February 22, 2018--Code-Red Kids: 3:00 am Raw Draft

In less than a week, it's become all about our children. Everyone's children, including those of us who do not have any of our own.

These are the children of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the latest place in America where 14 children and three adults were gunned down on Valentine's Day.

These children have been ubiquitous every day since--on social media, on TV, in the press. Including last night at a town hall meeting in South Florida where calmly they skewered and dismantled their senator, Marco Rubio, as he tried to con and patronize them, attempting to wiggle out of taking responsibility for the fact that the National Rifle Association (NRA) have him on their payroll and thus own him lock, stock, and barrel (to use a weaponized idiom). 

He could only sputter when students asked him to explain and justify this. He couldn't except to say, with unintentional honesty, that they do so because they "buy his agenda." Do they ever. By bankrolling him they are assured he will do their bloody bidding. He had nothing to say when they pointed out that he received $3.3 million in campaign lucre last year, three times what any of the other hundreds in Congress who are on the NRA payroll pocketed. 

They are all of our children because they are as perfect as we imagine ours to be or would want them to be if we had any of our own. In them we see a reflection of ourselves at our imagined best, as we would like to be, hope that we are.

Self-confident, well-mannered, articulate, forceful, passionate, persistent, polite, knowledgeable, just, fair-minded, and eloquent, they invite us to grieve with them and now are calling us, if necessary shaming us, to action. 

Inviting us to support them in saving their lives since as code-red, children who every day of their school lives have lived with the real threat that today, this week, this year the code-red drills they routinely practice, where they learn to hide in the coat closet when there is an actual shooter present in their classroom, will be more than a drill but an imminent threat. 

With respect and without averting there eyes either to us, their parents, their neighbors, their teachers, their so-called leaders, including even the president in the White House, they point their fingers, while not literally doing so, asking, telling us, now that we have demonstrated we are incapable of protecting them, saving their lives and childhoods since we adults have failed at that, they are telling us that they are taking action to save their own lives, that they are taking the lead and invite us to join them. 

"Never again," they chant.

How to put this? To finesse this? 

Though it may be unflattering to acknowledge, their movement seems different because those this time calling us to action are not from working-class backgrounds or, as with Black Lives Matter, not from urban hot spots, but look and feel like they are our imagined best, especially so to the media covering their testimony and mobilization. 

As with most of the reporters and journalists covering them, they come from solidly middle-class backgrounds and, though as diverse as America is, are disproportionately white.

Sorry, in spite of our progress we are still tribal. That is still how it works, hardwired in our DNA. 

They are like the kids we have at home and send in trust to the schools. This is thus personal and as a result may be powerful enough not just to move us but perhaps even succeed in bringing about some long-needed change. 

They are a generation who have been waiting to find reasons to inspire them, to make their lives meaningful, authentic. They are bringing the lie to how they have been stereotyped--as self-indulgent Millennials.  They now have reasons to be inspired--what they have been looking for last week was brought right to their classroom door. 

And they are thus far proving up to the task.

Which in turn, in exactly a week, still bearing raw wounds, is why they wound up in the White House, invited there by President Trump, who actually, following notes written for him by others, actually found the capacity uncharacteristically to "listen." For 70 minutes at least. 

He mostly seemed to listen, and that was both appropriate and welcome, but when he spoke, after their riveting testimony, when he did turn to speak to them and us, all he could offer was to parrot NRA talking points from previous classroom massacres from Columbine, to Sandy Hook, and now to Parkland, Florida. 

What we need to do, he mouthed, is arm classroom teachers so when someone shows up bearing military weapons of mass destruction they will be able to shoot back with their handguns and thereby take control of the situation. They will be armed and prepared how to pause while teaching their current students to shoot back and kill one or more of their former classmates. All this on a teacher's salary.

The students at the White House meeting did not let him get away with this absurdity, respectfully asking if he expected a semi-trained teacher would be able to defend them from fully automatic military-style weapons with, by comparison, a pathetic handgun?

Trump had no answer but to repeat what the NRA has paid him to say. Thirty million dollars in campaign contributions for the 2016 election. 

It of course remains to be seen if these children, which some reminded us they still are, can sustain their effort. They know, as one in effect put it during last night's town hall on CNN, they are just at the beginning of a "5K" race. Though, it made me feel a wave of both emotion and optimism to see another correct him, saying, "No, some of this is a 'sprint,' so let's make it work because our lives are literally at stake."

June 30, 2015--Fridays at the Bristol Diner--Not In a Million Years

We were having coffee at the Bristol Diner with our good friend, John.

"Just the other day I reread your blog from last March about an idea you had for a new invention."

"I don't remember that one," I said.

"I thought it was one of your best. Not the invention part but the blog itself." He winked at me. "The one about a universal credit card where people could consolidate all their credit and bank and store cards on one card so they wouldn't have to carry around a fistful of them."

"Now I remember. It's the one about how since I know nothing about computing or IT or anything electronic I ran the idea by a very young friend who builds software to see what he thought."

"Yes. And how he got back to you in less than a day with a whole big long list of things about how there may be something already that does this and that if you want to come up with a viable idea you need to think about what he called pain points."

"Yeah. And then I wrote about how when Rona heard about his response she chimed in and shared her thoughts about how, if I want to think about pain points, I should think about the pain of being left behind by his generation and feeling out of it. Etcetera. Etcetera."

"Out of it indeed. That defines you and . . . me."

To shift the conversation away from the depressing, I said, "On the subject of inventions, I have another one for you."

"Here we go," Rona sighed, now concentrating fully on her coffee.

"When I told you about it the other day," I directed this to Rona, "you thought it was a good idea. Maybe not ready for Shark Tank, but at least decent." She continued to pretend to ignore me.

"So what's this one?" John asked.

"You used to be a house painter, right?" He nodded, thinking back 40 years. "When you first got here." He nodded again. "Well, we had painters around last week to paint our renovated front porch and to do touch-up work on the rest of the house. They primed everything, then put on two coats of paint, and for the decking, stain. They used three different paint colors and then there was the stain."

"And?" John asked, checking his watch. He needed to get to his office.

"So I was thinking, how about inventing and of course patenting a four-in-one paint caddie?"

"A what?"

"A paint caddie. You know, it would be one piece but made up of four separate cups attached to each other and in each one you'd put a little of the three or four paints or stains you're using. It would have a handle for the whole contraption to make it easy to carry around and in each cup you'd also have a paint brush."

I noticed John beginning to smile, thinking I was really onto something.

Feeling excited, I said, "This would save all sorts of time as you moved from place to place to put some gray paint on the lattice, then some white on the trim, and in the third cup you'd put some stain. Etcetera."

His smile had broadened, but this time I noticed a glimmer of skepticism.

"Pretty good, right?" I nonetheless offered hopefully.

"Not in a million years," he finally said, friendly in spite of how he expressed his opinion.

"But wouldn't you as a painter feel that . . . ?"

"Not in a million years," he repeated, this time more full voiced. "That's the opposite of the way painters paint. I mean real painters." I knew that excluded me. By then Rona was in her full glory, egging him on.

But wouldn't . . . ?"

"As I said," he opted not to say again what he had said, but did say, "First of all you'd have to have three or four brushes always sittin' in paint. Not a good thing. And then, more important, real painters," he emphasized that again, "Real painters have their own ways of doing things. We, I mean they take pride in doing things their own way, including being very messy. Have you ever noticed that they wear white coveralls? That's for a reason. They're not into efficiency. They fancy themselves creative types. I could go on, but I have to run."

With that he popped up out of the booth.

"But what about people who are not real painters? Wouldn't this . . ."

"About them I wouldn't know," he said over his shoulder, racing to the door.

"But at least," deflated, I said to Rona, "he liked the idea about the universal credit card."

"Not the idea," Rona enjoyed reminding me, "But how you told the story."

"But at least I gave him a few laughs."

"Not that many," she said.

June 4, 2015--Midcoast: The Latest

The hot topic of conversation when the seasonal people arrive is what's new on the restaurant front. Of course updates about houses for sale and who died during the winter are also on everyone's mind.

So as to be able to join in the restaurant talk, the first night we arrived we went to a place that is under new ownership and from what we had been hearing was already being touted as a welcome addition to the local culinary scene.

Things are still quiet around here so reservations weren't necessary, in fact there were fewer than ten dining and drinking at the bar when we showed up.

True to what we had been hearing, it is very good, with a beautifully redone bar area that will, I am certain, be lively. Maybe a bit to lively for me but many times a boisterous bar crowd helps assure that the restaurant is making money and everyone from the staff to the customers benefit.

It was so good in fact that we returned for a second visit and were just as happy with what the kitchen turned out the first time. And we picked up from the new owners enough restaurant gossip of the sort that friends are eager to hear about. Among many other things much more profound it is yet another way we feel welcomed--having some harmless gossip to share.

The first night the waitress we had was clearly a rookie. She was lovely and attentive but still needed to learn a few things in order to be able to keep up the pace and service when the crowds begin to arrive in a few weeks.

She told us this was her first waitressing job and wanted to know what we thought of how well she was doing. This seemed genuine enough and so we shared a few suggestions like saving a trip from the kitchen by clearing empty dishes from tables in her station after bringing out other customers' orders and to be sure to check regularly to see if people need more water. With so many these days paying attention to hydration good service suggests checking often is a good idea and will be appreciated.

Since it wasn't crowded and she was eager to get as much feedback as we were willing to offer we began to learn more about her.

"I'm just 17," she told us, "Not in school at the moment though at the end of the summer I plan to go to college in Bangor and study to become a nurse."

"That's great," Rona said, "Nurses are in demand in Maine, what with the population aging, and there should be plenty of jobs available after you graduate."

"I really love taking care of people," she said, her face lighting up, "I've already been doing quite a lot of that at home. Anytime anyone's laid up they turn to me and I always do wherever I can to make things better for them."

"That doesn't surprise me," I said. "I pick up from you that you're a caring person. So," I said, shifting the subject, "You must be about to graduate from high school."

"Not yet," she said, "I need some more courses because I didn't take a full load."

"Because . . .?" Rona asked.

"I was working with my father."

"Oh, doing what if I may ask?"

"Lobstering. Pulling traps."

I looked at her more carefully since pulling traps requires great strength and stamina, not so say considerable skill to avoid getting seriously injured. Though she appeared to be just a bit over 5 feet tall she was sturdy looking and even muscular. Like a well-trained athlete.

"Wow," I said, "How long did you do that?"

"Since I was 14," she said. "Not every day because I had school and all that. But we worked it out with the school. I took some courses by independent study. There are lots of kids here who work boats with their dads. Even a few with their moms. The high school here is used to that and makes provisions for sternmen and women. I guess we're really more boys and girls than sternmen and women." She chuckled. "That's why I'm a little behind."

"That's very impressive," Rona said. "When you work with your father what's your day like? I mean, when do you go out?"

"We lobster out of Friendship and I wake up a three."

"Three!" I said, "And I thought I was an early riser. What time do you go out?"

"By four I'm already pulling traps," she shrugged as if the apologize.

"And you get back to the dock?"

"Depends, but most days by four or five."

"That's a very long day," Rona said.

She shrugged again. "That's what it is. I admit I get tired and it's hard then to do any school work, but I'm doing OK. By the end of the summer I should be able to graduate and be ready for nursing school."

"That'll feel like a vacation," Rona said.

"Can I get you some more water?" she asked, showing off that she had heard our suggestions. "Folks need to hydrate."

She spun on her heel and went off to get the water pitcher.

"I wonder what our friends back in New York would say about her," I mused.

"Especially those who have nothing but complaints about what they claim to be a spoiled younger generation."

"It would be good for them to meet her and hear her story. And all the other ones we learn about when we're here."

"By the example of these kids we don't have anything to worry about," Rona said. "As soon as possible we should turn the world over to them."

October 28, 2014--Gar-bage Time

It's Gar-bage Time in Washington, with the emphasis on the second syllable--Gar-bage.

As a basketball enthusiast, Obama knows about Gar-bage Time. It is now that time for Barack Obama and his administration.

In the NBA it's when LeBron James' team is 30 point ahead in the fourth and final quarter. Rather than continuing to run up the score and thereby taunt and humiliate their opponent, it's when the coach puts in the third stringers and they run up and down the court for the final 10 minutes making fools of themselves.

In this case, the Obama administration is 30 points behind and there's only a little over two years left in his term. He's entering the fourth quarter of his eight-year term.

I know, this will feel like an eternity. Just as it always does during Gar-bage Time. But with Obama there are things he and his team can do to avoid making fools of themselves.

Before turning to that, to drive home the basketball analogy, in 2004, just before delivering the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention that launched him--the "One America" speech--to pump himself up as well as to give us a rare glimpse of his ego, Obama proclaimed, "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got some game."

He really said that.

That may have influenced the Nobel Prize Committee, which in 2009 awarded him a premature Peace Prize, but for those of us paying attention during the first three quarters, Obama's initial six years, to paraphrase Lloyd Benson's barb delivered to his hapless VP opponent Dan Quayle, who had the chutzpah to compare himself to John F. Kennedy, "I know LeBron James, and with all due respect, Mr. President, you're no LeBron James. In fact, you don't have that much game."

I should add that Quayle, George H.W. Bush's VP nominee, actually won.

Overnight I was thinking about what the first Wikipedia paragraph will say about post-presidential Barack Obama. Currently, the first sentence says he is the "first African American too hold the office of President." I assume that will remain and certainly the first paragraph will include Obamacare; but when it then comes to sum up the rest of the essence of his presidency, to highlight his major achievements, these will include extracting us from two George W. Bush wars, finally tracking down and killing Osama bin Laden, and playing a leading role--even before he was elected--in supporting measures to prevent the Great Recession from becoming the Second Great Depression.

Then, the rest of the Wiki entry will be a list of disappointments and out-and-out failures.  Here's a list--

The Obamacare rollout
The VA hospital scandal
The IRS scandal
The Arab Spring which quickly devolved into the Arab Winter
The Ebola response
The return of the Cold War
Reupping the Patriot Act and expanding its use
Supporting the extension of Bush's tax cuts
Edward Snowdon
Red Lines in Syria
Angela Merkel's cell phone
Losing the Democrat majority in the House and, soon, the Senate

So, in the face of this and the public's disenchantment with him, how can Obama avoid two-plus years of Gar-bage Time?

By being bold. Show that like LeBron you do have game.

Prodded by Nancy Reagan, Ronald Reagan during the doldrums of the last year's of his presidency, in the midst of Iran-Contragate, made a deal with the Soviets to effectively end the Cold War.

I can only imagine what Michele is now pushing for--

• An easy one--bring Cuba back into the fold of Western nations
• Stop the continuing flood of deportations being carried out by your administration and stand up forcefully and repeatedly for the "rights" of undocumented immigrants who are essential to our economy
• Put what little is left of your political capital on the line and honor your Nobel by personally and directly intervening in the Arab-Israel nightmare. If necessary, begin the process of cutting Israel loose since they are at the heart of the ongoing problem. Ignore the Israel Lobby. You don't need them. You're not running for anything anymore.
• Reiterate your agenda even though there is no chance whatsoever of any of it being enacted into law. Maybe some of your lofty ideas will influence future presidents. As with Teddy Roosevelt.
• Speak more about race. Reread your own amazing speech delivered during the heat of the Reverend Wright affair and get back to those themes. Many of us think much of your problem with Congress and with too many Americans is lingering racism. Who other than you can do this in ways to help get more of that malignant affliction behind us. 
• Most important, devote much of your remaining time talking about the American Dream to disaffiliated young people. Poor, middle class, and wealthy. Too many of them fear for the future. And they are right to do so. Someone has to help them understand what is happening and figure out how to deal with a host of new realities. 

Or, you can continue to drag yourself dispiritedly up and down the court, feeling sorry for yourself, running down the clock. And, one more thing, put Air Force One in the hanger and if you go anywhere travel commercial.

May 13, 2014--Minimum Age

"Do you think at the military commissaries on our bases in Afghanistan, when soldiers return from patrol and ask for a beer, if they look younger than 21, they get carded?"

"What made you think of that?" I asked Rona.

"For some reason I've been thinking about age restrictions."

"Not just drinking?"

"In general."

"Specifically, I doubt that our troops get carded even though you can engage in combat well before you're twenty-one."

"That's my point. How setting minimum ages for things is often inconsistent and even hypocritical."

"I do remember back in the late 60s and 1970s when the 26th Amendment was passed to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, it was said to be unfair to draft 18 year-olds to fight and get killed in Vietnam but not allow them to vote."

"Or buy and smoke cigarettes."

"Also true."

"There's even some fringy thinking that says since young people mature more quickly today than in the past that the voting age should be lowered further."

"I've heard that. Would they allow 15 year-olds to vote?"

"Maybe. But the larger point when it comes to voting may not be about age at all."

"Meaning?"

"I'm not advocating," Rona said, "that we go back to the time when only men who were property owners could vote or . . ."

"Even if that 'property' was slaves?"

"Touché. Or maybe asking people to take a test to see if they have even a minimum understanding of the issues." I raised my hand to interrupt. Rona waved me off. "I know how tests of this kind in the past were used to block black people from voting. So that's off the table too."

"So then what's on the table?"

"I was reading recently about an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that underscored how people of different ages feel about issues. Which is not surprising. Younger people are more libertarian when it comes to cultural issues such as same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana while older people have much stronger views about health care. They, for example, though they're on Medicare--which is a version of socialized medicine--are overwhelmingly opposed to Obamacare."

"For me that says it all--how older folks, who have great coverage paid for totally by taxes are so opposed to others having a version of the same thing. How selfish and self-centered can you get?"

"Which makes me wonder," Rona said, "though I know what I'm about to say makes little practical or constitutional sense, that if we think it's fair to set minimum ages for things maybe we should also set maximum ages for other things. For example, most companies have manditory retirement policies. And maybe we shouldn't allow 95 year-olds to drive."

"I could see that making sense. Maybe a relicensure test should be required after age 85. But if you're going where I think you're going, well . . ."

"Where might that be?"

"Setting a maximum age for voting."

Rona rocked back in her chair and just smiled.

June 28, 2013--Mon @ 105; Me @ . . .

It is difficult to continue to pretend that one is anything but old when one's mother is 105.

Today that becomes my reality.

Until she turned 100, my mother didn't tell the truth about her age. Not unlike many of her generation and gender, claiming that she was younger than in fact she was or insisting on buying shoes at least a half a size too small was expected. But then, when she became 100, Mom reversed gears and every six months proudly told everyone, "I am 101-and-a-half today."

And they would say, "But you don't look a day over 90."

Then and today my mother is amazing for much more than longevity reasons.

Though she is not as light on her feet as she was just a year ago, there is very little, very little medically to be worried about. Blessed in this way, that means she can continue to be her remarkable, at times perfect self.

More the one to do the taking-care-of than needing care; on most days more concerned about the state of our country and the world than concerned about herself; more interested in the welfare of her large extended family than interested in focusing on herself; and more attuned to the tremors of uncertainty that shape the lives of friends about whom she cares than to those that occasionally rattle her equanimity.

Though it may be expected that I today would focus entirely on her, including sharing examples of her grit and wisdom, I want also to say a word about how I am experiencing this remarkable passage of time.

OK, after one example:

While visiting with her today (to celebrate quietly the passing of the last day of her 105th year) she told us about how she is living in two worlds--has a foot in each, is the way she put it. One foot is in the world of the very old, of those waiting illness and death; the other world in which she also lives is that of the young--how she often feels, that in spite of her age, she is in young. Very young.

"At those times I believe I am thinking like a young person and have my whole life ahead of me." She chuckled, "And I suppose I do. Whatever is left for me is that 'whole life ahead of me.' And when I think that way, which is more often than you might imagine, I make plans, I think about what I can do to make things better in the world. Just the way you young people do."

That latter comment--about "you young people," generously including me among them--is a good segue to how I am experiencing her gathering of years.

As former children, as we all are, in some ways it is impossible to think about oneself as old. We are our parents' children even if they both are gone. I will always be my father's son though he passed away more than 15 years ago and this will be true after my mother is called. For as old as I in fact get, for as long as I live, I will be her son.

But having a living parent is different. It contributes to the sweet fiction that one is literally young. No matter the actual number of years--and mine is becoming significant--it is much easier to think about oneself as a child and to be comforted by the assumption, excluding tragic circumstances, by the feeling that as long as you remain a child of any age you will have a parent to take care of and protect you.

So, unlike my mother, I haven't yet switched gears to fess up about my actual age, I avoid bright lights when near mirrors, and am OK with the fact that I wear size 13 shoes.