over and around several mesa and a few buttes on the way north to Franktown then Castle Rock, where I got back on I-25 after about 2 hours.

(Sign seen today on a computer installation company truck, Castle Rock, Colorado, today, June 12: "Technologize Responsibly.")

Tomorrow, back to Chicago.

(Final) Report 8: 11:00 PM CT Tuesday June 13. Schaumburg. 17 hours and 2,260 miles later, home. I started out at dawn from Denver wearing shorts and lots of sunscreen, to get some tan on my legs, and froze. By North Platte, my legs were black as soot from all the junk from the road and off the engine, so I stopped at a McDonalds and put by long pants on. Richard called at that moment to tell me that he'd been made a partner in his law firm that morning, at a breakfast meeting of the firm's partners.

All the way over - through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois - it seemed that the territory had two cultures; the culture of the baseball cap and the culture of the cowboy hat...on the land, at the truck stops and gas stations...it was either the farmers wearing baseball caps (John Deere, CAT, etc.) or the cattle and horse ranchers wearing broad-brimed western hats.

Tomorrow, it's wash the bugs and grease off the bike, and go to work.

The Confidence of Champions

"I'm judged the way I should be judged," said Rodriguez, who was booed after popping out in the third inning. "I make an awful lot of money, and I'm a talented guy. I put myself in this situation, and I expect all the criticism. It motivates me."

Alex Rodriguez, quoted in "After a Game to Forget, a Home Run to Remember,"
by Tyler Kepler, New York Times, May 11, 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/sports/baseball/11yanks.html

Baseball’s Gettysburg Address

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?

Sure I’m lucky.

Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy?

Sure I’m lucky.

When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies -- that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter -- that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body -- it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed -- that’s the finest I know.

So, I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for.

Delivered by Lou Gehrig, 4 July 1939, at Yankee Stadium.

The Attack That Killed A School

I was not the only person who saw Penstock attack Henderson. A large and powerful man, he beat the defensless child in a fit of alcholic rage. When I pulled Penstock off the child and threw him out of the building, all the others went on with their lunch as if nothing had happened. Later, during the official cover-up, they claimed that I claimed to have seen really did not happen at all. The member of the Board of Trustees to whom I told the story in effect confessed moral and managerial bankruptcy, and betrayed his duty, by saying, "This is a matter for the (head of school) to deal with, because we Trustees have to observe boundaries..."

Thus, in January 2002, began the final descent of a once-venerable 120-year old school. A handful of highly public lawsuits followed over later acts of abuse and hazing. They were all covered in juicy detail by the CBS affiliate in New York City, among other media outlets, using information leaked by the attorney for the plaintiffs. The school denied all responsibility, even publicly questioned whether the 'alleged' events even happened. But the school conducted an show investigation for public relations purposes, the results of which were never published after the lawsuites dropped out of the press. The bad press helped the enrollment drop almost immediately by about one-third, and has never recovered. During all this, the school was reaccredited "with commendations," and a major government agency awarded the school "honor" status.

Now the school is dying a slow death, as it should, given its low culture, but ruining careers and ill-serving students and parents as it goes.

Suicide Squeeze Bunt Odds

Hi Cosmo,

Now, this is SERIOUS.

The Yankees are playing Fenway Park 4 games August 18-21.

I'd thought about visiting my son Patrick then, who is at BU, as you know, and while there see the Red Sox lose 4 in a row.

But the Red Sox website says all 4 games are already sold out, so I thought I'd check with you so see if you know someone who has season tickets but who will be out of town or something, and would sell a game or two them to a Yankee fan from Chicago.

That is a real long shot, like a suicide squeeze bunt, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

JB

Yankee Stadium July 14, 7:05 pm

Hello Cosmo,

The only seats that were available were in the "non-alcholic" bleechers!

(The e-ticket confirmation said: "Friday 07/14/2006 7:05 pm Yankee Stadium
New York Yankees vs. Chicago White Sox Section BLCH51, row N, seats 1-2")

Ha! Do you have ANY idea what that MEANS? Whew!

First, it means that the game is practically sold out already, and it is 3 months away. (Of course, the Chicago White Sox are the defending World Series champs.)

Second, the reason they say "non-alcholic" is because this the place where the routiest fans sit. (These are the cheapest seats..only $12/each! But the only ones available. We would not want to sit on a stuffy 'ol sky box, anyway.)

Real seats, where people are polite and don't have criminal records, go for at least $50/each.)

THIS will be a REAL experience...One that prudent people would NEVER consider...we'll be RIGHT on the leading edge of the frontier of good judgment.

At least it is a night game, so cooler, i n July. And afterward, we can go to all the after-game parties on 125th street! It will be a once-in-a-lifetime expreience...hopefully we'll live through it. JB

My Billy

Message recently received from a parent:

Dear Admissions Director:

For the first eight years of his life, I was terribly worried about my gifted son, Billy. He had undergone endless testing and visits to hundreds of specialists, and he was eventually diagnosed with A.D.W., or Attention-Deficit What; then A.D.H.S.T., or Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Stop That; and, after that, A.D.P.O.Y.P., or Attention-Deficit Put On Your Pants. Finally, I realized that Billy is a Dandelion Child, a term used for unusually bright and active children whose special powers will someday change the world.

Shortly after Billy was born, I noticed that he possessed an unusual affinity for organic play, because whenever I took him on picnics he would eat bark. He also demonstrated highly precocious hand-eye coördination, because at only six months old he was able to fling his dirty diapers at strangers, laugh, and point to me. Before his first birthday, he was speaking in complete sentences, although he was using a complex secret language, similar to Karl Rove’s.

Billy’s early interactions with other children proved difficult, because his consciousness was so much more developed. For example, in the sandbox other children would use their brightly colored plastic shovels to fill their matching buckets with sand. Billy, however, would place his bucket over another child’s head and then beat the bucket with his shovel, demanding, “Where’s Waldo? I know you know.”

I attempted to schedule playdates with other children, tykes who, sadly, insisted on wearing flammable clothing. It was after one such fruitless attempt that I first took Billy to be evaluated by a therapist, a limited woman who prescribed Ritalin, which only caused Billy to become drowsy and disoriented at odd moments, such as when he was hijacking a bus. The therapist asked Billy if he had any siblings, and I remember how his eyes sparkled as he replied, “Don’t you read the paper?”

Next, I enrolled Billy in one of the city’s finest private preschools for gifted children; during the interview I was especially proud when Billy showed the other children how wooden blocks make love. Unfortunately, even the school’s most accelerated programs bored Billy, and he expressed his frustration by crawling around on all fours, grunting and searching for the truffles that he declared some of the little girls had hidden in their underwear. After being expelled, Billy comforted himself by writing a wrenching memoir of addiction, entitled “Boogers.”

A series of other schools were equally repressive, and all I kept hearing was “Billy refuses to sit still,” “Billy can’t interact with a group,” and “Billy covered another child with green finger paint and told her that now she could get a scholarship.” That was when, thank the Lord, I discovered a Web site for the parents of other extremely advanced children, called AreYourPetsLimping.com. One generous mom suggested that I read two invaluable books by the pioneering child psychologist Dr. Irene Morningflower-Sanctum, entitled “Catching the Gifted Child” and “If He Can Poke, He Can Fly.”

These works described the Dandelion Child phenomenon, explaining how a little boy could welcome his visiting grandmother with hugs and kisses and then create a narrative by murmuring, “I’m not Billy. You killed Billy. Don’t you remember?”

The term “Dandelion Child” comes from the children’s vividly colored auras, which are golden and sunny, and which, if you’re not careful, can ruin your lawn. Dandelion Children are so evolved that the rest of us literally can’t understand them, and not just because they enjoy tugging panty hose over their heads and announcing, “Look at me, Mommy. I’m a testicle!” As Dr. Morningflower-Sanctum once told me, as we took Billy for a stroll, “Your son has such compassion, far beyond his years. Watch how he leaves that realistic baby doll on a doorstep, rings the doorbell, and runs away. See the elderly couple reading the note? It says, ‘Maybe this one will call.’ ”

Today, I am proud to report that I am homeschooling a happy, healthy, busy little Dandelion marvel, even if, whenever I try to embrace him, Billy still shouts, “Get off me! I’m not one of your husbands!” As Dr. Morningflower-Sanctum said, just the other day, “Let’s peek in on Billy in my waiting room. See how he’s bonding with my cat? He’s teaching her that we’re all connected, sometimes with shoelaces. He’s an inspiration. He knows.”


(Actually, this is a recent article, "MY BILLY" by Paul Rudnick in The New Yorker of 2006-04-03...-JB)

1st Annual Lake Michigan Circumferential Motorcycle Race

(The below is a message to Tait Trussell, a former Wall Street Journal journalist who writes about extreme events. He lives in Manistee, Michigan.)

Hello Tait,

The bike is all tuned up and gassed. All I have to do is put my raingear in the saddlebags and light the fire.

The 1st Annual Lake Michigan Circumferential Motorcycle Race starts tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM at the Navy Pier in downtown Chicago. The rules say that competitors "may race around lake Michigan either way - clockwise or counterclockwise. All that matters is the elapsed time from Chicago to Chicago."

I will take it counterclockwise, arriving at your place in Manistee, Michigan about noon, since that leg is only 297 of the 946 miles. The last leg will be in the dark, and only a fool would ride a motorcycle through the south side of Chicago in the dark. It will be better to approach Chicago from the north in those hours, where the congestion is much less and the roads much better.

Of course, foolishness is a relative thing.

I hope the ticker tape doesn't get too slippery on Lake Shore Drive.

I figure I can make it in 16 hours, not counting the time I spend having a hot dog with you. I'll call when I get to the front gate of your estate.

John

Slaps decline with age

If you stand in the hallway as a column of kindergardeners walk by, and hold your hand out palm up, at waist level, about 89 percent of them will slap your hand. Some with great energy, some tepidly.

If you do this with 2nd graders, about 74 percent will slap your hand.

With 4th graders, about 65 percent, and with 8th graders 2 percent.

Why is this?

Birthday 230

Hi Jeff,

Yes, Today is Marine Corps Anniversary #230. Thanks for the note.

There are a lot of Marines having a beer or two tonight...one year, when I was at Fort Sill (an "Army" base)we had to have our 10 Nov blowout in the swimming pool (drained)because they the Army types would not let us into the usual clubs.

Apparently the previous year, one of the lesser warriors made some snide remark about "those sissy people cutting birthday cakes with swords," and some fine china was broken before the PMs showed up.

It turned out to be a blessing; we made a rule that everyone had to move closer to the deepend's drain as they drank more beer, and tried to keep repeating the mottos:

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

When you absolutely, definitely, without fail HAVE to have it
destroyed overnight, call the First Marine Division.

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

When you find your enemy, do not treat him gently.

On the battlefield, there are only two kinds of men:
Marines and targets.

Don't shave: push 'em in and bite'm off from the inside.

And so on...and on.

Best regards, John


-----Original Message-----
Subject: Marines Birthday

John:

As you know, today is the birth day of the Marines.

Semper Fie.
OOOOORRRAAHHH!
Remember the Alamo.
Storm the beaches!
Have a martini!

90 Minutes in Hadleyville

“High Noon” takes 85 movie minutes to tell the story of only 90 minutes in the life of Hadleyville, a town that is mostly inhabited by the usual cowards.

The movie’s action starts at 10:40 AM on a Sunday. Sheriff Will Kane (Gary Cooper) has just married Amy, a Quaker (Grace Kelly) and has just resigned as sheriff when he learns that Frank Miller is going to arrive on the noon train.

Kane had cleaned up Hadleyville, liberated it from the rule of Frank Miller’s gang of murders and otherwise undesirables. In the process he sent Frank Miller to prison for murder. Miller gets out of prison early, and comes to kill Kane.

His bride and his friends urge him to get out of town before Frank Miller arrives on the noon train, and he and his three of his gang members start hunting searching for him. But Will reasons that if he does not stay and face the released killer as Hadleyville’s sheriff – presumably with the help of a posse to be recruited – the four killers will follow him out of town anyway and kill him, and maybe Amy, trying to run away, unarmed on the prairie.

So Will Kane decides to put the star back on his vest and assemble a posse of grateful citizens to face Frank Miller and his three fellow gunmen. But one by one the citizens of Hadleyville rationalize their way out of helping Kane face the killers. Each has a superficially plausible excuse. The parson says, "the Bible says 'thou shall not kill'..." A man argues, "We've been paying for law enforcement all along and now when trouble comes, we have to deal with it ourselves?" Another says, "Ain't it true that Kane is really no longer sheriff? That all this is just personal trouble between Kane and Miller?" Another adds, "We put Miller in jail once and the politicians up north released him...I say let the politicians deal with this problem." And the town mayor, in a perfect example of an 'If By Whiskey' speech (see below) says, "...This is our problem, and we need to face it..."(but) if there is gunplay in Hadleyville it will be bad for economic development...so "Will, I think you should run while there is still time..." (The mayor says this when there is about 15 minutes left until Miller arrives on the noon train.)

The real issue in Hadleyville, besides the ordinary reluctance on the part of many people to get into a gunfight with four hard-core killers, is that the business community is divided between those who made money when the town was full of criminal vice and those who made money when things were sweet and quiet like the Chamber of Commerce would prefer. It recalls "The Godfather" system of business operations: not all business interests thrive best under a regime of garden-variety "law and order."

(In general, when reduced by extreme conditions, it seems humanity can be seen as consiting of two general classes: the rabbits and the snakes.)

In the end, of course, Gary Cooper wins, killing 75 percent of his potential killers. The critical kill - the one that evened the score and gave Kane a chance of winning the gunfight - was accomplished by Kane's Quaker wife, who shoots one of the killers in the back.

"Moose" Skowron's infield ball

I had not thought about "Moose" Skowron for a long time, until I saw his photograph in the Field of Dreams store in the Woodfield Mall yesterday.

When he played first base for the Kansas City Blues - it must have been in the 1950 or 1951 season - we had an understanding: when he'd came off the field at the end of the inning, I'd toss him the infield ball as he approached the dugout. He'd tuck in in his long glove, and put it in a very specific place on the bench near the batrack.

Then when he finished the infield warmup at the top of the next inning, he'd throw the infield ball to me, standing near the rain tarp behind first base.

Each time we did this, he'd say, "Thanks, kid." So all the ballplayers, most of whom hardly noticed this third-string batboy, called me "the kid" all the time. I can still remember how big and fast Skowron looked...he had huge hands and forearms...but now I see on the statistics website(URL below) that we was only 5'11"...an inch shorter than I am now! And he played 1st base at that puny height!

The KC Blues was a Yankee farm club, and it seemed everytime a player got really good in those years, the Yankees would call them up. Of course, that was the dream of all the players (and the batboys), but it really irritated the local KC fans, who did not care what a farm team existed for in the first place.

At the start of the 1954 season the Yankees called Skowron up to play his 5'11" first base in New York. His promotion to the big leagues probably had nothing to do with how well I took care of his infield ball, because in New York he played in seven World Series without much help from me.

But one time, when my Dad and I were in New York for a couple of games, I got to shag flies during batting practice. On the way down the tunnel before BP, Skowron came up behind me, messed up my hair, and said, "Hi kid - hang out in right and I'll hit a few to you..." So I did, and that day Skowron dropped all of his BP hits into right field. Being as fleet as a beer truck, I did not get to any of them, but Skowron did his best. I could see them leave his bat about half a second before I heard the crack, and the baseballs would shrink to just a white pinpoint before they began their downward arc. I can remember thinking how neat it would be to actually get under one and catch it. I still think about that, never having actually caught one.

Yankee Stadium was a majestic sight, as seen by kid standing in the deep outfield. It was hard to imagine how even those strong men could throw a baseball all the way to the plate from way out there! I have never since been in a structure that equalled for me that sense of grandness. Maybe if I had spend less time in awe of the stadium (and just a little bit faster) I'd have caught at least one of Skoron's long fly balls.

Skowron's career BA was a respectable .282, but he hit .293 with 8 HRs in World Series play.

He was from Chicago, and the websight I just checked says he's still living (born in 1930, so if the site is correct he's 75. He finished his MLB career with the White Sox.) I think I'll look him up, just to see if he still needs me to take care of that infield ball for him.


Here is a place to check out his statistics:
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/S/Skowron_Bill.stm