Too Much Hot Air

The truth isn’t the only inconvenient matter in the debate about global warming. In no other field of science are facts and methods debated so fervently. Science requires a uniform approch to solve the unknown, not supposition and certainly not blind faith. But that’s exactly what we seem to be witnessing in the issues surrounding global warming and its suggested causes. Science and faith have not been in such a grudge match since the Scopes Monkey trial.

Now I’m not a climatologist and I don’t purport to take any side in this debate. That may sound a bit like sticking my head in the sand, but I don’t remember waking up in 1984 believing the world was going to end, and the time has long since come and gone when Paul Ehrlich’s bit of pop science in The Population Bomb suggested that the people of the world would starve to death by the mid-Eigthies because, simply, there were too many people.

In other words, every generation has its own version of the End of Days and global warming has become this generation’s Armegeddon. And, as all the other preaching about Judgement day, this one will come and go in the same, quiet fashion.

Global warming is front page news the past few days because the National Academy of Sciences released a report of 155 pages of hysteria and hyperbole, suggesting that the Earth is running a fever and "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." The scientists tell us that Earth hasn't been this hot in 400 years, and maybe longer.

However, they gave no hint that they understood how they had undermined their practiced hysteria. If the Earth was this hot 400 years ago, or even 4,000 years ago, then the recent warming could not have been caused by the madness of man's machines, the flatulence of cows, or even hot air from professors hot to get their names in the paper.

Their presentation was studded with "likely," "maybe," "could be," and "very close to being right," with assurances that their findings were gleaned from tree rings, coral, glaciers, cave deposits (from bulls?), ocean and lake sediments, bore holes and ice cores.

The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed temperatures over hundreds and thousands of years. Some of it was educated guessing, since there were few scientific instruments back in that day, and a lot of it was to be taken on faith. Scientists are generally not very hot on faith, but they embrace the global-warming doctrine with the enthusiasm of a backwoods Bible salesman.

The panelists said the warming over the past 50 years was something no one had seen in a millennium, but conceded that well, umm, OK, it is true that the Earth suffered a "Little Ice Age" for about 350 years after 1500. But hey, who's counting?

Between the year A.D. 1 and the year 1850, volcanos and fluctuations in the heat from the sun were responsible for temperature changes, but these changes were much less pronounced than the warming caused by man-made pollution in the years since the mid-19th century.

This gets to the point of the hysteria. Scientific Man in all his manufactured glory can't bear the thought that he might not, after all, be as powerful as a volcano or a solar flare. How many learned degrees does a volcano have, after all? The idea that forces of the universe greater even than Scientific Man may be responsible for the cyclical changes is unbearable.

In the end, this is the conceit of Man; that somehow humans are capable of destroying what Mother Nature has produced. And if you remember, it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, less she gives us a few centuries of ice age to prove her point.

Dreams and Gatsby

Children start out with great dreams. They want to be astronauts, the president or play a professional sport. But the world and people close to them gradually have the dreams reasoned out of them.

I wanted to be a writer most of my young life, but so many people told me I needed to have a back-up plan that eventually the notion of writing for a living gave way to more practical occupational interests.

I used to think dreams were born in children and never followed them to adulthood. But I’ve had dreams as an adult and they carried with them the same wide-eyed hope as they did when I was young. They also died the same ignominious death.

Lately I’ve watched dreams and hopes dashed and it brings me back to those moments when I thought anything was possible and every moment extraordinary while mesmerized by the power of optimism and anticipation. The fall from that lofty moment is a long way the first time. As the years go by, the drop seems less and less precarious, but it hurts just the same. Each time it happens you feel a bit more jaded and a bit more disillusioned. You feel you can’t win, like life keeps dealing you a full house but you know the world’s sitting on a flush.

So I was thinking about dreams today and wondering how to recapture the youthful exuberance of believing in the possible when so many others are telling you to quit. I was thinking we need to have a new dream every time an old dream gets dashed or we’ll just stop our minds from moving forward. It reminded me of my favorite book about one of the all-time greatest dreamers: The Great Gatsby. Gatsby had a new dream born as quickly as his last dream left him. The fantastic final lines of the book sum up how I feel better than any way I can express. It goes something like this:

“And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark field of the public rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning -----

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaseless into the past.”

Big Wup

This is my 100th post. The one before was my 99th and the next will be the 101st. Just thought I would make a meaningless post on a meaningless number.

Random Thoughts

It was pointed out by a well-known busy-body that my posts are too long. It was even suggested that I follow the editorial rule established in the movie The Big Chill (even though the person making the comments made them anonymously, it can still be said that he/she has good taste in movies). However, the comment did not take the movie quote far enough as it was said that the only editorial guideline at People Magazine is that articles should not take longer to read than the time it takes the average person to take the average crap. So, for those with short attention spans or weak bowels, the following random thoughts are for you.

Sentimental Journey

I was similarly pestered by a poster (say it fast three times) who said my stories are perhaps overly-sentimental. It was alleged that I focus too much on dates and deaths and other sentimental moments. I think the old “walking around in my shoes” rule applies here. My house is a veritable sentimental journey; from my mother’s artwork, to photos of important events, to photos of people close to me who are no longer with us. As an aside, if there were Children’s Art Museum, would all the artwork be stuck to museum refrigerators? Also, I have this condition that doesn’t allow me to forget any important date, except the year the Magna Carta was issued leading to an F in a college history course. All of which is to say I have reasons, if not an excuse, to be sentimental.

One Year Later

Bill died one year ago today. Technically, he passed just before midnight on June 13 in Japan which turns out to be the same date California time. I didn’t learn about his death until the 15th so I suppose each day will always have some meaning to me. I thought long and hard about this, but decided not to write any lengthy post about him. While it’s true I miss him terribly, I don’t miss him any more today than I did yesterday or will tomorrow. It’s just another day in the struggle to get over our loss. I know Sue would agree. So I will borrow a line from Forrest Gump (another great movie) and just say: you died on a Monday and that’s about all I have to say about that.

The Graduates

Nick graduates from college this week. I am about 80 percent as proud of him as I am of my own kids who also recently graduated. (Note: since Nick isn’t my real kid, much to his surprise, I can’t give him 100 percent backing on this. Sorry.) Many may not know how hard he worked to push himself through junior college and then through a demanding UC Davis schedule and how he did it during the time his peers had already finished school and were well into their careers. It took him an amazing amount of determination and we should all heap praise on him and ask him, “seriously, isn’t it time to grow up?” Special kudos also goes out to my trusted personal, private executive assistant Patrick who just graduated as well. Pat did so while working fulltime at my office and had to endure the fact that Bill and I basically ignored that he was going to college and piled more and more work on him. His prize for graduating, you ask? He gets to still work with me. The secret is; he didn’t need a degree to work for me so he must have done it to accomplish such a difficult goal or to improve him chances for employment with a real company. Maybe that’s why he’s reading the classified section of the newspaper.

Perspecitve Please

It’s difficult to pick up a newspaper and not read something about Iraq. It's become quite obvious that the media is overly focused on the war and keeping a warped win/loss percentage. Zarqawi death good, Guantanamo suicides bad. In contrast to such hype, only the Drudge Report highlighted this story: A Year in America: 16,912 murders; 92,837 rapes. And we thought it was bad every day in Iraq? Perhaps we need to focus more at home.

Of course you can get drawn back into Iraq quite easily by the general nuttiness of their murders. For example, a tennis coach and two of his players were shot to death because they were wearing shorts and exposing “forbidden flesh” in violation of Islamic law to some, and a 19-year-old was killed for selling ice because, as the murderers put it, there was no ice during the Prophet Mohammed’s time. Of course there were no AK47s, IEDs, suicide bombs and tennis shorts while Mohammed was alive either. Religion is a tricky thing in the wrong hands, eh?

Sentiments From Joni

Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

My Friends Are Trying To Kill Me

Phil and Skip want me to swim in the La Jolla Rough Water Swim in September. How do I figure out a good way to tell them I’m not going to do it? It’s a one-mile swim in which my ankles will be grabbed and scratched from people behind me, my throat and face will be kicked from people ahead of me (in decidedly larger numbers), the water will be cold, it is a one-mile open swim so I can’t hang on the side to catch my breath and, most important, there are sharks in the water! Tell me where this is fun.

Win Some, Lose Some

The Boy had to deal with a bit more losses this past week than he is used to. At work, he was part of a team that included me and other regular readers of this goofy site that were passed over for a large contract. The reasons we didn’t get the job are probably not that simple but, in the Boy’s mind, a loss is a loss and hard to take especially when we were so prepared to win. Then he had to go to a national master’s water polo tournament in San Diego with an under-manned team that was missing a few key players. They won only one out of four games and, by his own admission, played one of the worst games of his life when friends showed up to watch. On the one hand, I like the desire to win that burns in him and wish I could maintain the same passion. On the other hand, I hope he understands that as life progresses, the losses add up but so do the wins. Unfortunately we have to get through the losses to get to the wins unless you handle your business affairs like Enron or the U.S. Government.

The Girl Goes Bye-Bye

The Girl has hatched a plan to move into an apartment with a male friend who shares her very odd sense of humor. Both also are not in possession of a rudeness filter that most people have developed past the age of three. She may have just found a roommate she can live with.

She has a move-out date scheduled in which she will take a few household items but leave behind a dog. What are the odds of that happening? Well, I have mixed emotions about her messing up her own living space. I want her to have the opportunity to live on her own but I have to admit that Mrs. Laz and I are a bit sad to see her go. We’ve gotten pretty used to the little crapper around the house hogging the remote control. We have had so many wonderful moments with her it’s difficult to imagine the day the house will grow a bit quieter as she moves on to the next stage of her life. Please be well, my little Purple.

Mrs. Laz and Me

I think Mrs. Laz is at a point in her life when she would like to borrow a pair of skates and slip and slide down the same river as me.

Iraq and Memorial Day

By Victor Davis Hanson
(Courtesy of National Review Online)

I can't write like this so I thought some of you, and you know who "you" are, would like to read this excellent piece by a very gifted writer. If you want to read more by him, you can visit www.nationalreview.com.

There may be a lot to regret about the past policy of the United States in the Middle East, but the removal of Saddam Hussein and the effort to birth democracy in his place is surely not one of them. And we should remember that this Memorial Day.

Whatever our righteous anger at Khomeinist Iran, it was wrong, well aside from the arms-for-hostages scandal, to provide even a modicum of aid to Saddam Hussein, the great butcher of his own, during the Iran-Iraq war. Inviting the fascist Baathist government of Syria into the allied coalition of the first Gulf War meant that we more or less legitimized the Assad regime’s take-over of Lebanon, with disastrous results for its people.

It may have been strategically in error not to have taken out Saddam in 1991, but it was morally wrong to have then encouraged Shiites and Kurds to rise up—while watching idly as Saddam’s reprieved planes and helicopters slaughtered them in the thousands.

A decade of appeasement of Islamic terrorism, with retaliations after the serial attacks—from the first World Trade Center bombing to Khobar Towers and the USS Cole—never exceeding the occasional cruise missile or stern televised lecture, made September 11 inevitable. A decade was wasted in subsidizing Yasser Arafat on the pretense that he was something other than a mendacious thug.

I cite these few examples of the now nostalgic past, because it is common to see Iraq written off by the architects of these past failures as the “worst” policy decision in our history, a “quagmire” and a “disaster.” Realists, more worried about Iran and the ongoing cost in our blood and treasure in Iraq, insist that toppling Saddam was a terrible waste of resources. Leftists see the Iraq war as part of an amoral imperialism; often their talking points weirdly end up rehashed in bin Laden’s communiqués and Dr. Zawahiri’s rants.

But what did 2,400 brave and now deceased Americans really sacrifice for in Iraq, along with thousands more who were wounded? And what were billions in treasure spent on? And what about the hundreds of collective years of service offered by our soldiers? What exactly did intrepid officers in the news like a Gen. Petreus, or Col. McMaster, or Lt. Col Kurilla fight for?

First, there is no longer a mass murderer atop one of the oil-richest states in the world. Imagine what Iraq would now look like with $70 a barrel oil, a $50 billion unchecked and ongoing Oil-for-Food U.N. scandal, the 15th year of no-fly zones, a punitative U.N. embargo on the Iraqi people—all perverted by Russian arms sales, European oil concessions, and frenzied Chinese efforts to get energy contracts from Saddam.

The Kurds would remain in perpetual danger. The Shiites would simply be harvested yearly, in quiet, by Saddam’s police state. The Marsh Arabs would by now have been forgotten in their toxic dust-blown desert. Perhaps Saddam would have upped his cash pay-outs for homicide bombers on the West Bank.

Muammar Khaddafi would be starting up his centrifuges and adding to his chemical weapons depots. Syria would still be in Lebanon. Washington would probably have ceased pressuring Egypt and the Gulf States to enact reform. Dr. Khan’s nuclear mail-order house would be in high gear. We would still be hearing of a “militant wing” of Hamas, rather than watching a democratically elected terrorist clique reveal its true creed to the world.

But just as importantly, what did these rare Americans not fight for? Oil, for one thing. The price skyrocketed after they went in. The secret deals with Russia and France ended. The U.N. petroleum perfidy stopped. The Iraqis, and the Iraqis alone—not Saddam, the French, the Russians, or the U.N.—now adjudicate how much of their natural resources they will sell, and to whom.

Our soldiers fought for the chance of a democracy; that fact is uncontestable. Before they came to Iraq, there was a fascist dictatorship. Now, after three elections, there is an indigenous democratic government for the first time in the history of the Middle East. True, thousands of Iraqis have died publicly in the resulting sectarian mess; but thousands were dying silently each year under Saddam—with no hope that their sacrifice would ever result in the first steps that we have already long passed.Our soldiers also removed a great threat to the United States.

Again, the crisis brewing over Iran reminds us of what Iraq would have reemerged as. Like Iran, Saddam reaped petroprofits, sponsored terror, and sought weapons of mass destruction. But unlike Iran, he had already attacked four of his neighbors, gassed thousands of his own, and violated every agreement he had ever signed. There would have been no nascent new democracy in Iran that might some day have undermined Saddam, and, again unlike Iran, no internal dissident movement that might have come to power through a revolution or peaceful evolution. No, Saddam’s police state was wounded, but would have recovered, given high oil prices, Chinese and Russian perfidy, and Western exhaustion with enforcement of U.N. sanctions. Moreover, the American military took the war against radical Islam right to its heart in the ancient caliphate. It has not only killed thousands of jihadists, but dismantled the hierarchy of al Qaeda and its networks, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Critics say that we “took our eye off the ball” by going to Iraq and purportedly leaving bin Laden alone in the Hindu Kush. But more likely, al Qaeda took its eye off the American homeland as the promised theater of operations once American ground troops began dealing with Islamic terrorists in Iraq.

As we near five years after September 11, note how less common becomes the expression “not if, but when” concerning the next anticipated terror attack in the U.S. Some believe that the odyssey of jihadists to Iraq means we created terrorists, but again, it is far more likely, as al Qaeda communiqués attest, that we drew those with such propensities into Iraq. Once there, they have finally shown the world that they hate democracy, but love to kill and behead—and that has brought a great deal of moral clarity to the struggle. After Iraq, the reputation of bin Laden and radical Islam has not been enhanced as alleged, but has plummeted. For all the propaganda on al Jazeera, the chattering classes in the Arab coffeehouses still watch Americans fighting to give Arabs the vote, and radical Islamists in turn beheading men and women to stop it.

If many in the Middle East once thought it was cute that 19 killers could burn a 20-acre hole in Manhattan, I am not sure what they think of Americans now in their backyard not living to die, but willing to die so that other Arabs might live freely. All of our achievements are hard to see right now. The Iraqis are torn by sectarianism, and are not yet willing to show gratitude to America for saving them from Saddam and pledging its youth and billions to give them something better. We are nearing the third national election of the war, and Iraq has become so politicized that our efforts are now beyond caricature. An archivist is needed to remind the American people of the record of all the loud politicians and the national pundits who once were on record in support of the war.

Europeans have demonized our efforts—but not so much lately, as pacifist Europe sits on its simmering volcano of Islamic fundamentalism and unassimilated Muslim immigrants. Our own Left has tossed out “no blood for oil”—that is, until the sky-rocketing prices, the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, and a new autonomous Iraqi oil ministry cooled that rhetoric. Halliburton is also now not so commonly alleged as the real casus belli, when few contractors of any sort wish to rush into Iraq to profit.

“Bush lied, thousands died” grows stale when the WMD threat was reiterated by Arabs, the U.N., and the Europeans. The “too few troops” debate is not the sort that characterizes imperialism, especially when no American proconsul argues that we must permanently stay in large numbers in Iraq. The new Iraqi-elected president, not Donald Rumsfeld, is more likely to be seen on television, insisting that Americans remain longer. A geography more uninviting for our soldiers than Iraq cannot be imagined—7,000 miles away, surrounded by Baathist Syria, Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, and theocratic Iran. The harsh landscape rivals the worst of past battlefields—blazing temperatures, wind, and dust. The host culture that our soldiers faced was Orwellian—a society terrorized by a mass murderer for 30 years, who ruled by alternately promising Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish collaborationists that cooperation meant only that fewer of their own would die. The timing was equally awful—in an era of easy anti-Americanism in Europe, and endemic ingratitude in the Muslim world that asks nothing of itself, everything of us, and blissfully forgets the thousands of Muslims saved by Americans in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Somalia, and the billions more lavished on Jordanians, Palestinians, and Egyptians.

And here at home? There are few Ernie Pyles in Iraq to record the heroism of our soldiers; no John Fords to film their valor—but legions to write ad nauseam of Abu Ghraib, and to make up stories of flushed Korans and Americans terrorizing Iraqi women and children.

Yet here we are with an elected government in place, an Iraqi security force growing, and an autocratic Middle East dealing with the aftershocks of the democratic concussion unleashed by American soldiers in Iraq. Reading about Gettysburg, Okinawa, Choisun, Hue, and Mogadishu is often to wonder how such soldiers did what they did. Yet never has America asked its youth to fight under such a cultural, political, and tactical paradox as in Iraq, as bizarre a mission as it is lethal. And never has the American military—especially the U.S. Army and Marines—in this, the supposedly most cynical and affluent age of our nation, performed so well. We should remember the achievement this Memorial Day of those in the field who alone crushed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, stayed on to offer a new alternative other than autocracy and theocracy, and kept a targeted United States safe from attack for over four years.

A Blessed Day

On Friday, May 19, my daughter walked in her graduation ceremony. The date is worth noting in another way as it was also my mother’s birthday, and if ever there were two souls tied together and separated by a generation, it was the two of them.

My mother would have easily understood Emily’s determination in making it to this moment and understood even more how easy it would have been for her to give up on several occasions. But like my mother, she pushed past every hurdle, never gave in to the short-term, simple path and gave herself a better long-term future. It wasn’t easy for her, but nothing worth the kind of effort it takes to graduate from college is supposed to be easy.

So this makes three college graduates in my family with me the odd man out. Not making our family four-for-four in graduates will pain me for life, but I take great solace in the fact that the Missus and I always made it a priority for both of our children to get the most out of life and the most out of what their native intellect required them to do. We pushed them since kindergarten so they always believed college was not only an option but something they owed themselves to complete. Yesterday was the proof in the pudding that our strategy worked. Or should I say mostly the strategy of Mrs. Laz as my contribution was generally to act as the example of what happens when you don’t graduate (an often overlooked value, I might add).

We were all very proud yesterday and we know all of the grandparents would have been ecstatic to have borne witness to a second grandchild dressed in a cap and gown.

Because some of you couldn’t make it, I thought it might be useful to give a running diary of events with apolgies to the Sports Guy. For those who think graduations are boring, then you either haven’t been to one recently and really paid attention, or haven’t been to one with Nick.

11:45 a.m. – We leave, just 15 minutes behind schedule. I take second car and park at a Denny’s so Em can go to Arco Arena after to accept her championship ring from the Sacramento Monarchs. Predictably, I take six cell phone calls. Good thing it’s a Friday or it could have been worse.

12:10 p.m. – Mrs. Laz and the Graduate arrive at Denny’s which is adjacent to a really nice Motel 6. Mrs. Laz is accosted by someone hoping to purchase a Grand Slam Breakfast and asks for funds toward that endeavor. Didn’t know the Grand Slam came with that kind of Coke. Mrs. Laz hands over $5 and dives in my car for safety and we drive the extra mile to limited on-campus parking. Seems we should have a permanent parking place on campus by now as we paid more than $1,000 in parking tickets.

12:11 p.m. – First crisis of the day as Emily receives a call from the friend she will be sitting next to during the ceremony. Friend is in tears and saying something about a former boyfriend and his new girlfriend and how she’s come to graduation. Did I mention this was college graduation?

12:13 p.m. – Emily is united with friend. They run off to solve the problem and get in line while we look for a spot to park. Make bad judgment and go straight instead of veering left and find ourselves in a mile-long reverse holding pattern. A quick and illegal maneuver puts us back on path to find a spot that only requires a one-mile walk to the ceremony.

12:21 p.m. – We meet up with Laz Jr. and the lovely Princess Ber of the Principality of Berfunkia. Ber’s mom is also with her. I’m sent to find a program to make sure Emily’s name is there, which I would rather do than sit in the hot sun and listen to the college band tune up. Well, maybe they weren’t tuning up, just terribly out of tune.

12:22 p.m. – See Nick with blond Mohawk and colorfully painted toenails heading up the stairs at Hornet Stadium. I tell him we’re on the 22-yard-line and we exchange rude remarks.

12:29 p.m. – The ceremony is close to starting and the air of excitement is palpable. We’re offered chocolate chip cookies from Nick who brought snacks. He graduates college in June. No kidding. Laz Jr. finds Emily’s name in the program and remarks, “Huh, I guess she wasn’t lying, she really is graduating.”

12:30 p.m. – The first be-gowned students work their way down the track. The crowd is on their feet and roaring. It may be the first time there was a roar of excitement in Hornet Stadium all season.

12:31 p.m. – We are all on our feet hoping to get a look at our graduate candidates. They have to say “candidate” because not all the grades have come out yet. Finger’s crossed the “candidate” part will shortly be removed.

12:33 p.m. – The students are walking down the track and filing into a seated area in the middle of the stadium. For some reason, some of the kids have more cords and sashes around their necks than Emily. I guess we should have bought Emily some of the extra stuff but didn’t see any for sale at the stadium entrance.

12:36 p.m. – Still no Emily in sight but I come up with an idea that Nick likes for his graduation attire: due to bad eyesight, I think one of the students is wearing an airline life jacket. Nick decides a life jacket is the perfect accessory for his graduation gown and further decides that water wings will add to the ensemble. He also decides to cut a hole in the top of his cap so his Mohawk will stand out better.

12:41 p.m. – Finally! We see our graduate candidate in a group of the final 25 or so students. We wonder how they were able to assemble the students by order of grade point average so quickly.

12:48 p.m. – The students have all been seated and now it’s time for all the official blowhards to take up a lot of time explaining how this day is about the students and not about them. If true, then how about just saying, “Good job kids, come get your graduate candidate certificate and go find your parents for the required photos?”

12:49 p.m. – First sign of political correctness as the truly awful band plays the Star Spangled Banner while a woman Signs for the crowd. It would have been good to be deaf in a certain sense as the singer and the band can’t keep the same rhythm. The Signer is so far away, those with a hearing impairment should have been reminded to bring binoculars to really know what was being said.

12:51 p.m. – The President of the College of Arts and Letter and the Alphabet starts his speech about this being about the kids. He speaks for 10 minutes about this. The hearing impaired can close their eyes.

1:01 p.m. – A host of people follow to explain how this day is about the kids. However, there was one good speech by the Alumni Director and a graduate of the school. She reads through her speech like George Bush on Haldol, mumbling in slow motion. I don’t see many people rushing to join the Alumni Association but do spot a few people in the stands stealthily covering up their alumni shirts. One speaker tells the students that what they have just accomplished is only the start. I am sure there was more than one graduate candidate who asked, “Weren’t we told that in high school too?”

1:12 p.m. – There is either a second politically correct moment or just an indication of how easy it must be to get a PhD from Harvard. The College President decides to quote Shakespeare – out of context, one might add – and says “What a piece of work is a man…” Either he decided to say “a man” so as not to offend “a woman” when defining “Man” as “Mankind” or he slipped the “a man” in there because he really didn’t know the quote. I flunked English because I couldn’t quote Shakespeare accurately and even I knew he had it wrong. Give me a PhD from Harvard, I say.

1:14 p.m. – The President announces the President’s Award to some girl who majored in Harpsichord and Latin. Do they still beat up kids like this in college? She has a short speech to the kids that went something like, “Ummm, this is really neat, I, ummm, am so happy to have this really, ummm, cool award. There are so many other students, ummm, who could have won this, but, ummm, I got it instead. I guess I’m just smarter than you all. Knib High Football rules!”

1:16 p.m. – The kids are ready to file past the various school leaders, have their names read, and get their fake diplomas. The crowd is instructed to wait until the final names have been announced before leaving the stadium. This turns out to be more of a suggestion than a rule, or there were more hearing impaired in the crowd than one would suspect.

1:17 p.m. – The students start to come forward and their names are announced. The students getting their Master’s Degrees go first. This takes a lot longer than one would hope. The sun is already burning my rapidly expanding forehead and there are about 400 kids ahead of Emily who is sitting in the last row. Now I know why I didn’t graduate college. Who wants to go through this?

1:25 p.m. – I’m looking for Nick to offer some entertainment but he actually looks intrigued. A student is given a Masters for Sanskrit. Didn’t that language die out 1,000 years ago?

1:38 p.m. – Yadda, yadda, yadda. The people in the crowd begin to file out after their student’s name is called, in total breech of school policy. Although it does thin out the parking lot a bit.

1:48 p.m. – Nick has a few more cookies and starts to shout for students he doesn’t know. Laz Jr. is beginning to remember why he didn’t walk for graduation.

1:51 p.m. – Big action moment: Emily gets up from her row and walks over to a table to get a glass of water. She drinks it and returns to her seat. I get several photos of this. Only wish I had a telephoto lens on my disposable camera.

1:58 p.m. – Finally, Emily’s row gets to stand up and get in line. It’s a long line but I get the camera ready anyway.

2:06 p.m. – Emily turns the corner and is ready to take her final steps as a student and become a graduate candidate. Soon, someone will say “plastics” to her.

2:09 p.m. – We hear the woman with the hoarse voice read Emily’s name. Emily raises her hands triumphantly and we suddenly realize what we’ve waited all this time for. There is nothing fake about her hands being raised. She feels triumphant and perhaps for the first time realizes what a remarkable achievement it has been to get to this moment. She gets her fake diploma and walks back to her seat with her hands raised in the air for a bit longer. This is the picture of contentment. Even Laz Jr. begins to wonder if it would have felt this good to go through his ceremony. We’re all beaming but not as much as Emily.

2:14: p.m. – The last name is read. This kid gets the biggest cheer because now we can get to our students and get the photo op done.

2:16 p.m. – We’re told this is about the students again and told they will file out of the stadium in an orderly fashion meaning Emily will be the last to leave.

2:27 p.m. – We catch up with Emily and suggest photographs with an appropriate background. We ask her what her favorite spot on campus is. She says it’s off-campus, take the damn pictures.

2:37 p.m. – We’re in our car and out-smarting others by finding a back exit. That’s the kind of thing you can do when you have a good education.

Congratulations Emily, from all of us. We are so very proud! Special thanks to Tom for the great photos as we got nothing like this on the disposable camera.

Memories of Betts

The events in my family fit awkwardly between bookends. One day we’re up and the next day we’re down. And so it is on May 12, one day following my birthday, that Mrs. Laz’s mother took her final breath. It also happened to be Mother’s Day that May 12 and Mrs. Laz was only hours from making the trip to San Diego to be with her mother when we got the call. Her death was not a total surprise but it’s always a kick in the stomach when it happens. Such is the finality my family has had to learn to live with.

My mother-in-law had called me to give me birthday well-wishes late in the day. I could tell she was struggling to speak and was very weak. I asked if she wanted to talk to her daughter but she said she was too tired. Mrs. Laz never got the chance to talk to her mother again, a point of frustration that lives with her still.

Mrs. Laz has taken to wondering aloud about the fairness of her mother passing away before she was able to say her final good-bye. I have always reasoned that her mother was so close to her that it would have been far too sad for her to say her final farewells. She was far too classy to put the two of them through a Terms Of Endearment moment. They really had nothing to settle between them and each had so much love and general fondness for the other that it almost seemed at times they were big sisters, not mother and daughter.

The boy and I were speaking today about the losses of his grandparents. He remembers less about my parents and Mrs. Laz’s father because he was only 12 when they died. But he was 20 when his grandmother died and they had one of those long, final conversations. She was definitely wanting a fix on what life held in store for him and asked him many questions about his future. According to him, she reveled in his plans and his hopes and dreams and she could actually feel comfort knowing he would be OK. I think that’s all parents and grandparents want to know before they pass. They want to know they have done everything within their power to ensure happy and productive lives for their loved ones.

It was also easy to see that she loved having a granddaughter that she could mold and bring up as she had her daughter. Mrs. Laz and Lazette even shared the same nickname of “Missy.” Lazette didn’t always follow the same path of her mother, but I know her grandmother had great plans for her, including the rather sumptuous irony that Lazette’s initials were E.R.A, a point that was often mentioned with glee.

She was one wonderful lady who endured many trials in her life with total dignity and elegance. She accepted my nutty ideas when she learned I was going to be joining the family and even tolerated my political views – at least those she could stomach. I was raised in La Jolla – a character flaw in her book and a source of teasing in mine – while she grew up on the rougher side of Chicago without much of a father around. She even accepted me arriving at her house for dinner with Alka Seltzer tablets in hand (yes, I really did that and she still let me marry her daughter).

Mrs. Laz’s bedroom was downstairs and her mother’s upstairs. When Mrs. Laz and I were first dating, and even in our first years of marriage, we would be engaged in a hot, passionate game of checkers or something. Her mom was quite curious about the lack of noise coming out of the downstairs bedroom so she would investigate from time to time. Since Mrs. Laz’s bedroom was directly below the stairwell, we could hear every step as her mother walked down. To avoid detection, her mother took each step with about five minutes wait in between to throw us off. It never worked as she never caught us playing “checkers.” My bet is she spent plenty of time devising the next method of catching us off guard. She was obviously just worried that her daughter would fall prey to this fast-talking kid who had his head in the sky and a box of gastro tablets in his pants pocket.

She battled cancer with every last remaining bit of strength and she died with the dignity that surrounded her life. She is our only parent that fought death into the 10th round hoping for a decision in her favor. But it’s difficult to beat the champ in a title fight and I think she knew when her time was coming. I think she knew when she didn’t speak to Mrs. Laz on the phone because, what do you tell your daughter and best friend at a time like that? I think she spared both of them a tragic scene at the end and left Mrs. Laz with the memories she will always preserve. I know Mrs. Laz has a giant hole in her heart where her mother used to reside. Hopefully she can fill it with the love her mother passed through her when she made her final stops before entering her lasting peace. In my mind, that’s a better gift than a difficult good-bye. Bettelu, may you rest in peace and be in our hearts forever.

The Big 5-0

So it's my 50th birthday. Bug wup. Now if this post was about someone other than me, I would write about memories, accomplishments, stories, etc. But if I wrote about me, then it would seem a trifle vain. And perhaps quite boring.

So I leave it up to you, dear fan(s), to post a comment about me. It doesn’t even have to be a nice memory or thought and it matters not if you have only a trivial story. I’m not begging for compliments, just a place to share stories of all the stupid things I did in my life. In the end we’ll add all the thoughts up and decide if it was worth having me around for the past 50 years. Of course my one remaining family member is the only one who has known me for this long and he doesn’t even know about the blog. Oh well.

Mrs. Laz, in case you’re tempted to write about that little mishap when you were in the hospital those three times and I decided to be elsewhere, there is no need as such stories may be judged as mean by the readers. Ditto the stuff on a few other capers I’ve pulled. Remember, this is a family blog….

For a Gentle Warrior

Bill would have turned 48 years old today. Forty-eight really doesn’t sound all that old but, as fate would have it, he never lived to celebrate this day with his family and friends.

My early foray into studying the meaning of birth, death and what lies in between was pretty much occupied with chasing Rebecca Springer around the room at Sunday school class in the middle Sixties. So I can’t come up with a good answer as to why Bill was taken so young, and it’s not for a lack of time spent pondering, either. Maybe it’s just as the Bible and the Byrds pointed out in different mediums: “To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Something tells me the answer isn’t as simple as a Biblical passage or Pete Seeger lyrics.

I know Bill thought often about his mortality after our parents died at a younger than average age. As a result he was reconciled with most everything and everyone in his life and was able to pack nearly a full life in a little more than 47 years. I have also recently given in to quietly sneaking up on my own mortality and being careful not to wake it. It brings up fairly weird thoughts, most notably how long it would take for my own family to begin to lose touch with seemingly unimportant memories. This happened with my parents and grandparents and after awhile you look around to find someone who might remember a small event and you realize there is nobody left for the answer.

I don’t want time and distance to fade away some of my own memories of Bill so I will recount a few in this space and hope like hell that Blogger doesn’t go out of business in my lifetime.

I was almost two years old when Bill was born. Peter and I were just 11 months apart and, although I have no conscious memory of this, it has been noted that that the two of us felt we had a pretty good thing going and that three was a crowd. Frankly we didn’t much care for the competition for attention. There are some old photographs that indicate Peter and I were fascinated by our younger brother but I am sure we hatched a few elaborate pleas to convince our mother to leave him behind at the grocery store.

Being the third wheel in anything is tough to live with, especially when it’s with your brothers. Being the middle kid it was a constant pull to want to follow my older brother and be protective of my younger brother. Of course this was all before he grew to be several inches taller than both of us when he was 11 years old.

My earliest memory of Bill is when I was about four and the three brothers were horsing around at the top of the stairs at our house on Pinecrest. I think Peter remembers he was the one who gave Bill the nudge that evening but it seems it may have been me (there goes that “no one to ask” problem again). Nevertheless he rolled down the entire flight of stairs, tumbling out at the bottom and hitting his head at the corner of a wall. I remember two things: my dad appearing just in time to witness the final summersault into the wall, and all the blood that pours out from a head split open. I don’t remember Bill crying but I may have been more concerned about my own complicity in the crime and the coming punishment than the particulars. Well-thought-out alibis are particularly difficult for a two-year-old but I seem to remember Peter got the blame.

I’m not sure if he even mentioned this to you Sue, but Bill and I shared a bedroom together for about three or four years just after we moved to our house on Lake Drive in East Grand Rapids. I doubt there would have been any comparisons made to the world’s great minds, but I know we talked about a lot of things and, just like all men of thought, made a lot of fake bodily function noises. We weren’t short of friends but Bill and I made up imaginary friends in that room – although there was a distinct lack of imagination as my friend was a ceiling light (aptly named “Lightly”) while Bill’s friend was the beam of light from the hallway that the two of us insisted stay on lest we be gobbled up by evil monsters.

The hallway light became a bone of contention at various points between the three brothers as at least one of us wanted it off while the others fought hard for the protection it offered. I remember a few late night battles while one of us would turn off the light from a switch at one end of the hallway while one of the other of us would just as quickly turn it back on from a switch at the other end. On and on it would go. It’s quite amazing how long little kids can stand at a light switch gripped in a never-ending battle for hallway light supremacy. But when the stakes are very real monsters one has to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice – usually being yelled at by my dad who was wondering why there was a light show going on down the bedroom hallway.

When Bill was about four, I sort of poisoned him. It wasn’t intentional, I was just a curious six-year-old involved in a science experiment and Bill was part of my Control Group. I made a potion of various bathroom liquids, including perfume, for Bill to drink. It says a lot about his willingness to trust to even think of drinking the concoction. The fact is, he put a little on his lips and spilled a bit more on his neck and shirt.

Eventually our mother came around to see what we were up to and I proudly told her I had made a magic potion and Bill drank it. She smelled the perfume on Bill and immediately drove her three boys to the hospital to have Bill’s stomach pumped out. During the entire trip to the hospital, Bill insisted he never drank the magic potion, but my mom was not one to take chances or fail to make a point – forcing me to watch Bill have a rubber tube stuffed down his throat. It’s not something that is easy to forget and was probably even more difficult for Bill to forget, although I have no memory of him being angry at me for what happened.

In fact, I remember only one altercation that Bill and I got into in the 47-plus years we knew each other. He was 11 and I was 13 and I was probably feeling threatened that he was now bigger than me. We were eating hot dogs and beans for lunch and Bill told me I had a done a poor job of cooking and he wasn’t going to finish eating the lunch I had slaved over. Fueled by teen lunacy, I told Bill I had ways of making him finish his meal. Likely the rest of the exchange went something like “no you don’t,” “yes I do,” “no you don’t,” “yes I do,” (this is beginning to be reminiscent of the light-switch affair noted above). Usually a “yes you do, no you don’t” standoff ends with someone having to step up and actually do something so I grabbed a handful of cold beans and attempted to stuff them in Bill’s mouth. He resisted. While I don’t remember any punches thrown, I do remember a lot of wrestling around and a lot of beans on the floor. I think we were angry with each other for a few days but I’ll bet it looked pretty hilarious if you weren’t a party to the Big Bean Battle of 1969.

There are other stories best off going to his grave, like his first Steinberg and Sternbach sleepover on the cliffs overlooking Blacks Beach, his bachelor’s liar above the garage at the Shores, his shoplifting caper with Fred Hopper when he was 10, the knife stuck in the refrigerator that was aimed just a bit left of Peter, and how Peter and I had to barricade ourselves in my bedroom for about an hour after we had teased him into a rage (it took the two of us all of our strength to keep him out and from likely murdering us – deservedly so).

These are a lot of things I remember about Bill that would probably surprise a lot of people. Bill had an uncanny ability to meet people where they were. He befriended just about everyone he came in contact with and overlooked personality and dress issues that would turn off most. As a result, there is no simple way to describe him. To the uninitiated he was large and loud. True he was big in stature and his voice could boom, but the largest thing about him was his capacity to love his family and enjoy life.

As big and loud as he was, he was also one of the most gentle and sensitive people you would ever meet. There were countless times he would be loudly setting an employee or sub-contractor straight and a few minutes later he was joking around with them. He was always available to hear the challenges of his friends and colleagues and he helped literally dozens of people get through very tough times. This included me, his kids, the friends of his kids, co-workers, and even people he didn’t know that well. He was generous with his advice whether solicited or not and he was often right in what he had to say.

Among the many hobbies that interested him, he finally found one that must have seen like going home. Most of his life he talked about being a warrior of sorts and living the life that comes with it. When he was introduced to Japanese Sword he approached it with the enthusiasm of a young Samurai. He became very good at the art and was in Japan to compete when he died. I heard he told a friend that his life was complete after arriving at the scenic Japanese setting that was hosting the competition. I don’t know about the others, but I am warmed by the thought he was at such peace when he passed. Just the same, I never thought I would be writing about him missing this birthday and all the others I expected to share with him. There are so many other things that I have come to realize I miss about him, which begs the question: Does it take a death to learn what a life is worth?

Bill, in case you’re around and for some reason you have the inclination to read a Blog while you’re convening with angels, Happy Birthday!

I Don't Know What Happened

How did my links and other Blogging things end up on the bottom? I need Super Blogger to walk me through this.

A Song For You

Normally, the following words are included in a HallMike Card© and aren’t so, well, public. But today, April 29, I am 2,500 miles away from the recipient of this love note and sometimes you have to improvise. Besides, I don’t mind telling the world – or at least my weird little world – how much I love Mrs. Laz on this, her birthday.

I first met Mrs. Laz in a swimming pool at Mesa Community College Institute of Technology. Technically I first saw her in my Astrology class (or Astronomy, I never know the difference), but I didn’t get to know her until I made the connection between the class and the pool.

Now if I am being really honest, I likely first saw her in 1973 at a swim meet while she lived near L.A. and I lived in San Diego. After we were married, I came across an old program I had saved from a swim meet in Chula Vista that her team had traveled to when she was 16 and I was 17. When looking at the program a decade later, I discovered her name, and, as it turned out, she swam in the same lane as me the heat before. This means I would have watched her climb out of the water as I was likely doing something goofy (like putting a rubber ducky on my starting block). Who could have known back then that I was within inches of my future wife and that she would end up marrying someone who had a rubber ducky?

Back at the Big U in '75, Mesa Tech had a first-year swim team and had yet to form a women’s team. So the regents, janitors, or the whim of the times demanded that women have the opportunity to swim with the men’s team. This was good news for the men on the men’s team – although we had a good deal more boy in us than man.

I think it can be said without fear of contradiction that Mrs. Laz was the prettiest girl on the Mesa team (although that doesn’t sound quite as poetic as the Prettiest Girl at Penn as Candace Bergen was known). Nevertheless, when boys are being boys, we’re competing for the prettiest girl and despite already being promised to be promised to another girl, I joined in the competition with enthusiasm, hubris and the desire to make her mine irregardless of previous promises. I turned on the charm and whit and before long I was in the running. I was torn by my promises and the twinkle in the young eye of Mrs. Laz. She was my Anne Boleyn but I didn’t possess a King’s decree to axe (metaphorically speaking) the other woman. But the other girl did axe me shortly thereafter, allowing me to court Mrs. Laz.

Skipping past the fact that Mrs. Laz had a boyfriend named Gomez and decided to spend the summer of 1976 in LA with him, I pined for her return back to the Big U in the fall. My memory may be failing me about this but after about two years of being played off Gomez, she could no longer resist my stalking and agreed to become my girlfriend and, later, my wife.

From that point, Mrs. Laz deserves some kind of medal; most likely a Purple Heart. She’s endured my countless bad jokes told multiple times, endless teasing, too many dreams of greener grass, political diatribes, marrying into a family that defines the notion that only the good die young, having to hide the chocolates, several addictions to computer games, musical instruments, and other oddball hobbies, and now, going on my fourth Seven Year Itch. I’ve only had to endure being loved for all these faults.

Essentially we grew up together and learned how to become young lovers, young parents and young orphans. We realized early that money, or lack thereof, can be a cancer that can metastasize in all areas of your relationship if you’re not careful and committed to each other and that when all is said an done, once we were within the walls of our home, we were safe from all the negativity of bad jobs, bad bosses, bill collectors, and democrats.

We raised two wonderful kids who turned out so well that we must have done something right. We beam pride at nearly everything they do and the odd things is, I thing they’re proud of nearly everything we do. You can’t get much more fortunate than that.

It may seem as though this narrative has drifted from honoring Mrs. Laz on the anniversary of her birth. It’s really not, though. Her life has been defined by her relationships; from her deep symbiotic connection to her mother, her endless love for me all the while rescuing me from a life of lost hope, her devotion to her children, and even a soft heart for a number of tough-to-love pets.

She’s like the Magic Johnson of relationships; her presence makes the lives of those around her better. When things seem out of sync she’s able to fit life back in a neat package. She can be counted on to shed bittersweet tears from a heartfelt connection to schlocky TV shows that shamelessly pull at but a few heartstrings. She has more adventure in her than she would ever let on, but she’d rather be curled up in front of a fireplace. She’s a sucker for what she calls “trashy” novels but is an avid and quiet reader of fine literature.

I’m lucky enough to be one of the few who know these little things about her and even luckier to wake up next to her nearly every morning, just not this particular morning. Waking up in spirit is not the same and I think she’d agree.

Mrs. Laz, April 29 some number of years ago was the day an angel was born and all of us in your life are lucky you were sent to us – especially me.

If I could, I would write you one heck of a love song. But that’s a tricky bit of wordsmith and requires a certain amount of talent and an ear for poetry. With the excuse that it’s getting late on the East Coast, I’ll borrow these lines from Leon Russell to let you know how I feel:

I've been so many places in my life and time
I've sung a lot of songs I've made some bad rhyme
I've acted out my love in stages
With ten thousand people watching
But we're alone now and I'm singing this song for you

I know your image of me is what I hope to be
I've treated you unkindly but darlin' can't you see
There's no one more important to me
Darlin' can't you please see through me
Cause we're alone now and I'm singing this song for you

You taught me precious secrets of the truth witholding nothing
You came out in front and I was hiding
But now I'm so much better and if my words don't come together
Listen to the melody cause my love is in there hiding

I love you in a place where there's no space or time
I love you for in my life you are a friend of mine
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and I was singing this song for you