Dropping the ball on 2012

With the Holiday-That-Must-Not-Be-Named behind us for another year, the secular/politically correct/mainstream media world can at last stop using the politically correct “Happy Holidays” and begin wishing us all a specific “Happy New Year.”

With next week’s big celebration in mind, the only time I’ve ever thought it would be fun to live anywhere near the city of Las Vegas is on New Year’s Eve. I mean, if you’re looking for a good time, that place must throw the mother of all parties to ring in the New Year, right? The blinding bright lights, the head-pounding music, the human crush of drunk-out-of-their-skulls party goers … um, never mind.

On second thought, what happens in Vegas can happen to someone else, as far as I’m concerned. Our family’s own New Year traditions have always been much milder and, well, subdued. How mild? Let’s just say they usually involve Dick Clark on the tube, a few minutes pre- and post-midnight standing on our balcony overlooking the Crescenta Valley, a bag of “exploding” confetti poppers and a glass of Martinelli’s non-alcoholic sparkling cider for each of us. But wait, there’s more. If we’re really feeling festive and rowdy any particular year, our big celebration may even include the banging of pots and pans with wooden spoons. I know … woo hoo! We don’t exactly need a doctor’s clearance to participate.

It’s not like we don’t ever socialize, though. The past couple of New Year’s Eves we’ve actually spent the evening with some great friends in Altadena and haveenjoyed a wonderful dinner, excellent conversation, a somewhat sedate card game or two and a quick side hug at midnight. Then it’s back home to warm, flannel sheets and hopefully enough sleep to get up early enough to watch those shock-jocks, Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards do the pulse-quickening play-by-play on yet another Rose Parade. Again, woo hoo!

Least you think I was born old and boring, I have been known to camp out all day and night along the Rose Parade route on several past New Year’s Eves. Yep, there’s nothing like sitting for days in a broken down lawn chair and “sleeping” on a damp grass median or filthy concrete sidewalk with the soothing lilt of air horns lulling you to sleep and Silly String wafting all around you through the cold night air like flying neon-colored spaghetti.

Then again, being right there when a 200-plus member high school marching band passes by close enough to count the pimples on the tuba-players’ cheeks has always been worth any hypothermia, loss of hearing and superficial wounds inflicted by flying tortillas and stale marshmallows. Good times, indeed.

My all time favorite way to welcome in any New Year, however, is to do it in the mountains above Mammoth Lakes. I like nothing better than to leave the warmth of our family’s log home a few minutes before midnight, walk out into the middle of the street – usually lined with shoulder-high berms of snow at that time of year – and simply gaze up at the inky blackness of the midnight sky while one year ends and another begins. That high up in altitude, the nighttime sky is filled with a blanket of stars that are simply not visible down here in Southern California. As I look up, I like to say thank you to God for the grace that helped me make it through the past year and to pray for His blessings throughout the new one. 

Next Monday night, we unfortunately won’t be up in the Sierras or at our friends’ home in Altadena, and thankfully, nowhere near Las Vegas. Barring a surprise invite to a party, we’ll likely be out on the balcony again with our sparkling cider in one hand and a party horn in the other. But the prayers for the coming year will be the same, nevertheless. Happy New Year, and I’ll see you ‘round town.

Decked By My Own Halls

Maybe I can blame it on bad eggnog, but the other night I dreamed that I bumped into Dr. Seuss and Clement Clarke Moore while we were all searching for Christmas lights at OSH. (they were sold out, of course). For some reason, the three of us got to kvetching about the holidays. When I awoke from my slumber, the poem that follows was scribbled on the notepad on my nightstand. Yeah, that was some funky eggnog:

 
Deck the (Empty Nester) Halls

‘Twas the week before Christmas, when I said to my spouse

“It’s probably time to start decorating the house.”

“Ya think?” she exclaimed with a roll of her eyes

And then walked away while exhaling loud sighs.


Our neighbors had all done their homes weeks before

With lights on their shingles and wreaths on their door

Inflatable snowmen stood poised on their lawns

But passing our house produced nothing but yawns.


It’s not that I don’t want to join in the fun

And I certainly love the whole look when it’s done

But the boxes and crates and assorted gewgaws

All the lights and the garland – it gives me such pause.


I can’t climb a ladder with speed like I used to

And hanging from rooftops? Well, why would I choose to?

Our kids are all grown, it’s just me and my mate

This old empty nest is one great big blank slate.


And here’s something else that is no longer fun

Those new LED lights that are bright as the sun

They use much less power and help save the planet

But the glow they emit is as stone cold as granite.


So we scrounged and we hunted like highly trained canines

‘Til we found enough strings of the old-school type C-9s

We hung them all up and we turned them all on

And I have to admit, my reluctance was gone.


Then out on the street, there arose such a clatter

I ran (okay, walked) down the driveway to see what was the matter

Our mailbox was bursting, its door off its hinges

The mailman was there with his face full of twinges


He had mountains of catalogs stashed in his pack

With a gruff, Grinchy voice he intoned, “Oh, my back!”

He was sweating profusely and starting to quiver.

It was sad the poor soul had so much to deliver


But I thanked him and wished him a world of good cheer

(Though I’m sure he would rather I gave him a beer!)

Then I went up the driveway and back to our house

To finish my chores and make happy the spouse


Once the house was aglow and my wife, she was too

Our progress was good, but we’d still lots to do.

There was fudge to be fudged and eggnog to be spicing

And cookies to bake and then painted with icing.


We trimmed up our tree with ornaments so shiny

Was it festive and cheery? Oh, you bet your hiney!

We wrapped enough presents to fill up a sleigh

Then hung up our stockings and called it a day.


We were tired and sore and I needed a nap

When there came at the window a soft tap, tap, tap!

I looked up and saw him, that Jolly Old Saint

With his snowy white beard and his costume so quaint.


He gestured at all of our trappings outside

Then flashed a “thumbs up” and got back in his ride

Ol’ Rudolph and company then put it in gear

And took to the sky that was so cold and clear


I was feeling quite good (for one who is older)

When Santa turned back and looked over his shoulder

Then I heard him exclaim, as he turned back around

Merry Christmas to all, and I’ll see you ‘round town!

Playing My (Christmas) Cards Right

It’s that most wonderful, horrifying time of the year: time to decide who gets a Christmas card and who doesn’t. Do we send a card to everyone in our address book, or just close friends and relatives? Do only those people who sent us a card last year get one this year?

I’m not quite sure, but I think that’s how it worked in my childhood home. I remember that mom had this special hardbound address book with a rubber band around the outside and tattered pages inside. Every year sometime after Thanksgiving, she would bring it out from whatever super-secret place it hid all year, blow the dust off the thing, carefully remove the aging rubber band and slowly lift its faded green cover.

Don’t hold me to it, but I could swear I heard the sound of angels singing each time mom opened that book, revealing pages of beautifully hand-written names of chosen family and friends. Talk about your naughty and nice list. This thing was like the Christmas Card Book of Life. There was a small square in the columns next to each name to check off the years not only when our family sent that person a Christmas card, but more importantly, whether or not the recipients sent one to us that year, as well.

Again, I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that if there was a blank square in the “received” column for last year, that poor schmo was gettin’ squat in their mailbox from us this year. Booyah and bah humbug.

I’m not even sure if mom still has that book. If she does, I live too far away from her house these days to hear the angel chorus when she opens it up. But times are changing when it comes to sending traditional cards, anyway. With the near universal use of the Internet, more people are sending e-cards or my personal favorite – custom-printed photo cards from one of several online services that let you insert your own family photos into pre-designed card formats. You can even upload your own address book data and have each card preaddressed and mailed for you without ever touching the things. It’s certainly convenient, if not exactly personal and heartfelt.

I still prefer to hand write each address and include some sort of note with our cards. Although I do dread each year when we address the last of the envelopes (I have a tendency to order exactly the number of cards on our list), affix the last of carefully counted “holiday-themed” stamps from those politically correct folks at the U.S. Postal Service, and drop the entire stack into the mailbox.

So why such trepidation? Because it never fails that – when all the cards and stamps are in the mail – I’ll go home and find a card or two from someone who hasn’t sent us a card in years, or ever, and who we didn’t send one to this year. Arrrghhhhh! Will they hate us now because they aren’t getting a card from us? Should we rush out and buy one just for them? Grit our teeth and hope they don’t notice and be sure to send one next year? What if it’s too late and they cross us off their card list? Oh, the pressure.

As I write this, my wife and I haven’t decided if we’ll even send out cards this season. With our kids spread out further and further across the country each passing year, it’s almost impossible to get a photo of all of us to put on a card. Last year for the first time, in fact, our “family” photo card featured just my wife and me. No kids. Quite honestly, it made me feel less than holly and jolly to send them out.

Yep, it looks like we may be on several naughty lists next year. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Taking the Weekend By Storm

This past weekend while my CV Weekly colleagues were dog paddling down Honolulu Avenue during the Montrose Christmas parade, my wife and I were having our own weathery adventures out of town. We drove north on Highway 14 late Friday afternoon, stopping in Mojave to fuel up and getting our first clue of the wild weather ahead. Getting out of my truck at the gas station, I had to hang onto the door handle with both hands to keep the wind from blowing the thing out of my hands and off its hinges.

Our first clue of the strength of the gathering storm should have been the fields of towering windmills spread far out across the horizon, their triple blades spinning like airplane engines at takeoff speed and the setting sun backlighting their massive whirling silhouettes.

The wind grew progressively stronger the further north we drove, building to a sustained and buffeting blow by the time we merged with Highway 395 near Pearsonville. Not surprisingly, we passed scores of tractor-trailer rigs pulled over and parked in sheltered areas of towns like Independence and Bishop – their drivers wisely waiting for the worst of the winds to blow over.

Arriving well after dark in the town of Mammoth Lakes, we followed slushy tire tracks up Main Street as the falling snow thickened the higher we climbed above town. After some slipping and sliding and many thanks sent aloft in appreciation for our truck’s four-wheel-drive capabilities, we pulled up to our family’s log home to find a thigh-high blanket of wet, dense snow covering the 50-or-so feet of driveway from the street to our front porch. Apparently, unlike the gentleman who has been plowing our driveway for the past many years and who automatically cleared clients’ driveways of snow after six or more inches had fallen, the new guy our family is using requires that you call and leave him a message 24 hours in advance of your arrival. Who knew?

But no matter, the richest adventures often happen when you least expect them. Like in the darkness and biting cold of an early High Sierra winter snowstorm when you suddenly find yourself shoveling and muscling a snowblower up and down the driveway for hours to clear a path to the house.

As much hard work as it was, we wouldn’t have traded the effort expended to get into the house last Friday night for any other experience. Coming in from the freezing night outside, we collapsed on the couch – exhausted, but warm with a sense of rewarded efforts (the crackling, sputtering logs burning in the stone fireplace contributed a welcome bit of heat, too).

Another weather-related adventure last weekend was even more memorable, if not nearly as enjoyable. Driving back home early Sunday afternoon, we were caught in a windstorm the likes of which I have never seen, much less driven through. Several miles south of the town of Lone Pine we were caught between two massive columns of tornado-like wind carrying huge amounts of debris – uprooted sage brush, whole branches and whirling walls of sand and dirt. As these angry funnels of fury pummeled our truck and blacked out the daylight, we couldn’t see our own hood or even the road directly beneath us. Let me tell you, at 70 mph, that gets your undivided attention.

We hurtled through the seemingly solid brown cloud until a particularly violent fist of air punched our truck up onto its two left-side wheels. As my wife did her best Steven Tyler impersonation and I fought to keep us from rolling, another vicious blast of wind, this time from the opposite side the highway, slapped our truck back onto all four wheels. Over the next thirty seconds or so – it seemed much longer – we emerged from the worst of the windstorm and could once again see the lines on the highway and brightening daylight through the remnants of the cloud.

As we slowly continued south on 395, caught our breath, and nervously laughed about the experience (my wife said she felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz) I realized that our windshield was now pitted from one side to the other, top to bottom. But it could have been worse. We passed a couple in a Volkswagen camper van who had made it safely to the side of the road, the entire roof of their vehicle torn off and hanging to one side.

Yep, it certainly could have been much worse. Next year, I have a feeling we’ll be staying in town for the annual Montrose Christmas parade. Whether (weather?) it’s dumping rain or not.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

“Sale”ing Ourselves Short

Whoever “they” are, they finally did it. 

They figured out how to make the days between Halloween and New Year’s one long, seamless spending and shopping season without the interference of that bothersome little holiday known as Thanksgiving. How? By ignoring it. Specifically, what was previously a mostly un-marketable holiday, distinctive for its lack of commerce as much as for its focus on family, food and faith – is fast becoming a mere launching pad for the mass-hysteria buying spree that has become the Christmas ... whoops, I mean “holiday” season.

The past couple of weeks, more than ever before, I’ve sensed that the Thanksgiving holiday is officially less of a celebration of thankfulness and gratitude and more of a kick-off for the mother of all spending sprees. With so many stores now open on Thanksgiving night this year, it won’t be long until some cash-craving corporate cretins decide that they need to go that extra mile and open all day Thanksgiving to get the edge on the competition. It’s coming, I have no doubt. And their excuse will be – as it was repeated ad nauseum last week – “we’re only doing what our customers have asked us to do.” 

How very big of you. And how long until Christmas day itself gets the same treatment?

I feel a sense of sadness and loss watching news reports of beefed up in-store security and police patrols being dispatched to handle unruly crowds of holiday shoppers across the country. Granted, there didn’t seem to be as many reports of fights and mini riots at the nation’s malls and big box stores this past weekend – at least I don’t think any shoppers or store personnel were trampled to death or sprayed with mace as has happened in recent years. And all this for a deal on flat screen TVs, game consoles and mountains of meaningless merchandise to add to the stuff of contemporary life.

In case the original meaning of the terms has been lost in all the media hype, “Black Friday” was so-named because, long ago in the pre-internet days of yesteryear, many retailers relied on the shopping days between the Friday after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve to make a significant portion of their annual total sales, thus, taking them into the profitable “black” on their balance sheets. On the other side of the weekend, the “Cyber Monday” moniker also comes from the days of yore (the name was first used in 2005) when the early adopters who were comfortable with the concept of buying online would start shopping in earnest from their employers’ workplaces on the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday. At work, people had access to high-speed internet connections which made online shopping faster and more reliable than doing it at home over a (typical for the time) dial-up modem. Those days are long gone with a majority of people now able to shop online anytime from anywhere as long as they have their smart phone, iPad or laptop at hand. Yet the Cyber Monday name and phenomenon are stronger than ever.

We had the joy of spending Thanksgiving afternoon and evening with some wonderful friends of ours who live a few hours north of us in Lompoc, CA. (Many tryptophan-laced thanks to the always amazing Radabaugh clan!) On our way back down Hwy 101 later that night, we passed a huge Target store somewhere north of Woodland Hills. It was almost 11 pm and the store’s parking lot was filled to capacity with cars. I just don’t get it.

By the way, sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday was the slightly more laudable Small Business Saturday. Sure, why not. As was finishing this column, I heard a radio reporter call last Thursday “Gray Thursday.” Has a nice, cheery ring to it, right?

Here’s an idea; as long as we’re renaming the holiday formerly known as Thanksgiving, why not just call it Thankless Thursday? I’ll see you ‘round town.

Turning the Key to Happiness

I’ve heard it said that, “The key to happiness is forged from gratitude.” Okay … so, I actually made that one up. But the philosophy behind it comes from years of profound counsel from wise folks like nationally syndicated talk show host (and fellow Crescenta Valley resident), Dennis Prager, who says; “All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.”

I also love a quote from G.K. Chesterton: “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

It is in this spirit, and with your indulgence, that I would like to give thanks for but a few of my many, many blessings (wife, kids, health, home, country and community, included, of course).

I’m thankful for pumpkins and the lengthy menu of fabulous foods that can be made from the goopy, gloppy stuff. At the top of my favorites list is pumpkin pie. After that is ice cream, lattes, muffins, bread, scones and cookies. I’ve heard you can also make pumpkin butter, pudding, yogurt, smoothies, curried pumpkin (huh?) and even something called low-carb pumpkin and sausage soup. Might have to pass on that last one, though.

I’m thankful for college students who come home during breaks in the school year and leave a trail of hurricane-like flotsam and jetsam in every room of the house merely by walking through it. The amount of debris and dirty clothes and half-finished mugs of long-cold coffee and chargers and cables and key fobs that magically appear out of thin air is astounding. And I wouldn’t trade it for all the pristine, Martha-Stewart-like antiseptically clean, neat and sterile rooms in the world. Like I always say, nothing says “home” like clutter. My wife sticks her fingers in both ears and yells, “La-la-la-la-la!” when I say it, but I say it nonetheless.

I’m thankful for the outstanding servers at our many local restaurants. The legendary Lalo at Joselito’s in nearby Montrose, CA, for example, never fails to amaze my wife and me. We can go for months without dining there, and he will not only remember our favorite dishes (no onions in your enchilada, right?), he even teases us about how the restaurant has a surplus of bacon cheeseburgers because one of our sons has been away at college for the past few years. There’s a lot to be said for small-town living.

I’m thankful my formative years took place during the heyday of Hostess Brands. I can envision a time in the not-too-distant future with grandkids at my feet as I sit in rocker and reminisce to their enthralled, upturned faces about the once-common joys of Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Ho Hos and Zingers. A pox on your houses, Bakers & Teamsters unions!

I’m thankful that as of tomorrow I can once again go out to my backyard and unlock the shipping container filled with Christmas music CDs that has been hermetically sealed since last New Year’s Eve. It is indeed, the most musically wonderful time of the year.

Finally, and most importantly, I’m thankful for God’s unceasing grace, His undeserved forgiveness and His unsurpassed gift of eternal redemption made freely available to all who ask in His son's name.

To come full circle, I’ll wrap up with a final thought from Catholic Benedictine monk and interfaith teacher, Brother David Steindl-Rast: “In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.”

With that, I wish you and those you love a happy and thanks-filled holiday. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Looking for Mr. Good Bark

When this column was published in yesterday's edition of the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper, it was one day short of exactly five months since we said goodbye to our remaining family dog. Not that I’m acutely, achingly, painfully aware of the exact day that old guy left us, or anything like that. You may remember, he was a goofy, ridiculously pampered, joyfully loving Yellow Lab named Darby.

As I’ve written before (probably too often for some readers), I’m a dog person from muzzle to tail. I’m not losing my hair, I’m shedding. If I’m not feeling well, my wife has been known to feel my nose to see if it’s cold and wet or dry and warm. I have pants and coats hanging in my closet even now that I would bet have dog biscuits in them. I find it remarkable but not surprising that my wife and I have spent more money in vet bills over the past twenty-or-so years than we have on medical treatment for our own four human kids. (Thankfully, our kids have been blessedly healthy!) We have spent countless nights clinging to the edge of our queen-sized bed because our dog(s) were sacked out and snoring smack dab in the center of it and we didn’t want to disturb their slumber. Yes, dogs tend to live a mighty cushy life at our home.

That said, I’m amazed that our house has been sans-dog for these past five long and lonely months. While my wife, bless her heart, enjoys the dramatically less frequent use of our vacuum cleaner, along with not tripping over a dog or two every time she opens the refrigerator or pantry door (not to mention much more available real estate in our bed every night!), I have been not-so-patiently waiting to begin the process of finding the next dog(s) to welcome into our family. You might even say I’ve been panting to get started. (Seriously, how could I NOT have just written that?)

And so, for several weeks now we’ve been in the process of browsing animal shelter web sites, visiting the shelter in person, and emailing or calling dog breeders about available puppies or upcoming litters.

Now, I can already hear the outrage and gnashing of teeth from well-meaning animal activists screaming, “Don’t shop, adopt!” and other less-printable comments in my direction. Believe me; our hope is to find a young dog of the Lab persuasion (or Labradoodle, Golden Retriever, Italian Waterdog or some Heinz 57-like combination thereof) that needs a dog-loving home and doting, overly permissive adoptive parents. But, from our experience so far, the reality of the “adoption” process today is not an easy one. In our limited experience to date, unless you want a dog who had either Pitt Bull or Chihuahua parents (or both, somehow and incredibly!), you’re out of luck. Any and all larger dogs in the retriever family simply won’t be going home to your family. As the very nice woman at the Pasadena Humane Society told us, “Oh no, the waiting list for any lab is full almost immediately after they arrive at our shelter.” Bummer.

At the risk of offending fans of the breed, let’s just say I’m not the Pitt Bull type. And as for Chihuahuas? Well, we have an old, geriatric, exceedingly cranky and belligerent house cat that not only would eat a pocket puppy’s dinner, it would probably eat the dog itself. She is one mean, mutha of a cat.

And so we continue our search. I’ve got a bucket of chew toys, coat pockets full of biscuits, a nicely re-grown lawn in our backyard, and an ultra-cushy, super-plush, extra-large dog bed all ready and waiting for whatever lucky dog(s) is out there waiting for us to find him and/or her. Not that I have any delusions that any dog of ours will actually sleep on its own bed.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

What’s Hot In Swat

This column was written and due to my publisher on Election Day, so I didn’t know which side of the American populace would be celebrating when it was published and which would be packing suitcases to leave for more civilized shores. 

Whatever the outcome, and with such weighty matters finally behind us, I figured it would be as good a time as any to discuss something completely different and discuss, what else, but  …  fly swatters.

If a national election isn’t enough proof that we live in an amazing country, try searching for fly swatters the next time you’re on Amazon.com. You’ll get 1,052 results. I kid you not. You can choose from at least 74 different brands, a myriad of types and multiple sizes of the lethal gadgets. Even better, if you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can have your fly swatter of choice in only two days with free shipping. Is this a great country, or what?

According to fly swatter lore, the first fly-flattening device (other than a rolled up newspaper) was invented in 1900 in Decatur, Illinois. Common sense would suggest that there are as many flies in Decatur today as there were then, in spite of the fact that we can now buy plastic fly swatters, wire mesh swatters, electronic zappers, swatters shaped like a golf club or a tennis racket, telescoping fly swatters, a fly swatter with molded finger grips on the handle. You can go retro and order an Amish-made leather fly swatter, or more high tech with the Koolatron Biteshield RZ02 Electronic Racket Zapper model.

While searching Amazon, it took extreme willpower not to add to my shopping cart the Martin Paul 100-75 Flyshooter Original Bug Gun with attached lanyard for retrieving the flying disc of death. Be still my heart. Other models that caught my eye included “The Executioner,” “CatchMaster,” “Zapper Swatter Killer,” “InsectAside” and of course, the “Bug -a-nator 2” – which I can only assume is an improvement over the original Bug-a-nator.

I saw models with the classic simplicity of the Willert Home Products Model R38 all the way to novelty of a talking fly swatter. (Why make a fly swatter that talks, you ask? Because this is America, pilgrim. Duh.) I have to wonder what the thing says, however. If you score a direct hit and smoosh the bug all over the kitchen counter, maybe it shouts, “that was for the egg-salad sandwich you ruined, bucko!” Or if you miss entirely, does it sneer, “I’ll be back”?

After spending at least 30 minutes reading user reviews of the various fly swatters, it dawned on me that – for crying out loud – those are 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. As if it’s important what others think of different models of fly swatters. Besides, who in the world would take the time necessary to actually write a review of a fly swatter, anyway? We live in interesting times. I refuse to look, but I have no doubt that there’s a Facebook page for fly swatter aficionados or that right now somebody is tweeting about the latest and greatest tool to splatter Musca domestica with great malice aforethought.

Speaking of which, I recently read a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal about a guy who has invented “the better fly swatter.” It’s a $30 shotgun-like device designed to blast a pinch of common table salt from a few feet away at flies, spiders and small pests of all kinds. Apparently, it has a satisfyingly lethal effect on a fly, but leaves almost no trace of the salt ammo wherever you happen to shoot it. It’s inventor calls the invention the “Bug-a-Salt.” Get it? Believe me, as soon as that bad boy becomes available on Amazon.com, it’s going in my shopping cart.

Now, wasn’t this more fun than reading yet another post-election analysis?

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Electing to Have Opinions

Next Tuesday those of us who vote will have our quadrennial opportunity to help determine the course of the country for at least the next four years. To quote a new President Obama shortly after his inauguration and explaining his refusal to extend a cooperative legislative hand to the Republicans on Capitol Hill, “Elections have consequences.”

Indeed. With that colossal understatement in mind, and with next week’s crucial election upon us, herewith some thoughts on the occasion.

Once again, there are several California propositions on the ballot that supposedly benefit “schools”, “education” or that Holy grail of all emotional appeals, “Our kids.” One or two props even pretend that money that will actually trickle down to the classroom itself. Sure it will. Just once, I’d like to see all the groups (are you listening, teachers’ unions?) who spend untold millions of dollars to support higher taxes “for our children” be forced to spend all those advertising and political contributions on – wait for it – education! If more money for schools would actually make the difference, and if you really and truly have our kids’ best interests at heart – by all means – go ahead and give that money you dump into political campaigns and TV ads directly to the schools. It’ll never happen.

Speaking of schools, I cringe each time I see the pro-Prop 30 commercial with the voiceover that says something about “keeping the money out of the hands of Sacramento politicians …” And yet, the very next mug you see is the top Sacramento politician himself, the very man who has championed this latest “temporary” tax hike on Californians, Governor Jerry Moonbeam Brown, urging us to vote for his latest ploy. It’s akin to asking a chicken to vote for Colonel Sanders.

I find it deliciously ironic that President Obama had to show a picture ID when he became the first President ever to participate in “early voting” on October 25. Was asking for hi ID racist? Did it suppress his vote? And by the way, why bother at all with an “election day” if you can vote weeks in advance? Why not have election month. Or election year. This push for early voting stinks of Chicago politics on a grand scale. I wonder how many early voters will wish they could change their vote as the quickly developing Benghazi Libya ineptitude and cover up is exposed to the light of day?

I’m grateful this isn’t Ohio. Whenever we’re up in Mammoth Lakes during an election, the frequency and fury of political ads broadcast from nearby Nevada is just plain numbing – easily triple the number we see in California. I can only imagine what those poor souls in the notorious “battleground” state of Ohio are living through this year. Owning a TV station in Ohio must be like owning a Saudi oil field – a gusher profits.

I’ve never seen our country so divided by the political left and right, radical cultural agendas and shamefully blatant race baiting. It’s no wonder that polls are showing there to be hundreds of thousands of Americans who voted four years ago for “hope and change” and who now are simply hoping for change.

Finally, I’ll wrap up with two more quotes from President Obama. He spoke the first on February 1, 2009. “If I don’t have this [turning the economy around] done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” The second, said often during these last weeks of the campaign, “People, you know that I say what I mean and I mean what I say.” Please God, may it be so.

For better or worse (and in more ways than one), it will all be over in less than a week. I’ll see you in the voting booth.

Another Wonder-full Week

It’s been several months since I last did a “wonder” dump in this space, so batten down the hatches.

I wonder … if we’ll ever again see gas sold in California for under four dollars a gallon? I laugh (because I don’t want to sob) when I hear newscasters now cheerfully asking “How low will gas go?” simply because we happen to be paying $4.50 instead of the $4.67. Oooh, break out the champagne and brie wedges. We’re doing something (many things) wrong in this state when even Hawaii pays less per gallon than we do. Also, I’m getting tired of hearing my son in Montana brag about paying over a dollar less than we do.

I wonder … how a husband and wife can both serve in active duty overseas when they have children together? I saw a news story this week that was meant to be heartwarming. A mom unexpectedly returned home from her tour of duty in Afghanistan to surprise her young daughter in the girl’s grade school classroom. And yes, the dad is serving in harm’s way as well. It was an emotional moment alright. I was furious. As a society we should be ashamed that this is even a possibility for military parents.

I wonder … if it would be creepy if I hung out at CV’s new Bark Park without a dog of my own? Sure do miss my puppies.

I wonder … is it just me, or has there been a huge increase recently in the number of jokes about seniors? When I was a kid, the rage was elephant jokes. You could buy books filled with elephant jokes. Example: Q: Why do elephants paint their toenails red? A: So they can hide in cherry trees! (I didn’t say they were funny.) After the pachyderm punch lines came an onslaught of Polish jokes (which may actually have ushered in the age of political correctness.) Then came the infamous “...that’s what she said!!” jokes. Now, it seems as though every other joke I get via forwarded email features a senior getting his/her revenge on some unsuspecting, arrogant twit of a younger person. Must be because so many of my boomer brethren are starting to enter their golden years and are giving notice that they aren’t going away quietly.

I wonder … if we’ll ever break any records in Southern California for cold or rainy weather. As evidenced (again) by our ongoing endless summer, we’re great at breaking decades-old records for heat, lack of humidity, days-without-measurable rain, etc. But record rainfall or cold? Not a chance. It’s all I can do not to flame Facebook friends who are now posting comments about breaking out their flannel shirts and sitting by the fire at night drinking hot chocolate. Disgusting.

I wonder … how much work time is lost on any given day because of smart phones? The next time you drive by a work crew of any kind – whether it’s Cal Trans, DWP, private contractors or whatever – look for at least two or more of the crew to be riveted to their phone and oblivious to the actual work happening nearby. I’ve even noticed it in the grocery store – with employees stopping what they’re doing to read or answer a text message or check the Facebook wall. Where are their supervisors? Probably enjoying quality time with a their own phones.

I wonder … if anyone else gets a giggle out of words like “cummerbund,” “leotard,” “tchotchkey,” “ gobbledygook” “kerfuffle” “staphylococcus,” “namby pamby” “bunghole” or “hootenanny” like I do? Dare you to say ‘em without smiling.

I wonder … how I’ve managed to let the most important election in generations approach without yet writing about it here? For those out there with poised pens (caustic keyboards?) just waiting to blast me with their insight, wisdom and tolerance, fear not. There’s always next week.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Let the Petting Of The Peeves Begin

Welcome to my kennel of pet peeves. Please don’t make any sudden moves, and don’t put your hands into the cages. These puppies have been known to bite.

Pet Peeve #1: Drivers in the carpool lane lane who drive SLOWER than the traffic in all the other lanes. Okay, so you have two or more people in your car and technically qualify to be in the HOV lane. Big whoop. Isn’t the whole idea of driving in that lane to pass other cars?

Pet Peeve #2: Charter Communications. ‘Nuff said.

Pet Peeve #3: The Department of Motor Vehicles. Ditto.

Pet Peeve #4: Typing double spaces after a period. I don’t care if you were taught to type two spaces after a period by an English professor, typing teacher or your BFF, please stop. It’s wrong. Period.

Pet Peeve #5: Our petulant California legislators who feel perfectly fine about spending $8 billion (that’s 8,000,000,000 dollars, kids!) just to merely BEGIN building a high-speed rail from Modesto to Stockton, yes, in the middle of farm country. These lame legislators are the same ones threatening to cut millions from public education if California voters don’t approve even higher taxes in the upcoming election. Their foolish spending on high-speed rail is a classic example of why we shouldn’t give them the authority or ability to spend another ding dang dime.

Pet Peeve #6: CHP and other law enforcement personnel in patrol cars who aren’t rolling Code 3 (lights and sirens) but nevertheless speed at full throttle on surface streets, blow through stop signs while barely slowing down, make turns without signaling and worse. What are we supposed to do when those who enforce the law think they’re above it?

Pet Peeve #7: Charter Communications. I realize this is a repeat of #2, but I’m really hacked off at Charter. I missed two-thirds of this summer’s Tour de France and at least half of NBC’s Summer Olympic coverage because I saw more of Charter’s maddening message “This channel Is currently not available. Please try again later,” than I did event coverage. Why do I keep paying these chuckleheads every month? The next statement I receive, I’d like to send back with a note saying, “This payment is currently not available. Please bill again later.” Then when they call to ask where my check is, I’ll transfer them to a call center in India.

Pet Peeve #8: L.A. broadcasters who locate anything that happens in our Foothills as being in “Glendale.” Yah, I know that the part of La Crescenta from Pennsylvania east to Lowell Avenue is technically in the City of Glendale – at least as far as police, fire, taxes, water and power are concerned. But in all the years I’ve lived here, I have never heard anyone who lives in this area say that they live in Glendale. They live in Montrose or La Crescenta. Now, back to you in the studio, Colleen.

Pet Peeve #9: The profuse amounts of plastic shrink wrap and super-sticky tape used to hermetically seal new CD jewel cases. (For readers under 40, a “CD” is a disc with a non-editable playlist of songs recorded on it for use in a stereo system … oh, never mind.) Opening a new CD case to the disc inside requires the simultaneous use of a carving knife, blowtorch, a vice, c-clamps and an oyster shucking knife. Hey record industry, you’re not packaging the cure to cancer. It’s only music.

Pet Peeve #10: One last time for good measure; Charter Communications.

Please know that the above Peeves are all available for adoption should you feel so inclined. I won’t miss them and am, quite frankly, tired of feeding them. The little critters have all had their shots but have not been fixed – they could very well multiply without warning.

And yes. I do feel better now. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Weekend Plans? I’m On The Fence

When we moved into our house, the property came with an aging wooden fence along one side of the backyard. It was dry, splintered and cracked, with missing pieces here and there, knotholes had become portholes, and the entire fence was in general need of serious renovation or replacement.

Thirty-some-odd years, three different homeowners on the other side of the fence, five dogs of my own, at least another six dogs of the various neighbors, countless windstorms, a house fire and several earthquakes later, that same fence still stood between our yard and the neighbor’s. Over the years I had patched it with quickly installed 2X10s, plywood pieces, wire mesh and whatever else I could find as my dogs or the neighbor’s dogs chewed and scratched and tugged and dug and gnawed their way to “freedom” from one yard to another.

Our current neighbors have two very bored, very curious dogs who live night and day alongside this fence. They’ve had to use a veritable junkyard of debris to try to keep their animals in the yard, including old barbecue grills, patio furniture, siding, bricks, rocks, dirt, plastic panels, and other domestic detritus – all of which we could see through the fence.

This past weekend, the fence came down. Finally. My wife and I tore down the old fence and rebuilt it with brand new wood, galvanized posts, a gazillion deck screws and buckets of sweat.
Since our own manual laborers (aka: kids) are all either married or away at college, we hired the young son of a friend to help us with the project all day Saturday. He had never been exposed to fun “guy things” like power tools, post hole diggers, quick dry cement, sledge hammers, circular saws, pry bars, reciprocal saws – you know, cool tools that make loud noises and big messes. With each new tool I handed him, his eyes lit up. Maybe not like I was giving him an Xbox controller and a beta-version of Halo, but it was obvious that his guy genes were on high alert. After he became comfortable using each new tool, he would say, “Now when I watch the DIY Channel, I can say, ‘I’ve done that!’”

At the end of our long, dirty day on Saturday, I asked him how it felt to have learned how to build a fence. He leaned on a shovel handle and with tired eyes looked at the nearly completed fruits of our mutual labor. Then he smiled and said, “Well, now I can cross that off my bucket list.”

On Sunday, my wife (who can handle a drill motor with the best of ‘em) and I finished the fence, cleaned up the debris and collapsed in a heap. Every muscle, every tendon, every joint in our bodies was sore and tired to the point of immobility. We had aches in places I didn’t know were places. Even my hair hurt.

Several days, many more hot showers and a half bottle of Advil later, it’s satisfying to now be able to stand back and look at our job well done. It’s so rewarding to see something strong and functional that wasn’t there only a week ago and that – barring unforeseen natural disasters or a stampeding herd of rogue elephants – is likely to be standing for many, many years.

Every morning this week so far, I’ve walked out into our backyard with my cup of coffee, just to have another look at the new fence. However, as I sip my dark roast and admire our handiwork, I try really hard not to look on the other side of the yard where another 100-foot-plus section of old fence still stands (more or less) and calls to me to rebuild it. Or more accurately, it calls to my wife and she interprets. Sigh.

Owning a home means never having to say, “what should we do this weekend?”

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Pooches On Parade

Like many parents, some of our favorite books to read to our young children were in the Beginner Books collection. One title in particular, “Go Dog, Go” by P.D. Eastman, was high on the repeat reading list for our kids’ bedtimes. My wife, being an enthralling storyteller (I’ve always thought she should narrate children’s books for a profession!) would read this silly story first published in 1961 night after night after night, delighting our kids with the simple, playful dialogue spoken by cartoon canines while driving around in colorful cars, “Do you like my hat?” “I do not like your hat!” “Alright then, good bye!” “Good bye!”

This classic children’s book came to mind last week as my wife and I were sitting at a table outside the new Starbucks in the nearby town of Montrose. We sat and sipped and watched the parade of people and pooches go by on an early mid-week evening. After a while, I began to notice how many of the cars passing by on Honolulu Avenue had a dog’s face hanging out of the passenger window. Big dogs, little dogs, dogs with floppy ears and dogs with pointy ears. If you want to see a picture of pure happiness, watch a dog with its head poking out a moving car’s open window. Oh, I know – it’s not supposed to be good for a dog’s eyes, or ears, or whatever to have all that air and particulates and whatnot hitting its exposed face. To which I can only say, bark me.

If dogs didn’t absolutely love the experience, it wouldn’t be so dang difficult to drag them back inside your car only to have them go right back to sticking their heads through the window as soon as you let go. A dog’s life is far too short to deny them a simple, joyful experience like that. I mean, wouldn’t YOU do the same thing if it wasn’t for all the stares you’d get as you drove past with your tongue hanging out? Trust me, people stare.

If my wife and I have dogs on our minds more than usual lately, it’s probably because we’ve been without at least one dog in our household for over three months now. That’s the longest period we’ve ever been sans-pooch. Needless to say, our dog-radar is on maximum sensitivity these days.

And so, while enjoying our caffeine-laden beverages the other night, we couldn’t help but notice the plethora of puppies on parade in cars, walking past on leashes, sitting contentedly while their owners enjoy coffee, being carried under arms, even pushed down the sidewalk in their very own strollers. (Okay, that’s a bit too nutty even for this dog nut.) One might even say that Montrose is a Mecca for mutts – if one is, well, me. Walking through town on any given day, you’ll see several stores with a shiny, stainless steel bowl filled with cold water and sitting on the sidewalk just outside the door. Besides being a kind gesture to the many dogs who frequent the shopping park, it’s a smart outreach to the pet owners walking by.

My wife and I have witnessed several instances where a dog owner will be enjoying dinner outside one of many Montrose restaurants with sidewalk seating, and their four-legged child will be sitting right at their side as they power through a burrito at Joselito’s, a slab of ribs at Zeke’s, or roasted chicken at Black Cow. Being in such close proximity, I’m sure more than a few hungry hounds have been the beneficiaries of clandestine handouts of people food. Once this past summer we even saw a couple enjoying an al fresco dinner at Star Café who not only brought their small dog along for the evening, they had planned ahead to also bring a soft, cushiony pad on which their furry dinner guest was lounging with them at the table.

I could swear I even heard the lucky dog ask the waiter for a refill on its iced tea. Go dog, go! I’ll see you ‘round town.

When She Flew, We Soared

I refer to last week as “geek week,” not only because that’s when Apple began selling their new, highly coveted iPhone 5, but also due to the spectacle of a low-altitude flyover of much of Southern California by the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Not to be outdone, my lovely and talented wife deemed last Friday – the day both events actually happened – as “nerd-vana.” (Kindly address your letters to her, not me.)

While I’m sure the world will see many more versions of the iPhone in years to come, Friday’s flyover was billed as the last ever “flight” of a space shuttle orbiter. Pretty heady stuff.

Mounted on top of a modified Boeing 747, the Endeavour’s flight plan over the Golden State included the skies above Sacramento, Santa Monica, El Segundo, the Getty Center and Griffith Park Observatory, a “money shot” flying low over the iconic Hollywood sign, a quick pass over JPL and the east end of the Crescenta Valley, then south to Disneyland and finally, back to LAX where it would land one last time, never to fly again.

As the son of an engineer/private pilot/aerospace junkie, during the heyday of the shuttle program I heard regular commentary describing the orbiters as the most complicated, over-engineered machines ever built by mankind. Dad would watch the broadcast of a shuttle launch or landing, shake his head and say that there were so many thousands of moving parts, interconnected electronic circuitry, first-of-its-kind software and critical systems in those kludges that even a hiccup in the works could cause the things to fall out of the sky.

I’ll never forget watching one orbiter do exactly that one awful January morning in 1986 when – 73 seconds after liftoff from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral – the Shuttle Challenger exploded high above the Atlantic Ocean. My soon-to-be-wife and I were among the many millions watching the tragedy as it played out on live TV.

In a coincidental quirk of fate, the shuttle that flew over the Crescenta Valley last week was the one built to replace the ill-fated Challenger orbiter. I hope that in the years to come, the sight of the Endeavour flying over JPL, then banking left and low over the San Rafael Hills will be the image I remember more often than that awful smoke plume of the Challenger’s twin solid rocket boosters corkscrewing out of control as the orbiter with seven crew members on board disintegrated in mid-air. Sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp with truly painful results.

On a much lighter note, waiting and wilting in the near-one-hundred-degree heat with the thousands of other people near JPL last Friday, I quickly realized that the real show was already happening on the ground all around me. I’ve never seen so many near-collisions between cars and trucks and motorcycles and motorhomes and cyclists and pedestrians and even strollers. As the hours passed and the temperature soared, shuttle spectators became increasingly distracted and impatient – those arriving too late to park legally simply double- and triple-parking wherever they felt like it – even on the 210 freeway. Just amazing.

Everywhere, car stereos blared the voices of KFI radio reporters calling out the current location of the shuttle over Southern California. The reporters’ breathless over-the-air updates echoed off the parched hillside above Linda Vista. And then, suddenly, there it was, gliding above the Arroyo Seco towards the waiting multitude. A scorched white, winged testament to a nation of innovators, risk takers and bold imagineers. When the space shuttles flew, our nation soared.

I hope those daring days of wonder and exploration are not behind us, and I look forward to when we once again have the visionary fortitude and economic firepower to reach for the stars. In the meantime, however, I think we already have more than enough evidence – judging by the crowd around me last Friday, at least – that space cadets and other-worldly beings are already among us.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls. I’ll get it.

As my kids will attest, I have three immitigable personal quirks (okay, at least three). One; I can’t walk past a light switch without turning it off if no one’s in the room. Two; an outside door left open during the winter while our heater is running or in the summer while the air conditioning is on pushes every penny pinching, energy conserving button in my body.

And three; I simply cannot let a phone ring without answering it.

I can’t stand to even let voicemail pick up a call because I know how many people – my own kids included – simply hang up rather than leave a message.

I’m sure there’s some deep, disturbing psychological neurosis responsible for this character flaw. Lord knows a handful of skilled therapists have been able to purchase vacation homes just from analyzing oddities of my personality that are too numerous to mention here.

Last week I wrote about the inordinate number of unsolicited calls we’ve received for months now made by telemarketers with nearly identical pitches selling home improvements. As much as these incessantly interruptive calls drive me crazy, not answering them would be even worse. Trust me on this. To not answer a phone is to wonder if one of our kids in some far-flung territory is in dire trouble and needs rescuing. Or maybe that call was from an attorney representing an unknown relative who recently died and left us their entire collection of priceless Pokemon cards. Or it could have been a personal call from Barack Obama wanting to have a beer with me and discuss the state of race relations in our new American utopia. The problem is, you just never know.

My wife always has some sage comment like, “If it was important, they’ll call back.” To which I usually answer, “Seriously? What if they can’t? What if terrorists were about to abduct them and they only had ten seconds to make a call before murderous thugs broke in and that call we just missed was the one chance they’ll ever have to make a call for help and we never, ever, ever see or hear from them again. Huh? What if?”

See what I mean? My poor wife.

Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t some canine DNA in me. I mean, my hearing is so attuned I can hear a phone ring in the very back room of our house when I’m outside in the front yard, standing on the top rung of a ladder leaning against the roof, with the neighbor’s gas-powered leaf blower on maximum annoy, while a heavily loaded dump truck lumbers uphill past our house and multiple helicopters hover overhead covering the latest Southern California car chase. Oh, and every dog in our neighborhood is barking its head off as a pack of stray cats fight for territory in the bushes under my ladder. Is somebody gonna get that phone?!?!

As soon as I realize that nobody but me hears the ringing, I will risk life and limb to hop off the ladder, dive over the hedge and do a commando roll on the lawn, hop back up, dash through the garage and leap over various exercise equipment – coming dangerously close to altering certain body parts in the process – crash through the door into our family room, make a flying leap over the couch and in mid leap snatch the cordless phone from its charging cradle on the desk.

As I stab the “talk” button and hear the dreaded dial tone, I let out an anguished groan. Looking around, I suffer the pitiful smirks from whatever family members were present to witness my insanity (but apparently felt no compulsion to answer the phone themselves!). “They’ll call back,” my wife says. And sure enough, the phone rings again less than five minutes later.

And of course, it’s a telemarketer. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Call Me Fed Up

In the classic Buffalo Springfield song, “For What It’s Worth” the band sang, “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Now, I don’t know if whatever’s happening is only happening at my house or throughout the entire Crescenta Valley. It could be happening all across L.A. County and even Southern California, for all I know. But what’s exactly clear is, I’ve had enough.

For the past couple of months, we’ve been deluged with unsolicited, unwanted and unwelcome sales calls to our unlisted home phone number. Unbelievable. We’re getting at least one, if not two or three of these calls every day and they’re all very similar in nature. Why, it’s almost as if the callers are reading from the same script. Nah, ya think?

Although there are two basic versions of the calls, each one begins identically. My phone rings, I pick it up and say hello. There’s a silent pause with some static. After I say hello one or two times more and am just about to hang up, I hear background babble of other voices making outbound calls from what I assume are countless cubicles filled with soulless headset-wearing telephone marketers. Within seconds, the soulless headset-wearing telephone marketer assigned to my number wakes up, and in a fake-friendly voice says, “James?”

Okay, there are only two people in my life who have ever called me James. One was my dear departed Father, who often preceded my given name with a choice expletive or two, followed by a detailed description of how I’d screwed something up beyond all repair or redemption. The other person is a great friend who calls every so often just to catch up. Ray called me this morning as I was writing this, in fact. When I hear his voice say “Well, James …” I know I’m in for a wonderful time of fellowship and reconnection. When I hear anyone else use my proper name, however, I know a sales pitch is coming.

In pitch version number one, the caller is someone who supposedly talked to me “back in January” about possible remodeling or roofing or painting or plumbing or landscaping, or ... well, I didn’t have any work for them at the time, but I supposedly asked them to call me back at the end of summer. Right. Sure I did.

In the second version, the caller excitedly explains that their company is finishing up working on one of my neighbors’ homes and only going to be in the neighborhood another couple of days, but because I’m fortunate to be in the same neighborhood, they’d like to give me a free estimate for any possible remodeling or roofing or painting or plumbing or ... you get the idea.

The first dozen or so of these calls I simply said “no thank you” and hung up. Then I just hung up. Eventually, I began telling my telephonic tormentors that I had already heard the exact same words dozens of times. Now they hang up on me.

This past Sunday as my wife and I were discussing an inspirational morning at church, our phone rang. You guessed it, Pitch Number One. I asked the pleasant sounding woman who interrupted our Sunday calm why she was telling me something that simply wasn’t true. Her tone instantly flipped from friendly to snarky and she actually said, “What am I supposed to say, ‘I lost my dog and want to come over and look for it in your yard?’” Then she hung up.

You’re probably thinking, why doesn’t he just let the phone ring? Yeah, why not? Well, as I’ll most likely write about another time, there’s an overwhelming, Pavlovian-like strand of my DNA that absolutely, positively must answer a ringing phone if at all possible. In other words, I’m a telemarketer’s dream. Unfortunately, it looks like they’ve found me.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

The Bear Truth

Way back when I was a kid, we used to sing a parody version of “On Top Of Old Smokey” that went something like, “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese; I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed!”

I know it’s an odd connection, but last week I couldn’t help but hear that ditty playing in my head when I read that our beloved local celebri-bear, “Meatball”, had been trapped once again. This time, however, he wasn’t simply taken deep into the Angeles National Forest (but never deep enough, apparently) and released, only to reappear in someone’s backyard refrigerator or swimming pool within weeks or even days. No, this time authorities decided it was time to give the 400-pound porker-of-a-bear a one-way ticket out of Dodge.

As had been ably reported by media outlets from the CV Weekly to national networks, last Wednesday Meatball was captured for a third and final time and taken to an animal sanctuary in Alpine (near San Diego) aptly named “Lions, Tigers and Bears.” Oh, my.

Unfortunately, once at the sanctuary the bear showed his true gastronomic standards. After his arrival, according to online reports, Meatball’s handlers became concerned that he wasn’t eating well. They quickly solved that problem with mountains of meatballs donated by local restaurants. Well, of course.

Many locals (my dear wife, included) were saddened to learn that Meatball has been permanently removed from this bowl of pasta we call the Crescenta Valley. I have to admit, it’s been kinda fun to think that our community had its own “mascot,” even if it was the kind that attracts hovering news choppers and panicky calls to 911.

But I completely understand the need to permanently remove this increasingly aggressive and emboldened bear both for his own good and ours. As cute as they may appear, bears can be dangerously wild animals. They’re powerful, unpredictable creatures who – in spite of their shuffling and snuffling demeanor – can attack with lightening quick reflexes at the slightest provocation. Just last month a photographer hiking in Alaska’s Denali Park was fatally mauled by a Grizzly. Winnie the Pooh, they ain’t.

Bears without fear of human beings, like Meatball, can be the most dangerous kind. In high altitude town of Mammoth Lakes, where I escape to as often as possible, there are just too many bears in and around the town to “relocate” them all. So residents and officials have learned how best to live with each other. In Mammoth the mantra is, “A fed bear is a dead bear.” Meaning, if you make it easy to get to food, a bear will do whatever it takes to eat that food. That’s why nearly every truck, car, bike and snowboard in town has a sticker on it that reads, Please Don’t Feed Our Bears!

Mammoth residents know fist hand that bears will keep coming back to wherever food is easiest to find, whether it’s a trash can, campsite cooler or food left in a car. Eventually, the animals will either wind up having to be shot and killed by Fish & Game officers or, as happens all too often, hit by a car while crossing the road.

Coincidentally, that’s exactly what happened to a yet another bear in La Canada only days before our latest visit from Meatball. And sadly, that bear was so gravely injured it had to be put down by Animal Control authorities.

On another note, I find it interesting (you’re probably not surprised) that this particular bear was hit on Foothill Blvd. near the McDonalds. Maybe he had a hankering for Big Macs instead of meatballs. Or maybe he should have paid attention to the warnings that fast food can kill you.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Smart Students, Even Smarter Stores

To witness the entire range of parental emotions that occur when sending a kid off to college, look no further than a Target store in a college town. Or a Wal-Mart, or any other “big box” retailer that has caught on to a growing marketing opportunity; college-bound kids and their parents.

This past weekend my wife and I drove a pickup truck filled with shelves, a bike, books and other bulky stuff down to our youngest son’s college near San Diego. He’d driven his own car down a few days earlier to begin setting up his dorm for his junior year, but needed us to follow with the larger items that couldn’t be shoved, wedged, stacked, crammed, jammed or jimmied into his small sedan.

While there, we helped him empty out some even larger items from a storage unit he and several fellow students had rented together for the summer so they wouldn’t have to schlep things like refrigerators, microwave ovens, floor lamps and inkjet printers all the way back to their respective hometowns.

If you don’t have a kid in college, you may be surprised to learn that it isn’t unusual for today’s dorm room to be decked out like a nice studio apartment. An apartment with semi-gloss-painted cinder block walls, sure. But nice, nonetheless. I certainly don’t remember my digs at San Diego State to be anywhere near as well appointed as what students are used to today. Then again, I went to college in the last century. I’m not even sure they had invented the microwave oven yet. I doubt it.

I do remember that my college roommates and I didn’t have a stereo or TV in our room, much less a DVD player (not invented yet), game consoles (ditto) or all the other electronics and entertainment paraphernalia so ubiquitous in today’s college dorms. (Note to my kids: yes, we did have electric lighting and did not cook mastodon steaks over open fires. Puh-leez.)

And yet, even with multiple vehicles and a storage unit’s worth of student stuff, we found ourselves making a trip to the nearby Target store for fill-in items that we somehow had not acquired during his freshman and sophomore years. Hard to believe.

Now, Target is one of many contemporary retailers who’ve discovered that there’s gold in them thar dorm rooms. To wander the aisles during back-to-school week in any college town is to be an eyewitness to memorable moments in merchandising.

The store where we shopped had a giant section dedicated entirely to college students, including dorm-designed furniture, window treatments, bedding, small appliances, filing systems, throw rugs, hampers, bath caddies, electronics, extension cords, printer supplies, lighting, snacks … even a large selection of industrial strength air fresheners. I told you, these guys are smart.

Last Saturday, the college dorm section of the San Diego Target was packed with list-carrying families. As our son gathered his supplies, my wife and I were thoroughly entertained watching other moms, dads and siblings follow their college students like ducklings up one aisle and down another. One poor (or soon to be poor!) dad was obviously spent both emotionally and physically. He plopped himself down on a nearby display futon and just sat there, motionless and staring, as his college-bound daughter, wife and younger offspring took turns depositing various items into the hand basket on his lap.

While we watched, the dad’s face betrayed a range of emotions; from sadness, to melancholy to absolute zombie-like exhaustion. It reminded me of how I felt when our first-born went off to the land of higher education and even higher student loan balances.

Now that our fourth and last “child” is a junior, I wonder how time could possibly have screamed by so fast? Wandering the sales floor at Target last weekend, I also found myself wondering why today’s college kids live more comfortably than I do.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

The Con is On

My father-in-law called while I was working at my desk. He asked if I knew that one of my sons (the one attending college in Missoula, Montana) had been in a car accident in British Columbia and was now in jail.

Wait. What?

I was vaguely aware of my pulse rate doubling and blood pressure spiking as my father-in-law explained that he had just received a very disturbing call. Apparently, my father-in-law answered his phone to hear a young man simply say, “Hi, Grandpa? It’s me!” When my father-in-law said he didn’t know who ‘me’ was, the caller said, “Oh, you don’t recognize my voice? It’s your grandson!”

Apparently my father-in-law didn’t respond quickly enough, so the caller continued, “Which grandson do you think this is?” When my father-in-law finally asked if the caller was (my son’s name), the caller excitedly said, “Yeah, it’s me!"

Ding, ding, ding! Light bulb flash! Hearing this, the warning bells and whistles went off in my mind as I’m sure they must have in my father-in-law’s mind at this same point in the call. Recognizing the call for the scam it was (along with sending up a silent “thank you” prayer to the heavens), my heart rate returned to normal as my father-in-law continued to recount the call from the con man. The caller proceeded to shovel his manipulative manure about how he and some friends had supposedly driven over the border to Canada and had been sideswiped by another car. To ramp up the drama, he said that one of these friends had been killed in the accident, and somehow – the sequence of events wasn’t exactly made clear – my supposed “son” had wound up in jail and, oh yeah, just happened to need $2,200 wired to him immediately in order to get out and get back home.

The caller told my father-in-law that he didn’t want “his parents” to know anything about the terrible incident until he was back at home so we wouldn’t worry. How thoughtful. How bogus.

My father-in-law had had enough experience with – and faith in – my son’s character and integrity to know that he would not hide any serious trouble from his mother and me – especially something that involved a car accident (been there, done that), jail (haven’t done that, thankfully) and the death of a friend (double ditto). Having had enough, my father-in-law told the low-life on the phone, “I’m good for the money, but the only way you’re going to get it is from your folks.” Hearing that, the creep hung up. Big surprise.

And yet, even knowing that the call was a scam and that my son was safe and healthy and happy and going about his normal daily routine out in Missoula, my in-laws were still worried that maybe – just maybe – their grandson, was truly in some sort of trouble. Later that day, when I told my own mom about the attempt to con my in-laws, she too was shocked. She was angry. She was appalled that someone would do such a thing. Then, she was worried. She asked if I’d talked to my son that day to make sure he was okay. Well, had I? Yes, I had. He was more than fine. He lives in Montana, after all.

“But,” my mom asked several more times, “are you sure he’s okay?”

Sigh. That’s how this scam works. It plays on the fears and feelings of those who love our kids. I’m just thankful my own grandkids are still far too young for a con like this to work. The mini monkeys range in age from two to six years old. If one of them calls in the next year or so saying they need a couple grand to get out of jail, I’ll laugh and tell them to go back to watching Bubble Guppies. And then I’ll call their parents to make sure they’re really okay.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Summer Medal Moments

It’s official: I’ve gone into Olympics withdrawals. Granted, I’m probably not as down as the London cleanup crews or vendors stuck with shelves of historically unpopular official souvenirs, but now that the 2012 Summer Olympics have come and gone, I’ll have to wait two whole years until the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

With the bizarrely boring spectacle of the 2012 closing ceremonies still on my mind, some closing thoughts of my own:

Baseball and Softball were both eliminated from this year’s summer games. Did you miss them? Me either. And how cool was it to watch South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius running on carbon blade legs alongside other world-class athletes? I don’t understand, however, why all the commentators kept comparing him to his “able bodied” competitors. Mr. Pistorius seems mightily abled to me.

All total, there were10,500 athletes from 204 countries in these Summer Olympics. Watching the opening ceremony, I wanted an atlas nearby to see where some of these countries are on the map. I mean, Benin? Burkina Faso? Kiribat? They made those up, right?

On the other hand, I had no trouble recognizing where a whopping 128 members of Team USA came from – right here in California. In fact, I read somewhere that if California had entered its own Olympic team, the Golden State would have had a larger presence at the London Games than Mexico, Turkey, Switzerland and many other countries. Maybe next Olympics we could have a smaller “California” flag for in the opening ceremony? Probably not.  

Speaking of that weird opening ceremony, the producers could have saluted the British National Health Service without the thousands of dancing nurses, patients and hospital beds and simply wheeled out a humongous set of British teeth. Ta da!!: the nation’s health system in one image. And the closing ceremonies were, well, unique. At first I thought they were a big flop, until NBC cut them short for a preview of their new show, Animal Practice, which made the closing ceremonies look stunning by comparison.

You won’t be surprised, but I did have a few questions while watching the Games these past two weeks. Like, can swimmers sweat in the pool? And, if the women beach volleyball players have to wear barely-there-bikinis as official outfits, why don’t the men have to wear Speedos? (On second thought, never mind. Men’s diving was already difficult enough to watch for reasons I won’t go into here. Then again, NBC’s “splashometer” was kinda cool.)

But back to beach volleyball; being held outdoors and all, the popular competition saw its share of classically bad British weather. From pouring rain and soggy sand, to sand that was so cold one of our Team USA women needed a medical time-out due to loss of feeling in her toes. So here’s a thought: why not hold events that can be affected by bad weather indoors and move things like swimming outdoors? I mean, what swimmer is going to be upset if it rains? Just wondering.

Watching both the men’s and women’s runners as they stood waiting to start their respective races reminded me of the way frighteningly powerful dragsters vibrate with pent up speed as they wait in the staging area for the green light. The sprinters seem to quiver with the same barely restrained energy just waiting to be unleashed. Impressive.

Not necessarily impressive but kinda funny were the slow-motion replays of the runners’ faces as they ran towards the camera. You don’t realize how elastic the human face is until you see it in super-slo-mo under great exertion.

The phenomenal Usain Bolt may be the fastest man alive, but certainly not the most humble. Wow, if he wore red, white and blue I wonder if the press would be as enamored of his antics. Not likely.

I’ll admit to being baffled by the number of athletes from other countries who – lo and behold – are coached and train right here in the USA. If I ran the games, the rule would be you compete for the country where you live and train. Period. Otherwise, let’s just turn these things into the genetic games. It’s wonderful that 400-meter hurdles gold medal winner Felix Sanchez won at the ripe old age of 34. Well done, sir. Except – here’s a guy who was born in New York City, raised in California, attended high school here, ran for and graduated from USC and yet he represented the Dominican Republic in the 2012 Summer Games. Um, okay. Or how about Kirani James, Grenada’s home-grown sprinting hero, who, in order to compete at world class levels trains at the University of Alabama. The British are understandably proud of Team GB’s 10,000-meter gold medalist, Mo Farah who trains in … wait for it … Portland, Oregon. And on, and on, and on. Here’s a suggestion: why not hold all the Summer Games in the U.S. since it seems like the great majority of competitors spend most of their time here anyway?

And then there’s the Olympic flame itself. Did you seen that massive cauldron? No? Neither did most of the people attending the Summer Games in London. That’s because the good folks in charge of the flaming cauldron installed it deep down inside the main stadium where only those with the money and fortitude to get a ticket inside are able to see the thing. Every other Olympic flame has burned high and bright on top of the stadium or some other elevated position so all within the geographic area could see it, be inspired by it. I heard that if the wind is right and it’s not raining, you could almost see a heat shimmer rising above the stadium walls. Not too inspirational. In its low-lying position off to the side of the track and field events, even on TV it looked like an oversized campfire that someone left burning.

As far as NBC’s coverage of the games, I would have preferred that they spend less airtime showing us the hobbies and friends and favorite foods and pets of the American athletes and a lot more time showing more actual competition. I could also have done with fewer preliminary events vs. seeing more final events of different sports that aren’t normally broadcast in primetime – events like archery, trap shooting, weight lifting, table tennis, kayaking, even that controversy-rich, scandal-plagued sport of badminton! I’d rather see world-class competitors in those sports than to learn what Ryan Lochte likes to eat for breakfast before a race. And cutting away from the closing ceremonies to air a preview of their ultra-lame new “comedy,” Animal Practice? The biggest boneheaded blunder yet. Even if the show was in any way funny, the network numbnuts responsible for that move probably doomed the show at the outset.

One last Olympic thought; I’m certainly glad that us mere mortals don’t have that bright yellow line constantly moving out in front of us to show how close or far away we are to breaking records with our performance. That dang line would always be several Zip codes away from me.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Game(s) On

If medals were awarded for watching Olympics coverage, I’d win gold. Guaranteed. I’m an Olympics junkie. People who know me know I’ve never followed professional basketball or football (although I do like to watch the Super Bowl every year strictly for the commercials), and most baseball games can put me out faster than a Thanksgiving turkey stuffed with Ambien. But the Olympics? I’ll watch as much as I possibly can from every media source available.

The Winter Games are my favorite, but the Summer Games are a silver second in my personal rankings. Lest you think that watching the games is all about world harmony and appreciation of athletic prowess, however, for me it’s much more than that. Sure, I watch in awe at those teeny tiny gymnasts who are all focus and ferocity, flipping themselves over, under and above the mats, uneven bars and balance beams. And the runners and swimmers, divers and rowers are all just as thrilling and inspiring to watch.

But it’s also great fun to see a somewhat obscure sport (at least for the West Coast) like skeet/trap shooting capture brief worldwide attention. I cheered loudly for Southern California’s own Kimberly Rhode as she became the first American to medal in five consecutive Olympics by blasting past her competition to take the gold in Women’s Skeet. My shoulder hurt watching her score a near perfect 99 out of 100 hits on the clay targets, turning them into clouds of orange dust with each pull of her over-under shotgun’s trigger. And archery? Please. I was a huge fan of archery long before the Hunger Games made it a fad.

Athletic skills aside, I also get a kick out of watching moments like when one of those painfully young gymnasts says to an interviewer with the utmost of sincerity, “This is something I’ve been dreaming of all my life!”  Really? All 15 years of it? That’s so cute.

I’m fascinated by the names of the athletes from around the world. For example, the Chinese trampoline champion (and gold medal winner) this year is named Dong Dong. No kidding. Now, how fun would it be if his sport was ping pong. I’d love to hear Al Michaels say, “And the gold medal winner in ping pong is Dong Dong.” Okay, so I’m also easily entertained.

There are some Olympic sports I couldn’t care less about, like basketball, soccer or tennis. We see more than enough of those sports throughout any given year. Did you really miss softball and baseball this year? Exactly. Unfortunately, in the next Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, golf will be a medal sport. Yawn. I’d much rather see competition in more obscure sports like skateboarding or even disc golf. Or why not ballroom dancing for that matter? They already do essentially the same thing on ice skates during the Winter Games. 

On the other hand, if there were an Olympic event for hair dying, NBC commentator Bob Costas would win the gold hands down. High definition TV cameras have not been kind to Mr. Costas.  

As long as I’m handing out fantasy medals, I’d like to award the entire United States a gold for diversity. I honestly haven’t seen another country whose citizenry is represented by so many beautifully different faces. Case in point: the effervescent, ridiculously gifted Gabby Douglas and her coach. Pretty cool.

As with most Olympics, there was controversy before these summer games even started. But so what if Team USA’s uniforms were made in China? Ironically, many of China’s own athletes have been training right here in the U.S. (along with many other country’s too – but more on that next week). And according to the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese athletes all wear U.S.-designed and engineered footwear and arrived at the London games on American-made airplanes. So, boo-yah. It’s a small world after all.

I’ll see you ‘round town.