Month: February 2022

Legendary American golfer and fan favorite Phil Mickelson pretty much triple-bogeyed the rest of his life this past week.

Mickelson, known as “Lefty” by his peers and adoring fans, came out of left field with a bizarre endorsement of a proposed Saudi Arabian world golf tour and, at the same time, threw the P.G.A. Tour (the organization that had enabled him to earn an estimated $400 million dollars) under the proverbial bus.

It appears that Phil has been working behind the scenes with the Saudis, for a reported $150 million retainer, to “front” the proposed world tour, design the format, do the organizational work, and recruit PGA Tour stars to jump ship to the new enterprise. The not-so-secret venture became public recently, before a single event was established, and Mr. Mickelson lashed out at virtually everyone (including his behind-the-scenes Saudi conspirators) and tried to paint himself as a true patriot and protector of the game.

The backlash from the PGA Tour and virtually every “big name” golfer was immediate: Phil Mickelson had stepped in his own poop. The PGA Tour announced that any player jumping to the Saudi league would be prohibited from playing in PGA events and most of the biggest names in golf publicly denounced the proposed Tour, Mickelson, and the Saudis.

As Phil noted in a hasty, but lengthy justification of his behavior, even he was repulsed by the blood-thirsty reputation of the Saudi royals who are bankrolling the proposed Tour. He mentioned the state-sponsored murder of Washington Post journalist Adnan Khashoggi a few years back and called the Saudis “mean motherfuc..ers”. But then moved on to talk about the “greed” of the PGA Tour while simultaneously decrying lost opportunities for PGA Tour players to monetize themselves. (Say, what?)

Excuse me: Phil Mickelson should be the last guy on earth to cry poor mouth. He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. His wealthy parents had a golf practice facility built in their backyard so young Phil could begin learning the game before he went to school. He has been a country club guy for his whole life. He’s worth almost a half a billion dollars.

Most people in the world are aware that not only are the oil-rich Saudi royals spoiled brats who think that they can do anything that they want without reprisal, but they rank just about last among nations in terms of human rights. And who can forget that 15 of the 19 Al Queda soldiers who perpetrated the 9-11 attack on America were Saudi Arabian citizens, that Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi, and that the funding for Al Queda came primarily from Saudi royal family princes.

These are Phil Mickelson’s would-be business partners. Or at least the greedy guy thought they were going to be before the wheels came off last week.

The PGA Tour, the organization that made Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and all the other greats very wealthy athletes, does not need Saudi blood money to succeed. The PGA Tour’s reputation is not just founded on the legacy of the greatest golfers in the world. Every PGA event (and there’s one virtually every week of the year) benefits a local charity and, over the decades, hundreds of millions of dollars have been generated to worthy causes. That’s why major corporations sponsor the PGA Tour: it’s solid reputation rubs off on them.

The PGA Tour is, thus, a force for good. This contrasts with the proposed new World Tour: a publicity stunt to make the Saudi royal family seem like good people. These rich lowlifes feel that they can spread money around and, presto, everyone will like them.

Make no mistake: the Saudis are not good people. And, the PGA Tour, its sponsors, its players, and its charities cannot afford the public relations black eye it would get if it associated, in any way, with the Saudis. Mickelson doesn’t see this; all he sees are endless ways to monetize his golf business and make another couple hundred million dollars.

Since the embarrassing blowup last week, Mickelson has retreated into isolation to figure out how badly he’s tripped over his Johnson and how he can resurrect his reputation. His public image, which had been very positive, is now in a shambles, and many of his major corporate sponsors are bailing out on him.

Phil would have probably been named Captain of the 2025 Ryder Cup team, which is a career-defining honor, but that distinction will now elude him, I’m sure. Should he play in another PGA Tour event, Mickelson can probably anticipate some very rude catcalls from the gallery as he goes into his backswing. I’m not sure that his ego could handle that.

Mickelson will still go down in golf history as one of the top ten players of all time: he’s earned that.

But he will also be remembered as maybe the greediest and soulless professional athlete that ever lived.

As someone once said, “Without your good name, what do you have?”

Today at the “Smiths” supermarket I paid forty-something bucks for a plastic bag of groceries that I could easily carry with one hand. And, gas at the “Smiths” pump was almost $5 a gallon.

Times have surely changed.

Today’s sticker-shock moment made me nostalgic about my early days (in the 1950’s) when my Mom would pile me and my brother and two sisters and German Shepherd dog “Duke” into our small Ford station wagon and head down to “Market Basket” to buy groceries. She probably shopped every two weeks and would fill up a couple of large shopping carts with necessities. The total bill was probably $70 to $90, back when a hundred bucks was hard to come by.

Most of the time, the store manager would hustle over and help Mom ferry the carts and kids out to the parking lot. My mother, who came from humble beginnings, felt proud of herself that she was such a major customer that she received V.I.P. service. (Yeah, maybe, but she was also a very good-looking woman. That might have explained the shit-eating-grin of the store manager as he tripped over himself to impress her.)

The fact that my Mom bought a lot of groceries meant that store personnel knew her not only at “Market Basket” but also at the nearby “Food City” supermarket. This came back to haunt me a couple of years later.

For some reason, when I was between 9 and 11 years old, I began to do some shoplifting, probably because I was bored and it was exciting. Candy and baseball cards (in the Topps gum packs) were the usual items that me and my buddies pilfered. Anyway, it was pretty innocent juvenile misbehavior. Or, at least that’s what I thought until I got caught.

I was in “Food City” one day with a friend, and we had loaded up our jackets with candy bars and were headed out of the store when we got braced by the store manager: “Are you going to pay for those?” Uh, oh, I thought. “I guess we forgot to pay. Maybe we don’t need all of them.”, I offered. Then the store manager uttered the dreaded words: “I know your Mother: she’s a regular customer here.” Omigod, I just about shit my pants. I loved my Mom and I would be mortified if she found out that I was a common criminal.

Maybe because she was such a valued customer, the guy gave me a break and said, after confiscating our loot, “Don’t come back here again without your Mother.” Oh, Man, the sun was shining on me that day: a reprise from the gallows!

I don’t know if that store manager told my Mom. If so, she never mentioned it.

I wasn’t a bad kid, but I suppose I was somewhat mischievous and a risk-taker. Not that long afterward, I was hanging out with my nextdoor neighbor Mike Vaughan, we were riding our bikes down near “Food City” (of all places!), and we decided to use the restroom at a gas station across the street. After doing our business, it dawned on us that we could vandalize the bathroom and no one would know. And so, of course, we two idiots proceeded to trash the place for fun. Our noisy frivolity must have caught the attention of someone, because the door swung open and there was the gas station owner… in a very foul mood.

Suffice it to say that we paid dearly for our indiscretion. Mike, whose father was a large bald-headed L.A. police officer with a mean streak, beat the crap out of his son that evening. We could hear the mayhem from our home nextdoor. Not to be outdone, my Dad, a well-muscled mechanic who had a finely polished Carnauba wood paddle called “The Stick”, worked over my butt with it until he got arm-weary. The next day, he marched my sore ass down to the gas station, made me apologize to the owner, and then volunteered me to work, as a slave, for the owner for a week, spitshining the bathrooms, men and women. I felt like Jim Nabors’s hapless character, the Permanent Latrine Orderly, in “No Time For Sergeants”. What a loser I was.

This dumbass incident pretty much ended my life of crime.

Now, I’m not saying that I became an altar boy or anything: I was, after all, still a boy. And, after all, boys will be boys.

Our little neighborhood “gang” of four White guys used to do stupid stuff just because we could. We used to get into the city storm sewer system and walk for miles under there. We’d sneak onto the local public golf course and make money finding and selling lost golf balls to golfers. Occasionally, on the weekend, we’d climb up onto the roof of the local elementary school and run about like fools. Once, I recall, a water balloon was dropped on or very near the Principal. (Luckily, my Dad didn’t find out about this prank or he would have keelhauled me, for sure.) After Fourth of July, we’d scour the neighborhoods for dud fireworks, collect the gun powder, and make things that we could blow up. One time, my brother Terry threw a sparkler over a house, it caught a hill on fire, and threatened to burn down our buddies house (until the Fire Department came and saved the day).

Like I said, we did dumb stuff probably because we were young idiots, not criminals. We were “Jackass” long before they made the movie. It’s part of growing up, I suppose. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

Why am I telling you this stuff? How did I get off on this tangent???

Oh, yeah, buying groceries, my Mom, shoplifting, etc.

Which reminds me, have you heard the old saw that, “Crime doesn’t pay”?

Recall those baseball cards that I used to pilfer? For a couple of years, me and my thief buddy Mike stole scads of Topps baseball card packs. This was back in the Fifties, probably the heyday of baseball card collecting. We had all of the Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, etc. “rookie cards” and they were virgin, with the chewing gum smell still attached. I kept my favorites in a large shoebox: it was my Holy Grail.

Man, if I still had those cards, they’d be worth some serious bucks.

But, alas, I think my Mom knew that my precious stash was fruit of the poisonous tree. Her son didn’t have any money; how could he have bought them? When we moved from Southern California to Northern California in 1959, my little treasure trove of stolen baseball cards mysteriously disappeared, probably destined for the local landfill.

It was almost like someone was wiping the slate clean for me.

My Mom never said a word about those baseball cards.

I was walking my dog “Baby” this morning when we passed the local cemetery on Hardy Road. It is a small one, located in an out-of-the-way location, and it is relatively new, as Sun City Mesquite is a little over ten years old. I think the developers of our 55+ community included it as an “amenity”. (Gee, thanks for reminding us how old we are!)

I’m not sure who pays for its upkeep; perhaps it’s the developer (Pulte Homes), who is a decade into building 5,000 homes here in Mesquite. Maybe part of my new home purchase price helped fund the cemetery? Who knows?

Cemeteries are rare in new communities. In the Temecula-Murrieta area of Southern California, where we relocated from, an area with a total population of about 250,000, I don’t know where any cemeteries are… and I lived there for thirty years. It seems that cremation is in vogue with younger generations: cemeteries are for the old folks, so to speak.

In the former colonial States of America, like the Northeast and the South, there are cemeteries in every city and town, as well as many very old buildings, statues, and historical markers. Sometimes those cemeteries are smack dab in the middle of the town, an in-your-face part of the fabric of the community. Of course, in many of those communities, generations of families have lived in the same neighborhood, or even the same house, for a very long time. So, maybe it is socially comforting to have a reminder of one’s forefathers close at hand?

In Southern California, which developed much later than the eastern States, there is less W.A.S.P. history with a very mobile population which changes jobs and houses frequently, perhaps as often as every ten years (on the average). This more modern population is less focused on the past: most aging buildings are torn down and replaced by new ones and city acreage is too expensive to be used for burying corpses. Cemeteries in Southern California tend to be few and far between, very large, and located in outlying areas. Forest Lawn and Rose Hills, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, are good examples of expansive and expensive “final resting places”. They are both 100-years-old.

I think cemeteries are going the way of horse-drawn buggies, high-button shoes, and good manners: the world has changed, like it or not.

For one thing, religion is a less dominant factor in society, and elaborate rituals involving death have always been an integral part of religious observance. I can recall attending Catholic funeral masses where Jesus was mentioned quite a bit more than the dead guy who was being eulogized. Nowadays, most Americans don’t attend church regularly and approximately one-third of the population is non-religious. In modern secular society, there are fewer funerals and graveside services and more cremations and informal “celebrations of life”. (I went to one of the latter years ago where attendees wore Tommy Bahama flowery shirts, as the guy grew up in Catalina Island. It was a fun event that the deceased would have loved to attend.)

Cost is another factor. Burying someone in a cemetery can be very expensive, what with the plot, the casket, the embalming, the flowers, the rigamarole of burial, paying the clergy to say some nice things, etc. Cremation is cheap and the family can keep the ashes or scatter them to the wind in a location meaningful to the deceased.

One more factor has led to the decline of the cemetery business, I believe. That would be the long-term security of the facility. All too often, there are reports of grave sites being desecrated and the hallowed grounds falling into disrepair because the owner of the cemetery has gone bankrupt or has absconded with the maintenance funds.

By the way, who funds the maintenance of a cemetery? How does enough money get set-aside to guarantee the care of a cemetery for 50 years, 100 years, 200 years, etc.? Who kicks money into that pot and who manages it?

Unfortunately, the financial well-being of communities can ebb and flow, industries can move away, as can the majority of the population. Think about the Rust Belt, in which many previously thriving communities simply withered up and died. Who is paying for the upkeep of cemeteries there? Probably no one.

I’ve always wondered about funerals, fancy caskets, and expensive gravestones honoring dead people. What is the purpose? The deceased can’t hear the weeping and the eulogies, can’t really enjoy the flowers and the soft pillow in the casket, probably doesn’t notice the expensive “view” afforded by the pricey burial plot, and may not even approve of the attendees at the graveside services. Sometimes the “bereaved” include relatives that the dead person detested and occasionally, when a murder was involved, the killer shows up at the services to gloat. Lots of downsides to burying a corpse, I say.

Another puzzler (to me) is the habit of some people to go to gravesites to grieve and maybe to “speak” to the deceased loved one. (Hey, he’s dead… he can’t hear you praying, weeping, or asking for advice!) I don’t know that any religion claims that dead people can communicate with relatives who are alive or that the departed (who are six feet underground) have the ability to “look down on” loved ones and such. The Bible, and its idea of “Heaven”, certainly doesn’t confer that power on dead Christians or their souls. Spirituality is just hocus pocus: something mysterious and magical that someone wants to believe.

Informal memorials of death have always intrigued me. They are common in the American Southwest where a (most often Latino) individual has met with a tragic end, usually in a traffic accident. At the site of the fatality, just off the road, it is common to find a wooden cross adorned with photos and fake flowers… in essence, a little shrine to a loved one. I don’t get it: there’s no body buried there, the corpse was taken by authorities from the site, and the accident victim was either cremated or buried in a cemetery, presumably through the loving care of the deceased person’s loved ones. What is the purpose of the roadside shrine? It seems to be an informal Catholic ritual (i.e. the cross) that venerates the act or location of the actual death, as if that matters in the great scheme of things. Who wants to remember a tragedy? Or, maybe, the shrine is a way of telling the deceased that they were loved? (Excuse me: they guy is dead!) As my parents advised me long ago, “Give flowers to someone you love while they can enjoy them.”

(Hypocrite that I am, Charlie and I have a “memorial garden” in our backyard where the ashes of our departed Boston Terriers “Booger” and “JayJay” are interred. There’s nothing spiritual about this grave: we just love to be reminded how wonderful those little creatures were and how much they added to our life. It puts a smile on my face every time I pass it… while picking up Baby’s, BonBon’s, and Vinnie’s dog poop in the morning. I don’t “talk” to the dead pets as I walk by, but Charlie probably does. She’s a Catholic.)

Let’s face it: death is, sadly, a phase of life that happens with all living beings. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, we come, we go… there’s no evidence that we have anything else to anticipate when our time has come to die. “Holy men” pretend that we humans are special and that there can be life after death, but… how would they know? Jesus Christ himself claimed that he would, after death, return as Messiah during the lifetime of his disciples. He didn’t.

I don’t really care what happens to my body when I am through with it. Bury me, burn me, feed the hogs with me… it doesn’t matter because I’m dead.

What does matter is the quality of life that I experienced while living. Hopefully, it will have been a life well-lived.

So far, so good.

When one joins a cult and binds himself or herself to the charismatic leader, that new member is stuck “representing” the ideas of the cult leader. The cult leader may have some good ideas, but the bad ones might be reprehensible. Unfortunately, if you’re a member of the cult, you are tied to the goofy preaching of your Messiah.

How many people in Jonestown, Guyana thought, before downing the poisonous Kool Aid, “Oh, boy, I think I might have made a mistake!”

I wonder how many of the Republican Party faithful who have donned the Trump cult colors are wondering this week, “Uh, oh, I think we’re in trouble!”.

As the sovereign nation of Ukraine was invaded by its neighboring country of Russia, ex-United States’ President Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “genius”, while the United Nations was deploring the naked land grab and governments throughout the World were taking measures to sanction the warlike behavior of Russia.

G.O.P. Congressmen, Senators, and Governors who are up for re-election in 2022 (as well as other Republican Party hopefuls) and who have tied their campaigns to an endorsement from the ex-President, must be having nightmares this week.

How can any Republican candidate support Donald Trump’s lavish praise of a warmongering Russian President? Or his insistence that our current President, Joe Biden, is somehow responsible for a war in Europe? It would be awkward, to put it mildly.

Everyone knows that the Russian President was coddled by President Trump while he was in office. Everyone also knows that, without Russia’s behind-the-scenes involvement in the 2016 election, Trump would never have been elected in the first place. As President, Donald Trump hardly went a week without praising Vladimir Putin: the two had a very public bromance.

The Republican Party spent several years, and a lot of effort, trying to misdirect the two impeachments of President Donald Trump, both of which involved Russia. First, was the “assist” given by Russian social media hackers in the 2016 election, and the second was the collusion with Russian agents to smear the Ukrainian President, candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in the 2020 election.

When the latter did not help Trump get elected, evidently President Putin decided that he would have to unseat the Ukrainian President with military force, which is what we’re observing this week.

I voted Republican for many years, but I don’t recognize the G.O.P. anymore. What is the Republican Party, anyway? What does it stand for? What happened to patriotism (Trump’s January 6^th attempted coup!) and our role in N.A.T.O. (helping to protect Europe from aggression)??

Does the Republican Party even support democracy anymore, in our country or others?

The steady denunciation of the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election by a great number of prominent G.O.P. elected officials, despite no shred of evidence of illegality, undermines our Constitutional form of government which depends upon citizens voting for their representatives.

So, the “new” Republican Party (which is now a Trump cult) opposes democracy in the United States and, as of this week, in Europe, as well.

Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan would be appalled, for sure.

I know that I am.

It will be interesting, in the coming months as we approach the 2022 midterms, to see how G.O.P. spin doctors explain the Trump Cult ideology and, somehow, try to pin the blame for the downfall of democracy on the Democrats and Joe Biden.

Keep an eye on the Fox News propagandists like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham for the “pivot”, justifying the Trump Cult nonsense and easing the Republican Party away from its traditional positions on foreign affairs, solidarity with Europe, and protection of democracy throughout the World.

It’s going to be a “doozy”.

Charlie and I are currently watching a series on Amazon Prime streaming service called “The Fall”. Our neighbor friend Sandy recommended it. (Dammit!)

“The Fall” is a detective yarn set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and stars Gillian Anderson as the senior police investigator. There are a couple of plots and major characters involved in this story, but the main investigation concerns the hunt for a serial murderer.

“The Fall” ran for three seasons. The first season was okay; the second one, which we are watching now, is beginning to bore me, as the story line concerning the serial killer is becoming too hard to believe. The guy is just too clever and too lucky to have eluded capture and to have completely befuddled the Belfast police force. Viewers of any TV series are expected to “suspend disbelief” up to a point, and I normally do, but the current episodes that we are watching are an insult to our intelligence.

The serial killer likes to attack women in their homes and strangle them. He is not a locksmith or professional cat burglar so it is quite convenient that the victim always leaves a door or window unlocked so the bad guy can get into the house. The killer likes to stalk his victim, usually sneaking into their house, rifling though their belongings and such, usually while they are home. They never see him, of course, even though he gets very close to them.

The serial killer is married with children. The pervert likes to take trophies from his victims and even gives an unusual one (a necklace) to his 7-year-old daughter, who wears it all the time. The wife, who is an OB-Gyn nurse, never asks about the very adult necklace or delves into her husband’s lame excuses as to why he is gone all night or why he is unreachable via his cell phone. The wife is a gal who is smart at work but, curiously, becomes stupid as soon as she enters her home. Go figure.

As the police struggle to identify the killer by exhausting all leads, they miraculously happen upon a story about an ex-college coed who was almost strangled by her boyfriend at the time (many years before). The lead detective ends up interviewing this lady who, nine years after the incident, is married and has two children and is going about her life. The only information that the ex-coed can give the detective is that her boyfriend at the time was named Peter. So, of course, the writers find a way to accidentally leak this name to the serial killer who now goes by the name Paul. Everyone that ever knew the fellow until he changed his name called him Peter; however, once his old name surfaces, the serial killer immediately knows who ratted him out. So (I’m not making his up!), the bad guy quickly determines where this gal, married with a different last name, lives in a metropolitan area of 500,000 people. He goes to her house, which is conveniently unlocked, with husband home and snoozing on the couch and young daughter watching the serial killer creep around the house (she even talks with him), and kidnaps the poor woman. While the bad guy is doing this, he finds a way to let the daughter know that his name is Peter.

I’m not making this stuff up, folks.

I’m also not making up the fact that, in modern episodic police procedural dramas (like CSI and Law and Order: SVU), when the script writers run out of ideas, they begin to have the bad guys targeting the police detectives and their loved ones. So, while perps usually do their darnedest to avoid the cops, these killers and rapists unnecessarily put themselves in harm’s way to torment their pursuers or to settle scores. This only happens on TV.

So…

The lead detective on this case (Gillian Anderson) is staying at a hotel in Belfast. There must be scores of hotels in this large metropolitan area. The serial killer decides that he is going to visit the detective’s hotel room to look around or maybe to strangle her. Of course, he knows immediately which hotel that would be, goes to it, finds an alley door to the kitchen conveniently propped open, enters the commercial kitchen and immediately finds (a) a pass key to all rooms in the hotel conveniently laying on a table, and (b) sees a Room Service identifier of the detective’s hotel room on a nearby clipboard. (What luck!) He then goes to the room, enters with the pass key, and begins to rifle through the detective’s things. She returns to the room while he is there but, of course, he has just enough time to hide in a closet. And then, the Belfast police chief unexpectedly shows up drunk and proceeds to loudly unload a bunch of personal and case-related information to the detective… all of which is conveniently within the earshot of the serial killer. How lucky for him! And, of course, an argument between the two police officials conveniently allows the hidden serial killer to leave the hotel room without being seen or heard.

I don’t know how much more of this silliness that I can stomach. Sadly, we’re only at the beginning of Season Two!

By now, the serial killer’s wife knows that her husband is a sick fuck, has taken the kids and left him, but lies to the police detectives to protect him. A neighboring teenage girl, who babysits for the couple, knows he’s the serial killer but also won’t rat him out to the police. In fact, she creates alibis for him because she is infatuated with… the serial killer!

In last night’s episode, the police, who by now know the serial killer’s identity and have DNA evidence linking him to at least one murder, do not arrest him when they have him under surveillance at a hospital that he’s visiting to… (I’m not making this up!)… provide grief counseling (yes, he’s a licensed bereavement psychologist) to one of his victim’s who is recovering from his strangulation attempt. Oh, yes, my Friends, the gal conveniently has amnesia… she has no memory of his face!

(By the way, I’m just wondering: How did this serial killer know that one of his attempted victims was in that hospital? And, how convenient was it that this counselor, who was recently fired from his job, was then engaged to provide services to one of his victims… who was in police custody at the hospital while she recuperated! And, how did he know that she wouldn’t recognize him and loudly blurt out, “That’s the sick pervert who tried to strangle me!”? Luck just seems to follow this guy around!)

I don’t know where this foolish story is going next. The serial killer is a composite of Albert Einstein and “Lucky” Baldwin, smarter than everyone in Belfast and a fellow who happens to find winning lottery tickets in the street every day. And the Belfast police force makes the Keystone Kops look competent.

These non-sensical plot story lines upset the problem-solver in me, but Charlie is oblivious to them. I’m having to pretend to enjoy the silliness while my wife is lapping it up. I guess that’s part of the reason that we’ve been married for almost 48 years: we each put up with our differences (I’m big into “logic” while she is a “believer”) because we’re pathologically in love… we can’t help ourselves.

The only entertainment left for me, while watching this series, is to (silently) predict the next lame plot device the producers will use to stretch this “entertainment” out for the full 30 episodes. (I can’t do this out loud or Charlie will get mad at me!)

Maybe the killer will “Jump the Shark” like Fonzi did years ago on “Happy Days”? Or perhaps Gillian Anderson’s lead detective character will have been imagining all this stuff, like the Pam Ewing character did (in the “Dream Season”) on the 1970’s hit, “Dallas”? Even better yet, the writers could mine some gold from the preposterous happenstances like those that continuously appeared in “Forrest Gump”? Like the hero finding a mud-splotched tee shirt with a “happy face” on it. Maybe there will be a car crash and some guy will accidentally kill the villain. Or, better yet, there will be an identical twin who’s been doing all of this bad stuff, and the apparent villain Peter is actually a good guy. (That plot device has only been used a hundred times on TV crime procedurals!)

Peter Falk in “Columbo” was more believable: “Uh, excuse me M’aam, just one more question…”. He’d use that line in every episode! I can’t believe that these TV mystery script writers actually get paid for the uncreative drivel that they produce.

Wake me when it’s over.

I went hiking yesterday in the Mormon Mountains. During the one-hour drive to the trailhead, I chatted about stuff with my fellow hikers/neighbors, the Kasbergs.

I don’t know how we got on the subject of housing costs, but we began to talk about home renovations (as seen on HGTV programs). The Kasbergs hail from Indianapolis, Indiana so we chatted about “Good Bones”, which is a show about two women who buy homes in derelict neighborhoods, fix them up, and sell them for $300,000 plus. Linda Kasberg said that she found that hard to believe because that area of Indianapolis is not a part of town anyone would want to live in. (That’s a code for: “wrong side of the tracks”.)

I mentioned another show which Charlie and I watch, “Home Town”, in which the young couple remodel 100-year-old homes (that might cost under $100,000) and then sell the spiffed-up version for $250,000. I mentioned that we are immigrants from Southern California where $250,00 wouldn’t buy a closet, let alone a home. A lot might cost $250,000.

Yeah, Linda said, but that $250,000 remodeled home is in Laurel, Mississippi: “Who wants to live there?”

Good point, I said.

For one thing, Laurel is situated in the glide path of virtually every hurricane that heads north out of the Gulf of Mexico. The little town gets pummeled every year, sometimes multiple times. Flooding, huge trees uprooted, houses shredded, power outages… you name it, every manner of devastation occurs. The folks who live there must be gluttons for punishment. Those winter cyclones and hurricanes are bad enough, but the Summer weather is no picnic, either. The heat and humidity down there are ferocious, justifying several showers per day. Icky, sticky, yucky, sweaty… no thanks.

Laurel seems like an Eden on the HGTV show: beautiful tree-lined streets; a cute downtown with boutique shops; friendly folks with smiley faces, Southern charm, and lots of “Y’alls”. The hosts are proud of their town and its history: they wax nostalgically about historic townfolk  who built and lived in the relic homes 100 years ago. “Fine upstanding folks”.

Personally, I think that there’s another reason why that little town has fallen into disrepair, why most people don’t want to live there, and why those homes with good bones are going for $70,000 to $100,000.

It’s the culture: No matter how much the current residents smile, layer on that Southern Charm, and brag about their Christianity and “family values”, one can’t forget the ugly past and, unfortunately, current ugliness, as well.

As in other parts of the former Confederate States of America, Mississippi has a hard time letting go of “The Lost Cause” and accepting Black Americans as full-fledged citizens and human beings. This seems to be a common thread in the so-called Bible Belt: do unto others as you would have them do unto you… unless their skin is darker than yours.

Ironically, I was perusing my Internet news sites yesterday when I found an article in the Washington Post about an ex-Mayor of Laurel, Mississippi who came up with an answer to the “Negro question”. (Gee, that sounded a lot like the “Jewish question” that Adolph Hitler and his Nazis were Hell bent to answer!)

One hundred years ago, on February 20, 1922, State Senator Torrey George McCallum of Mississippi (the ex-Mayor of Laurel) introduced a Resolution calling upon the Federal government to obtain sufficient territory in Africa (from European colonies there) to relocate “the American Negro”. The Resolution indicated that it would be a “final settlement” and “the final colonization” so that the United States could become “one in blood”.

The Resolution passed the Senate 25 to 9, and was favorably advanced by a House subcommittee, before being rejected by the House 40 to 32. A number of the votes against the Resolution came from plantation owners who employed large numbers of Negroes, the loss of whom would severely impact their agricultural businesses. It was more a pocketbook issue to these Representatives, who otherwise would have favored the idea.

The Resolution would have force-exiled American citizens, all of whom by 1922 had been born in the United States. Their ancestors, going back to the original slaves accompanying the Pilgrims, were force-immigrated into the Americas, where they were bought and sold like goats and kegs of beer.

These would-be pawns in McCallum’s Resolution could trace their American roots back at least as far as Senator McCallum’s family. The excuse given for the urgency of the Resolution was “race consciousness”, a problem besetting White Americans like McCollum and his voting constituency in Mississippi.

It is interesting to note that in 1922, Negroes made up 52 percent of the population of Mississippi… more than the majority of the State. However, these Black Americans had little political power, as there were Jim Crow laws in effect, that limited their ability to vote, attend public schools, eat at local restaurants, buy property, and even drink water from a public faucet.

The Civil War had ended more than a half-century earlier, the Negro slaves had been “freed”, and they were theoretically American citizens. However, they weren’t treated that way in Mississippi and in the town of Laurel. Local Klu Klux Klanmen made sure that the traditional social order was maintained.

There have been another five generations of Mississippians since the early 1920’s (over 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation), and the politicians in Mississippi are still finding ways to make it difficult for African Americans to vote in Laurel and other communities. The current White residents of these towns, including the young HGTV home renovators, are certainly not responsible for the acts of their forefathers. However, they and their neighbors continue to elect politicians to public office who openly discriminate against people of color.

The Mississippi state flag had a stars-and-bars Confederate flag on it until last year. The University of Mississippi athletic teams are still named “The Ole Miss Rebels”. Those “rebels” that Mississippians are so proud of are the guys who fought to preserve human slavery in the United States. Some habits die hard.

I’ve got to believe that most Americans don’t agree with this type of racial bullying and that’s probably a key reason why people aren’t flocking to those fantastic real estate deals down in Laurel, Mississippi.

The weather is shit and so is the fake charm.

Last evening, I watched a YouTube video of an elderly guy doing a Grand Canyon “rim-to-rim” hike in one day. He almost died. Then, this morning, I saw a CNN story about a young couple and their one-year-old daughter who had perished on a hike near Yosemite last August.

So sad.

In the first incident, the hiker had not paid attention to Father Time, and in both cases the victims had not given proper respect to Mother Nature.

I once hiked down into the Grand Canyon. On that exploratory jaunt (when I was a young 68-year-old fella), I went about three miles down the South Kaibab trail to Skeleton Point. I was alone and didn’t want to overextend myself and it was a good thing that I turned around because I barely made it out of that Hell hole. Lessons were learned that day via my 6-mile round-trip.

The actual distance of a rim-to-rim hike is about 19 miles, starting at the South Kaibab Trail and finishing up on the Bright Angel Trail. Nineteen miles of hiking on relatively flat ground is a chore, but doable, at my age. The guy in the video looked to be about 70-years-old, and I could hear him on the video huffing-and-puffing from the start (on the South Kaibab Trail), going downhill! I wonder about his fitness.

There are a number of things to consider when attempting such a rim-to-rim stunt like this.

First, it’s one thing to hike down into the Canyon, but quite another to scramble out of it. The elevation change from rim to the Colorado River is over 4,000 feet, so the average slope climbing out of there is around ten percent. Some parts are much steeper. It’s a gasser, plain and simple, and there are many warning signs before one heads down the trail.

Second, although the cardiovascular exercise required to hike downhill is much less than going uphill, a steep downhill trek is harder on one’s joints and is dangerous, as well. Forward momentum (with a loaded pack) can turn minor stumbles into damaging falls. I’ve tripped and fallen many times on hikes, but practically never while hiking uphill. By the way, the old guy in the video arrived at the one-third point (the Colorado River) with a turned ankle and sore knees, whereupon he downed 5 Motrin and soaked his legs.

What is particularly troublesome on both the South Kaibab and Bright Angel Trails are the log barriers across the trails to control runoff… due to the trails’ heavy use by commercial pack mule trains. In some stretches, the “trail” is more like a rough staircase: it is very hard on the knees, calves, and thigh muscles.

Plus, there are lots of obstacles on the narrow trail: piles of mule shit, the log “steps”, and large boulders. It is easy to stumble over these items when physical exhaustion sets in.

Third, the canyon rim elevation is roughly 8,000 feet and the bottom (at the river) is around 4,000 feet. The entire Canyon is made of rock, which heats up as the day progresses. A hiker, leaving the rim and heading down toward the river is, essentially, walking into a pizza oven. The old guy in the video left the rim at South Kaibab trailhead at something like 6 a.m., when the temperature was 61 degrees. By the time he got to Skeleton Point (3 miles down) it was 100 degrees. At the Colorado River, the temperature was 115 degrees.

This 70-year-old hiker spent approximately 8 hours of his 13-hour trek in 100 to 115-degree heat. That’s brutal, no matter how old you are or how good of shape you are in. (By the way, a hiker just ahead of the videographer collapsed on the trail about 1-1/2 mile from the Bright Angel rim and had to be infused with fluids via an IV and medically evacuated.)

Fourth, the hiker needs to take copious amounts of liquids/electrolytes to keep the body and mind functioning properly. On my hike halfway down South Kaibab and back out, I packed 200 ounces of Gatorade (12 pounds) and drank every last drop. Hikers can refill their Camel back at the river, but then you begin your steep upward climb toting at least 12 pounds. Water is a double-edged sword, in that way. However, if you run out of liquid before you get to the rim, your body starts to shut down from dehydration, and you begin to make mistakes, like falling off of trails.

Another extreme hiking condition I’m familiar with involves high altitude, where your body is deprived of sufficient oxygen. Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California is a good example.

The Whitney trail is the opposite of the Grand Canyon trek, as you start the day at around 8,000 feet elevation (same as Grand Canyon) but then hike 6,500 feet uphill to the summit at 14,500 feet, the highest mountain in the contiguous United States.

The trail to the summit is around 11 miles. The average slope is around 11 percent, with some pitches much steeper than that. It would be a grueling trek just walking in one’s skivvies; however, when you throw in the filled Camel back, medical supplies, food, clothes, emergency stuff in your backpack, and your clothes and hiking boots, there’s at least 30 pounds minimum that you must lug up the hill.

And, you must make sure to retain enough liquids for the 11-mile hike back to your car: there are no water faucets or convenience stations along the trail. There used to be snow/ice along the route, but climate change has minimized that in the Sierras, particularly in hiking season. On the positive side, it is cooler as one climbs up a mountain.

However, the real ass kicker on the Whitney Trail is the altitude. Recall that the Grand Canyon hike involves hiking down into a heat sump, which is the environmental factor that exhausts people. On Whitney, with every step one takes going uphill, there is less blood oxygen available: 15 percent at 8,000 feet vs. 12 percent at 14,500 feet. This lack of oxygen (half of the amount at sea level) takes a toll on your cardiovascular system and the brain, particularly since the hiker is strongly exerting himself for hours on a real-life treadmill. Exhaustion, migraine headaches and vomiting are common side effects above 10,000 feet: it’s your own body telling you, “Get out of here!”

The altitude sickness issue can be somewhat abated if one acclimatizes himself prior to the hike. This involves staying a night at a lower elevation en route to the summit. I’ve done that twice and it helps.

However, in 2004, when I was 56 years young and minding my own business, a friend called me with the news that he and some buddies were going to hike Whitney “tomorrow” and had an extra permit: Would I like to come along? I shouldn’t have (I was out of shape) but I did because I didn’t want to appear to be a wimp. We ended up hiking the entire trail up and back (22 miles) in one day. It was brutal.

Another little annoyance about the Whitney Trail hike is the fact that the weather can change very quickly, particularly in the Summer. Thunderstorms can appear out of nowhere, because of heated air rising against the mountains, and when that happens… all Hell breaks loose. And that’s exactly what happened on the hike with my buddies.

We had just summited and were about to enjoy some food, rest and great views when a friggin’ hailstorm arrived with a fury, pelting us with pea-sized ice gravel. There is no place to hide atop a rocky skyscraper like Mount Whitney, so we had to dodge hailstones and lightning bolts as we retreated as quickly as possible down the mountain. It hailed, thundered, lightninged, and rained on us for the entire 11 miles down the mountain. We made it back to our cars in the dark, soaked and thoroughly worn out. What a crap day that was!

The un-funny thing about it is that it was my second experience with a thunderstorm during a Mount Whitney hike. I fell the previous time when a lightning bolt struck near me, and I was very lucky not to have broken my neck as I tumbled through some large rocks.

The hiking moral: “Anything that can happen, will happen”, so plan accordingly. One of our Whitney hiking guys (the leader, actually) ended up short of water, since he had assumed that there would be snowmelt available on the way to the top. There wasn’t, and he got a well-deserved migraine for his stupidity. (I believe that I hauled 400 ounces of Gatorade that day (about 25 pounds) and consumed every last drop myself.

Hiking alone is usually reckless, although one can get away with it on a heavily traveled trail, as Samaritans will always assist if they come upon a hiker in trouble. Hiking with insufficient fluids, food, and emergency equipment is foolhardy.  Taking a 1-year-old on a hike is insane: there’s nothing to be gained and everything to lose.

Of course, young people do foolish things. On my hike back up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, I passed young people heading down into Nature’s Oven wearing flip flops and carrying one 16-ounce bottle of water. One long-haired dude was shirtless and barefoot, as I recall, having passed several signs that warned visitors of potentially fatal conditions on the trail.

Knowing when to throw in the towel is also important.

Two years ago, my son Jeff and wife Carol visited us from So Calif and asked if I would take them to Zion National Park for a hike. “Sure”, I said. I was anticipating some easy hiking (as they were), but it turned out that several of the nice hikes were closed due to highwater and landslides. The only interesting one left was Angels’ Landing, something I’ve hiked on several occasions. I said, “We can do some of it and you can let me know when enough is enough, okay?” They were game for the adventure, so off we went.

There are two segments to this hike: 2.5 miles up to Scout Lookout, and then the last mile to the summit. The first is a sturdy cardiovascular test which typically separates the legitimate hikers from the wannabes. I saw an older man suffer a heart attack and die on this steep pitch several years ago.

Surprisingly, Jeff and Carol, who do not hike a lot and smoke cigarettes, made it to Scout Lookout. I was surprised as were they. We enjoyed the view and ate snacks.

And then, we had the summit scramble ahead of us, with narrow ledges to negotiate, cables to help from falling (1,000 feet to your death!), and a lot of people to deal with. There is a reason that this hike has been deemed “The Most Dangerous in America”: one slip and you can fall to your death. It is bad enough having to negotiate this tricky scramble by oneself, but doing it in a crowd, with many stupid and inexperienced young people around, is madness: if they slip, you fall.

Jeff, Carol, and I took one look at the 100-person scrum at the bottom of the first cabled sandstone escarpment and said, “This is a disaster waiting to happen; we’re outta here!” Instead of risking life and limb with all of those monkees, we enjoyed a leisurely hike down the mountain and lived to see another day.

(Evidently, Zion National Park management came to the same conclusion in 2021. Angels’ Landing now requires a permit to hike, and the number of hikers on the trail is limited for safety sake.)

The 70-year-old hiker (in the YouTube video) survived his Grand Canyon rim-to-rim adventure, barely, but now acknowledges the wisdom in Clint Eastwood’s maxim, “Man’s got to know his limitations!”

I might get talked into a Grand Canyon rim-to-rim hike with friends in the coming year but it would include an overnight at the Colorado River, for sure. Otherwise, that is one Bucket List item that will go unchecked.

Better still, I can do the hike on YouTube from the cozy confines of my living room couch while sipping a Diet Coke and munching on some Doritos chips.

We’re not over the Pandemic yet (or, better said, Covid-19 isn’t done with us yet!) but it appears that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Throughout the country, facial mask and social distancing restrictions are easing as the majority of our citizens have been vaccinated and “herd immunity” is rapidly approaching.

Hooray!

It’s been a long, upsetting slog to get to where we are today. Had there been better leadership at the Federal level back in early 2020, this plague might have been squelched within that very year. However, partisans played political games, the seriousness of the situation was publicly called into question, and large numbers of people were encouraged to believe that the whole thing was a hoax or seriously overblown.

Lots of innocent people died who shouldn’t have, many trusting that their elected officials were telling them the truth.  An enormous number of additional citizens suffered hospital stays, loss of work, restricted freedoms, and such. The toll on the American economy has been staggering and the labor market is forever changed. (Perhaps for the better: who knows?)

Over the two years of the pandemic, there has been a steady drumbeat of doubt and skepticism by conspiracy theorists and Trump cult followers that the number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 have consistently been inflated… for political purposes. These armchair experts loudly proclaimed that this virus was engineered by the Chinese/Democrats to mess up Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. A big to-do over nothing, they said.

According to death certificates (upon which doctors list the cause of death), more than 900,000 Americans have now died from Covid-19. Skeptics consistently say, “Bullshit, those numbers include all manner of causes of death! The real total is probably a fraction of that!”

Today, the CDC released the official mortality statistics for the past two years. Mortality statistics reveals how many people have died in the United States from any cause (including old age, cancer, heart attack, lung disease, accident, etc.). These statistics have been maintained by the government for at least one hundred years, tracking both births and deaths, allowing statisticians to project population growth estimates which are important to economists and politicians.

Local officials in all cities and counties throughout the country keep track of such things: there is no centralized Big Brother fiddling with these numbers for political purposes. If you die tomorrow, your death will be noted somewhere in your local jurisdiction. If a new baby is brought into the world, that will also be noted. Births over deaths result in population increase, and vice versa.

Anyway, the most recent mortality statistics reveal that there have been approximately 1 million extra deaths in our Nation since the pandemic began. That would be over and above the number of deaths that would have statistically occurred given the population of the Country.  By the way, those million extra deaths exceed the “official” CDC estimates of death from Covid-19 by about one hundred thousand departed souls.

This is pretty convincing evidence which confirms what epidemiologists and doctors have said from the very beginning of the pandemic: the “official” tally of Covid-19 deaths, as we all moved through the pandemic, was probably undercounted. This is understandable because not all people die in hospitals (where the cause of death is determined), not all deaths are autopsied, and there were probably a lot of deaths that occurred way back in early 2020 before Covid-19 was even known to be infecting people.

After all, our own President was telling everyone, on TV, that it was “just the flu” and that it was nothing to worry about. He knew that he was lying: behind the scenes, he was mobilizing government and industry for the rapid production of a vaccine.

Not to be outdone, some “Red State” governors have purposely underreported Covid-19 infections and deaths to lend credence to the party line that the pandemic was overblown by the media and to justify a “business as usual” attitude, minimizing unpopular social distancing measures. Many people died from Covid-19 in those states because their public officials pooh-poohed the dangerous situation and some gullible people believed them.

This pandemic has turned out to be the worst public health catastrophe in United States history, surpassing the carnage of the 1918 Spanish Flu. And we’re not out of the woods yet: the latest 7-day average of Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is approximately 2,300.

The moral of the story is, “Trust science not politicians”.

As I have reported previously, our pack of Boston Terriers was expanded to three with the addition of rescue “Vinnie”.

Mr. Vinnie is a wonderful guy and is a very different character than our female Bostons, “Baby” and “BonBon”. Of course, he’s a male, and so he takes great pains to make himself seem bigger and more important than he really is.

Full-grown at only 17 pounds, Vinnie is dwarfed by Baby (23 pounds of muscle). The other main difference from the girl dogs is that it’s apparent that he’s got more Bulldog (than Terrier) in his DNA: in fact, he looks to me like he could be a Frenchton (a mix of Boston Terrier and French Bulldog). He’s stocky and bounces, rather than runs, similar to our beloved male JayJay who died a few years ago (and ran like a steer!) Vinnie bunny-hops, for some reason. It’s not very manly, and I’m sure Baby and BonBon giggle behind his back.

Anyway, it appears to me that Vinnie has been attempting to establish “street cred” with Baby and BonBon, aspiring for some dominance around the ‘hood, so to speak. He continues to attempt (in vain) to humble the pack leader, Baby, in wrestling. That’s not going to happen, but Vinnie gives it a shot every 15 minutes or so. He’s not real good at ball retrieval: he tries, but Baby and BonBon are quicker and know the game. He took to begging for food rather quickly, but BonBon has him beat by a mile. Bonnie is also the pack leader in “Keep Away” and whining by the front door when I’m gone. She’s also All World when it comes to hiding toys around the property so she can play with them when we declare a “time out”.

If he were among the kids on the playground, Vinnie would be picked last to be on the team.

To his credit, Mr. Vinnie is a major league snorer, but he’s asleep when he practices his craft, and the others don’t tell him, so that skill set is moot in this discussion. And, he’s pretty accomplished at hogging my attention when I’m on the sofa, although Baby could bulldoze him out of the way if she cared to do so. Baby is also the Champ when it comes to face-licking… hands down. In that area, Vinnie has a lot to learn: he needs to chill out. And, the lad runs a very distant second to Baby in smelly fartage: she can clear a room, curl hair, etc., on a bad day. Poor Vinnie: he can’t catch a break.

As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

I was gone hiking rather early yesterday and forgot to pick up the previous day’s poopsicles out in the yard. Unbeknownst to me, apparently the pack had thrown down a competition on Sunday to see who could emit the largest volume of turds, winner take all.

(I blame Vinnie for dreaming up this Defecation Olympic Games. He had to be behind it, so to speak, because we never experienced anything like it when Booger, JayJay, or Baby were running things: it would have been beneath their dignity. But, apparently, challenged issued, challenge accepted.)

This morning I must have picked up at least five full-to-the-brim bags of butt biscuits, much more than normal. at least 5 pounds of dog dirt. No shit, I thought, these hounds are serious about this: bragging rights are definitely on the line.

It so happens that I’m sort of an expert on my dogs’ poop habits and forms: Baby craps PayDay bars like a horse on the move; BonBon’s are dainty little things, lots of ’em: and, Vinnie puts out the genuine article/Bulldog-type Lincoln Logs. He’s gifted in that area, I suppose. Anyway, trust me when I tell you that I can easily detect who did what and where: I am a sommelier of dog doo (I have a nose for the job, so to speak).

The dogs watched me this morning as I collected their messy offerings: the suspense was palpable. Which competitor had really excelled at bearing down?

It’s a shitty task to have to pick a winner between superb competitors that you love. They’d all done a superior job cleaning out their pipes: it’s a shame that anyone had to lose.

However, in my professional judgment, Vinnie took the Gold medal at the 2022 Crapapalooza. He came, he saw, and he desecrated the playing field with the most and largest turds. It was a spectacular performance.

This evening Vinnie was interviewed on ESPN by Chris Berman. “How does it feel to be at the top of the heap, Vinnie?” The Champ was euphoric, and still doing a lot of shit-talking. He declared of his competitors: “Those losers don’t know squat about… squatting!”

Well, I guess he’d know.

We’ve been busy lately.

Both Charlie and I have been seeing local doctors for a number of nagging problems. Hey, we’re OLD, and we have a right to bitch and moan about aches and pains and our parts deteriorating! Charlie is seeing specialists about urinary issues, hearing, aging skin, memory failure, and the like. I’m in the process of getting my right shoulder fixed: my orthopedist game me a cortisone shot last week to no avail, so it looks like arthroscopic surgery is in the cards.

I saw a cute Dr. Seuss book the other day that spoofs old farts like us.

Our good friend Sandy, who is only 59 years young and single, has decided to get a dog. It’s a “Cavapoodle” (mix of Cavalier King Charles and Poodle) and will replace the 15-year-old dog that she lost last year. I think she’s paying $1,500. She needs a buddy and I think this little girl dog will be just the ticket for happiness. She has to drive up to Salt Lake this week to pick up the pooch. Charlie volunteered to keep Sandy company on the 500-mile one-way trip, but is having second thoughts. I don’t blame her: it would be a long trip by itself… without having to listen to Sandy babble on. HaHa.

(Actually, Sandy is a nice gal and a good friend of Charlie. The both of them took a two-day road trip down to Las Vegas last week to socialize with an old acquaintance (of Charlie), look at an RV that Sandy is interested in, do some shopping, and eat some good food. They had a nice time, and I’m thankful that Sandy did the driving.)

A couple of sporting events took place this weekend.

The Waste Management Phoenix Open golf tournament was held at the TPC Scottsdale course. This event is popular among the younger crowd because they are allowed to drink a lot of beer and be rowdy, which is out-of-character for the staid PGA golf tour, where someone in the gallery actually making a noise (like hiccupping or yawning out loud) while a player attempts a putt is strictly verboten. No so in Phoenix, where patrons can taunt and curse players in their backswing and loudly boo crummy shots.

This has been going on for years and has morphed into a one-of-a-kind sporting event that is popular with fans and players alike, everyone letting their hair down and enjoying the nice weather and loose atmosphere. Especially popular is the 16^th hole, where there is an amphitheater built like a horseshoe around the green, with stands that seat an estimated 20,000 fans, most of whom are there to: (a) get drunk, (b) raise Hell, and (c) enjoy some golf, up close and personal. On Saturday, a golfer got a hole-in-one, whereupon a large number of rowdy fans responded by showering the green with beer cans and bottled water containers, many of them mostly full. On Sunday, another lucky golfer got his ace, and the bedlam reoccurred. It was kinda cool and funny, but…

It is a miracle that a competitor, caddie, or PGA official in the playing area didn’t get knocked unconscious by the barrage of missiles raining down on them. Why beer in cans would be sold in a sports arena where there are excited fans is a mystery to me, as virtually every stadium, arena, and such has banned such things for decades due to the danger to competitors and the substantial liability. Why a PGA event allows this is a puzzler, other than making a shitload of money off of beer sales. This event is the only one on the professional golf tour which permits, and even encourages, rowdy behavior from fans, giving license to imbeciles to bombard players with objects. It fun to watch but will not be amusing at all when someone unlucky competitor gets his brains bashed in from a flying 16 oz. grenade of Bud Light.

Not surprisingly, the patrons who pack the 16^th hole amphitheater seats are nominally warned (with signage and announcements) not to throw things onto the course, as if this releases the course management and PGA Tour of liability. And then the tournament organizers sell copious amounts of beer… in cans … to the patrons! Jeezus, how dumb can they be! It’s almost like they’ve winked at the potential perpetrators, saying that, “Well, boys will be boys.” That implied permission, and alcohol, is a deadly mix, and it is only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.

Super Bowl VLI was held on Sunday in Los Angeles at the brand new SoFi stadium, which cost an obscene $6 billion to construct. This amount is approximately four times the cost of the brand new Allegiant stadium in Las Vegas, which was (temporarily) the most expensive stadium ever built in the United States. But, it’s Los Angeles… what do you expect?

The home team Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 in an exciting game. There was a touchdown earlier in the game, giving the Bengals the lead, where the Cincinnati receiver clearly grabbed the Rams defender by his facemask (a rules violation) but no penalty was called on the play. Later in the game, a ticky-tack interference penalty was called on a Bengals defender that was a game-changer and the Rams capitalized to pull ahead and win the game. It might be my imagination, but I’ve watched pro football long enough (since the 1950’s!) to recognize a “make-up call” by the refs, correcting an injustice done earlier in the game. I think that’s what happened. It’s fairly common, and fans recognize it when it occurs. Let’s face it: refs are human and they make mistakes. Oh, well, it’s only a game!

I could have cared less who won the game, but my sons in Southern California are big Rams honks, so I’m happy for them that their favorite team became World Champs. And, it was a close, exciting game, which (and I’ve seen every Super Bowl game) doesn’t always happen, so that’s a good thing. What was not good was the cavalcade of absolutely crummy television commercials interrupting the on-field action. How those Madison Avenue advertising doofuses can keep their jobs after such drivel amazes me: I was not encouraged to buy any product that was pitched, and in some cases couldn’t figure out exactly what product was the subject of the multi-million dollar ad. It was just a panoply of fancy digitally-enhanced skits. One a scale of one to ten, I’d give the whole mess a “2”, at best.

Charlie, our friend Sandy, and I watched the game together. In bygone years, the halftime show was a highlight of the Super Bowl (because, often times, the game itself was a stinker). To be honest, we had taped the game and were able to skip the halftime festivities, which went on for about 40 minutes, I think. Let’s be honest here: we’re older folks and White as snow. The halftime show this year was a Hip-Hop spectacle that is not our idea of entertainment, once again because we’re old farts, prefer Rock and Roll oldies, and are not “down” with the new urban stuff. I’m sure the halftime show got a lot of younger folks’ juices flowing, and I’m happy for them, but we took the opportunity  to munch on chicken wings, mini tacos, Chinese spring rolls, and consume additional adult beverages while we enjoyed each other’s company. Our crew probably skipped by a number of outstanding commercials while boycotting the halftime show but, what the heck, it’s our right to be old farts who enjoy old time entertainment (and munchies). Besides, we took the opportunity to use the restroom, which old farts do a lot.

Yesterday, I joined up with the local hiking club to again visit the Valley of Fire, the oldest Nevada state park and a place of outstanding geological beauty. I’ve hiked there many times. In fact, on my last visit, my buddy Jason, his dog Ashka, and I spent part of an afternoon looking for his car keys (on a lanyard) that he’d misplaced somewhere amidst the thousands of acres of rocky hills and rough desert. On that occasion, looking for a “needle in a haystack”, we somehow escaped victorious. John Muir must have been looking down on us, favorably.

Monday’s visit rekindled some of that drama when we GOT LOST: the hiking trip “expert” found a way to misdirect our party of a dozen innocents into a maze of rockscapes, box canyons, and cactus. It was, as usual, a beautiful walk through a rugged but striking landscape, but it took us an extra hour of exploring to find our way back to our cars.

Lots of interesting sights, for sure, and I’m happy that my 74-year-old body is able to enjoy nature like this. I need to get in better shape, though.

On the 45-minute drive back from hiking, I was chatting with my neighbors John and Lynda and another guy named Ron. He brought up the pandemic (which, thankfully, appears to be easing up) and noted the almost juvenile, anti-authoritarian attitude that lots of American adults have exhibited during the catastrophe. Apparently, none of us in the car were Trump cultists, so we could talk about serious matters like this in an adult manner. Ron went on to opine that this whole 2-year ordeal, and the behavior of a large number of citizens toward it, makes him quite apprehensive about future dramas which might unfold and how America might react and address the problem.

Ron specifically mentioned the crisis in the Ukraine, and the standoff between the Russians and N.A.T.O. countries, and the possibility that hostilities could break out, unleashing cyberwarfare between the notorious state-supported Russian hackers and the U.S. How would Americans behave if, all of the sudden, the Internet went down, or major facilities or key infrastructure was rendered inoperative by cyberwarfare? In his opinion, based upon what we learned in the pandemic, there could be societal breakdown and all manner of anarchy running rampant, blame being cast, scapegoats being hunted down, etc. Not a pretty sight, for sure, but plausible given the state of affairs in our country.

I have to agree with his concern: I’m not impressed with the maturity of a lot of our citizenry. When anti-mask fanatics feel enabled to cold cock Walmart greeters, airline stewardesses, and restaurant hostesses for politely asking them to adhere to company policy in the pandemic, how are these political fanatics going to react when the shit really hits the fan? When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Nation rose up as one and worked together to prevail. Would that happen today, if we were attacked by an enemy, or would Americans divide into warring political camps, looking for ways to blame the other “side” for the calamity and rebelling against the government? Many testosterone-fueled morons are just looking for an excuse to whip out their military-grade weapons and mow people down. Like Ron, I am not confident that our citizens, as a group, have the maturity to deal with adversity. It’s a sad thing to say: our forefathers, who gave so much, would be disgusted with the situation we have created.

Let’s hope those Russkies, the Chinese, the North Koreans, and the like behave themselves for the time being. Hopefully, I’ll croak before the shit really hits the fan.

Back to reality today. Charlie will be working on bookkeeping and tax stuff and I will be walking the dogs, grooming them a bit, and checking in our RV that is being repaired in Southern California. I think that work is about done, so I will have to drive down there soon, hook up the car, and make the return 400-mile trip. Not so much fun, but it will be nice to get the rig home, ready for the coming year’s hijinks.

Have a nice day!