An Amazing Read About An Equally Amazing Person

Seventeen years ago, I met an individual from "the other side" of the ideological tracks.  He was an "animal rights" activist.  I was not.  Up until then, I pigeon-holed everyone working for "the animals" as misguided phonies who hated humans.  I had fair to good reasons.  My firstborn, Johnny was born with his left ventricle unformed.  It's an all to common birth defect called "hypoplastic left heart syndrome."  

Thanks to numerous medical procedures developed largely by veterinarians working with dogs, pigs, primates and any variety of other animals, Johnny lived and enjoyed a very fine life up to his teenage years.  Infants with that condition traditionally die a few weeks after birth.  

After three open-heart procedures and doctors at Children's Hospital being happy their skills offered him as close to a normal life as could be hoped, I was told by a friend still at NRA that I might want to look up a group advocating for animal-based medical research.  Using my best imitation of Joshua assaulting the fortifications at Jericho, I was given an opportunity to literally give public tribute to the medical researchers who gave my son his life.  Going public on this topic is not for the weak.  One ad I wrote featuring an image of Johnny unconscious with tubes running literally  everywhere into his infant body juxtaposed with a smiling, vibrant six-year-old drew over a hundred missives best characterized as "hate mail" from animal advocates.  

I know the origin of most because where possible I tracked down the authors and phoned them to ask why they adopted the PETA-inspired line that the life of the rats sacrificed to develop medical treatments was far more important than the life of a "genetically defective" child - their term.  My outrage was equal only to my disbelief that humans could harbor such nonsense. 

At any rate, when I met David Wills I was prepared to despise him.  Instead I realized I was looking at my mirror image.  We both knew what CITES was (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).  We both knew and were disgusted by the money-minting, fund raising corporate world known as the "animal rights" community, but not at the goal they claimed they were fighting for - helping the helpless.  We both knew that working to "do things right" for the benefit of humans AND animals was what we wanted to do.  We knew we wanted to do it our way and not help engorge the bank accounts of the ego-inflated multi-million dollar fund raising institutions.

The "kid" as I call him was a pretty amazing fellow.  We've worked together for nearly two decades with no regrets.  Well almost none.  One year while he was doing an analysis of the commercial fisheries of the Bahamas, I was spending a freezing week at a whalers convention in Iceland.  

Recently David turned the tables on me.  I'm a writer.  He's more the project developer in our business.  Now he's the writer.  

We put together a small publishing firm and he's authored two of the first three volumes sporting our logo.  The one still awaiting publication is about his five years working undercover investigating the dark world of ivory poaching, parrot smuggling etc.  It describes the smarmy world of international trade in illegal animals and animal parts.  It's a great read and a movie waiting to happen.  Animal Rights groups and their opponents will want to read it.  It will shock and amaze them both.  More about it once we send it to the printer.


The second is a wisp of a book.  Barely 60-some pages.  Big print.  Hardly what you would call a "tome."  But it is the kind of book that makes its mark on your very soul.  It's called "Talk to My A** My Head Hurts" and subtitled "My Life With Uncle Joe."  


It's a true tale about how a man, deemed "not quite right" after an insult to his brain during infancy, taught a young, very abused (by "difficult" parents) boy the joys of life.  

Jerzy Kosinski wrote a dark and disturbing book called "The Painted Bird" about growing up in Nazi-occupied Poland.  That book left you equally dark and quite disturbed.

David K. Wills' remembrances of his Uncle Joe, still living, is its polar opposite.  Yes, his words make you reevaluate how you view people who are "not quite right."  Yes, it challenges quite a few preconceptions.  But when you finish reading it, you feel an inner peace and you literally feel you are breathing in life quite a bit better.  It can, no lie, make a grown man cry.

This is a very short book that should be required reading for every high school and university class dealing with all things social, psychological, spiritual, and how we view and treat each other.  I am not exaggerating.  So click out of this blog. Go to Amazon books and enter either the title or subtitle.  Buy the book and enjoy.  It will become your new best friend. 

A True Life Hero

I want to talk about a true life hero: My sister Elena.

Elena turns 64 this December.  She just graduated from college last month.  She did it with honors and made two honor societies.

Elena is a breast cancer survivor.  She was finishing up chemo when our mother died in 2006.  She's also a grandmother and, in the words of her husband, Bob, "one of the sweetest, kindest people who ever lived."

Today, Elena wrote the family a long description of her first 5K walk. Remember she's in her sixties. (Of course, our mother entered her first shotgun competition - fifty sporting clay targets - at age 72.)  I'm including most of it so you can enjoy the character and humor of my sister. 

Let me say this as kind as I can.  For those who don't know her, Elena is not an athlete. She works two jobs.  At both she's the most admired and loved individual you can imagine.  On weekends she works at a very famous Italian deli in the heart of Baltimore.  So use your imagination.  She's a grandmother who feeds people, all sorts of people.  Get the picture?  We - she and I - are not from a line of slight folks.  Our mother and grandmother before her were outstanding cooks and we reaped the benefits.  Now on with the story. 

                                          
Sunday, June 26: "I planned to participate in the Baltimore Women's Classic to attempt a 5K walk which equates to a little under 3.2 miles.  The timing was perfect, a Sunday and the weather was cooperating calling for no humidity.  Last night I went to bed disappointed because every family member was disappointed in me for planning to attend regardless of who could attend to be with me.  I was determined to carry out my goal.  However, as they say I listened to reason (which I many times interpret first as guilt before thinking things through) and heard that I let my family down by not letting them be there with me.  Also that no one would be there to pick me up and drag me to the curb if I fell. And figuring I would get lost in the city with my sense of direction. In  my defense, I will say sometimes everyone's delivery could be a bit gentler.

So I went to 7a.m. Mass as every Sunday, but I wore my tennis shoes, light weight pants and shirt because after mass I was going to beat the heat.  By 8:10 a.m. I was at the Liberty High School track with cell phone (for timing), water (for dehydration), and strawberries (for nourishment).  Since my memory does not serve me well when it comes to numbers, I figured if I completed each lane twice, I would cover 3 miles and not get confused and miscount. Believe it or not I can have a plan and structure once in awhile. 

Starting at Lanes 5 and 6, the furthest and longest, I completed them (4 trips around the track) in approximately 30 minutes accomplishing the first mile.  When I was rounding the track, I would look up to see if Vicki's (her daughter) car pulled up to surprise me and cheer me on.  Now, I didn't tell anyone I was doing this after Mass but I still hoped.  I pulled up to my water bottle took a swig, ate a strawberry and set off for the rest of my journey.

On my second mile, which were lanes 3 and 4, I decided this was more than I wanted to bite off.  By this time the sun was getting hotter and my body was telling me how I had abused it.  The first was the usual issue that Granny and I now share...  As I rounded the track, I looked for the nearest bathroom...  Then I thought about what homeless people go through and decided mind over matter.  It took a good two laps before my mind conquered most of my matter...  The homeless thoughts helped, I was sharing the track with three runners.  I saw a port-a-pot in the horizon, it was not a mirage.  However, I would never go in one anyway. I have trouble with gas stations let alone a box in the middle of a field.   Besides it was up a hill and I was struggling enough.  

Still looking for Vicki's car but now hoped to see Chris (No. 2 son) and family coming out of the neighborhood.  I even waved to some strange family.  Mile two accomplished and I gladly took in more water, a strawberry, and checked the clock just under an hour and I completed two miles.

 
Approaching 9 a.m. and mile three, lanes 1 and 2.  My big dilemma do I jump over to lane 1 as a reward or stick with lane two the longer stretch before moving to lane 1.  Also I remembered my runner courtesy and would watch the people I was sharing the track with down to 2 runners now.  I found as I turned to see their location I would be a bit clumsy and loose my footing into another lane.  I struggled with deciding if I should give up before I collapsed.  The good thing, I was breathing well but my knee was killing me.  Then I saw two bikers coming out of Chris' neighborhood.  I knew it was Chris and Hannah (granddaughter) out for a morning ride before they took off for the family outing and they were going to check if I was on the track.  Wrong again, but I never gave up the hope that one of my family would show up.
 
By now still struggling through mile 3, I was feeling pretty tired so I turned my thoughts to the kids.  How much I wanted to see everyone in Chicago, see Mac (grandson) at one of his games and that cute little mouth, Grayson (granddaughter) to say how proud I am that her sweetness is not wavered by peer pressure, and Robbie (grandson) who has grown into a man but always shows me how much he cares for me and wants to be with me.  I thought of how I had to get myself under control because I wanted to get in the pool with Nicholas (grandson) (even though he can out swim me even giving me a headstart) and play.  How I wanted to help Livi (granddaughter) and Drew (grandson) now that they love the water.  And Hannah I want to take her to one of the new movies out and share some of the girlie stuff. These kids need to help me get into todays world. My mind traveled to all my grown kids, Rob (No. 1 son), Amber (daughter-in-law), Chris, Michelle (Chris' wife), Vicki and Pete (Vicki's husband) and how they love to please me and how I selfishly do my own thing more than I should.  And then I thought of Bob and how he was going to yell at me for not telling him.  

Well guess what now I had completed 2 3/4 miles and I knew I could make it to finish three. 
 
As I was rounding the last 1/4 mile of the third mile, the sound of hundreds of crows (more properly ravens since she's in Baltimore area) in the trees was over powering.  I thought of the movie the "Birds" and wondered if they had come because like in a desert when someone is ready to keel over they had come to pick my bones.  They could have a very meaty treat.  Or did they sniff out my strawberries. I couldn't see but a couple but the entire flock was there.   I knew I couldn't run if they attacked.  The car was close but I still had another 1/4 mile to finish 3.25 miles.  

All the runners had left me, I was alone.  I made it -- three miles.  I could do it. I got another swig of water and a strawberry.  Now the track was mine to choose the lane of my choice and bring this venture home.  I choose lane two and staggered into three on occasion.
 
My feet were burning and my knee was aching all the way to the front of my shin but I could tell a smile was starting to form on my face.  I thought of the conversation I had with Hannah about my fantasy as I rounded to the finish line at a 5K.  How all the grandkids were cheering, and in my fantasy I fell but I picked myself up and the Rocky theme was playing as I passed the finish line.  We had both laughed but guess what I made it in my fantasy and now.  

I retrieved my water which took me an extra few steps over my 3.25 miles and actually limped off the track.  It  was like my body was telling me what I had put it through and was not forgiving.  

The last 1/4 mile the crows disappeared and only a few song birds were chirping.  And, I did do my stretching exercises between miles and at the end.
 
Off I went to fill up the gas tank for tomorrow, get to the bathroom, and get protein into me.  

So this is my story of my guilt for making my kids feel bad, my determination to find out if I could finish the race, and mythank you for being such a wonderful family that loves me unconditionally.  Thank you."

What Elena missed is that we owe her a resounding "Thank You" for being there for all of us.

She's endured more than most over the years and still approaches life with all the enthusiasm of an innocent.  

We have a lot to learn from her. 

Growing Older and Institutional Memory

Thirty years ago, I worked as the night cook at Clydes' in Georgetown.  My training was about a half hour of the day cook showing me and a fellow named DJ the various dishes and what we had to do to prepare for the next day.  What he didn't mention was that very little would be prepared for our shift so every night it was a race to weigh out hamburger patties from five pound bags, peel a sack or two of potatoes and run them through a machine that sliced them into fry-size chips, prepare salads, cook turkeys, slice New York strip steaks from shells of beef, and make Hollandaise sauce (a skill I've long forgotten). That's in addition to cooking, really preparing for the day shift and cleaning the kitchen from the floors to the stove cook tops.  DJ didn't last long.  To me it was a challenge and probably the best training in the world for multi-tasking.  

Having three to five waiters/waitresses bring multiple orders virtually at the same time, then preparing each individual meal to be completed exactly when the others come up so they can be served together while starting each successive order to keep the next waiter in line (and the customers) happy was daunting but doable.  In fact it was fun.

In the midst of this organized chaos, everyone from top of the economic food chain oral surgeons and their wives would come to the kitchen to unload stories of family vacations and emotional crises.  The folks using my kitchen much the same way people use barber shops, beauty salons and therapists would parade in completely oblivious to the culinary juggling act before them.  There were newly graduated Georgetown law students working as waiters who would taut the benefits of Bhuddism, Cops looking for a free meal (including a pacifist Quaker who was against war but saw no conflict in carrying a pistol to enforce the law), musicians, filmmakers, you name them all looking to unload the problems of the day on someone who would listen.

One young Virginia college student came in and when I asked what he was studying, answered "management."  I was dumbstruck.  Here was a kid who never worked a menial job in his life and he wanted to go directly into managing folks twice his age who worked from dawn to dusk, served in the military whether Vietnam (going on at the time), Korea or WWII, raised families and survived all the other stuff that goes along with making one's way through life.

That kid's attitude is even more prevalent today.  Everyone wants to start at the top, drive a Mercedes or Lexus, and ignore anyone who is not a CEO now.  This is particularly irritating after the age of 60 when friends and relatives around you are getting tossed from jobs they've held for thirty years in favor of youngsters with energy and confidence (and who will take for the time being less in the way of salary than a veteran of the job).

Sam Rayburn's longtime assistant (whose name I will remember the instant I post this) a gent I met decades ago who was a close friend of another friend, Maury Maverick Jr., once described to me his impression of folks in Dallas versus those from Fort Worth, Texas.  We both loved and admired friends from Fort Worth, but, at that time kind of viewed Dallas as a more Northern city.  At any rate he described the stereotypical Dallas-ite as being in "too big a hurry to make money to shake your hand."  (His name was D.B. Hardiman, taught at Trinity here in DC and had more books in his apartment than most bookstores.  I know.  Helped pack them and drive them back to Texas.)


My point?  A lot of institutional memory is being erased in the push for youth.  A lot of talent and know-how available to the young is being wasted by ignoring lessons never asked of those with experience.  And life does not end once you reach a certain age. 

National Rehabilitation Hospital

Yesterday I was discharged from outpatient physical therapy at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington DC.  NRH is on the same medical campus as Washington Hospital Center and Children's Hospital.  I've quite a bit of history at all three.

Johnny and Tommy were born at Washington Hospital Center.  Johnny underwent three open-heart procedures by the age of four and multiple related treatments at Children's.  After he suffered what amounted to an arrhythmic attack a week before he was to graduate from St. Jerome's grade school, he was rushed back to Children's.  Rendered a non-verbal quadriplegic because the oxygen to his brain was blocked during an incorrect CPR attempt, he was admitted to the NRH/Children's Hospital ward.

I'll save the details of being blocked from seeing him during his first few days there for a later blog.  Suffice to say, the staff at NRH was outstanding.  Johnny was responding to his physical therapist.  The nurses were as kind as (in my case kinder than) many blood relatives.  The doctors exceptional.  The same can be said for the patients, their families, even the security folks.  Often as I left, during the hours you are not sure count as night or early morning, a guard they called "coach" would stop me and say, "Don't worry, they do miracles, here."  It always brought a smile.

By brief stint at NRH this past month or so was twice a week to help get some strength in legs that were less than mobile prior to my spinal surgery.  The left, the one that bore the brunt of pain, had atrophied a bit more than the right.  So it was the object of most of the exercises.  I have to admit that each week the residual discomfort (minor) diminished and equal amounts of strength and confidence appeared.  As I went through my paces I would look around at the patients and kinda searched in case Johnny's therapist might still be there.  

Each visit, each search for a parking space in the adjacent garage, each time I walked to the front desk for an ID tag, brought back memories.  

At nights spent with Johnny, the nurses would say, "here's dad" then tell me Johnny was inconsolable no matter who was there including his mother until I appeared.  Then, they said he would quiet down.  I suspect he was on his best behavior when his young therapist was present.  He'd brighten when she walked into the room.  

Once in his room I would play songs by Andrea Bocelli.  I tried to keep the music quiet but it filtered down the corridor and on more than one occasion I was told how much the nurses appreciated the soothing music.  I'd talk to Johnny and ask if he could do minor things like touch one finger to his opposite hand.  He would try.  You could see movement towards the goal.  I would change his diaper if necessary then watch as he dozed off to sleep.  I could tell by his heart rate when he was in his deepest sleep.

I will always hate (that's the correct word) the anti-male bias of the current Maryland court system dealing with custody of children.  It's as real and hurtful as the racist Jim Crow laws that still existed in the state in the 1950s.  Any time a father, me, protested that the doctors were being told misleading information, I was deemed belligerent.  My observations about his condition were totally ignored if contradicted by his mother (not to brag, but on Mother's Day, both boys pushed me to stand when all the mothers in the church were being honored because, in their words, "Dad you are more of a mother to us..." I'll not mention the rest.  But stand I did).  And, despite the progress being made at NRH, he was uprooted and placed at Kennedy-Krieger, an adjunct of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.  Nothing against KK.  It's just that NRH was more personal.  KK more a medical factory.  

I'm convinced that had he stayed at NRH, Johnny would be alive and thriving today.  Nothing against KK.  They are very competent, very lovely folks.  It's just that Johnny's comfort level was disrupted and he shut down there and would not cooperate no matter how kind his keepers.  I think he didn't like Baltimore.  Before his episode he was taken from his friends at St. Jerome's in Hyattsville to the Baltimore Campus of Lab School were he learned: he's not rich, that the F word was acceptable in class, and that a certain teacher found it amusing that he was beaten up each day by the class bully (that's what Johnny said and I believe him).  Don't get me started.

Walking Upright

Twenty years ago, I thought nothing of jogging four to six miles in the morning.  Nine to pick up my car from the service bay at the dealership.  I was never into competitive running, just sightseeing through neighborhoods, parks etc.  It was a true joy.  Of course, at the speed I jogged I would say an eighty- year-old using a walker could lap me on any course.

Once after a six mile jog around Fort Shenandoah, the North-South Skirmish Association's range outside Winchester, VA, I was standing on a slight slope when I felt what I thought was an intense groin pull.  My Chiropractor, a wonder woman named Diane Rosello said my problem was that I had worked my pelvis out of place.  She did something and the pain disappeared.

About three years ago something happened to my back to the point where I could barely walk to my car.  It was partly pain and partly fear of pain.  

I watched young parents walking their children to grade school and envied them the use of their pain-free legs.  I couldn't throw a baseball to my son Tommy.  I could barely walk to the diamond. 

One day I toughed it out and visited a good friend at NRA headquarters in Fairfax VA.  

Jim Land is a man I've admired and whose friendship I enjoyed well before I realized he is something of a larger than life figure in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps and in terms of reviving our military interest in long-range precision shooting.  He was the force behind the creation of the Marine Scout Sniper School at Quantico and the commanding officer and often partner of famed sniper, the late Carlos Hathcock.

As I walked into Jim's office it was apparent that something was wrong.  He could barely stand and the two or three steps to a chair were excruciatingly painful.  

Not long afterwards, Jim visited a young surgeon in Woodbridge, VA.  His name is Dr. Paymaun Lotfi.  Dr. Lotfi operated on Jim's spine.  A few months after the operation, Jim was scouting a forty acre field for the best place to set up for deer season.  No limitation in movement.  No pain.

Nearly a year later I called Dr. Lotfi's office.  I brought him MRI films of my spine.  He pointed out what looked like a streak of white.  That, he said, is the correct opening within which my spinal cord lay.  Just below in the lumbar region the white disappeared into a dense dark black.  He pronounced the darkness as evidence of spinal stenosis, a constriction of the normal spinal canal.  He ordered more films to indicate the extent of the damage and sent me to two other nearby physicians, one a cardiologist and one an internist, to see if I was qualified for an operation.  

After a thorough vetting by Dr. Yazdani, the cardiologist, and Dr. Akrami, the internist, I was pronounced a candidate for Dr. Lotfi's talent.  Woodbridge's Potomac Hospital is as modern a facility as can be found anywhere in the metropolitan area and better than most.

Don't ask me what Dr. Lotfi did.  In fact the weeks that followed are but a dim blur.   I spent one night in the hospital and was heading home the next evening.  The entire next two weeks out of the hospital found me in the care of the world's most wonderful woman, Mary, her daughter Megan and my son Tommy.


Dr. Lofti said he found bone spurs at every vertebral junction, a bulging disc he trimmed and fragments of discs among the debri keeping my spine from working correctly. He trimmed the area between vertebrae to allow room for proper functioning.  

The operation was April 12, the day decades earlier when Franklin Roosevelt died (bless the History Channel).  Today, aside from a body weakened from three years of limited mobility, the pain and fear are gone.  I can walk upright yet again.  Will I start jogging?  Let you know in a few months.

Just let me say two things.  As American medicine has taken tremendous strides over the centuries due to each wave of immigrants coming to our shores and taking their place among our medical caregivers, today I thank the good Lord and three doctors practicing exceptional medicine in the area for continuing that tradition.  They are offspring of a wave of immigrants who came here barely a couple of decades ago from Iran.  And they are fabulous additions to our nation.  Just ask my spine.  

The second is, if you have or know someone who labors under tremendous back pain, get them to a qualified physician.  Mine was the least invasive of spinal operations with the highest rate of success.  His or hers could well be the same.  It's truly worth it.

Is It Rudeness, Insecurity, or Poor Parenting?

My favorite irritant in life is highway driving around the Washington DC Metropolitan area.  Seriously.

I grew up in Anacostia.  The wrong side of the river for most in Washington.  Of course, as the decades passed and the viral influence of my second most favorite irritant, namely media types who are in a hurry to make it to the national or at least six figure salary levels, the reputation of Anacostia morphed into a greater geographic area, namely Prince George's County, also a locale I called home for longer than most people have years.

During my high school years, Catholic parishes in Anacostia were feeders to St. John's College High, then a military day school with a decent academic and great athletic reputation.  The kids from a bit more money and social standing gravitated to Gonzaga and Georgetown Prep.  Still we "southeast" boys were looked upon as different from the Blessed Sacrament off-spring from Chevy Chase.  On a football school bus caravan from St. John's to Anacostia High about a half mile from the row house my dad bought the day I was born, the Northwest boys sitting around me, commented that "some of these houses are almost livable."   

(That attitude continued throughout my college years at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.  Anyone living below Philadelphia was seen a uneducated lower classes of less than lilywhite complection.  Forget the idea that anyone "down South" could be a social equal much less educated.  I kid you not.  

Back then PCs much less cell phones were non existant.  The lone phone on our dorm's corridor was in the stairwell.  One day, a classmate came into my dorm room and announced in an agitated voice "John, you have a phone call and it's a 'negro!'"  I got up from my desk and walked to the phone.  My incredulous Yankee classmate followed like a curious puppy.  Without a heartbeat's hesitation I said, "Hi Dad.")


Unfortunately, that's not ancient history from the '50s and '60s.  Today, the area's Catholic education system has also transitioned away from Prince George's/Southeast Washington to a more upper socio-economic student pool: Montgomery County in Maryland and Northern Virginia across the Potomac River.

For the most part everyone in SE/Anacostia etc. saw everyone else as peers and acted accordingly.


Today, drive up the main auto vein cutting through the heart of Montgomery County or any highway in Northern Virginia and you will experience the same cultural differentiation, only now the identifiers are the upscale brand of car.  


The pool of Lexus SUVs, Infinities, Audies, BMWs and Hitler's personal favorite are all in a big hurry.  I assume they are speeding in the high 70s and 80s to check their stock portfolios or just get away from Dodge Neon riffraff.  


I'm told that in many jurisdictions, the combination of a turn signal light and statutes stating that a following car must yield to allow the lead vehicle to change lanes safetly is the law.  I'm absolutely certain that turn signals are standard equipment on all models of motor vehicles.  What I was not prepared for is the attitude that changing lanes with ample signaling constitutes a personal insult to the typical BMW and Lexus driver.


I can't count the times daily these lovely ladies and gents of all ages insist on putting the accelerator to the floor and blocking attempts to maneuver towards an exist ramp.  It really seems personal because they flash various indications of being upset that their path might be crossed by someone of inferior breeding.


I often wonder if it is class arrogance or inherent rudeness.  I'm beginning to suspect poor parenting may be the root cause.  Stop and think.  How many families actually sit down to a meal together?  How many children are taught to correctly set out knives, forks and spoons on either side of a dinner plate.  Guaranteed they never say "Please pass" for anything.  Adults aren't addressed as Sir or Ma'am.  Teachers, cops, parents are barely acknowledged with anything mildly resembling respect.


I literally get nauseated when a television commercial portrays a family meal as a bucket of chicken lumps spun together into "white meat" by huge centrifuges.  


I wouldn't mind traveling the area highways even with the toney rides speeding by  if I thought the inhabitants were hurrying to be with their families.  But I suspect even with a wife or husband and a kid and a half or whatever the upscale demgraphics dictate, these folks screech into their driveways and spend more time before mirrors admiring themselves than hugging a spouse or offspring.  I hope I'm wrong.

Exellent Advice (and Good People) at the FBI

Over the years I've been privileged to know some fine folk at every level in law enforcement.  I've helped a great lady with the Hyattsville PD coach a number of basketball teams.  I've had the distinct honor of shooting and socializing with Agents including Bill Vanderpool and perhaps the greatest FBI and USMC vet ever, Col. Walter Walsh, now approaching (I think) 105 years old.  Both are outstanding marksmen (Col. Walsh is not only a world class competitor but also one of the most feared "G-men" during the outlaw years when the FBI emerged as the nation's antidote to scoundrels like John Dillinger, Baby-face Nelson and the like.)

I've enjoyed lectures at the Academy and read numerous bits of published wisdom from the Bureau.  The one that continues to resurface in my mind is the most simple: pay attention to the obvious.  

That combined with a lesson learned in the U.S. Army - If you suspect something is about to happen that may endanger someone, let someone in authority know so folks aren't blindsided - are important bits of life lessons that are too often ignored.  

The point embodied in both is that people tend to ignore what is in front of them often with dire consequences.  The example I recall most vividly involved a high school student who showed up at graduation clad in a blood soaked tee-shirt. One "brilliant" teacher hustled the lad inside the building and told him to get into his gown as the ceremony was about to begin.  Not a word was said about the bloody shirt.  Turns out the graduate had just murdered a number of members of his family.  Or, so the story goes.

A recent event at a local University involving a dear friend is a prime example of a situation that thus far had a far better result. 


My friend is the assistant to the dean overseeing the process involved in getting advanced degrees.  As appears to be the case with all too many graduate students, adherence to guidelines or rules for submitting papers upon which hopes to receive a masters or doctorate or anything above a bachelor's degree rest is not even an afterthought much less a priority.  


An individual professing to be a layperson affiliated through religious fervor to a particular clerical order (I believe the term is "oblate") was more than mildly miffed that her submission was continually returned until the correct format was in place.


In front of witnesses, the individual stated that she intended to "stab" my friend.  Hardly a response on the approved behavior chart for even quasi-religious types.  A few days, actually weeks, passed. Finally, my friend was told that a complaint was filed and the disturbed individual was banned from campus and would be arrested should she violate that exile.

I was ecstatic.  In the world of academia where reality often takes a back seat to impractical (and often downright stupid) politically correct social theory, someone had the guts to react in a way to eliminate a threat to a person's real life.  The obvious was recognized.  Authorities were put on the alert and direct, definitive action was taken.


Three cheers for Academia.  Three cheers for common sense.

The Intolerance of the "Tolerant"

This past Sunday I was visiting friends celebrating their daughter's high school graduation with an informal "open house" party.  There I met a very nice woman who spoke glowingly about her daughter studying pre-med at college in Colorado.  The daughter, a vegetarian and confirmed social activist, mentioned that she was a bit disillusioned by the superficiality of the "tolerance" exhibited by many of the residents of the nation's most "tolerant" city: Boulder.  I should note that the family conforms to all of the requisites for a "green" and "progressive" categorization.

As an example of the daughter's concern, the woman mentioned a family ski vacation where in order to transport all the kids and equipment they rented an SUV.  Driving through Boulder, the family was confronted by a middle aged woman who stood on the curb as they passed and gave the family "the finger."  

It struck me that we are judged no so much by who we are but by "perceptions."  

In a fit of half seriousness and half humor I suggested that the woman may want to conduct a social experiment on the intolerance of the tolerant by sending her daughter a bumper sticker that simply said "GOP."  She laughted then got quiet as she contemplated the potential consequences of such an act.

In my opinion, the danger we all face is our inability to see and understand that to some degree or other we are all intolerant of those who differ from us.  And how that keeps us from becoming a truly "open" community on many levels.

While working at the National Rifle Association, I was shocked by the prejudice that differed in no way from the racial prejudice of the Jim Crow era of our nation's history showed to gun owners by many in the national media, by public policy shapers in Congress, and by non-gun owners in polite society. If you owned a gun, you had to be a low life, violent, a bigot, and no one who should be allowed to roam free in acceptable society.

That attitude was brought home by social workers, psychologists etc. at one public forum in Baltimore.  One PhD type pronounced that "if you own a gun you might not now be guilty of harming someone but you will someday." It was a pronouncement that stuck me as incredibily narrow in vision and purely intolerant.  

Similar prejudice aimed at individuals because they were non Christian, gay, Republican, hunters, poor, trappers, tree huggers, vegetarians, blessed with more skin color than the pigmentless sunburn set, mentally or physically challenged, or just non native language speakers all combined to erect barriers to acceptance.

I remember traveling to Texas to do a radio show in the early 1980s.  Outside the station, the streets were filled with bright lights and even more colorful characters.  It was the city's gay district and you would have thought it was Mardi Gras orCarnival in New Orleans or Rio.  Everyone was laughing and smiling, even the cops.  A year later, I ventured to the same station, walked outside and the streets were dark and quiet.  AIDS literally took away the life of the neighborhood.  Life seemed a little sadder.  

After NRA, I worked in my family's tiny restaurant on Capitol Hill.  My mother built a clientele that was half gay and half straight.  The food was better than good and the spirit of the place was great.  We even catered to the hookers next door who serviced Members of Congress and their oh so correct staff.  Again, the lights went out as the specter of AIDS visited the Hill.  


Later I looked around my suburban Maryland community and watched an influx of new neighbors arrive from Africa and Latin America.  I was roundly condemned for suggesting that if we had volunteer efforts to help folks get their citizenship and learn English the new residents would not feel so isolated, not to mention victimized because they did not understand what sleazy exploiters were doing to them.  Somehow my suggestion was deemed as "intolerant."

Recently I was asked to edit for publication a short manuscript about a young boy's journey to manhood guided in part by his Uncle who was "mentally defective" after some problem incurred shortly after birth.  It brought back distant memories of my childhood during the 1950s where adults would warn my sisters and me about avoiding an equally challenged person at the local carnival.  The individual in question always smiled, wore thick glasses and had no friends that we could see.  He just looked different.

As I progressed through the manuscript I was mesmerized by the care and compassion of the Uncle shown a young boy whose parents were certifiably cruel, abusive and just plain nasty.  It was and is a marvelous story I hope many will read when it is finally published.   I will post its publication date and availability. 


The story helped me recognize my own intolerance and reminded me to beware those who posture as "tolerant" to all save the folks who just might be a little different.
 

Tolerance: Guns & Families

A dozen years ago next week, I decided to research the needs of my home Roman Catholic parish of St. Jerome's in Hyattsville.  Then I was a new member of the school advisory board and we were looking for areas we might improve for the children and the community.  My first stop was a meeting of the CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) that oversees school-related athletic activities. I learned that the school's basketball uniforms were, on average, nine years old, frayed and faded.  St. Jerome is one of the key feeder parishes for nationally ranked DeMatha High School barely half a mile away.  

I looked around at the assembled parents, most of whom fit the "blue collar"/craftsmen category of social pidgeon holes and did a mental inventory of nearby-resources. 

My thoughts ran to the facts that Prince George's County, MD ran a world class trap/skeet/sporting clays complex about five miles away and that I was sure I could get Mossberg to donate a couple of shotguns as door prizes.  I proposed a family-oriented sporting clays tournament to raise money to buy the uniforms.  A few people were skeptical but no one objected.  What I didn't notice was an old paunchy gent sporting a ratty grey pony tail sitting quietly at the table.  I didn't know it at the time but he was one of the parish nay-sayers, who liked to bully women, and didn't have the balls to voice any objections to anyone's face.  Suffice to say, he wasn't even a member of the CYO board.

Let me give you a bit of historical background.

I had recently been sent packing from the National Rifle Association after a decade as the organization's chief spokesman.  During that time, I weathered the John Lennon killing and attempt on President Reagan's life.  My division - Public Education - slowly built credibility with the national media (more on that another time).   Over my tenure at NRA I ran afoul of the entrenched regime for disrupting the status quo.  

After a dozen accidental shootings in Houston, Texas, I worked with the local TV station, Sheriff's and Police Departments and public school system to create a pamphlet on gun safety in the home.  Over a million were printed and distributed, mostly through the unbridled energy of a young woman named Kym King, then the community service director at one of the Houston TV stations.  Upon my return to NRA headquarters, I was condemned by the NRA Secretary (who also sat on the board of the National Safety Council) because in his opinion, NRA "had no right telling parents how to raise their children." Yep he said that during a staff meeting of all NRA division directors.   That was the beginning of a stretch of twilight zone antics that left my head spinning at the lack of logic or testicular fortitude of the handful of gentlemen running the joint.

Other areas where I "crossed the line" included having my department design and print the first updated gun safety brochure since the 1950s (oops stepped on the toes of the education and training director who never thought of the idea...after repeated attempts to get him to move in that direction went ignored) and took a recommendation (from again some members in Houston) to create a woman's self-defense program...and being told that we are a marksmanship not personal safety organization. 

I guess that Maverick attitude started when I first got to NRA and found they had no literature on the origins and intent of the framers of the Second Amendment.  My brochure addressing that issue was trashed (literally thousands were tossed in the dumpster by the house General Counsel not because of any misinformation but because he didn't write it).  Had to wait about 5 - 8 years before some PhD types put the same info into book form. 


Back to Hyattsville and St. Jerome's.  


At first, even the parish pastor mouthed support for the fundraiser claiming to be a gun owner himself.  OK.  Hyattsville is just down the street from Congress and if you know anything about certain members of the clergy or watch the antics of Members of Congress you already know that in politics, an endorsement is only as good as the moment it's given.  The pastor turned out to be a political weasel.  He quickly cozied up to Ponytail and friends and showed us the door.


Before ponytail climbed out from under his rock to stir up problems, I headed off to Kenya and a U.N. conference on endangered species.  A week or so later I returned to find that ponytail boy went to the local bishop, the Washington Post and and the pastor and got the sporting clays event condemned and forbidden.  He and his wife and one other couple from the parish linked our efforts to crime in the streets of Washington DC and the bloodshed in the Middle East.  We were, they claimed, trafficking in guns to juveniles.  


Not being one to cave into poltroons and charlatans I created an organization quite separate from the parish, called it the Catholic Sportsmen Organization, and got non-profit status in record time.  Over the past dozen years we've raised nearly $100k for athletic teams, helped young musicians from the local public middle school get to a national competition, donated to scouts, and purchased therapeutic tricycles for a local public high school for physically and mentally challenged youngsters to mention a few of our projects.


Oh, ponytail boy and his friends harrumphed and fumed and left the church because the church wouldn't excommunicate us.  The pastor still hasn't dropped by the event but enjoys the money.  Probably doesn't want to hurt his chances of progressing up the ranks.


At any rate we're staging the 12th Annual CSO Father's Day Weekend Sporting Clays Classic on Saturday June 18th.  Did I mention that the first shotgun we raffled off went to, no not a DC crack dealer but to one of the assistant General Counsels of NASA and the first door prize shotgun went to one of the specialists in charge of loading the space shuttle's payload???  Or, that we award the "Ponytail" good sport statuette (it's the south end of a pony) to the low shooter that comes with free shooting lessons at the range?