THE "OTHER" GOSPEL, THE MEMORY OF THE BIBLE IN THE EYE OF YOUR CAMERA

The one I had was brown

Have you ever been on a pilgrimage?  Have you ever read Geoffrey Chaucer?  have you ever heard of the Pilgrimage to Mecca?  Did you ever ask yourself why Jesus, Mary and Joseph were 100 miles away from home when Jesus got lost?  How often do you, if ever, dream of traveling to your favorite religious site?
When you think of that, what is your first preoccupation, after money, of course?  Is it your prayer book or your camera?  
Why do I bring this up?  Because it came to me the other day when I though that it might be a good idea to dig out some old pictures and give them to our sons for Christmas.  So, of course, I dove into the box(es) of photos and the box(es) of SD computer chips to see what pictures they might appreciate more.  The emotion that overtook me while I was doing this was quite a surprise to me.  I decided that none of the pictures that I was viewing would be of any real lasting value to either one of them.  Why?  Because it struck me with some emotional intensity that what I was looking at was interesting, but certainly not engaging.  The exercise was rather fun, but did not rise to the level of awe before a family collection of treasure.  So, I stopped myself from spending any more time doing this.
It came to me that the truly meaningful pictures were VERY few and far between.  How many pictures of 3 and 4 year boys are meaningful?  There is one that I like, but I couldn't find it, so that was a disappointment.  Or was it?  It made me think of the picture that I took with my Kodak Box camera of old.  It was at Niagara Falls somewhere in the 1957 range.  It was one where I captured the boat, "The Maid of the Mist" floating at the foot of the falls and surrounded by a very clearly defined rainbow.  I admired that picture for a long time, but then I changed my domicile so many times during the passing years that all I have is the memory.  I have the memory, and nothing else, of my favorite picture of EFR Dion coming down the back stairs of our house on Hartford Street in South Hadley that I took with the same box camera by Kodak.  I remember it because it was February, a few days after he had announced that he had now lived longer than his father had.  I could go on for some time reminiscing about pictures that I remember and about pictures that were never taken.  Those that were never taken are still vividly present to me.  They move me as much as those that occasionally fall under my gaze.  Despite the convictions expressed here, I still find myself clicking away on special occasions.
In the introduction I asked about pilgrimages and what is the more important, prayer or picture.  I wonder what the right answer is.  It is impossible to go to a revered location on the planet without capturing the reality of it on camera.  I have my favorite pictures of places that I have seen only because I went there to pray.  I don't look at the pictures very often, if ever, but the fact that I stopped and captured a rare reality helps vivify my memory of it.  It is like multi-media impact on the brain.  It is rather certain to me that the effort that it took to stop, assess the angle of importance, check the position of the sun, wonder if I should have Belle there or not, should I activate the flash, how close do I want to get, portrait or landscape mode, etc.  All of this activity contributes in some way to the memory of the event.  In many ways it makes viewing the picture less important down the line because the memory is all the more explicit.
Think of it this way.  Mary and Joseph lost track of their Son one year during the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for prayer.  They didn't need a camera to remember where they found him.  I think that He never forgot it either.  We don't hear a single word about him for another 20 plus years, except that when He got back to Nazareth, he obeyed them and grew in age and wisdom.  Period.
Who needs a camera for that?

AIDA, CARMEN AND LA TRAVIATA, WHO ARE THEY?

L’amour est un Oiseau Rebelle
Love is a rebellious bird

By Verdi
It's in Italian and is set in Egypt

Today, I was beset by one of those flashbacks that happen to old people now and then.  This one was a nice warm and fuzzy, good humored one.  I didn't get the shivers that usually attack me when I think of some of the calamitously stupid things that I have done along the road of life.  I remembered the gang of three or four WWII veterans who had been friends forever.   Two of them happened to be my uncles.  They were the younger brothers of my father.  You know him, EFR Dion.  The four of them were opera "buffs" and they usually spent Saturday afternoons listening to opera during the Texaco Radio broadcast of the Saturday matinee from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.  I would occasionally be there with them.  Not for the opera, mind you, but because I liked being with them and they did not seem to mind my being there.  After all, I was still a teen ager at the time.  
Well, as most of you know, I am not a teen ager any more.  But Saturdays still do come and go. And there is still a radio station here in Southern California that carries the opera from the various opera houses around the world.  Today was Saturday and I was running around town doing "this and that" and listening to Aida in between short hops from "this" to "that."  During one of the hops the memory of one of those post meridiem sessions struck me.  It was the time that one of the gentlemen in the room said that he was of the opinion that the words of the "tunes" that are sung in Opera were not meant to be understood.  Well, he didn't get far with that statement.  The other three chimed in with loud and monosyllabic dissent.  They are printable, but not appropriate.  Then I remember my uncle Ed coming to the defense of the brave heart who dared to venture such an inconoclastic opinion. Ed simply said that if the words were not meant to be understood, the writer would not have provided any for the singers to vocalize.  He also said that just because we five could not understand them didn't mean that there were none in the world who did.  The person with the daring opinion then challenged my uncles who were fluent French speakers if they understood Carmen.  They, to their everlasting credit, confessed that they did not.  So he won...or he thought that he did.  Not so fast, Red Ryder!  Other opinions flew around the room and it was really nice for me to hear what they had to say.  
Some of the ideas were really quite philosophical.  I remember some of them.  
One was that the singers also had to act.  So they needed real words to be able to convey the emotions that the play was meant to portray.  I thought that was pretty intelligent.  Then one said that a Boy Scout skit conveyed ideas and there no words in many of them.  True enough says another, but Boy Scouts don't sing.  The actors in an opera have to sing.  If the author of the play is sophisticated enough he can match the words with the notes in the music so that the sound of the voice and the pitch indicated by the music match and help to make the emotions clearer for the actors and for the spectators.
But then another said that he didn't think that was a good thought at all.  In fact, said he, French authors wrote plays in Spanish and Italian people wrote some in French, and so on.  
But wait, says the originator of the discussion, that just means that the words don't really matter to the audience.  
One of the thoughts that made the rounds that day was that the audience did not go there for the play anyway, they went for the music...the instruments, from the strings to the brass to the percussion and, yes, to the human vocal chords were the true and only reason why people paid to go sit there during a play that they could not follow.
The four of them decided that they would all sleep on it and talk about it on the morrow while fishing for pickerel at Lake Arcadia.  I don't know if they did or not.  As for me, I only have two things to say. 
1. I know the words to the Aria cited above from Carmen.  She is a tough broad, believe me.
2. I also know the words to the drinking song from La Traviata.  By the way, it is not nice to be called "una traviata."  In fact, the song in the opera  says plainly that the woman is not going home with the fellow who brought her!
I like to listen to opera for some of the reasons that were brought up on that Saturday PM some 60 years ago.  I am glad that there is still some opera on the radio.  It is true that it is no longer sponsored by Texaco, but that doesn't make it any the less enjoyable.  

MR. MIYAGI WINS A BIG ONE IN LAS VEGAS

Karate Kid 2 Mr Miyagi's philosophy

Last night I did something which I rarely do any more.  I watched a boxing match.  As I have grown older I have come to dislike boxing because it is really quite savage.  It is so savage that it is getting closer and closer to being almost as bad as American football.  In fact, these days there are many more "punch drunk" footballers, or ex-footballers than there are"punch drunk" ex-boxers.  Be that as it may, I was there watching the fight between Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino idol and Juan Manuel Marquez, the Mexican who in three previous tries could not find a way to get past the "Pacman."  When he did find a way, after 41 rounds of confrontation, my mind instantaneously flew back to the Miyagi-Karate Kid philosopy of hitting the agressor on the side that is open and vulnerable because his attacking side is busy trying to do you in.  The win by Marquez was a perfect picture of the philosophy in actuality.
For those of you who saw the "Karate Kid 2" film, the picture of the little toy drum in the upper left-hand corner is familiar.  Mr. Miayagi explains the success of the drum with the mantra that both sides hit at the same time, but from opposite positions.  Never can one striking ball hit both sides at the same time.  There is always an opposite blind side to every agressive action.  Putting that philosophy into reality last night, Marquez was able knock the Pacman senseless, not only from the power of his own right hand but aided by the force of the momentum generated by a right hand from Pacquiao that was dodged by Marquez who countered in a fraction of a second with a pile-driver of a right hook dead center to the face of the Pacman.  The force of the right handed attack by Pacquiao carried him into the right handed missile while his entire left side was completely useless to him as defense.  Score a big one for Miyagi.
You can see what I am talking about by clicking here below.  The graphic view of my description can be seen starting at about 22 seconds into the video and repeated twice more until about 34 seconds.  You'll see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2DOiuuUe-A

I have to say that all the while being Miyagi oriented, I have also been thinking about the way that it is possible to do this in other areas of life. One of the people who is very adroit at doing this in politics is Carl Rove.  He requires his target to respond to an unsavory proposition so that during the time when the target is crafting the response, Carl does what he wants to do thereby requiring more crafting by the target thereby giving Carl more time to settle into the results of the initial proposition.  To get back to the toy drum analogy, by the time the target gets around to responding, the drum beat has gone on so many times that the rhythm has turned to Carl's side of the drum.  I suppose that there would be more examples that I could propose, but you get the idea.  If you've seen the film, "Karate Kids 2" and you see the 10 or 12 seconds worth of the attached video, you will see the truth of the philosophy.  If you're not careful, it may occupy a lot more of your time that you would normally be willing to devote to such things.

I therefore wish you a happy philosophical moment.

THE SEASON FOR NOSTALGIA IS OFFICIALLY OPEN

I THOUGHT IT WAS A CHRISTMAS RUSH, DIDN'T YOU?

I got this in the mail today.  December 1, 2012.  I'm supposed to be happy that the main post-office in this back-water city is going to open for two Sundays to be able to cope with the "Holiday Rush."
I know that I have an exceedingly bad reputation as a guy who hasn't sent Christmas cards for ages.  Despite my horrendous reputation, you have to admit that I do send a lot of Happy Christmas e-mails.  C'mon now, you know that I do.  This year, for many of you, there will be a nice long lead-in to the Christmas Day Holy Day, so you won't want to miss it.  It's going to be religiously prayerful.  I think you'll like it.  If you don't, remember that there is a delete function on your device.
But that's not nostalgia, now is it.  But this is.

Christmas used to be the incarnation of Hell for the USPS.  Where we lived there was always a good chance that there would be snow.  Actually, snow was not that bad because the weather warms up generally when there is snow.  No snow, bbbrrrrrrr!!xx!  Then, of course, there were the millions of Christmas cards of all sizes that had to be hand sorted by address.  For all of you young people who are reading this, no, there were no zip codes back then.  
And there were different rates for different classes of mail.  Just like now. Really.  Forever, man, forever!
1. Mail that was sealed and had a street address followed by "City."  That meant that the mail was staying within the boundaries of the return address.  Got that?  Good.  Cost, $0.015
2. Mail that was not sealed but had the flap tucked into the envelope, and all the same stuff as above ... it stayed in the city.  This mail cost $0.01.
3. Mail that was sealed and was going out of the city. $0.03, first class.
4. Mail that was not sealed but had the flap tucked into the inside of the envelope and was going out of the city.
$0.02, second class
5. Air mail to far away places, like Los Angeles, or God forbid to Montreal or some other place in Quebec...forget it.  Only rich people could do that.  I didn't look it up, but I seem to remember that it was something like $0.05 per 1/2 ounce.  I assure you that I do not exaggerate when I say that people mailed that stuff in the Thanksgiving season by 1st class to save the outrageous cost of the air mail "rip-off."  (By the way, we didn't have the exprression "rip-off" then.  I figured you could handle an anomally or two, now and then.)
So that's the nostalgia about the mail rates.
Now let me drop a few words on you about the mail delivery during the Christmas Season.  I must confess that I don't remember Sunday delivery.  But I do remember this:  
a> Twice a day delivery, at least Monday through Saturday.  This started, I think, on December 1.
b> An army of temporary mail delivery people on just about every single route.  No, there were no little convenient postal jeeps in those days.  You got dropped off, filled your bag and walked...snow or no snow...-10 degrees or +5, it didn't matter.
c> High schoolers of a certain age were recruited to fill the ranks.  I know, my uncles did it in South Hadley and I have a friend, a reader of these lines who did it too.  I don't remember the "detail of the certain age definition."
If anyone of you remembers, please let me know and we'll announce it for the record.
The best for last.
Remember, that for several years as I was growing up there was a War going on, in Europe and in Asia.  There were more houses with missing husbands, children (mostly boys) and all kinds of other friends and or relatives.  Most, I think, were just absent.  Many, too many, were simply GONE.  
Our family, by the grace of God saw all of our members come back in one piece.  
Mailing something to them was the best price of all, FREE.
It was possible to send as many letters and cards that you wanted.  You could even address it "Soldier with the least mail" and it would be taken and some soldier in a forgotten corner of the upheaving world would  get it and cry silently because someone had thought of him.

All good things come to an end.  When the Postal Service flattened all the rates to three cents, my mother and father cut back from about 200+ cards to only the closest and dearest 120+ in a snit of desperation and exasperation.  Maybe one of my siblings can enrich that memory.
================ Those are my thoughts and memories on the first day of the Christmas Season, also known as The First Sunday of Advent.
if you have something to share with the world, now is your chance.  Send it to me.  It's Christmas, remember.  Our thoughts and memories are the best gift that we can unwrap for those who are seeking something precious.  There is nothing more precious than what God has filled us with.  Do it.

I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, GOLF'S NOT A SPORT

HEY, I'm vindicated.  Golf is not a sport.  Not any more than bird watching, driving a race car,playing bridge or fighting at a hockey game.  Now that they have to argue about whether or not a person can anchor his leverage point for a swing meant to direct a stationary ball I am convinced that this is nothing but wimps playing "watching the grass grow" with a ball [stationary, of course] for an excuse.

No wonder Tiger had time for extra-curricular activities.  There just wasn't enough challenge to his day job.  

I have never been much of a golf guy.  It reminds me too much of wine guys.  They never have a enough time at any event to tell people all that they really think everyone should know about their area of expertise.  Real athletes who compete in real sports can generally get the conversation job done in about 25 words or less.  Like, "Yeah, I did a mile in 3:5352618 in the Olympics last year."  Or we have the hockey player who can get it done just before the final buzzer, "I beat Jacques Plante with 0:0627831 seconds left on the clock with a slap shot from the left point, in Montreal." [Italics, his] 

I have no idea what golfers drink, but I happen to know at least one  hockey player who doesn't drink anything but straight Bourbon, neat.  

Look, if you're going to play a sport, play one that's going to make you sweat. Play one where the ball moves.  Heck, they don't call Bridge players athletes do they?  Oh, not yet, you say.  Hmmm, I suppose that the day will come.  These days anything can happen, sex has turned into gender, so I suspect that golf and bridge can turn into sports.

There remains one essential question: "What are the golfers who grew sturdy bellies to anchor their clubs going to do if the belly anchor becomes a no-no?  Maybe they'll have to take up bridge where they will be able to anchor their elbows on the table.

Oh, I loved writing this one!

PREJUDICE -- DID I EVER GET A LESSON!

Fr. J. Junio, Lupe and Mirna
Notice the entry to the house
right on the canal

This is a funny story.  It's funny because no one got hurt.
I have to start by asking if you have ever made yourself a promise to stay away from a certain city, even though you had never been there?  Are you sure?
If you have been so strange as to do that, you will be as strange as I am.  You bet.
For some strange reason I had made a decision that Venice, Italy was a place that I wanted to avoid.  I had a reason or two, but mostly I just didn't have the "yen."  I had seen all the pictures of gondolas and water and all the rest of it.  St. Mark's square with all the pigeons and a bunch of people on a pier hanging around with actors in masks.  I had no interest of ever going there.  Also, I have to tell you that I was sure that a place with all those canals just had to smell bad.  Of that, I was sure.  WELL...
A few weeks ago I spent a day in Venice, Italy.  Actually, that's all I spent there.  Before we got there, the announcement was made that there are no autos in Venice.  We were also told that we would have to take a water taxi to get to the center of town.  Well, we did all of that.

That's the Voice from the Kitchen in the center.  The taxi was quite comfortable, if a bit on the rocking boat side, if you get my meaning.  We were approaching the center of town and there was no foul smell yet.  Oh yeah, I was being alert.  As we were approaching the dock the word was passed around that this was a high water time and that getting around would be a little on the difficult side.  We were going to have to walk on narrow platforms that would keep us out of the water.  My mind got to whirling around wondering what that was going to look like.  We were assured that because we got there on a high water day it would be difficult to walk around as a group and tour the place.  First, we were going to St. Mark's, and we would shift around town after that.  But first we had to mount the "dry foot platforms."  Imagine how often they have to do this!  Actually, one of the residents told me that if the water doesn't come up too high they just put their boots on.  I did not snap a photo of it, but I did see black high-water boots in the windows of the clothing shops. 500.00 Euro dresses in the same window with 25.00 Euro black high-water boots!  That in itself made me wonder why I had decided never to come here!
I took a picture of St. Mark's square with water all over, and rising...and a picture of the water coming up through the cracks.

Not a pigeon in sight!  And by the way, the air is far, far from being foul.

See, I wasn't exaggerating.  Those feet that you see are on the high-water platform.





Venice is known for a lot of things, but I was intrigued by the items that don't appear in the travelogues.  The transportation system of small "boat busses" and larger ferries is a wonder to see.  The houses with entries that are right on the canal.  Most of them have another opening on the opposite side that leads to the sidewalk, but it is still strange to see what you can see in the first photo of this piece.  We walked around a lot, and saw some exciting squares where the Venetians can spend time socializing and gossiping on dry land.  I also found out that Venetians are friendly and chatty.  I thought that the Romans had a monopoly on that.  I'm glad that I got a lesson about being nice to tourists from the place that I had mentally disparaged for so long.
I learned a lot about Venice while I was there and I continue to fish around for interesting tidbits about the place.  I did not do any pre-visit research because I was still mired in my prejudice.  Now that I have been there I know that I made a mistake in carrying my attitude around for so long.  Not that I would have reached there any earlier, but I would not have cheated myself out of the mental freedom that I lost because of my narrow-minded, ignorant opinion.  
I am therefore inviting you all to go through life with open minds.  It won't assure you of earlier visits to far away places, but it will keep you at peace with yourself...You'll never have to confess like I just did...

At high tide the bow and stern decorative high necks have about 2 inches of
clearance over the top of the arch of the pedestrian bridge...and the
gondolier must crouch to pass under.  Notice the grilled window in the
building.
When two gondolas meet or have to go around the same corner, people gather by the
guard rails to watch the professional athleticism of the gondoliers as they
navigate around each other.

37,000 PAIRS OF EYEBALLS IN TWO YEARS

Thanksgiving-mas:
Two years ago, on the 25th of November, Thanksgiving eve, I started this blog.  It is true that I do not have 731 [leap year, ya know] posts, but I still have a lot to say in my life.  Not all of it is super.  Not all of it makes you sit up and take notice.  All of it is pure me.

Over the last year I have wedged - in some nasties on the Krusty Kurmujjin, and some spiritual ones on No Crying at My Funeral but all along I have been impressed at the lack of followers who have written and said, "Stop my subscription."  In the two years that I have been communicating to you, only two have told me to get out of their life.  I followed their instructions and they are no longer with us.  The rest of us hang in there and grow with the thoughts that are fertile and ignore the ones that are not.

You may not know this, but now and then, maybe five times per year, I reread the things that I have written.  I have to admit that my reactions are black and white.  Like: "Did I write that ?" :-(! or 
"Did I write that ?" :-)!  So believe me, whether you
react "(" or you react ")", when you analyze your reaction, you have to admit that you learned something.  You learned something about yourself -- and you think about it and you come to realize why you don't agree with what I wrote or  you do.  That, my friends, is personal progress.  So, I continue.  I continue not for myself, but for you and for my two loving boys.  They do not follow this blog.  I know that.  Why would they?  I'm only their father.  But I know that when I am dead and buried, they will occasionally browse around and find out what their "Old Man" had on his mind.  These blogs are the windows into my soul.  You are all witnesses.  I hope that you enjoy it because in the final analysis, we are all the same...

So, this is Thanksgiving.  Enjoy yourselves.

By the way, this is blog post 571...We are embarking on our third year.
365 more opportunities to help one another become better human beings.  Let's do it.

THANKSGIVING, INDIAN, VIETNAMESE, FILIPINO, JAPANESE

Yesterday (November 22, 2012) was Thanksgiving in the United States of America.  Even though that day is passed, I, as a Roman Catholic, allow myself to follow the Catholic tradition of celebrating the important stuff over a period of 8 days, known an an octave.  So, in a way of speaking, today is as much Thanksgiving as was yesterday.  
On Thursday morning, I and Belle, you all know her as "The Voice from the Kitchen," were sitting there in the Church where we are convinced the start of Thanksgiving should be celebrated.
The pastor there is of Vietnamese origin.  He did what very few Catholic Priests do, he actually gave a personal testimony about his first and foremost reason for celebrating Thanksgiving.  It was the second time in my life that I had heard a priest do this.  It just so happens that both times it came from a refugee from Viet Nam.  I am going to relate these experiences to you as well as a third that I read from the San Francisco Chronicle some eight or nine years back.  Through it all, why don't you turn the corner of the page up so that you can try to find the one thing in your life for which you are REALLY grateful.
Yesterday's story starts in Viet Nam before the fall of Saigon.  The father was a soldier fighting against the Communists. He would be gone for a while, come home for a while and then leave again.  It was never clear if he would ever return to the house.  In fact, it was never clear whether the family would still be there if and when he returned.  By the grace of God they all came to the United States and stayed at a camp installed at a military base.  When they finally got out of there and settled, life really took a turn for the better.  The priest who was telling the story was fifteen years old at the time.  What is he thankful for?  He is thankful for the inspiration that God gave him to be aware that he was now able to plan for his future.  He told us, "you have no idea how good it feels that you no longer doubt that there is a future for you."

The first time I heard a Catholic priest give a personal testimony was on the occasion of an earlier Thanksgiving Day, some fifteen or more years ago.  He was saying, just as the last one was, that the best way to say "thank you" is to share something of value with someone who has less than you do.  He said that it was easy for him to do this.  The fact is, he said, that I know what it is to be comfortable and to be poor, really poor.  He said that when he was poor, he wanted to be comfortable, because comfortable was good, and poor was not.  He continued, "I am now comfortable, and I tell you without shame, that comfortable is better than poor.  So, if you are comfortable, join me in sharing something with the poor."  So, he continued, this is Thanksgiving weekend.  Don't forget that to share is to say "thank you."

The Editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle was written by an Indian immigrant.  This was some nine or eight years ago.  He enumerated some ten reasons why he was glad to have come to the United States.  He also said that he was not alone in feeling the way he did about his decision.  
The first thing he said was, "No, it's not the money."  In fact, he said, I am a well educated engineer.  I could make tons of money in India.  His reasons to be thankful included, near the top of the list, the following: I can work for the company I choose; I can quit from there and go to another company that I choose; I can marry the person whom I love, not the one who has been chosen by my parents; My children will be able to choose freely the school that they want to attend and be a professional in the line that they choose and I intend to allow them to marry the person of their choice.  

I am writing this because these are all items that we take for granted.  So what else is there for us to be grateful for?  I have been thinking about this for quite a while.  What is the BIG thing for which I should be celebrating Thanksgiving?  I have some personal ideas.  I had good, righteous parents; loving siblings; a kind and loving extended family community; good schooling; honest work all my life; a loving and giving spouse; kind and loving children and finally, a far flung community of like minded, righteous, kind and loving friends.
That's on the human side.  I am glad to say that I am grateful for the solid and unwavering faith that I live, great gift from God and nurtured by all the people named above.  

So to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving-mas.  It's not just one day, it is a season...make the most of it.  It is the closest thing that we ever can hope for that approaches a religious holiday in the good ol' US of A.

HOW RANDOM IS RANDOM?

The answer to the question in the title is mosly, well, random.  I have a couple of examples that can make some kind of point.  Watch.  We all think that taxes are a systematic way of life.  That's because we have this idea that the system is fair and that everyone follows the rules if for no other reason than the fear of the IRS.

TAXES

But the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of random, would-be tax payers who do not fear the IRS.  They are the ones who pick and choose where they will spend their money according to the electro-chemical stimuli that they experience along the course of the day without the least care of how much the IRS would want of the money that they have just spent.  It's like throwing the money up in the air [see illustration] and deciding that what comes back down is meant to be kept and what stays up is meant for the IRS. Sounds pretty random, right?  The interesting thing is that the IRS itself is under the impression that it is a very systematic organization.  If it only knew.

Then there is the random act of trying to kill someone with a handgun.  We have all seen innumerable cinematic productions that really give us an idea of what is random and what is systematic.  Now what is sytematic and what is random here?  It appears that the system is not very consistent in its focus, so how could it by a greater positive that the random that actually hit the guy?  The one thing that is systematic is that the movie goer is sure that the good guy is going to win, blood guts and all.  You are saying to yourself that this is just humorous stuff because it happens in the movies.  Ha!  I got news for you.  Look at this picture, high falluting language and all.

Which error would you prefer to have in your life?  Go ahead, take your pick.  Look at that systematic error.  Sure looks good from afar, or if your cockeyed, but that doesn't seem to be something that I would want to be known for. You?  Man, what a great shot I am.  20 hits all in the diameter of a Thomas Jefferson quarter!  Hooo, weee.  I sure would hate to be the guy with the random error.  He ain't worth a pile of cow pie in the south 40.  Really?  I didn't think that there were goods, betters, and bests in errors?  I am rather sure that if Daniel Boone had a great talent  in either one of these errors, he would have been required to depend on someone else for his sustenance.  He would have been rather incapable of killing any supper living with either one of these errors.
So, whatever random means, I can assure you that I don't want any part of it.  Just give me systematic any day, but not erroneous systematic, puleeze!  I need correct, straight on systematic.  Don't you?

I GOTTA TELL YA THIS! IT'S A BEAUT!

Do you remember the article I wrote about "Why men wear pants?"  You don't?  That's really too bad because it was so existentially true.  It was a deeply philosophical review of the fundamerntal differences that exist between men and women, Ladies and gentlemen, females and males, girls and boys, aunts and uncles, gran'pas and gran'mas, nieces and nephews and whatever other differences that you can think of in English or in any other language that might come to mind.  You can read about this scientific study if you click here.
Now, tonight I had a great experience that I have to expose to you because it is sooo, grrreat!  It is the story of an answer that came to me at a time when I really though I had found the answer.  Read on...

It happened in one of America's five ***** eateries.  You guessed it, Mc'D's place.  I'm standing there waiting for my number to be called.  Four females walk in.  Two of them are very evidently sisters.  Adults.  I mean, VERY evidently.  One of them has a female child of about 12 or 13 years of age while the other has a child in the 2 to 3 year range.  Since the temperature in our ovenly Southern California city is just above freezing, [Honest, it's only 65F for crying out loud], they are all wearing protective clothing.  The three larger ones are sporting flannel, floppy hoodies of the navy blue persuasion and the "baby" is in her puffy, kapok filled jacket that bulges all over the place.
So, the three socially mature individuals go to the counter in front of the cashier's station while the "baby" explores the terrain.  She finds the ice cubes by the drinks station and starts to pick them and pitch them.  Mother darts away from her position in front of the cashier and captures baby and a couple of ice cubes and saves the day by pointing "baby" in another less precarious direction.  Now, you have to listen carefully to what comes.  As the mother [I presume it is the mother since she saved the day with great aplomb and authority] is on the way to reclaiming her position at the counter, she passes behind the 12 to 13 year old whose flannel hoody is hanging loosely to below her buttocks.  On the way by, supposed mama reaches out and dries her right hand on the tail of the hoody.  I am now beside myself.  I can't believe what I just saw.  My scientific study has been blown to smithereens before my very eyes.
Oops, I quickly regain my composure.  I go from monumental disappointment to profound humor.  My theory is still intact.  She didn't wipe her hands on her pants [she was wearing pants]; she didn't wipe them on the front of her shirt; she wiped them on someone else's clothes!  Yahoooo!  So that's why we wear clothes...so that everyone has a place to wipe their hands.  Why did I never think of that?  Why did it have to be a fastidious [no doubt] woman to show it to me?  That's why I had to run to my work station as fast as I could to enlighten the world about the truth.  We all wear clothes so that everyone, at all times, will have a place to wipe their hands.  I, after a long and happy life can now die in peace.  I have answered the one question that has tweeked me all my life.
I have one follow-up question to ask:  Do you think that I will get house arrest if the bishop finds out?

I LEFT THE SCREAMING BEAUTY FOR THE TUMBLE WEED!

I have to open my heart to y'all.  There have been at least three times in my life when I have swooned over the beauty of the Autumn colors of New England.  Once, and the most powerful was the year when I returned to the USA after four years of residence in Rome, Italy.  That year, 1965, I arrived in June, rested for all of July and then went to work for the La Salette Missionaries for what was to be a temporary stint to last until about december 20.  Then I was to celebrate Christmas with the immediate family before leaving on December 27 for California and other points West & East because of the International Dateline.
The work I had was to visit Catholic churches throughout the New England and New York State region.  There I was to help with the preparation for the selling of specialized wood carvings from the Philippines and at the same time give an overview of the missionary work of the the La Salette missionaries during the Masses.  I was on the road from August through December 19.  I saw the gradual change of foliage during that time.  I had not experienced it in four years.  I remember at least twice when I had to park and recollect myself before continuing the drive to my destination.  My body was shaking and a torrent of tears was roaring out of my eyes.  I just sat there and hoped that I could have a clear view of the Divine artistry unfolding before me, mile after mile.   That "Foliage Season" was "Da Best."
Then came 2008.  I had the opportunity to return to Massachusetts in October.  I was accompanied by the Voice from the Driver's Seat, clone of the Voice from the Kitrchen.  We were driving from Attleboro, MA to Holyoke, MA and of course along the way the Divine Artist had let Himself loose ad we were enthralled.  Belle had the camera and she could not stop herself from snapping away at everthing she saw.  My heart was beating in two directions:  The foliage and the joy of my beloved.  It was a spiritually energetic two hours.  I was trying to be the "adult in the room" and not succeeding too well.  It was quite a trip.  It was proof that the Land preaches as much as the Book, if you let it.

Why did I think of all these things?  It is very strange how our minds and hearts function.  We now live in a small city on the margins of the two main metropolises, San Diego and Los Angeles Metro complexes.  It is a place where life has a very different tone.  It is also a place where when you drive along a city street you are very likely to see this:

Yep.  I was in the heart of town, on one of the mainest streets in the municipality when I had to wait for the wind to clear my path.
When I was growing up, I wondered what tumbleweed was, and is.  Now I know.  I prefer colored hardwood trees.

WHAT'S THE PASSWORD?

I remember the first password I ever had to remember:  "Tu pues, poireau."  I had to use it when I wanted to get into a conversation with a "gang" we had when I was in about the 4th or 5th grade.  That was in the days when boys and girls did not mingle on the school grounds.  Actually, when I first went to school, the girls had the sweetheart part of the outside portion.  They were on the street side which, even in those days was paved.  No lie.  The streets were, for the most part, paved when I started school.  There were even sidewalks and closed drainage.  I know, I was spoiled.  That's OK, I'll take it.  We didn't get a radio in our bedroom until we were about 11 or so.  Anyway, back to the password stuff.
Some guys from the Lyman Street section of the "Flats" section of Holyoke used to hang around in one of the corners of the school yard.  This was before the school yard was paved over with asphalt.  All we did was talk because the nuns didn't want us running around and raising dust.  You know how women are.  Especially older, unmarried women.  Now you follow me, I can tell.  So, some of us who did not raise any dust figured, (I think we figured) in our own innocent way that we were raising Hell instead.  Actually, we weren't, except in our shrivelled pea brains.  So, there was this "gang."  I couldn't belong because I lived in South Hadley, way across the river.  But since I had the good fortune of having beat up a guy once, and one of these boys new it, they figured that I could talk to them now and again when they got bored with themselves and had to change the subject.  So they gave me a password.  I don't know why I still remember it.  I never had to use it because the leader couldn't remember what it was that he told me.  I think that he regretted giving it to me because it means, "You stink, idiot" and that made it sound that I was sassing him when I got to the gang for my three minutes of fame.  So anyway, now I got this 24 carat password in a foreign language that I can't use because it doesn't have enough upper case letters mixed in with the lower case on the left of the special character that comes before the underscore that leads to my maternal grandmother's maiden name (all lower case for security reasons) that comes just before  the foul word in a foreign language that doesn't have the verb "to be" and is, therefore, totally unintelligible even to the people who speak it.  So it is really a perfect language for USA passwords.  Except that the Voice from the Kitchen doesn't like it when I have passwords that are foul language in her mother tongue.  Sheeesh, and you think you have problems?
So, for an old man like I am, the password problem in the 21st century is real.  I've tried a lot of ways to remember them all, but that doesn't work.  I've tried writing them down, but then I can't remember where I put the paper.  When I don't use paper, I can't remember where I hid them on my computer.  Therefore I have the problem solved.  I use the lover's phrase that my spouse loves most for everything I have to make secure with a password.
That doesn't solve the mystery of why I can remember a silly password that had no real use from when I was maybe 10 and now I can't remember a password that I composed myself to get into my bank account just 30 minutes ago.  Sometimes I think that it would be smart to get one branded on my left buttock.  Then, I could read it in the mirror, if I had remembered to tell the cowpoke to do it backwards because of the mirror...Oh, boy, I can tell that this is way too complicated already.  I think I'll just stick with A1b2C3Dion@1hartfordSTbehindthe broadleafmapletreethatthebusjustnarrowlymissedat+/-4PMonaThursdayin1943Ithinkitwas
That otta fool 'em!  I bet it even fools you.

THE FUTURE IS BORN OF THE PRESENT

"Forecasting is hard, especially about the future." [Yogi Berra]

There are two things dancing around in my coconut tonight.  So, instead of 365 thoughts, we can extrapolate to 730 for the year...Hmmm.
That's the kind of thinking that can get you into trouble, especially if you are trying to forecast income and expenses or votes to be garnered if you're running for president.

One of the thoughts that is nagging me is the behavior of people who deny mathematical reality. They remind me of the Bishop in Galileo Galilei's life.  I am not a mathematician, but when I am confronted with the results of a mathematical formula, I pretty much give them my assent.  I have a hard time wondering why people still cling to anecdotes rather than mathematics.  I muse over the conduct of those who prefer their "gut" to the result of a computer-generated result.  Especially one that is the result of a machine churning on the input of a proven professional.  That's why I can't imagine that anyone would actually question the results that come out of Nate Silver's machine.  His machine does not make mistakes because he feeds it the correct numbers and it obeys the road signs that he has devised and fed into it.  Pure numbers without emotion and clean of prejudice.  Before you know it, the answer is the future in the palm of your hand...or the apple of your eye, if you prefer.  It is amazing.  It is difficult to comprehend.  It seems impossible the first time that you see it.  If you think about it a little bit, all it is, is pure mathematics.  The machine is unencumbered by prejudicial thinking or emotion.  All it does is to churn in order of "go/no-go."  In a short while, the present enduring facts become the future facts.  All you have to do is so sit back and watch it unfold before your very eyes.
The lesson I derive from that is that truth leads to truth.  

I mention this because Nate Silver has found a logarithm that allows him to forecast the outcome of elections.  This is a very challenging thing to accept on the purely human level.  It is happening and it cannot be denied.  In fact, without directly engaging the services of the computer nerd, Mr. Silver, the campaign managers of Mr. Obama's run for the presidency used mathematical models in their approach to the campaign effort of 2012.  They derived their mathematical models from a large pool of polls and rather than to trust the result of some of their favorite ones, they only trusted the matematical results of the average of all of them for everything that they did.
That is why the Obama campaign was very disciplined and applied the combination of personal pressure of human "stumping" and television ads only to the locations where the computerized results told them to go.  The Obama campaign began putting their source information together very early [at the very outset of the Republican primaries] and they never swayed away from the formula that they had constructed.  I have been disgusted about the lack of loving humanity that guided them in their process.  They were totally dedicated to the scientific model that they had built.  It was all a matter of statistics and probability.  Like this:
1. White adult non-working males over 65
2. White adult working males between 40 and 64
3. White adult working women between 24 and 35, etc., etc...
That's just a small sample.  They had the population of the United States sliced and diced in perhaps 20 different elemental groups.  They targeted these sociological groups with laser precision and only in the locations where they were greatest in number and where the Electoral College was the richest.  You know, the "swing states."  They did not go to Massachusetts, for example.  That was easy.  Even though Romney had been the governor of Massachusetts, he was behind in the polls by about 25%.  Same was true of California.  Romney had never been governor here, but he could not come close to winning here.  He knew it so he didn't waste his time coming here...Neither did Obama.

So, tell me, Virginia, how does it feel to be one of Santa's little statistics?
Not that great, right?  But that is the way it is in the twenty-first century. Human beings have gone from being flesh and blood to being mathematical abstractions. Almost.  We still have to vote.  That is why there is an army of volunteers knocking on doors, calling on the telephone, sending out emails, copying flyers to be delivered by the postal service, standing in front of stores in the mall with flyers and pictures of the candidates not to speak of countless, mindlessly untrue television ads.  The volunteers do not even have to suggest that you vote for candidate "X" because the only list that they have is the one the computer generated.  It contains the names of those that it has calculated will vote for the candidate for whom the volunteer is working.

In the end, all this frenetic human activity can still be calculated and the results be accurate almost to the fourth decimal place.  Believe it.

By the way, have you heard that white males are in the minority in the United States?  It's true.  

HOW TO LOSE A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THE U.S.A.

I know, he won, but bear with me

Well, the presidential election of 2012 has taken place in the United States.  It was a hotly contested ballot box confrontation between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.  There are many of you who do not live in the USA who might be a little on the fringe, but I continue anyway since I have a few things to say on what I consider to be the humorous side of the slate.
Actually it is clear to everyone who has been following the process that Obama's campaign was much better managed than Romney's.  This proves that a politician is better at managing a campaign than a business executive.  The moral of the story is that when you are confronted with making a political decision between a politician and a business manager, go with the politician.  
For those of you who might think that this is a strange thing to say, I dare make the following statement:  Politicians are professionals too.  They are better at what they do than business executives.  Just ask Mitt Romney and a host of others who have bitten the dust before him...Dare I say Jimmy Carter?
You see, Mitt Romney didn't win because Obama couldn't sell him the United States in a friendly take-over.  Hmmm, big problem for Romney.
In case any of you are thinking of running for the presidency of this country after having been governor of a great state like Massachusetts, for instance, I have a piece of advice for you.  Check to see if you have the moral credentials to be able to win the vote in the state that you have left behind.  Romney lost Massachusetts 39 to 61.  A lot of us knew that that would happen.
In case you want to drag your running mate's state into the winning column, you better try to be sure of your choice.  McCain and Romney did not fare too well in this category.  Paul Ryan's Wisconsin went to Obama by a margin of 6%.  Hmmm.
It also might be a good thing to consider that if you are a publicly known, highly skilled tax-avoider (if you quote me, remember that a tax avoider is not a tax evader) that the voters will not line up in great numbers to volunteer to pay your salary from the taxes that they will not be able to avoid paying.
If you have made a considered decision about your choice of running mate, be sure that you have a well designed plan of attack for him to follow to help you to win.  After the first day's happy-happy introduction of Paul Ryan, said Mr. Ryan disappeared and his complementary role was wasted.  Hmmm, sounds like third down and fifteen to me.

Actually, it is a good thing that Romney-Ryan lost.  Both of them can now return to a life in which they can both be comfortably anti-abortionists, anti-immigrationists, anti-social security, anti-medicare, anti-FEMA, anti-equal pay as well as anti so many other things that they will no longer have to lie about.
Biden, on the other hand can continue to be himself, Catholic or not.
Obama had better learn to kick ass.
Finally, let me wish Mitch McConnell good luck in 2014.

I'D LIKE TO HAVE YOU SIR, BUT I HAVE AN AWFUL LOT TO DO

Ya know, Mr. President, I have a lot to do

Be honest.  How many times have you glared at the ceiling, your head nestled comfortably on the pillow while you made up scenarios of how you would send some important and powerful person packing.  I don't know about you, but I have to say that some of the time when I was younger, I would spend a long time constructing how the scene would look from beginning to end when I got the school principal in the right position.  I would also hear stories about the chief of police and the decisions he would make about some of the people that I knew in town. It was great.  I always won.  I would imagine what I would tell people who were totally unreachable to me.
One time, I did have the opportunity to answer the chief of police of our small town.  He looked at me and simply said, "I know your family and I know that it will be best for me not to tell them what you just said."
So, that didn't work out that well.
I have to tell you that I envy Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  He is the mayor of New York City.  His city just got hit by a monster storm, variously named Franckenstorm or Stormzilla, or whatever other combination of frightening names you can think of.  There was a lot of damage.  Plenty of damage.  There was even some damage that Mr. Mayor didn't really recognize until his people started shouting into TV cameras that they needed help.  Now, those people got lucky.  They got straight to the top indeed.  Back when I was younger the most I could have wished for was fifteen seconds on the radio.  Now, of course, I would like more, and I am sure that all I have is my little corner of the Internet.  So, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg told the President not to come to New York because there was too much work to do.  My heart soared.  Wow, a true response to power.  Grrreat!  
Interestingly enough, the president doesn't seem to have let it bother him.  I love it.  The Mayor got the last word.  It worked too.  New York is getting the help that it needs.  So, see, you can speak truth to power and still keep power by your side.  
So, now that I have that under my belt, I will go back to dreaming about how I would do it in a given circumstance.  So,let me dream about it.  If I ever get a real chance and it happens, I'll tell you all about it.

FRANKENSTORM -- GOOD FIND :-)

WOW!  Lookad'dat!  Talk about a Cabbage Night prank!  Phew!

I hope that you will forgive me for being irreverent this evening, but I can't help it.  So between prayers let me sneak in some random wisecracks about this storm.  

We older folks are not too happy about phenomena of this nature.  After all we don't appreciate being robbed of our bragging rights concerning foul weather and the sacrifices we made to get to school despite it all.  We look at "Sandy" and we get downright disappointed because she is bigger than anything we can remember.  When we got slammed by storms, they didn't have names.  They just came and we hoped that the street lights would be lit in the daytime so that we would know that schools would not be in session.  When the power went out, we went to school, slogging through waist - high snow and ankle - deep slush.  At least that is what we tell our children.  We can get away with it because none of these nasty expressions of Mother Nature's bad side ever had a name.  

We heard these stories from our parents, and we tell them to our children.  Now that "Sandy" has dumped her temper on us, our children have gained the upper hand.  Except for one thing.  What with all the computers, TV's, radios, I-phones, etc.  I am sure that not a soul slogged to school through it all.  So, in a way, we oldies still have the upper hand in the tall tales department.

I am now going to tell a true story about bad weather as I sit in my nice comfortable Southern California domicile.

On December 11, 1960 EFR Dion died sudddenly somewhere around 9 or 10 PM.  I got the telephone call from my brother, Reef Lector.  I was a seminarian in Attleboro, Massachusetts, some 75 or 80 miles away.  It was snowing and the accumulation had reached at least 3 inches already.  The headmaster (Director/Superior) of the seminary insisted on driving me home though the storm.  We made it safely and soundly.  He took a cup of coffee and turned around and went back to Attleboro.  By the time he got halfway, the accumulation had reached 6 inches.

My brother was the "morning drive" announcer at a local radio station.  It was a small station, so it went off the air at 9:00 PM and came back on at 5:00 AM.  We decided that I would drive him to work because we were sure that there would be no parking in the city around his place of work.  We arose at 4:00 AM to an accumulation of 8 inches and roads that were still not clean because it was still snowing.  It was about 3 miles to the station.  The last quarter mile all uphill.  I had to drop him off at the bottom of the hill and he walked up to the station.  He went on the air right on time.  

After today, our stories will appear to be benign fairy tales compared to Sandy and the heroics of those who experienced her fury.  So we tip our hats to all the brave souls who not only got through it, but who also got through it while helping others along the way.  We also are grateful that this storm has a name.  We older types need all the mnemonic help we can get.  Remembering names is easier than remembering the exact date of the cold day when we had to walk a mile and a half through waist deep snow to get to school.

Yes, dear readers, we do remember Katrina.  We bet that you do too.

We bet that we will not soon forget her younger sister, Sandy.

Maybe we should cancel Hallow'een in Southern California this year.

AUSTERITY -- MY SUGGESTION

I just returned from Italy.  It was a great time I had.  I discovered that the Italians have the same problems that we have.  The big banks don't want to be controlled, the politicians don't want to give up their life style while they expect every other citizen to do just that.  They have a wonderful system for keeping gasoline prices low.  They seem to be rather successful at keeping them below $9.00 per gallon. They do that by quoting the prices on the signs in front of the pumping stations to the fourth decimal.  Like this: 1.7938 € -- per litre, of course.  You do the math. 
[6.79 €]  That, x $1.25 = $8.49 That is not an exaggeration.  No wonder that they drive cars that get 18 kilometers to the liter.  That's about 11 miles x 3.8 = 41.8 miles to the gallon.  
I don't know about you, but as far as I am concerned, I have to ask myself if it would be better to keep drilling or to spend a penny more on engineering our vehicles to get more miles to the gallon.  But then, that wouldn't be very favorable to the Keystone pipeline, would it?  Oh well, you can't win 'em all.

Let me try another suggestion.  It addresses entitlements.  In fact I dare to take on the biggest entitlement of them all: Taxes to the government.  I suggest that all taxes be cut back to 0.  In case you're mistaking that for an "oh", what it really is, is a zero.  No entitlements for anybody.  None.  The country has to turn itself over to the open market concept of financial gain, 100%.  Let the entrepreneurs do what they will.  If someone wants to build a bridge, pay for it.  If someone wants to build a pipeline, pay for it.  If someone wants to be president, find willing benefactors or pay for it yourself because taxes are forbidden.  You want to help the president, pay for it or find a benefactor.  You get sick, pay for the care or die.  You want to go to school, find someone who will teach you for a price that you can afford.
It's the best way.  There would be a very clear cut division between the haves and the have-nots. Soon, all the have-nots would be dead and the haves would slowly, by turns turn into have-nots until there would be only one standing.  That person would then be a dictator and a taxation law could then be created.  All that would be missing, of course, would be someone able and willing to pay the tax.  Ah, yes, I guess I forgot that part.  
Oh well, no plan is perfect.  Not even mine.

Now that I have confessed to not being perfect, you sure as shooting do not have to feel constrained to cry at my funeral.

OBAMA CHANNELS GW BUSH -- DEJA VUE

2004 

2012

When you are the president, you should be the one crushing your interlocutor.  Remember, it is his intention to crush you.  Obama inherited more from GW Bush than he bargained for.  He also inherited his high and mighty, "I'm the decider," imperious attitude and facial discontent.  Obama showed what he has shown for four years...a basketball player's pantie-waist preference for slick move avoidance tactics rather than a hockey player's desire to snap the opponent's neck off against the boards.  Obama looked like he had just got out of bed.  Maybe he had jet-lag.  Maybe, and this is what I opine, he was just being Obama...and, oh my God, George Bush, all in one, atr one time.
For those of you who think that I am just reacting to a performance that I witnessed last night.  Not so.  This is a reflection on the historical phenomenon of what happens when an incumbent president has to face an ambitious pretender for the position of President of the United States.  I personally was not surprsised by the conduct of the protagonists.
I have written many times about the propensity that Obama has to maintain himself  "above the fray" rather than to "bare - knuckle" it out with the other side.  He is the most recent in a line of president losers on the night of the opening debate.  The only winner is the champion politician of them all, "Slick Willie" Clinton.
It is no surprise to me that presidents fall prey to the temptation to shut down the noise from their right.  They have been in charge of all these things for four years and they have slogged through the crocodile infested swamp of trying to get things done.  When they hear that they have done nothing worth remembering, they have the scars that show what it took to get done what finally did blossom from their efforts.  I saw George HW Bush, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter shut down under similar circumstances.  So, what happened last night is nothing but deja vue.  It is the biggest attack on the ego of the "Leader of the Free World" in public view and it takes place once every four years. Every four years the "Leader of the Free World" shrivels up and slinks into the dark of the night still not believing that someone, anyone, could dare to treat him that way.
Yes, last night was entertaining for me.  There was no surprise.  The bull's charge on the matador is always most ferocious at the outset.  The history of the outcomes of presidential debates in this country and the outcomes of bullfights around the world, tell us what happens most often.   True,  sometimes the bull wins.  Maybe that's why people go to bullfights.  They want to be there on the rare day when the bull finally wins one.  Over the years I have not characterized Obama as a matador.  (Cfr. the first paragraph, above)
Therefore, we will just have to see if the bull wins this year.
It's too bad that I will miss the next two encounters.  I'll read about them in Italian.

BEST MOMENTS IN SPORTS

Lake Placid, NY - 1980

Something happened to me today that I never thought I would experience.  I had an emotional experience regarding a sports story.

That having been said, I will tell you that I have cut myself off from professional sports, and all sports.  It's not because I don't admire the prowess.  I do.  It is because I gag at the behavior of the athletes and the owners.  I didn't even watch 2 minutes of the Olympic games last month.  Was it last month?  No.  Maybe farther back than that.  Anyway, that's where I am with the sports thing.

This morning a news program on television had Len Berman as a guest.  Len has written a book about the best moments in sports.  He has chosen 25.  I remembered some of them and some of them I did not.  I didn't remember anything about the basketball stuff.  Most of the choices about baseball I remember vividly.  I remember Jackie Robinson (Lary Doby too, remember?), and the 1969 Mets.  I also remember Roger Bannister and I think of him a lot.  Don't ask me why.  Actually, I'll tell you why.  The runners who stand out on the track seem to be so alone.  They seem to be so distant from  one another in a very strangely isolated way.  And maybe they are.  But when Roger Bannister broke the four minute barrier in the mile run in 1954, he did it with two accomplices, familiarly known as "rabbits."  These two conspirees had the task of setting a fast pace for Bannister so that if he followed them, they all three knew that he would break the record.  He would be the first person ever to run a mile in less than 4 minutes.  I remember this very clearly and I even remember the names of the two "rabbits."  It is strange that this event made such an impression on me that I still carry it around.  Oh yeah, the two "rabbits?"  Chris -- yep, both of them were named Chris.  See!  That's why I can remember.  I remember only one surname though, Chataway.  The other one escapes me.  Oh, the time?  3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

Of course, you have all recognized the picture at the top of the page.  It is of course the USA hockey team of 1980...THE USA HOCKEY team.  They, the college amateurs who beat the formidable, steamroller style, ultra-disciplined Russian Red Army Hockey Machine.  I watched that game and I could not believe my eyes when Mike Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal.  It was already a miracle that the college boys from the USA had already score twice.  I was sitting there waiting for the Reds to score again and that would put the kibosh on the USA.  Besides it was hardly possible that the guy in goal, Tretiak would ever surrender three goals in one game.  He the Cerberius of the hockey world would never, ever allow three pucks to go by him in one single hour.  But that day, because he had let two get by him, he was held out of the game for the third period and was replaced by Myshkin.  No one knows why.  But that was a mistake by the Russian coach, Tikanov.  Maybe he should have stayed with Tretiak.  After all,   he is the same Vladislav Tretiak who one time shut out the Montreal Canadiens, in Montreal.  No matter, that day, the college boys won.  It didn't matter that it was not the gold medal game.  It was more than that.  It was the great "Miracle on Ice."  
Two days later the "Miracle on Ice" was complete.  The USA beat Finland for the gold.  For me, that day when the Russin Army sank into the ice was the best.  It is still the best.  

You know what?  The first and only perfect game ever pitched in a world series didn't make it into the book.  That's too bad because I saw every single pitch that Don Larsen threw in that game.  Those were the days when I watched every pitch of the World Series.  Now, it's been several years that I don't even know when the baseball season starts and when it ends...Of course that may be because there is no such thing as a baseball "season" any more.  Oh well, I'll get over it until I meet Bobby Doerr in heaven.  Bobby has to be in heaven.  He will remember me too because I prayed so hard for him to get into the Hall of Fame.  It took a while, but he made it.  
So there, more memories.