Ted Williams

Ted Williams broke into major league baseball with the Boston Red Sox on April 20, 1939. Because there is so much going on in today’s world and because baseball plays such a minor role in today’s world, that anniversary went unnoticed. Even in Boston, the big news yesterday was today’s Marathon—and that’s all right.

  

Ted Williams wanted to be known as the greatest hitter ever and the general consensus is that he was. By its very definition, being the “greatest” anything puts one on a very lonely plateau. You are separated from the common man by your uncommon skill and the common man is separated from you.

While Ted Williams wished to isolate himself from everyone else when it came to hitting a baseball, in every other sense, he was very much a part of the world we all live in. And that might be his greatest legacy. He never allowed his greatness to exclude him from responsibilities that even those who are not great must perform.

Many athletes, today and in the past, as well as singers, actors and other famous “stars” use their celebrity as a ticket to be aloof. Maybe they have that coming. Maybe everybody deserves a private life, but taken to an extreme, many stars abandon the real world for a fantasy world where only the rich and famous live.   

The problem is not so much that they lose contact with the real world but that the real world is unable to connect with them. The common man cannot touch greatness. 

  In World War II and again in the Korean War, Williams went from being the greatest hitter ever to being a fighter pilot trainee and then a fighter pilot. The standard line applied to this action is that he was patriotic enough to do his duty, but that it prevented him from setting records that might be unapproachable even today. But there is something else that needs to be recognized.

In 1941, there were just 400 major league baseball players and Williams was arguably the best. But there were millions of soldiers and sailors, and tens of millions more people supporting the war effort. For five years, in two wars, he wasn’t one of them—the 400; he was one of us—the millions.   

My mother became a part of this team of proud Americans from all walks of life who put their lives on hold to serve their country. Of course, she wasn’t coming off of a .406 season, but everyone gave up something. When she joined, she became a teammate of her future husband, her brothers and brothers-in-law, and Ted Williams.

In fact, she was trained as an airplane mechanic and like Williams, was stationed at Pensacola. Although she was just a very casual baseball fan, she did grow up just 25 miles north of Boston, and so was familiar with the Red Sox and with Ted Williams. But baseball wasn’t a big part of her life. Certainly my father and uncles were bigger fans.

Nevertheless, when I was growing up she would tell us about her Navy days in Pensacola, stories that almost always included, "Ted Williams was stationed there at the same time.

She could say this because Ted Williams chose not to stay up atop the mountain, but rather to come down in the valley with the rest of us. It was good of him to do this, no matter how many hits and home runs he lost. But it was good for everybody else to have him on their team.

 

 

 

 

Alms for the rich, Alms for the rich—that's money talking

I wrote this article last Thursday after reading the morning paper. It seems that there were several articles and columns that, although not intentionally, appeared to be related. I tied them all together and sent it off to the paper. Then I checked my email and learned they wished to publish “Here comes the sun, let’s use it,” which I had sent in several weeks earlier

Now I can understand why everyone likes a good dinosaur story. They're so cuddly as little plastic play toys. And if you can tie dinosaurs into global warming, they are almost irresistible.  

The problem is that this piece, because it refers to specific articles in the paper, has a shelf life of about three days. I'm posting the story on the blog because I firmly believe this story has to go somewhere, and there just aren't that many options for this one. The links should take the reader to the original articles.

 

The American Revolution is what you get when intelligent men and women are willing to risk everything they have to be free.

The French Revolution is what you get when the rich and powerful become so arrogant that the poor and weak are willing to risk everything just to get even.

There was no middle road in the days leading up to the French Revolution because there was no middle class. Too bad because a middle road, a road of compromise, could have prevented the revolution from happening and maybe saved some heads in the long run. But you need a middle class to have a middle road.

Middle class gives revolution a bad name. Its people are comfortable, have enough money to eat, dress and live well, and enough education to recognize how well off they are. They have enough morals to treat one another fairly and enough drive to try and get the better of one another. The last thing they want is a revolution. A long, hard fought revolution can knock someone right out of the middle class and into the bread lines.

While it’s hard to have a revolution with a strong middle class it’s pretty easy to have one without a middle class. In fact, the absence of a middle class is what usually causes a revolution, although no one wants to look too deeply into this fact.

Thursday Pilot contained a wealth of information about what’s going wrong in our country. Americans don’t like to hear about class warfare because it sounds so un-American, as well as something only the poor would promote. But class warfare is universal and as old as the Appalachians. Americans would do well to understand this. The same people who don't want to hear about class warfare probably don't want to hear about the French Revolution.

Here comes the sun, let's use it

 Sun coming up on the USS Corpus Christi Bay in 1971 in the South China
Sea. Maybe it's time we get more out of sunrises than pretty pictures. 

 

This article appeared in the April 5, 2014 Virginian-Pilot. There seems to be an abundance of facts on the subject of climate change and global warming, and countless ways to deny the facts. You won't find any facts in this piece so there isn't anything to deny.



THERE ARE numerous differences between man and dinosaurs. In general, dinosaurs were bigger and did nothing but eat and sleep all day. Humans do that but also watch TV. 

We know, with near certainty, that dinosaurs did not wear clothes and that they spoke mostly in grunts and groans.

Oh, and one more thing. Dinosaurs couldn’t reason.

So, whether it be a looming ice age advancing or a speeding asteroid closing in, all they could do was twiddle their fingers and wish they had thumbs so they could raise their fists in anger at their impending doom.

We can be reasonably certain that there was nothing they could do to stop the ice age, asteroid or any other catastrophic occurrence. Because there was nothing they had done to set them in motion.

Sometimes you just are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Luckily, we’ve come a long way, baby, from the dinosaur days. We can do something when something needs to be done. We know from the movies that there are several ways to handle an approaching asteroid. But asteroids don’t appear to be the immediate problem.

The immediate problem seems to be the melting ice caps and rising sea levels. We might not know the cause, but obviously something is going on with the climate.

Thank God, we’re not dinosaurs. Thank God, we can figure things out. Thank God, we can do something. The problem, what seems sometimes like the biggest problem, is getting everyone on the same page. There is a lively discussion about whether man is causing this climate change — a discussion the dinosaurs never had.

Moshe

He had the name of a Jewish military hero and the heart of a Jewish princess. Seventy pounds of muscle and sinew wrapped tighter than the string round a top, and all he wanted was to have his hindquarters rubbed and a lap to lay his head on.

Danielle and Chris rescued him from the pound seven years ago. He already had two strikes against—not only was he a large dog, but five previous owners had given up on him. That’s a lot of strikes for a young pup. Nevertheless, for a dog starting out with two strikes against him, he did all right.

He went to obedience school and learned a few words of a second language—the German “sitzen” and “plotz.” Then he did something not that many dogs do—traveled cross-country in the cargo bin of a jet liner. And then two years later he took the same trip back by car. Two cross-country trips—one at 20,000 feet and one at 60mph—with a stop at the Grand Canyon. How many dogs can knock those big ticket items off their bucket lists?

I visited Dan and Chris in Fullerton and noticed Moshe had taken well to California’s laid back style of living. He liked getting attention. He liked the good life. But he wasn’t a prima-donna about it. If you wanted to share a sofa with him, you were always welcomed. That went for anyone. He didn’t show favoritism.

We had become such good friends that Danielle warned me there was a strong likelihood that Mosh would climb into my bed that night. My first thought was how bad could that be? I knew I’d be going to bed first so I would have first shot at getting comfortable under the sheets. When Mosh came in he would, of course, take his place on top of the blankets—a common enough sleeping arrangement between companions that respected each other’s space.

Adjectives, Gay Marriage, and Companion Animals

“All dogs go to heaven; bill would let them in cemeteries, as well” (Rachel Weiner, Washington Post, Feb. 3, 2014) was a very enlightening article and not just for what it had to say about animals.

What I could never understand about the Republican approach to gay marriage was their argument that it somehow demeaned traditional marriage. In the first place traditional marriage isn’t what it used to be and hasn’t been for some time. I don’t think that comes as a shock to anyone—Liberal, Conservative or Leaning on the fence. But I don’t think we can blame gay marriage for this.

The gay in gay marriage is simply an adjective. We all get that gay marriage is between two men or two women and traditional marriage is between a man and a woman. Each of these marriages, if they are to mean anything will have to stand on their own merits, as has always been the case. And should any of these marriages fail, the parties have no one to blame but themselves. You can’t go off blaming someone else’s marriage for your failed one.

Still Conservatives like to ignore the gay in gay marriage and dwell on the marriage part. It’s as if the whole adjective thing is some left wing, Liberal conspiracy to destroy their world. But not anymore.

 Del. Israel O’Quinn—and I’m not sure if the name Israel deters or adds value to the traditional understanding of the surname O’Quinn or vice-versa. All I know is something is going on here that isn’t natural—but back to my point, Del. O’Quinn, Republican lawmaker from Virginia has just introduced a bill to allow pets to be buried in human cemeteries—something not currently allowed. No longer will cremated pet urns have to be clandestinely tucked in coffins.

Really? Clandestinely tucked into coffins? Thank God, pets can finally come out of the closet and rest in peace in their own caskets.

As the childless couple that chose to adopt doggie babies instead of human babies said so eloquently in this article, “Our dogs are our family. We’re all created equal by God.”

If only gays received the same consideration.

The delegate’s bill would subtly change the single word animal to the more acceptable phrase “companion animal.” Apparently this can be done without inflicting an harm on animals in general. Suddenly, it would seem, Conservatives do understand the important role adjectives play in the English language. Finally they appreciate that adjectives do make a difference. English teachers across the nation can at last breathe a sigh of relief, although they are probably still wondering why it took so long.

But while English teachers can now relax I see God’s job as getting even more complicated that it already was. For the last two thousand years mankind has been pitting one religion against another and more or less forcing God to pick sides—the assumption being that the winner was God’s choice.

When does it all become too much—even for an all-knowing, all-powerful God—having to constantly choose between one religion or another, gay marriage or straight, and now whether or not humans can take their pets to heaven with them. And how much responsibility does God accept for creating gays and straights, human and animals, and enough religions to keep arms manufacturers rolling in dough from here to Judgment Day—at which time, hopefully they’ll all be sent to the pet cemetery?

But the problems never cease. If pets can be buried in human cemeteries, why not wild animals that lead a good life. And what about the good pets who happen to belong to evil owners. What if Hitler had a Labrador retriever that was cute as a button and never bothered anyone? Would he have to go to Hell just because his owner died carrying a lot of baggage?

If only we could go back to the good old days—not the days when gays didn’t want to get married, or humans didn’t want to be buried with their pets or religions didn’t want to fight their way to heaven. I’m talking about the days when legislatures weren’t bogged down with ridiculous bills.

You can take the boy off the dance floor, but he'll only find another one

I’ve always had a fascination with tap dancing going back to my earliest days watching dancers glide across our family’s 12-inch television screen. But I don’t think I ever made a conscious decision to become a tap dancer. I probably should make clear what I refer to as tap dancing was really nothing more than an impromptu shuffle making a noise not much different than a shelf of Thom McCann shoes falling off the rack at a K-Mart. Nevertheless, I do remember taking whatever opportunity, whenever and wherever that opportunity arose, to put my talents or lack of on display.

I think it had something to do with the casual, devil-may-care, go-where-you-wanna-go, do-what-you-wanna-do approach that seemed to guide every tap dancer I ever watched perform. I now know I was only watching a charade, a showman’s deceit being perpetrated on a very sheltered and not so streetwise kid.

Real tap dancers, good tap dancers, real good tap dancers aren’t ad-libbing it. They know exactly what they are doing—just as real good banjo players know exactly what they are doing. Every step is planned, every move measured, every tap deliberate. It may look like they’re making it up on the fly but they’re not.

They couldn’t make it up as they go and still make it look spontaneous. But try telling that to a ten-year old kid watching Sammy Davis Jr. or Gene Kelly dance across the stage of the Ed Sullivan Show or up some stairs or atop some bar on a movie set.

Not that I shouldn’t have known better. I was probably in second or third grade when mom signed my sister and me up for dancing lessons. I quickly learned that there was in fact rhyme and reason in what appeared to be rough and reckless.

With our instructor’s encouragement I attempted the intricate heel, step, heel, step   and drop, toe, drop, toe, drop, toe, drop routines until at some point I decided I didn’t like tap dancing after all.

UFOs—Always Around and Always Round

I’m reading a book entitled Earth by Timothy Good that investigates the existence of UFOs. It’s not a bad book. I’m reading it because I’m fed up to my gills with the misinformation being floated about by so-called climate scientists and just about any other scientist for that matter. I’ve decided to branch out into more mainstream inquiry. That and it’s too damn cold outside to do anything else.

I’m not sure what my take on UFOs is. I did once talk to the man who claimed he was from Alpha Centauri back in that bar when I was in the Army. That would seem to indicate the existence of extraterrestrial life. On the other hand we were in a bar, so—so you see my problem.

It’s like the eyewitness account mentioned in the book when I was still in the Roman numeral numbered introductory pages. My reference to Roman numerals is only a cheap segue trick allowing men to mention that UFOs were spotted as far back as the days of the Roman Empire, when Lucullus was about to battle Mithridates when “all on a sudden, the sky burst asunder, and a huge flame-like body was seen to fall between the two armies. In shape, it was most like a wine-jar.”[1]

My only question as I read this account was, “Didn’t they have saucers in those days?”

But back to the eyewitness account. It seems a journalist, a sports journalist at that, was driving through a town at 4:15 one morning. That’s all I’m going to tell you about his account because there are very few places one could be driving to or from at 4:15 in the morning. Throw in that he was a sports journalist and I think we can safely assume he was drunk, wasn’t driving safely and didn’t see any UFO—in any shape whatsoever.

Then there is the report from a couple that encountered a flying saucer, also while driving one night. “‘We kept driving but we both ducked down, expecting it to hit us.’ I thought, ‘This is it. We’ve had it.’”

So far this seems pretty reasonable. I maybe would have stopped driving but had I continued I definitely would have at least ducked down, too. And I probably would have mouthed the words, “Oh shit,” which is practically the same as thinking, “This is it. We’ve had it.”

But what the man said next makes their story seem just a tad implausible.