I recall a night - maybe Senior yearr, maybe Junior - when you guys on the football team were clobbering some poor team every week. We were going to play Chillicothe and they were rated somewhere in the top ten in the state - maybe 8th?
I was on one of of about a dozen busses and Dennis Winchester and I had the megaphone, calling out cheers at the top o our lungs all the way down to the game - "Gimme an E" - over and over.
The team proceeded to clean their clocks - something like 38 -14. We were all walking out of the stadium to the busses, when some Chillicothe fans walked over to us and in the funniest polite way, asked us who the heck we were and where were we from. Not in a nasty way, but just a sort of state of shock way.
Thye had no idea who "Bishop Watterson" was or where we came from,.When Dennis and I (and a few other classmates) explained who we were, they sort of walked away in disbeleif - like they had just been mugged in an alley, by a complete stranger, out of nowhere.
Dennis and i had a great time, screaming out cheers all the way home.
Dave I really haven't noticed any difference in your typing skills; so you must be improving.
Or else old age has finally gotten to me and my eyesight is shot. In which case stay off of I-80, I-74 and I-70 next summer when I drive East.to Columbus.
What a sad, ironic twist to this year's Christmas, with the holy land embroiled in a tragic conflict that has destroyed hundreds of lives on the other side of the world and triggered a tragic and sad debate in our own country. When you say peace on earth this season, mean it. Hope for it. Pray for it.
Mike -- did you say "hundreds"? I think the death toll in Gaza just reached 18,000, with maybe 10,000 of those being children. As I think Dave M. noted a few posts back, the proportionality of Israel's response is mind boggling.
I have a great story in mind that would appeal to people our age. It would have to do with a particular psychological but very common issue and I would approach it personally while digging into the research in depth. On the verge of pitching it to national mags. Since you' represent my target audience: Got any pubs you like that might be appropriate? Thanks,
The Chillicothe game was our junior year. They had a quarterback that was fantastic and they gave us a good game. They could not stop Tom Weilbacher. I think we won 35-14. Their QB was Greg Cooke. He ended up starring at The University of Cincinnati and was the first QB for The Bengals. I am pretty sure that Greg Cooke set rookie records for the Cincinnati Bengals that stood until Joe Burrow broke them.Thanks for stirring up fond memories.
Greg's center was Bob Johnson from Tennessee. He was Cincy's 1st first round draft choice. I played over him my sophomore year at UK. Bob Johnson was really a great player too.
I just got a text from my youngest daughter (Meg) in Cincinnati - the one who has flown down twice and is "managing my case" so to speak. She works at a place called"Holly Hill"- an agency that takes in "troubled" kids from 11 to 18. They get ids who have "fallen out" of the foster ystem, kids who need counseling, even kids who have been "trafficked" **
She just met a new "resident" in 7th grade who was shufling her feet in a funny way, and Meg asked her why. She said "My feet are squished". Turns out, she was wearing size 8 and she needs size 12.. She took her shoes off and they were all bruised. She told Meg she couldn't wait for Christmas because new shoes were on her list.
Meg's response: I can't wait for Christmas - and bought her some new shoes.
Speaking of "trafficking" kids. You may recall i have mentioned 3 sites that deal with trafficking - Exodus Cry, Destiny's Child, and World Without Exploitation. It's world wide and has been going on forever. It's NOT a political thing at all.
** Megan tells me they deal often with trafficked kids and the going rate in Northern Kentucky (where it is common) is "Forty bucks and a bag of cocaine for a kid and their birth certificate".
Can you give us any hint of what the "psychological issue" is that you would be addressing in your article? That may help in determining what kind of publication might be appropriate.
President Zelensky of Ukraine was in Washington today and apparently came away empty-handed. A slim majority of House Republicans and an overwhelming majority of Senate Republicans want to join Democrats to provide desperately needed aid to Ukraine which is just about out of ammunition and is facing a really cold winter. But Speaker Mike Johnson, in thrall to the right wing crazies, says he won’t bring Ukraine aid to a vote without concessions at the southern border. But privately, Republicans really don’t want concessions or anything that will reduce the flow of migrants because they think the border situation is the Republicans' best issue and they want it to remain unsolved.
Given Republican isolationism, Putin is surely delighted and Xi Jinping is drawing appropriate conclusions about the risks of invading Taiwan where, just coincidentally, the lion’s share of the world’s most advanced chips are made.
And the situation in Israel/Gaza is depressing beyond belief. It’s impossible to argue that the brutality of the Hamas attack was in any way justified - Israel had every right to respond. But the longer this goes on and the civilian casualties skyrocket and Gaza is turned into a moonscape, it’s hard not to think that, even if they succeed in killing all the Hamas leaders and fighters, Israel’s scorched-earth response is only sowing the seeds of Hamas 2.0.
Growing up in the 50's I can recall the wide spread anti-communism that was so all pervasive in th eRepubican party. I never dreamed there would come a day where the GOP would be so full of "Russian sympathisers". I'm not sure if they are full-blown "Russian agents" or just yellow bellied cowards with short memories.
Is there a difference in this case?
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Mike M and Mark,
One of you says 16,000. the other says 10,000. What's all the fuss about?
They're only a bunch of dead Palestinian children.
I totally agree with John Jackson's post. Not giving $ to defend Ukraine is exactly what Trump and Putin want. If we allow Ukraine to go to hell, all the deaths in that war will be for nonthing. Putin will just go ahead and take over other countries if he wants. Plus, other European countries will just know that America is a fickle ally and they can't defend on us to help them. Trump wanted to get the USA out of NATO and this isolationism is a big mistake. On Israel, yes they have the right to defend themselves, but there comes a point when they must provide humanitarian help for civilians. the Palestinians have been treated by Israel poorly, kicking them out of their homes so that Israel and build more settlements. I personally am not all the interested in supporting Israel to the extent that we have. They also have blood on their hands too. I am not antisemetic but the international community will be turning against Israel soon for their lack of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. America will only be seen as one-sided.
Tom Nichols is a long-time (but now former) Republican who taught for 25 years at the U.S. Naval War College. Here is part of a piece he published today in The Atlantic:
The U.S. intelligence community, in a newly declassified report to Congress, estimates that Russia has lost 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops that it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine—and note that this does not mean “men sent into battle” but nearly nine-tenths of its entire army—and two-thirds of its pre-invasion inventory of tanks.
The United States has so far provided military aid to Ukraine that amounts to roughly a tenth of its total annual defense budget. In return, one of America’s most dangerous enemies has sacrificed almost all of its existing soldiers and the bulk of its armor. The courage of the Ukrainian people and the valor of their armed forces have accomplished all of this without a single American soldier being ordered into battle. And yet Republicans want to depict this astonishing achievement as a budgetary strain that makes America less safe.
Despite the clear impact of American aid, critics continue to ask: How does it all end? For Ukraine, the only exit strategy is survival, just as it was for Britain in 1940 or Israel in 1973. The Ukrainians will keep fighting, because the alternative is the enslavement and butchery of the Ukrainian people, and the end of Ukraine as a nation. The Russians are the people who need an exit strategy. But as long as some in the GOP keep giving Putin the hope that he can outlast the West—and as long as Russian parents keep handing Putin their sons to burn on the pyre of his ego and delusions—this war will go on.
The Kremlin will stay the course. So should we, for as long as it takes to ensure the survival of Ukraine and the security of Europe, the United States, and the world.
I was about to post a similar argument. These reports, if accurate (and there are a growing number of said reports), would indicate that Russia's forces could be near exhaustion. Quitting our support for Ukraine now would be the worst thing we coul do. Hard to fathom the short sightedness of some of these morons in Congress.
This time, present and with alliteration and a quiz!
I awoke this morning to a rather deep snowfall, not a two-footer but about 6 inches in some areas and with a layer of ice beneath. Except for some snow shovel sounds, the silence of these mornings is beautiful as is the scenery.
All I could think of was the line from a song that says:
"On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow"
How's that for alliteration!
Oh, yes, the quiz: Name that tune and the artist(s) who sang it.
omg. I have been doing some reading for an essay writing class I am teaching next semester. This is the opening paragraph of a famous personal essay I just discovered. The last sentence is so beautiful I gasped.
When I was twenty years old, I became a kind of apprentice to a man named Andrew Lytle, whom pretty much no one apart from his negligibly less ancient sister, Polly, had addressed except as MisterLytle in at least a decade. She called him Brother. Or Brutha—I don’t suppose either of them had ever voiced a terminal r. His two grown daughters did call him Daddy. Certainly I never felt even the most obscure impulse to call him Andrew, or “old man,” or any other familiarism, though he frequently gave me to know it would be all right if I were to call him mon vieux. He, for his part, called me boy, and beloved, and once, in a letter, “Breath of My Nostrils.” He was about to turn ninety-two when I moved into his basement, and he had not yet quite reached ninety-three when they buried him the next winter, in a coffin I had helped to make—a cedar coffin, because it would smell good, he said. I wasn’t that helpful. I sat up a couple of nights in a freezing, starkly lit workshop rubbing beeswax into the boards. The other, older men—we were four altogether—absorbedly sawed and planed. They chiseled dovetail joints. My experience in woodworking hadn’t gone past feeding planks through a band saw for shop class, and there’d be no time to redo anything I might botch, so I followed instructions and with rags cut from an undershirt worked coats of wax into the cedar until its ashen whorls glowed purple, as if with remembered life.
One of our classmates posted this on Facebook today and I thought it was too good to not share. It is in response to Toby Keith's recently released single, "No Letting the Old Man In" which was inspired by Clint Eastwood.
"No Letting the Old Man In"
That's the response the admired nonagenarian actor Clint Eastwood gave to country singer Toby Keith when asked about his secret to staying active and vibrant at his age. "Every day when I wake up, I don't let the old man in. My secret has been the same since 1959: staying busy. I never let the old man into the house. I've had to drag him out because he was already comfortably settled, bothering me all the time, leaving no space for anything other than nostalgia. You have to stay active, alive, happy, strong, and capable. It's in us, in our intelligence, attitude, and mentality. We are young, regardless of our ID. We must learn to fight to not let the old man in.
That old man awaits us, stationed and tired by the side of the road to discourage us. I don't let the old, critical, hostile, envious spirit in—the one that scrutinizes our past to tie us up with complaints and distant anxieties, or relived traumas and waves of pain.
You have to turn your back on the old murmurer, full of rage and complaints, lacking courage, denying himself that old age can be creative, determined, and full of light and projection.
Aging can be pleasant and even fun if you know how to use your time if you're satisfied with what you've achieved, and if you still maintain enthusiasm," adds Clint Eastwood, a legend with ten Oscar nominations, of which he has won four statues—all after crossing the threshold of sixty. That's called "not letting the old man into the house."
These words resonated so deeply with country singer Toby Keith that they inspired him to compose the song "Don’t Let the Old Man In," dedicated to the legendary actor.
That song was released in 1966 (!) on the "Sounds of Silence" album, and - for the English majors out there - contains other alliteration lines: "in a deep and dark December", "It's laughter and it's loving I disdain" and "my poetry to protect me".
Obviously, that song was about loneliness as were some others on that album.
MM.,
Love that song and video by Toby. Rings true for me and probably many in our class.
