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Michael McLeod

Wow.

Gonna take me a bit to adjust to this news: The Atlanta Constitution-Journal will no longer exist as a newspaper. It will only exist on line.I can't help but assume that eventually other newspapers will follow, abandoning the print edition and just going on line.

Call me sentimental but just hard for me as a journalist to absorb this.

No more holding the day's news in one hand, grabbing your morning coffee in the other.

And Now that memory I have of trudging through the snow delivering newspapers to doorsteps, is just that, a memory from another time, as extinct as the edsel. And no more grabbing the sunday comics and reading them in your jammies on the living room floor..

That tactile experience of both delivering and reading the news will no doubt disappear form our culture, I guess, assuming other newspapers follow, in the future. It's just progress and practically speaking a good thing. But I gotta shed a sentimental tear. Bye bye tactile. Hello, sterile.

Timothy Lavelle

Dave,

I am charged with crossing the line.

I plead guilty to that. Also, I am mostly unlikable, cut my own hair and have to use the rest room more often than I think is right. I limp. My feet itch...sometimes in the middle of the night...what's up with that? I'm guilty of all that stuff and way, way more I'm sure. Possibly worst of all, I am not fond of ignorance being passed of as truth...or trying to make people believe bullshit by "doubling down". 

I really don't think that Magister Maggie is as full of shit as a Christmas Goose. Only because that's impossible so I'll back it off to one-third as full of shit...or would you prefer dumber than a box of rocks? You would suggest that we sit here and listen to someone ignorantly supporting an attack on Venezuela? Ignore international rule of law? Supporting the slaughter of Palestinians simply because we lack the nuts to tell Isreal to stop? Support continual lies from an administration that rules by chaos? Support obvious revenge politics. Support hiring women for government positions by bra size?

Let's play a little game here. Guess who sent me the following e-mail this morning? 

"I WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED OR SILENCED"

Guess who in this world even talks like that? People who think they are heroes while they attempt to trample anyone who doesn't go right along with their revenge, their paranoia...yeah, their bullshit. I can see the whole crowd of them in brown shirts, proudly goose stepping to Trump while he sings the lyrics to "YMCA". 

So, yeah Dave, guilty. Completely. 

But you stay polite man. 

Michael McLeod

Points finger:

You better behave, Mister LAH-VELL! We will not be in -TIM -idated!!!

John Jackson

After watching MM’s video of brand-new CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil’s statement, it was all I could do to keep myself from vomiting.

A sad day - CBS News has abandoned all journalistic independence and is now totally in thrall to mega-billionaire Lary Ellison who owns Paramount-Skyedance, the corporate parent of CBS.  Elllison is yet another Silicon Valley tech bro/oligarch (he is the founder of software giant Oracle) and, after a swoon in Tesla stock, for a brief period in September he overtook Elon Musk as the world’s richest man.  

These tech bros have figured out that Trump is utterly corrupt and open to bribes and in order to get antitrust approval for the Paramount Skydance merger approval Ellison made it known to Trump that he would clean house at CBS and that is how Trump-friendly Bari Weiss (a right wing online opinion journalist with no experience running an actual  news organization) was chosen to head up CBS News.  The merger was approved in August.

In the last week, at the last minute Bari Weiss cancelled airing of a 60 Minutes segment on the deportation of 252 migrants (less than half of which had criminal records) to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador where they are routinely beaten, tortured and sexually molested (which DHS Secretary Christi Noem seems to be OK with).  Here is the link (from an outlet in Canada) - watch it and tell me if this makes you proud to be an American:

https://archive.org/details/cecot-60mins  

This gets even more complicated - Ellison now wants to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, parent of CNN, which requires government approval.  So another bribe to Trump is needed and part of it is the elevation of oh-too-anxious-to-please Tony Dokoupil to the anchor position at CBS once occupied by Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.  The other part of the bribe will be to emasculate CNN into yet another toothless media outlet unwilling to take on the over-the-top excesses of the Trump Administration.

At times, I think the U.S. has become a banana republic with a crazy over the top leader (Fidel Castro of the right?) that the rest of the world would laugh at if they weren’t so worried about how powerful we are and how a capricious and vindictive leader like Trump can screw them. 

But another good analogy is Putin’s Russia where the rich oligarchs (think of our mega-billionaires like Musk, Ellison, Zuckerberg and Bezos) cozy up to and bribe the leader to get what they want.

Take your pick.

PS:  And aren't we all glad that the U.S. is running Venezuela now?  What could possibly go wrong?

David Mitchell

Easy to say I am happy for my Venezuelan friends!

Maduro had it comming.

But very difficult to agree with how this was done.

Worrysome to see where this may end.

Is this a "Bull in a China Shop"? 

How do we "run" another country?

Where does this end? 

Lookout Columbia and Cuba???

What's ahead for Taiwan and Ukraine?

David Mitchell

meanwhile......

Remembering a Strange Christmas - continued

Two mornings after my O-club "toast" and one-day "grounding", I got a jeep ride out to the flight line and walked up the tail ramp of a C-123, sat on the cargo floor with a bunch of other guys, and was flown the 40 minute flight up to Long Binh Air Force Base (north of Saigon). 

I have no memory of anything before boarding a commercial airlines flight to the states, with a refueling stop in Guam, then on to Travis Air Force Base, north of San Francisco. As we touched down at Travis you should have heard the roar of cheering and applause that went up in the plane! 

I arrived back in Columbus on December 23rd and rode home from Port Columbus with my parents. After dinner, my parents and oldest sister (still living at home) and I went into the living room and knelt around the furnitue to say our usual "family rosary". 

As was my dad's custom, he named each decade with a special intention. When we got to the last decade, he said this would be for a special intention -"for the Viet Cong, so that they would know that God is on their side also".  

I flinched in a silent reaction. But it only lasted for a moment. I realized it was just my Dad, the most conservative, anti-communist person I ever knew, just being himself. 

The 24th passed with me running errands for my mom (mostly groceries) and then Midnight Mass ot Our Lady of Peace. But it was Christmas Day when the fun came to our house in the persons of all my aunts and uncles and most of the younger cousins.

But as we gathered around the dining table, and my Dad spoke a very long grace, I had what I would later understand was my first (of many to follow) panic attacks. As I looked at the gathered family, I started having a sense of rising above the group (of 15 or 18) and seeing through the diining room window, two guys in black pajamas (VC) setting up a mortar tube behind our neighbors bushes. I felt faint, but it passed in a few moments.

I passed the rest of the night with the awkward sense that noone really wanted to to have an actual conversation. After "Hello" and "How Are You", and the hugs, there was nothing more. It felt like I had a contageous disease. 

David Mitchell

different topic;

I often wonder about some classmates that are not on our Forum

Has anyone got any recent contact with Carolyn or Dennis Winchester?

Michael Boulware

Tim, I don't need to tell you how much I treasure our friendship, or tell the world how I identify with your beliefs. I must remind you what we stand for. We believe deeply in everyone being able to express themselves. The Right attempts to control what we read and what we hear through book bannings and control of the media. We MUST permit everyone to speak their minds. I am apologizing for you to Masry Margaret .

After a devastating , one point loss to Newark our junior year, Kevin Ryan, Crick Schultheis, and I put our hands and hearts together. We promised never to get beat again. We called ourselves unofficial "cousins" from that point on. Whenever I saw Crick after that , we called each other "Cousin" and the same for Kevin. We never lost after that, but we gained a bond that was partially broken when Kev and I lost Jim. Since Crick married Mary Margaret she became our unofficial cousin. Like it or not, Mary Margaret, you are tied up with a Leftie.

Mary Margaret and I are at different ends of the political spectrum; but she has a right to publicize her beliefs as much as we have a right to publicize ours. We can't question her goodness and the fact that she was a good wife to my cousin. 

Tim, our bond will never be broken. I will never forget belly laughing with you while riding to school with Bill McCray and Janis Flory, listening to you sing and tell jokes, and being everyones pal. It is out of character for you to tell someone to dismiss their right to state their thoughts. I love you anyway.

Michael McLeod

Is it just me or do they not make potato chips like they used to? Man am I ever the grumpy grouch these days.

Monica Haban (Brown)

Mike Boulware and all-

A month or so ago, Mike and Sue Lally Boulware dropped off a box of treasures of Clare Hummer Bauer, from her husband Jim Bauer, to my house.   Sentimental personal that I am, I agreed to treasure the box,and well understood that Jim wanted to pass on the treasures.  My husand Don would likley want to do the same at the apponted time.  Some of the items will likely be used at our upcoming reunion, but some, must be passed on to Clare's children and granchildren. As you know, Clare was close to her grandchildren..  Not to offend her husband, but her grandchildren, will treasure her Watterson Cheerleader letter, her Honor letters and whose who letters, from Watterson and Ohio Dominican. Will pass on to Father Larry Hummer and her family.

Some of the treasures include a long letter from Tim, and a sweet note from Mary Mary Clark Schultheis to Clare from 1966.  

In addition, I understand the importance of stating our views of the importance of world affairs, I truly do, but at our ages, do we really need to add stress to our lives?  We are SO BLESSED. Let us rejoice in the Blessings that we have all received.  

Monica

David Mitchell

Monica,

I still have not gotten over Clare's passing. She was a special person. 

I think she left a sweet mark on everyone she knew.

(And she left some beautiful grandchildren too.)  

Michael McLeod

I'm with you on Clare, Dave. Whip smart and heart of gold. 

And Tim: Good on ya.

Michael McLeod

saw this on line and had to share.

David Mitchell

Funyyyyyyy Mike!

David Mitchell

REMEMBERING A STRANGE  CHRISTMAS   - - - continued

I will shorten the next (somewhat boring) part by explaing that right after Christmas, I was anxious to call on a girl that I was crazy about and had dated in high school (she was two years behind us). When I visited her house (where I had enjoyed her whole family for years) I was met wirh her sisters insisting I see her new "ring" - a diamond ring from a guy at the U. of Kentucky. I congratulated her and made an excuse to leave quickly.

After that, I drove down to another family of friends near Circleville. I had dated the older daughter, a small town beauty queen who I had admired for a couple of years. Our whole families were close. After visiting with the whole family for a while, she and I moved to another room where she explained that she was pregnant. I wished her well and got up and left .

My third try was to call a real cutie from my grade school class at OLP. She had invited me to her Chritmas colillion at St. Mary's of the Springs a few years prior and we had a few dates. Tom Litzinger and I both liked and dated her. Her dad, who knew me well and liked me - but had no idea where I had just been, or was about to return - said "I think she'll be too busy to see you before she goes back to school." I asked him to tell her I said Hello and hung up.

Crushed again!

Then something unexpected happened. I heard about a high school class party at some girl’s house down in Clintonville - a nearby neighborhood. I drove down to the house - excited to see everyone. I walked in a side door and into the dinning room. The place was packed with old classmates. As I stepped over to grab some food, one of the guys yelled out a sarcastic insult about my just having returned from Viet Nam. I was stunned! I left the celery stick standing in the dip I had reached for and just glared at him. I was shaking with anger. I stood still for a long moment – holding my anger - and then walked out. I hadn’t said hello to the hostess. I hadn’t started a conversation with anyone. I just left –  in shock!

                                                            *

Almost out of desperation, I called a fourth girl. She was the cousin of a good friend who I had had a wonderful conversation earlier that year at his wedding in Cumberland, Maryland. Her name was Mary – cute as a button but a couple years older. I had no idea what to expect. I offered to come over and bring a pizza for her and her roommate. Like that conversation at her cousin’s wedding a year before, we just hit it off. I asked her out the next night and we had a wonderful time.

But there was something else on my schedule.

I had already booked a trip to Colorado to go skiing with a couple buddies who were home on “Leave” at the same time. I asked Mary if I could call her when I got back and she said yes.

I flew to Denver where I met my buddy, Roger, our best Cobra pilot, and we boarded a Trailways bus to Vail. We skied together for 3 or 4 days and had a blast! Then Roger went home to his next duty station (as an instructor pilot in "Cobra School" at Fort Hunter in Savannah - where we had all graduated from Advanced Flight School a year prior). Then I was met by my Scout platoon leader and good buddy Jim Jackson - the same Jim who took the hit in his tuna fish that splattered all over his cockpit. Jim arrived from his home in West Virginia in his Jaguar XKE (with no ski rack) and we drove to Aspen (3 hours) with a window partially open on my side so I could hold both pairs of skis against my chest at an angle, sticking partly out the window.

Was that a cold ride?  January in the Rockies at 60 mph - You betcha!

Jim was not as good of a skier as Roger and I were, so I had to slow down for him. We ended up spending a few whole days over at Buttermilk (Aspen’s “all-beginner” mountain). I gave him a bit of instruction and it helpd a little. It was a bit of a drag for me, but it was still fun just being in the mountains. After three or four days, Jack drove me back to the airport in Denver and headed back home to West Virginia. We would both be returning to Vinh Long shortly. We had both extended our tour from twelve to eighteen months. 

T B C

Michael McLeod

Sorry you had that crappy experience dave. I lucked out and had a different soldier's holiday. this time of year I always remember that One of my favorite Christmas seasons was spent a loooong way from home: specifically, in mannheim,germany. Unlike you I had lucked out and instead of going to 'nam was sent to europe to work as a clerk and courier and office worker in the US section of a massive nato headquarters office complex, delivering mail. I worked shoulder to shoulder with french, german, and canadian soldiers and lived off base with my wife in a basement apartment rented out us by frau baron and herr baron, a very nice couple who didn't speak a word of english and lived in the house above us with their three children., We were close enough that I could walk to work at the nato headquarters complex, which featured canadians, french, german, u.s., and british army offices, that I could walk to work and a fairly cushy job as a clerk typist and courier. Was there for a year and a half and had picked up enough German to muddle through by the time my tour of duty was over. Anyway I'll never forget the big christmas gala at the base where we got to listen to christmas carols in english, french,and german.

Man,did I luck out. 

Michael McLeod

Meanwhile:

Apparently Venezuela is Spanish for  "hot mess."

I have a headache just from trying to figure the whole thing out.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

As today is Crick’s birthday, I created a short iMovie sharing personal remembrances of the life we shared. The accompanying song carries the longing that still remains after years without him—a reminder that abiding love does not fade with time, and one that may resonate with classmates who have also experienced love and loss.

https://youtu.be/o1IOVnh1wlE?si=Fqg_RubVjnQD_guC

Joseph Gentilini

Mary Magaret, I listened to your love with Crick and was so touched.  What a wonderful marriage you had - something that many persons never find. Love endures always.  I am glad that you were able to experience true love for such a long time. This was and is grace in your life.  Crick waits for you with longing from heaven.  Peace, joe

David Mitchell

Great video M/M,

May I ask the song title and singer?

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Dave - song title: September Rain.....artist: Aiden Ross, 20 year old recent winner of The Voice. 

David Mitchell

M/M,

He's really good!

John Jackson

Late breaking news from the Borowitz Report:

George W. Bush Celebrates No Longer Having Launched Dumbest War in U.S. History

CRAWFORD, TEXAS (The Borowitz Report)—Stating, “I never dreamed this day would come,” former President George W. Bush confirmed on Tuesday that he is celebrating no longer having started the dumbest war in U.S. history.

“When you make a boneheaded mistake as epic as I did, you pretty much assume that no one will ever do something stupider,” Bush said. “I gotta say, I’m pinching myself.”

The former president admitted, however, that “if anyone was going to out-dumb me, it was gonna be this guy.”

Joseph D. McCarthy

Last week I purchased a new Desktop computer,  Yes Mr. Dave it is a Hewlitt Packard.  Today, Tuesday> I took it in to have it set up, and I took my Old computeralso.  Then they are going to transfer date from the old to the new desktop.  I guess it was time, I've had the old computer for about 14 years.

Anyway, It took me awhile to figure how to scan something to the new, bought late last year, notebook.  Finally,

One of our classmates asked me very politely if I could place on the Forum a list of upcoming Automotive shows in Ohio.

Mark Schweickart

MM -- I was thinking that it was Crick's birthday today, but wasn't sure. Why I remember that is a mystery, since my memory is terrible these days, but thanks for mentioning that in your post. Happy birthday Crick! RIP.