Christmas is a week past and New Years is two days in the future.
This year Christmas was a mix of emotions. As with every phase of life it is an evolving process. The good and fulfilling are those present to share the experience. Then there are those missing. Some temporarily due to location, circumstance, or some other understandable reasons. Some who passed. Some whose withdrawal from the circle of family or friends is just too bad.
For me, this year was very pleasing even if my ideal Christmas is totally unrealistic or unattainable.
In my ideal world I would be surrounded by every family member and friend I've ever met from every phase of my life...whether I can still remember their names or not. Each brings memories, smiles and feelings of fulfillment.
There would be friends from my childhood who lived next door or around the corner. Friends from grade school. Friends from high school. Friends from college and graduate school. Friends from the Army. Friends from San Antonio, Fort Worth, Massachusetts, New York, Hyattsville, Northwest DC, Damascus, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, Washington State, Canada, France, China, Australia, etc. Friends from the newspapers (the Prince George's, Montgomery, and Fairfax Sentinels, The Washington Star, Washington NewsWorks) with whom I worked. Friends from the NRA. from various consulting and teaching jobs... Friends met at CITES meetings and a variety of international and domestic gatherings. Friends from the Washington Theater Lab. Friends from the teams I helped coach and the places I've lived. Friends met via other friends. Friends from the St. John's swim team. Friends who are doctors and nurses and lawyers and electricians and plumbers and realtors and every kind of kind human who helped me, my family and friends.
There would be my grandparents, my parents, and my son, Johnny, all of whom passed. There would be my sister, brother-in-law, their children and grandchildren. My nephews and others from relatives who no longer claim affiliation or affection. My parents' relatives from Philly and Jersey and Virginia and Maryland. Mandi and Michael and their relatives and friends in England. My cousins near and far. My friend and business partner of nearly two decades, David Wills.
And, of course, my immediate family with whom I did celebrate: Tommy, Mary, Megan, Maggie, Joel, Matt. We all pitched in and cooked the Christmas meal. Every dish was tasty. Every minute enjoyed and appreciated...even those where I mimicked my father and took a snooze after a fill of food and a glass or two of very nice wine.
I guess the reason I'm writing this now as the year is winding to and end is to simply say to all of you...Thank You. Thank you ever so much for all you've given to make my life so full, so rich, so
fun. Thank you a thousand times over.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
A Word of Advice: Never Write Anything to Anyone After Midnight
Okay, so it's nearly 3 AM and I'm wide awake. I've been trying to clean up four distinct piles of files and papers in my office for the past seven hours. The papers, I've discovered date back to the 1960s and earlier.
There are valentines from my father to my mother. From the names of my siblings he signed they had to be pre-1956.
But the one that prompted this violation of my first principle of writing, was dated 1983. It is a certificate from the Maryland State Police announcing my completion of the police firearms instructor school. For some reason that bit of memorabilia touched off a phrase that I've been asked countless times. And for an equal number of times I've been at a loss to answer, namely "what do you do?" It's a question that has intrinsic existentially defining connotations, the most important being "Who are you?"
I can tell you what people have called me - leaving out the obscenities.
Traveling in Manhattan many years ago with a Georgia State Police Officer and one of the most interesting of many interesting people I've known (whose day job in no way resembled what he really did for a living) and consider friends, I was dubbed "KGB" by a Russian expatriate as we emerged from an official looking car. The good man and his two companions disappeared as quickly and quietly as wild turkeys in a dimly lit woods. I'm not KGB.
The KGB consider me God knows what because I co-authored a series of articles on our lack of strategic Sea Lift and why it would take us six months to deploy a suitable number of troops and materiel a few years prior to Desert Storm. They also had copies of a newsletter I wrote in their archives...according to a reliable source, now deceased.
For years and to this day, my friend's sons consider me CIA. I'm not.
I had to take an early leave from a police course on automatic weapons being conducted by one of the finest teachers I've ever had - including nuns, Christian Brothers, Jesuit Priests, high school, college and graduate school professors - a former Secret Service instructor by the name of John Recknor. My classmates from a variety of departments along the Atlantic corridor swore I was a "spook." I wasn't.
Animal Rights fanatics hate me because I spent a number of years as an advocate for biomedical research and asked them at a news conference if as they claimed that they condemn medical research performed on animals because it was not relevant to humans, "did they approve of it for the medical benefits it provided animals?"
I was kicked out of the Outdoor Writers Association because as a ghost writer I refused to submit tear sheets of the articles I wrote that were published in outdoors, shooting and hunting magazines under other people's names. They said if they waived the rule for me, they would have to do it for all the outdoor "ghost writers." I asked how many were in the organization and was told "you are the only one." Ah the logic of the media.
Back before the media "sainthood" of the late Senator Ted Kennedy when he was considered by even his friends in Congress as perhaps the dumbest Member of that esteemed body, I got him totally ticked at me by publishing an analysis of one of his many anti-gun bills that demonstrated via textual analysis compared to his own published statements that the good fellow never read his own bill. It as truly interesting (and I admit gratifying) to notice his staffers pointing me out to the Senator at some function on the Hill.
Friends refer to me as something of a chef. I'm not. I cook left-overs. I did cook at my mother's restaurant for six years. I just followed her lead.
I've had street thugs claim I scared them. Must have mistaken me for someone else. Might have had something to do with the couple of individuals who tried to rob us and somehow got tossed out the door and into the street instead.
Lately I've been part of an amazing team that that developed an equally amazing technology that promises to bring some 2000 very good jobs to the Gulf Coast and reverse the trend of shipping U.S. dollars abroad in exchange for questionable quality shrimp. We've got an operating model up and running and once fully funded we'll show that premium quality shrimp can be raised at the rate of 10 million pounds a year right here in the U.S.A. I also built my son a primo bedroom, framed in the room, hung drywall, laid the tile floor, installed hardwood floors elsewhere in the house, am doing the bathroom remodel, plumbing and all, cook the meals, do the laundry and on and on and on.
So do I have an answer to that initial question or its collorary? Absolutely not. All I want to be is a good dad and soon, I hope, a good husband to a quite remarkable woman.
Told you not to write after midnight. Now I've got to get some sleep.
There are valentines from my father to my mother. From the names of my siblings he signed they had to be pre-1956.
But the one that prompted this violation of my first principle of writing, was dated 1983. It is a certificate from the Maryland State Police announcing my completion of the police firearms instructor school. For some reason that bit of memorabilia touched off a phrase that I've been asked countless times. And for an equal number of times I've been at a loss to answer, namely "what do you do?" It's a question that has intrinsic existentially defining connotations, the most important being "Who are you?"
I can tell you what people have called me - leaving out the obscenities.
Traveling in Manhattan many years ago with a Georgia State Police Officer and one of the most interesting of many interesting people I've known (whose day job in no way resembled what he really did for a living) and consider friends, I was dubbed "KGB" by a Russian expatriate as we emerged from an official looking car. The good man and his two companions disappeared as quickly and quietly as wild turkeys in a dimly lit woods. I'm not KGB.
The KGB consider me God knows what because I co-authored a series of articles on our lack of strategic Sea Lift and why it would take us six months to deploy a suitable number of troops and materiel a few years prior to Desert Storm. They also had copies of a newsletter I wrote in their archives...according to a reliable source, now deceased.
For years and to this day, my friend's sons consider me CIA. I'm not.
I had to take an early leave from a police course on automatic weapons being conducted by one of the finest teachers I've ever had - including nuns, Christian Brothers, Jesuit Priests, high school, college and graduate school professors - a former Secret Service instructor by the name of John Recknor. My classmates from a variety of departments along the Atlantic corridor swore I was a "spook." I wasn't.
Animal Rights fanatics hate me because I spent a number of years as an advocate for biomedical research and asked them at a news conference if as they claimed that they condemn medical research performed on animals because it was not relevant to humans, "did they approve of it for the medical benefits it provided animals?"
I was kicked out of the Outdoor Writers Association because as a ghost writer I refused to submit tear sheets of the articles I wrote that were published in outdoors, shooting and hunting magazines under other people's names. They said if they waived the rule for me, they would have to do it for all the outdoor "ghost writers." I asked how many were in the organization and was told "you are the only one." Ah the logic of the media.
Back before the media "sainthood" of the late Senator Ted Kennedy when he was considered by even his friends in Congress as perhaps the dumbest Member of that esteemed body, I got him totally ticked at me by publishing an analysis of one of his many anti-gun bills that demonstrated via textual analysis compared to his own published statements that the good fellow never read his own bill. It as truly interesting (and I admit gratifying) to notice his staffers pointing me out to the Senator at some function on the Hill.
Friends refer to me as something of a chef. I'm not. I cook left-overs. I did cook at my mother's restaurant for six years. I just followed her lead.
I've had street thugs claim I scared them. Must have mistaken me for someone else. Might have had something to do with the couple of individuals who tried to rob us and somehow got tossed out the door and into the street instead.
Lately I've been part of an amazing team that that developed an equally amazing technology that promises to bring some 2000 very good jobs to the Gulf Coast and reverse the trend of shipping U.S. dollars abroad in exchange for questionable quality shrimp. We've got an operating model up and running and once fully funded we'll show that premium quality shrimp can be raised at the rate of 10 million pounds a year right here in the U.S.A. I also built my son a primo bedroom, framed in the room, hung drywall, laid the tile floor, installed hardwood floors elsewhere in the house, am doing the bathroom remodel, plumbing and all, cook the meals, do the laundry and on and on and on.
So do I have an answer to that initial question or its collorary? Absolutely not. All I want to be is a good dad and soon, I hope, a good husband to a quite remarkable woman.
Told you not to write after midnight. Now I've got to get some sleep.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Why Do Parents Do the Things They Do to Their Kids
Years ago I was sitting in the small entrance way to a synagogue just off upper Connecticut Avenue waiting for my Hebrew teacher. That's right, my Hebrew teacher. I've tried my hand at Spanish, French, Italian and can barely get English correct more times than not. Sometimes the words of each language come back. Most often, they don't. So I figured if I learned Hebrew I could go back and learn every Romance language that beat me down. (Yeah, I was in the Spanish Honor Society in at St. John's College High. But that was more test scores than truly understanding much less speaking the language.)
I learned to read classic Hebrew fairly well. Learned the prayers and learned the greetings for the holidays. Don't ask now...my memory is very Italian - it's a spaghetti strainer with the knowledge acquired oozing out in record time.
At any rate, I was sitting there waiting when a very stunning young woman strode up to the thick glass entrance doors. Her appearance, dress and demeanor were all quite something. As she approached the door she raised an arm, the door swung open as if on cue (apparently the gym was a daily haunt). To say she "strode" in is the perfect use of the verb. Head held high...face forward...eyes focused on her destination without even a hint of acknowledging anything or anyone around her. You know the look. It's on every shopper at Whole Foods Market and every BMW/LEXUS/MERCEDES driver flying up 270 at 75 mph or on 70 East or West doing 80. As she cleared the path of the heavy door, now swinging back to its original rest position, I stared in abject horror at the scene before me. Her five- or six-year-old child was walking in behind her. Bam! The door slammed into him face first. She never made an effort to see that the tot made safe passage into the house of worship. I was too far away to act save to repress a dual urge to vomit and yell an obscenity at her. But, for once, I just stared silently in disbelief. To her credit (?) she did turn and played perfectly the upset mom, again, as if it was written into the script she was following. No "I'm sorry." No acknowledgment that this was the consequence of her behavior. That was twenty or thirty years ago. Today, she probably would have sued the synagogue because the door endangered her child.
Since that time I've viewed or learned of much worse...not the horrors that make the daily news, but in many ways, close. Personal stuff. There's the obviously grotesque and unforgivable. A former DC cop told me of responding to a call of a child in danger. He and his partner ran up the stairs past parents too strung out on heroin or crack to notice or comprehend that anything was amiss. In the house they went to a bathroom overflowing with water, human waste and an infant face down and lifeless lying on the floor. I felt most sorrow for the cop. He had to live with the image of what he saw. As tragic as the child's death was, he was at least free from a life of worse.
Then there is experience of a young man I know. His father and mother divorced when he was very young. The most vivid image I have of his childhood was when he waited all day for his father to pick him up for a weekend together. He sat on the front stoop for hours. The father never showed.
The occasions when he took the child often saw him fairly comatose from alcohol and the boy left to his own devices. If you thought the boy had a difficult time, you would be right on target. Think of any way a kid could get messed up because of an alcoholic father and an emotionally distant mother and you get a pretty accurate picture. There are plenty of profiles on characteristics common to children of this type parent and ...suffice to say trusting adults and accepting responsibility for missteps are not among them.
When a step father appeared on the scene, early attempts at parenting met the stone wall of youthful rejection. That led to a mutual animosity that led to outright hostility. The idea that the trust curve would take Herculean patience and understanding was, to the outsider looking in, was an option that never had a chance with the step dad or the biological mother. It would have taken too much time away from the life they enjoyed. Too much a bother. The jury has not yet issued a verdict but the outcast lad seems to be making a significant course correction: working two jobs seven days a week and getting good grades via a reputable on-line university thanks to the help of other relatives with far more charity, understanding and kindness.
Then there is the absent parent who spent a lifetime barely noticing the second of two children. Contrary to the myth perpetrated by all too many psychologists, child welfare services, the courts and the media, the maternal parent is the self-indulgent perpetrator. Seriously, go to Maryland Child Services and look at their forms. No where is there reference to the father as the caring parent. It's all maternal oriented. I kid you not.
What is painful is to watch the absentee parent fawn in writing to the abandoned child, now a teen. Not the least suggestion is made that the parent's behavior rejected and subsequently alienated the child. Not the first word that the mother has any inkling of accepting her own behavior is suggested in a saccharinly sweet and overly melodramatic Christmas letter that says the lad is "finally understood." What did he do???? The pain is watching the boy toss the message aside, then having to pick it up off the floor after he walks away.
All any of those children wanted or deserved was someone to truly care and speak the truth. I believe it's called respect.
Then
I learned to read classic Hebrew fairly well. Learned the prayers and learned the greetings for the holidays. Don't ask now...my memory is very Italian - it's a spaghetti strainer with the knowledge acquired oozing out in record time.
At any rate, I was sitting there waiting when a very stunning young woman strode up to the thick glass entrance doors. Her appearance, dress and demeanor were all quite something. As she approached the door she raised an arm, the door swung open as if on cue (apparently the gym was a daily haunt). To say she "strode" in is the perfect use of the verb. Head held high...face forward...eyes focused on her destination without even a hint of acknowledging anything or anyone around her. You know the look. It's on every shopper at Whole Foods Market and every BMW/LEXUS/MERCEDES driver flying up 270 at 75 mph or on 70 East or West doing 80. As she cleared the path of the heavy door, now swinging back to its original rest position, I stared in abject horror at the scene before me. Her five- or six-year-old child was walking in behind her. Bam! The door slammed into him face first. She never made an effort to see that the tot made safe passage into the house of worship. I was too far away to act save to repress a dual urge to vomit and yell an obscenity at her. But, for once, I just stared silently in disbelief. To her credit (?) she did turn and played perfectly the upset mom, again, as if it was written into the script she was following. No "I'm sorry." No acknowledgment that this was the consequence of her behavior. That was twenty or thirty years ago. Today, she probably would have sued the synagogue because the door endangered her child.
Since that time I've viewed or learned of much worse...not the horrors that make the daily news, but in many ways, close. Personal stuff. There's the obviously grotesque and unforgivable. A former DC cop told me of responding to a call of a child in danger. He and his partner ran up the stairs past parents too strung out on heroin or crack to notice or comprehend that anything was amiss. In the house they went to a bathroom overflowing with water, human waste and an infant face down and lifeless lying on the floor. I felt most sorrow for the cop. He had to live with the image of what he saw. As tragic as the child's death was, he was at least free from a life of worse.
Then there is experience of a young man I know. His father and mother divorced when he was very young. The most vivid image I have of his childhood was when he waited all day for his father to pick him up for a weekend together. He sat on the front stoop for hours. The father never showed.
The occasions when he took the child often saw him fairly comatose from alcohol and the boy left to his own devices. If you thought the boy had a difficult time, you would be right on target. Think of any way a kid could get messed up because of an alcoholic father and an emotionally distant mother and you get a pretty accurate picture. There are plenty of profiles on characteristics common to children of this type parent and ...suffice to say trusting adults and accepting responsibility for missteps are not among them.
When a step father appeared on the scene, early attempts at parenting met the stone wall of youthful rejection. That led to a mutual animosity that led to outright hostility. The idea that the trust curve would take Herculean patience and understanding was, to the outsider looking in, was an option that never had a chance with the step dad or the biological mother. It would have taken too much time away from the life they enjoyed. Too much a bother. The jury has not yet issued a verdict but the outcast lad seems to be making a significant course correction: working two jobs seven days a week and getting good grades via a reputable on-line university thanks to the help of other relatives with far more charity, understanding and kindness.
Then there is the absent parent who spent a lifetime barely noticing the second of two children. Contrary to the myth perpetrated by all too many psychologists, child welfare services, the courts and the media, the maternal parent is the self-indulgent perpetrator. Seriously, go to Maryland Child Services and look at their forms. No where is there reference to the father as the caring parent. It's all maternal oriented. I kid you not.
What is painful is to watch the absentee parent fawn in writing to the abandoned child, now a teen. Not the least suggestion is made that the parent's behavior rejected and subsequently alienated the child. Not the first word that the mother has any inkling of accepting her own behavior is suggested in a saccharinly sweet and overly melodramatic Christmas letter that says the lad is "finally understood." What did he do???? The pain is watching the boy toss the message aside, then having to pick it up off the floor after he walks away.
All any of those children wanted or deserved was someone to truly care and speak the truth. I believe it's called respect.
Then
Monday, December 12, 2011
Examining the "Conservative" View Towards Marijuana
Say "marijuana" and visions appear of immature pro-athletes like the two bozo's suspended from the Redskins last week as well as photographs of the Occupy (fill in the city of choice) idiots that remind me of modern depictions of characters in Hell so wonderfully portrayed centuries ago by Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken aka Hieronymus Bosch.
That said, after spending a few more moments reflecting on the "evil weed" and my thoughts turn to Mexico and the Obama Administration's ballet with that country's President who blames the U.S. for all the evil folks on his side of the border who are lethally adverse to the free market principle of competition.
No matter what I think of Mexican logic or their version of political ethics (try not to laugh too loudly at the concept), there are some very serious consequences attached to marijuana and its legal status here in the United States. First, some very fine law enforcement officials with our Homeland Security/Immigration/Border Patrol operations are being put in mortal harm's way due to the cross-border trafficking of the illegal herb. Second, our economy is in a hell hole due to the flushing of billions down the judicial sewer system for enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration related to marijuana possession and use. I'm not talking about the consequences of behavior while under the influence of the weed. Smoke MJ and do something irresponsible that results in causing harm to someone and all bets are off. Shame on you.
Look we are a very immature country when it comes to ethics and morality. Maybe it's the influence of too many Puritans fleeing England before the first turkey day. Who knows. The fact is we act like self righteous jerks when it comes to things other countries take in stride. And we are hypocrites to boot.
I come from a family where alcohol was not forbidden fruit. If we wanted it, we could have it. As a result, we rarely wanted it.
Big family meals might have had beer and wine available but most drank ice tea or Pepsi. My grandfather drank wine he made (sometimes with our help) but only a glass or two to compliment my grandmother's outrageous cooking skills. Christmas, Thanksgiving or just Sunday dinner had a pasta dish (ravioli, manicotta (we pronounced it old Sicilian style as "managota" etc. always homemade), a baked chicken, ham and a roast leg of lamb or beef (that's right all three at the same meal ...unless there was a big rock fish or maybe including the fish) with two kinds of potatoes and at least three kinds of vegetables. I kid you not.
I don't know the merits of medical marijuana. I don't care about the attraction of it's recreational use. As I mentioned I do care about the consequences of irresponsible use. Same as with alcohol or firearms.
At any rate I'm quickly coming to the position that it's time we as a nation grow up and allow our friends and neighbors to become adults and decide for themselves if they want to smoke pot or eat pot or just grow pretty pot plants without facing the full force of our criminal justice system. I also think it will be fun to legalize the substance and watch the Mexican President complain of that we just ruined his nation's economy.
That's the conservative thing to do.
That said, after spending a few more moments reflecting on the "evil weed" and my thoughts turn to Mexico and the Obama Administration's ballet with that country's President who blames the U.S. for all the evil folks on his side of the border who are lethally adverse to the free market principle of competition.
No matter what I think of Mexican logic or their version of political ethics (try not to laugh too loudly at the concept), there are some very serious consequences attached to marijuana and its legal status here in the United States. First, some very fine law enforcement officials with our Homeland Security/Immigration/Border Patrol operations are being put in mortal harm's way due to the cross-border trafficking of the illegal herb. Second, our economy is in a hell hole due to the flushing of billions down the judicial sewer system for enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration related to marijuana possession and use. I'm not talking about the consequences of behavior while under the influence of the weed. Smoke MJ and do something irresponsible that results in causing harm to someone and all bets are off. Shame on you.
Look we are a very immature country when it comes to ethics and morality. Maybe it's the influence of too many Puritans fleeing England before the first turkey day. Who knows. The fact is we act like self righteous jerks when it comes to things other countries take in stride. And we are hypocrites to boot.
I come from a family where alcohol was not forbidden fruit. If we wanted it, we could have it. As a result, we rarely wanted it.
Big family meals might have had beer and wine available but most drank ice tea or Pepsi. My grandfather drank wine he made (sometimes with our help) but only a glass or two to compliment my grandmother's outrageous cooking skills. Christmas, Thanksgiving or just Sunday dinner had a pasta dish (ravioli, manicotta (we pronounced it old Sicilian style as "managota" etc. always homemade), a baked chicken, ham and a roast leg of lamb or beef (that's right all three at the same meal ...unless there was a big rock fish or maybe including the fish) with two kinds of potatoes and at least three kinds of vegetables. I kid you not.
I don't know the merits of medical marijuana. I don't care about the attraction of it's recreational use. As I mentioned I do care about the consequences of irresponsible use. Same as with alcohol or firearms.
At any rate I'm quickly coming to the position that it's time we as a nation grow up and allow our friends and neighbors to become adults and decide for themselves if they want to smoke pot or eat pot or just grow pretty pot plants without facing the full force of our criminal justice system. I also think it will be fun to legalize the substance and watch the Mexican President complain of that we just ruined his nation's economy.
That's the conservative thing to do.
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