Month: September 2023

I try to avoid listening to anything ex-President Donald Trump says or does because, well, “consider the source” as my Dad used to say.

However, the narcissistic, gasbag who disgraced himself while President is running for the White House again (why/how the G.O.P. would let this happen again is anyone’s guess!) and is again, like in his previous campaigns, saying a lot of stupid and incendiary things just to get a rise out of his nationalistic M.A.G.A. base.

It’s working, to some extent… he’s the presumptive G.O.P. nominee.

At a recent convention of California Republicans, Trump excited the crowd by promising that, as President, he would authorize the police to shoot shoplifters on sight. The crowd erupted in cheers which, of course, was the purpose of the incendiary remarks: “I’m a tough guy, I love the cops, and we need to teach those urban thugs a lesson!”

(It is interesting that Trump, an individual who is currently under indictment for many crimes and who protests that the accused “are innocent until proven guilty”, would deny that right to others. Maybe it is because he believes that he is special, in some way? Possibly, in his mind, “equal justice under the law” doesn’t apply to billionaires or ex-Presidents?)

Well, of course, the President of the United States has no authority to authorize local police to do anything, so his “promise” was just fluff, similar to his campaign promise in 2016 that he would “make Mexico pay for an impenetrable border wall”. Whatever the crowd wants, candidate Trump will promise to accomplish that in spades. Let’s face it: he’s a salesman, bottom line.

Still, it is unnerving to listen to a candidate for public office in America, the shining example of democracy and a country which respects the “rule of law”, who would publicly support a police state governed by a “strong man”. I think back several years, when Donald Trump was President, when our Nation’s leader publicly fawned over dictators like Xi of China, Un of North Korea, Putin of Russia, and Duterte of the Philippines. He liked their style (absolute power) then and he apparently wants to emulate those tyrants in the U.S.A.

That is shameful for an American and scary, but what is more scary is that Trump seemingly has a headlock on the G.O.P. Presidential nomination for 2024. What are those idiot Republicans thinking?

Have any of you ever gone to the local supermarket, WalMart, or Costco, exited after paying for your goods at a “self check=out”, gone to the car to load it up with your purchases and realized that, OMG, there is an item in the cart that you failed to scan??? I’ve done it a few times. (Of course, I’ve also gotten home with my purchases and realized that I never loaded in my cart the bagged ICE that I paid for and failed to pick up on the way out of the store!)

Just think: if Trump’s Shoplifting Goon Squad was scrutinizing the action and realized that I had not paid for one of the items in my basket, those trigger-happy M.A.G.A. cowboys would be justified to shoot me dead without benefit of an explanation. That’s scary. What’s more scary is that, realistically, this kind of summary justice would probably be most often carried out against people of color because, let’s face it, those are the folk’s that are the target of Trump’s campaign rhetoric. “Poor people do bad things and they must be harshly punished” seems to be the billionaire’s message… right out of “Les Miserables”.

(Interestingly, in a 2014 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, research showed that almost 78 percent of shoplifters in America are WHITE, while 8 percent are Black and 8 percent are Latino.)

Of course, if you listen to any of Trump’s recent public pronouncements while on the campaign trail, it is quite evident that the ex-President’s intention, if elected, is to seek revenge/retribution against all of his “enemies”, much like one of Stalin’s purges in the old U.S.S.R. Democrats, teachers, the press, LBGQT individuals, public employees, non-Christians, intellectuals, environmentalists, gun-control activists, union members, poor people and residents of Blue states would be in serious jeopardy.

Recently, while on the campaign trail, Trump said that the retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 4-star General of the Army Mark Milley was a “traitor” and should “be shot”. What prompted this, you ask? In January 2021, Gen. Milley did not kowtow to the President when he tried to orchestrate a bloodless coup after the 2020 election that Trump lost by 7 million votes. So, in Donald’s warped mind, the General was “disloyal”.

Disloyal to whom?

All military men, officers and enlisted, swear an oath to defend Constitution of the United States from “all enemies foreign and domestic”. (Note: at his Presidential Inauguration, Donald Trump swore that same oath.) That would naturally include coup attempts. Neither General Milley, nor anyone else in the military, ever swore an oath of loyalty to Donald J. Trump, so the idea of “disloyalty” could only be ginned up in the mind of a narcissistic egomaniac/wannabe dictator who disdains our Constitution.

The ex-President, who has been indicted for about 90 civil and criminal charges, has also been publicly trashing President Biden, his son Hunter, Democrats in Congress, Governors, judges, prosecutors, and potential witnesses… seeking to intimidate them with not-to-subtle retaliation should these legal proceeding continue. Some of his M.A.G.A. cultists have followed up with harassment and death threats on folks who are just doing their jobs per State and Federal constitutions.

This reminds me of the last time something like this happened, in the final days of the Trump Presidency. Does anyone remember our President inciting an angry mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 because… Donald Trump had lost an election and he was unhappy. People lost their lives that day thanks to Trump’s crushed ego and disregard of the U. S. Constitution.

It is going to get ugly in the next several months, as the 2024 Presidential campaign heats up while, simultaneously, Donald Trump’s many legal struggles play out in State and Federal courts. Already, decisions are starting to come down against the former President and he is angry and becoming more desperate. His rabid fan base is, seemingly, waiting for instructions from a man whose chief talent is “selling ice cream to Eskimos”.

As French philosopher Voltaire once said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”.

No truer words were ever spoken.

Lots of things are happening right now.

Today, I took Charlie up to St. George, Utah for a gastro-esophageal “scope job” to inspect the hiatal hernia that’s been driving her nuts. She survived the procedure and the doc shared with us the results: she has a significant problem down there, one that would normally demand surgery in a younger person.

Charlie is going on 78 and has numerous medical issues that might preclude her going through another major surgery. She wants to do the surgery anyway because, as she says, “I can’t live like this!” We are going to have a consultation with a surgeon in a few weeks to get his opinion.

It’s a tough call, but it’s hers to make.

In the meanwhile, I am driving her to Las Vegas in the morning for her flight to Lexington, Kentucky to represent the Manning family at our granddaughter Autumn’s wedding on Oct 1^st. It will be an adventure for her since she has never really traveled much without me. Our son Jonathan, Autumn’s dad, will help Charlie.

I am scheduled for cataract surgery next Wednesday. The doc in St. George will do one eye at that time and the other eye a week later. Hopefully, there will be no issues. Charlie had it done a few years ago, it went smoothly, and the visual benefits to her were immediate. I’m hoping for the same.

Our extensive desert landscaping here at 961 Buggy Whip Court took a beating this Summer. When we got home, I noticed about a dozen plants that had croaked. I assumed it was a heat/irrigation problem until I began to dig up the dead plants. That was when I discovered grubs, a lot of them, in the root balls. Those little suckers, which look like curled-up slugs, have a healthy appetite for plant roots. They are practically the only bugs we have out here in the desert with the exception of ants.

I have ordered from Amazon a 1-1/2-gallon fertilizer/insecticide diffuser unit which works in-line with the drip irrigation system to infuse the water with stuff to kill off the underground bugs and nourish the plants. It will do its thing every time the drip irrigation system switches from Off to On. The equipment costs about $400 and will be installed by my landscape maintenance guy “Kenedy”.

My best friend Mac, who lives down the street, has contracted something called Meniere’s Disease, which is a condition where the victim is assaulted by periodic vertigo and dizziness. Mac, who regularly hikes long distances, rides his bike about 50 miles per session, and who plays guitar and sings at the local coffee shop, can’t do any of that stuff right now. He is pretty much housebound, afraid to venture out lest he fall down and can’t get up. I am committed to buddying up with Mac to see his through this thing until his EENT specialists can figure out how to stop the torment.

Count your blessings, Folks!

We’ve signed up again to do a 30-day stint in the RV next September in Oceanside, California. This will give us a chance to visit lots of So Calif friends and relatives who we only see once per year. It will also allow us to escape the September heat in Mesquite, which normally sees temperatures in the 90’s. Instead of our normal 3,000 mile round-trip to the Oregon Coast, the trip to/from So Calif is only about 700 miles total.

Speaking of hot temperatures in September, we will be visiting California while the 2024 Presidential election is heading toward its conclusion. It promises to be a “barn burner”.

As hard as it is to believe, it looks like old goats Joe Biden and Donald Trump will again be throwing political haymakers in that Fall election. Personally, I have a hard time believing that the Democrats would nominate a 78-year-old guy to carry their banner and that the Republican Party would nominate a guy who did a crappy job when he was President, got himself impeached twice, incited the January 6^th 2021 Capitol Riot, has never conceded that he lost the 2020 election to Mr. Biden, and is currently facing very significant civil and criminal indictments in New York, Washington D.C., Georgia, and Florida. He is a bum, but lots of Republicans like bums, evidently.

As much as Trump likes to poke fun at President Biden for being “so old”, the ex-President (yeah, he lost to Biden by 7 million votes) is, himself, an old man (he’s my age, for God’s sake). If Trump were to be elected in 2024, he would be the oldest President to ever take office and would be in his 80’s by the end of his term.

Does our country really need Presidential leadership from guys who are probably wearing Depends? Both act pretty confused while in public, one fumbling over his lines and the other one pretending to live in an alternate reality. Can’t we do better than these two stiffs?

I took the three dogs to the vet yesterday. While the vet was giving them their annual physicals, he broached the subject of the upcoming Presidential election. I was surprised and apprehensive, as I really don’t like to discuss politics with total strangers… who knows where they’re coming from, what hostility may be there, etc. Anyway, Dr. Steye of raised the issue of the two candidates’ OLD AGE and asked me if I though that Joe Biden would be the Democratic candidate when November, 2024 rolls around.

I told him that I didn’t think so.

My theory is that Biden is only running again because his opponent would be Trump, who he already beat handily in 2020. If Trump were not the G.O.P. nominee, I think Biden would drop out in favor of a younger Democrat candidate.

In my opinion, Trump is running again as some kind of perceived hedge against all the legal peril he is in right now. He believes that he can try those cases in public and intimidate the court system with his antics and his rabid fan base. Trump believes (and he might be right) that he can bully the criminal justice system into dropping the charges, just as he has routinely bullied the courts in his business career.

Donald Trump, in my opinion, doesn’t want to be President again but, as a narcissist, it is imperative that he remain the billionaire big-shot that he has convinced everyone that he is. I base this upon his past record (he really did not enjoy the scrutiny he received as C.E.O. of our American democracy) and the many statements he has made recently, making it clear that he wants to turn the U.S.A. into a “strong man” regime, decimating human rights, and punishing “disloyal” opponents like the Press, judges who have not kowtowed to him, and Democratic elected officials who twice impeached him.

The guy does not love America or democracy, just himself, which he reminds us of each day with his inane social media comments.

I suspect that Trump will be in a legal hot mess by Spring, 2023. He just lost a big civil trial this week, where his family business has been ordered shuttered in New York. The penalty phase of this case is yet to be played out, but Trump could be fined hundreds of millions of dollars for cooking the books, overinflating asset values, and underpaying taxes. This is a State of New York matter, so it will be impossible for Trump to get bailed out by his lackeys on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump is also dodging potential felony charges In Washington D.C. for his role in inciting the January 6 2020 Capitol Riot. Many participants have already received prison sentences for that insurrection. Then there is the mishandling of “Top Secret” documents case in Florida, another Federal judicial matter. These are potential felony convictions if things go south of the ex-Prez.

His biggest felony exposure is probably the election extortion case in Georgia. The extortion attempt was tape recorded by the Governor of Georgia, so Trump will have his work cut out for him to avoid jail time.

I think that there will come a point where the whole sorry mess will become so stinky that the Republican Party will have to bail on Donald Trump. When that happens, I would not be surprised if Biden then opts out, and two fresh faces will be put up by the two dominant political parties.

My guess would be Governor Gavin Newsom of California for the Democrats squaring off against ex-South Carolina Governor/U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. That race would probably be a toss-up, and I could probably live with either one of them.

Well, we have another year to shake this thing out.

Until then, we will just keep our heads down and enjoy life here in the Nevada desert.

My sister Kellie recently forwarded to me a list of nostalgic things from “back in the day” that made Charlie and I chuckle and reminisce.

Gee, how things have changed during our lifetimes! Here’s a list of things that I remember from the “Fabulous Fifties”:

• Garbage pails     In-sink garbage disposals were not available yet, so kitchen garbage was put in a pail outside awaiting trash pick-up, said pails becoming incubators for hordes of pulsating maggots
• Gasoline    There were often gas stations on all four corners of an intersection  (where we lived near Los Angeles), offering gas for 23 to 25 cents per gallon, the purchase of which also entitled the driver to full under-the-hood service, window washing, tire pressure maintenance, and Green Stamps (which could be redeemed for goods); premium grades of gas cost an extra nickel per gallon
• Television If your family owned a TV, it may have been one with a small “porthole” screen (like our first) offering Black and White programming courtesy of three television national networks which shut down over night; lots of TV shows, sports, and ads were “live”, resulting in many bloopers; game shows and children’s programming became popular; not every household had a TV, so it was common for TV-less neighbors to be invited over to watch a popular program
• Litter          Streets and highways were commonly strewn with litter, as auto occupants would toss trash out the windows and cigarette smokers would empty ash trays into the street at signals and stop signs
• Childhood diseases    Chicken pox, mumps, measles, whooping cough, and polio were common in this era before vaccination was commonplace; polio was particularly devastating (I knew a kid in elementary school who suffered from it and had ungainly metal leg braces that were quite awkward to manage and caused him great teasing and ostracism from his classmates)
• News          Most people got their news from local and regional newspapers which generally adhered to the “who, what, where, when, and how” straightforward approach, with speculative stuff and opinion only found on the one page OpEd section; TV news “anchormen” (they were all men) were trusted to deliver the facts; most newspapers were delivered to homes by youngsters (my brother and I had a “paper route” when we were young) on bicycles
• Politics       Most people didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about politics, as they were too busy trying to achieve “The American Dream”; the clergy stayed clear of politics in their sermons; the general public trusted the electoral process; elected officials showed more respect toward each other, consequently things “got done” in the halls of power; Democrats controlled Southern politics (the “Solid South”); most national elected officials in the Fifties were military veterans (nowadays the amount is less than 20 percent)
• Door-to-door Peddlers        Neighborhoods were plagued by an army of door-to-door salesmen, who hawked vacuum cleaners, encyclopedias, kitchen accessories, and cosmetics to stay-at-home housewives
• No Supermarkets        Local grocery stores and Mom and Pop markets satisfied most shopping needs, while perishable products (like dairy, bakery goods, and ice cream/popsicles for the kids) were delivered to households by (in our case) Carnation Dairy, Helms Bakery, and the Good Humor man; locally-owned neighborhood hardware stores took care of D.I.Y. parts and equipment needs
• Air Pollution       Every home had an outdoor incinerator that burned trash and contributed to horrendous smog (in the Los Angeles area, at least)
• Women’s Role   Relatively few women worked back then; instead, they had babies, kept the house tidy, took care of the kids, made meals, sewed clothes, and fended off the advances of the door-to-door salesmen; some women (like my mother) sold Avon cosmetics to their neighbor friends to earn a few extra bucks
• Men’s Role         A married guy’s role was to earn a paycheck, take good care of the wife, do “honey do’s” around the home, and discipline the kids; physical punishment for boys, like spanking, was common if not the standard procedure; spousal abuse was probably more common then, as the police (who may have engaged in the same behavior with their wives) typically turned a blind eye to it
• Cars  Almost all cars in America were made in Detroit, Michigan, with an emphasis on increasingly powerful engines, tailfins, and lots of chrome; two-tone paint jobs were popular and all cars had radio antennas; the average cost of a new Chevrolet in 1955 was $3,000, while the average family income was $4.300; two-car families were not common during the early to mid-1950’s (at least in So Calif)
• Paranoia    Lots of bomb shelters were built in backyards as protection (?) against a nuclear holocaust that was regularly predicted due to the “Red Scare” that was hyped by right-wing politicians and “doomsday” scenarios postulated by Liberals
• Hair            Women used a lot of hairspray, “Butch” and “Flat Top” haircuts were popular among youngsters and teenaged boys, adult men used Vaseline hair tonic to slick back their locks, and businessmen often wore fedora hats; toupees were common for balding men
• Toys            Popular kid’s toys included Hula Hoops, Erector sets, marbles, Pogo sticks, jump rope, dolls (Barbie was first sold in 1959), Lincoln Logs, bikes, and skates (including skateboards made in the family garage)
• Professional Sports    Sports stars back then typically had off-season jobs to make ends meet, it was very difficult for players to change teams, and televised sports were few (mostly on weekends) except local boxing, roller derby, and wrestling events; all televised sporting events were “live” (I recall watching the “Friday Night Fights” one evening when the bout ended by knockout after 12 seconds, leaving a gaping hole in the network programming, as the bout was expected to run at least an hour)
• Sin City      The highway from Los Angeles to Las Vegas back in the Fifties was a two-lane asphalt road; auto engine overheating was common on the 300-mile route, which included severalmountain passes over 4,000 feet in elevation; the major Las Vegas casino/hotels were fewer but classier back when the Mob was running things, table games were affordable, food was cheap, kids weren’t allowed in casinos whatsoever, street performers/panhandlers didn’t clog up the walkways on Fremont Street, women didn’t play slot machines dressed in bathing suits, and flyers for “outcall” prostitutes didn’t litter the sidewalks on the Las Vegas Strip
• Amusement Parks (in So Calif)     Knotts Berry Farm sold a lot of fried chicken and berry pies but had no “thrill rides” and was free to enter, Disneyland only cost about $10 for a ticket book, the Marineland of the Pacific oceanarium in Palos Verdes was popular for educational school trips; Six Flags Magic Mountain and Seaworld of San Diego were yet to open
• Sexuality   People were much more modest in those days, only bimbos and desperate actresses flaunted their cleavage in public, homosexuality was “closeted”, and respectable people didn’t talk publicly about sex; Playboy magazine was big, burlesque “peep shows” were popular among perverts, and gay Hollywood stars (like manly man Rock Hudson) took great pains to hide their true sexuality
• Youth Sports      Little League baseball was the predominant youth sport, as there was no organized soccer or Pop Warner football in those days (at least in So Calif) and no organized basketball until high school; Dads volunteered to coach Little League so that they could ensure playing time for their child
• Smoking    It seemed like all adults of that time period smoked a lot, even performers on TV shows; cigarette manufacturers publicly denied any connection between tobacco use and health problems (like lung cancer); cigarettes were very cheap and available everywhere via vending machines; few brands featured “filters” to trap tars and nicotine, and smoking filtered cigarettes was considered un-manly
• Racism       This “ism” was deeply ingrained in American society; it was the “in your face” Jim Crow variety in the Deep South, while it was more of a “behind your back” style in the Northeast, Midwest, and West regions  where real estate “redlining” and discriminatory criminal justice tactics were in vogue
• Unhealthy Food           Nobody knew or cared about carbs or cholesterol in the 1950’s, as hamburgers, fried chicken, French fries, onion rings, bacon, eggs and hashbrowns, pasta, barbequed steaks and ribs, candy, ice cream and milkshakes were popular menu items; no “organic”, gluten free, reduced salt, zero calorie, non G.M.O., or “free range” items were available on any restaurant menu or on grocery shelves
• Telephones         Every home had ONE, which was the old rotary dial type and it was common to be on a “party line”, where other households shared the phone line; there were on-line “operators” who would assist with long-range calls, which were very expensive; and there were pay-to-use phone booths located all over the community, each having a large directory for personal and business (Yellow Pages) calls
• Theaters    Everyone went to the movie theaters (indoor and drive-in) regularly because they were fairly cheap and full-length movies were rare on TV; the entertainment was mostly Westerns, sci fi, horror, “cast of thousands” Biblical epics, and war movies; double-features were common, with a cartoon or documentary short feature between movies so that adults could go load up on popcorn, candy, and drinks at the snack stand; drive-in theatres usually had a playground for kids to play in (in their pajamas!) before the movie started and during intermission
• Gun Violence     Bank robbers, general criminals, and the Mob were responsible for most aggressive gun violence in the Fifties, typically using revolvers; mass shootings of innocents like we often see today, using semi-automatic pistols and military-grade long guns, did not happen back in the “Dragnet” days because those type of weapons were not generally available to the public
• “Drive-Ins”         The Fifties were the period where Americans fell in love with their cars; most large communities had an outdoor/drive-in theater, where parents would take the whole family for an evening of fun and where teens would do naughty things away from the prying eyes of their parents; drive-in fast food restaurants were common, where food would be brought on a tray (which affixed to the driver’s window) often by servers on roller skates
• The White House        The President of the United States for much of the Fifties was non-controversial Dwight D. Eisenhower, an ex-4 Star General hero from World War II who, along with his wife Mamie, looked like everyone’s grandparents; Richard Nixon was V.P. and Allen Dulles was C.I.A. chief, both of them paranoid Communist haters
• Popular Entertainment        Singers, orchestras, and variety acts dominated the stage, screen, and nightclub venues; comedians purveyed “clean” jokes; the most popular TV variety show was the “Ed Sullivan Show”, which featured singers, ventriloquists, jugglers, acrobats, comedians and the like, and was hosted by a stiff, hunchbacked old guy (Sullivan) who had a strange voice; Mr. Sullivan was so “square” that he invited Elvis Presley onto his show but insisted that Elvis would only be photographed from the waist up
• Rock n’ Roll        It was during the Fifties that music designed for young people was invented, blending Negro “blues”/jazz with Southern “hillbilly”/up-tempo sounds to create the beginnings of rock and roll; the big early stars were Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ricky Nelson; crooners, folk singers, and orchestras rapidly faded out of the picture, at least as far as teenagers were concerned; “American Bandstand”, a music and dance show from Philadelphia, showcased the new artists and provided a venue for young teens to show off their newly-developed dance moves
• Religion     Most families belonged to and attended a local church; the Catholic Church exerted influence on national morals (motion pictures, TV, literature, abortion, etc.) and politics (ironic, in retrospect, as it was later revealed that parish priests were molesting young children and covering up their crimes)
• International Affairs   The United States spent most of the Fifties fighting off “creeping Communism” throughout the world, perpetuating fear of the “Domino Effect” and imminent nuclear war with the U.S.S.R.; our C.I.A. kept busy orchestrating coups in fragile countries, typically “assisting” the locals in replacing one ruthless dictator for another
• Technology         Scientists of the day utilized slide rules to solve math problems; criminologists were totally unaware of D.N.A. and the national fingerprint database (CODIS) was in its infancy; most commercial airliners had “prop” propulsion; microwave oven technology was not yet practical for home use; automobile engine in-efficiency averaged 14.5 miles per gallon; cameras required film which took maybe a week or so to develop; women’s bras were pointed, like Mt. Fujiama; most people used clotheslines to dry washed garments; businesses used carbon paper and teachers used mimeograph to replicate printed information; consumers used Western Union to transfer funds to recipients out of town
• Primary Education      Teachers got a lot of respect back in the Fifties; in elementary public school, classroom disrespect might get one sent to the Principal’s office to receive “swats” (corporal punishment); my buddies in Catholic schools told me that the men and women (nuns) teachers would wreak havoc on miscreant students by hitting them with rulers, throwing erasers at them, pulling hair, pinching their ears, etc.; lesser classroom crimes might end up with the student sitting in a corner with his back to the class (the “Dunce” punishment) and/or being required to write, on the classroom blackboard, “I will not talk in class” a couple of hundred times
• Marriage   Divorce was less common back then, probably because of influence of religion (particularly Catholic) and laws which made divorce difficult and costly; couples worked out problems or came to accommodation within the scope of the marriage; long marriages of 30 to 50 years were not unusual (the average marriage nowadays lasts 8-1/2 years); young adults in love were 2-1/2 times more likely to marry in the Fifties than in today’s America; being an adult and not married back in the day was considered odd/peculiar/suspicious
• Criminal Justice Police were given great latitude in how they handled suspected perpetrators of crime and many officers abused their authority; the “usual suspects” were typically rousted after a crime and coerced confessions were not uncommon (there were no “Miranda rights”); “people of color” were targeted in urban areas; predominantly White juries determined the fates of Black and Brown defendants; capital punishment (death by electric chair, gas chamber, or firing squad) was meted out regularly; chain gangs were common in the Deep South
• Advertising         Virtually all commercial advertising in newspapers, television, and billboards featured Caucasian models; TV game shows were sponsored by household products, as the audience was primary stay-at-home housewives, while evening programming featured lots of cigarette and new car ads; matchbook advertising was very common; prescription medicine advertising, which dominates TV ads today, was virtually non-existent in the Fifties
• Holidays    Christmas and Easter were major family events, as religion was more in vogue back in the day and family “togetherness” was more cherished; everyone shot off fireworks on the Fourth of July, causing many homes to burn down (shake shingles were legal back then in So Calif); Halloween was much more popular and safe then and most kids weren’t chaperoned by parents; Valentine’s Day was big in elementary school, where kids would often give Valentine’s to every classmate; birthdays (in K-6 public school) would often be celebrated by cupcakes for everyone, courtesy of the “Birthday Boy’s/Girl’s” mother
• Suburbanization          Tract homes, freeways, and shopping malls took off during the Eisenhower presidency, beginning a trend that would begin to decimate old “downtown” retail areas in small towns and cities and provide serious challenges to public transit
• Life   The Fifties were when Americans got down to business after the trauma of World War II, raised their children (the Baby Boomers), and pursued the Great American Dream (a steady job, a house “with a white picket fence”, a car, modern kitchen appliances, and a couple of kids); TV shows like “I Love Lucy” and “Ozzie and Harriett”, “Father Knows Best”, “The Honeymooners”, and “Leave It To Beaver” tried to portray the family model of the period; adult alcohol use was prevalent, while marijuana and hard drugs were only used by the lower classes of society; juvenile delinquency included such infractions as cussing, tipping over a porta-potty, trespassing, or minor vandalism/shoplifting; Americans were much more serious and “united” in those days, much less “partisan”, and much more focused on societal progress

Those were the “Good Old Days”, as I recall from my youth.

I almost killed Charlie (and myself) the other night.

For dinner, I air-fried some fish filets, put them on tortillas along with some cheese, shredded lettuce, and gave them a healthy dollop of tartar sauce. On my fish burrito, with more fish, I really loaded up on the tartar sauce and even squirted on some jalapeno sauce to pep up the taste.

The two of us sat back on our recliner sofa to eat our meal and watch TV.

Holy shit, mine was extremely spicy! I kept it to myself, with eyes watering, silently cursing the fact that I had splashed my meal with the toxic green pepper sauce. The burrito was almost inedible. My mouth and throat were suffering, it was so hot, but I ate the whole thing under duress, pausing occasionally to catch my breath.

When I was done, Charlie asked if I wanted what was left of her burrito. Okay, I said, even though my esophagus was raw from the torture.

And then, Charlie mentioned something about the very spicy meal, which is a no-no for her due to her hiatal hernia and GIRD issues.

WTF, I thought, I didn’t put jalapeno sauce on her meal! So, I went to the refrig to check on the tartar sauce; maybe it was bad? Nope, that wasn’t the problem; instead of tartar sauce, I had accidentally slathered those fish burritos with creamed HORSERADISH!!!

Oh, Boy, I had inadvertently attempted to kill my wife (and myself!!). It could have been a murder-suicide. Luckily, we survived.

If Charlie had croaked, I might have been prosecuted for manslaughter, because I did something reckless that caused her demise. That would have sucked, particularly since we are celebrating our 50^th year together in 2023.

BTW, I tried, unsuccessfully, to kill off my wife in the late 1970’s.

We were working together on some D.I.Y. stuff at our home in Riverside. I was bringing 2×4’s into the house when I spun around and clocked Charlie in the noggin, practically knocking her out. The 2×4 had struck her in the temple and she was pretty shaken up.

Shortly thereafter, Charlie experienced the “squiggly wigglies” (twinkling stars upsetting her vision) in one of her eyes and then… complete loss of vision in that eye. We quickly made an appointment with an ophthalmologist who surmised that it was an optic nerve injury. It was scary, he said, but it would eventually heal itself. In fact, he said that the problem would mysteriously go away in a matter of six weeks.

It did, thank goodness. One day, Charlie again had the squiggly-wigglies and … oila!… her vision miraculously came back. It was weird but very welcome.

Another unsuccessful attempt to kill off my wife took place many years ago on a vacation to Tulum, in the Mexican Yucatan, with our son Jeff and wife Carol.

Charlie was not feeling well. Something was very wrong with her and we suspected some kind of cardiovascular issue. There were no hospitals in Tulum, and the nearest was in Cancun, a couple of hours to the north.

Our doctor back home recommended that Charlie go to that hospital immediately. We talked it over a bit and decided (mostly my decision) to immediately fly home to California where Charlie could avail herself of internists and cardiologists that she knew and had confidence in. Another factor was insurance: we didn’t know what to expect in a Mexican hospital. It could bankrupt us, I thought.

So, we flew home while Charlie was deathly ill. It was a long, scary day.

When we got there, Charlie was immediately admitted to the local hospital. It turned out that she had experienced several pulmonary emboli, i.e. blood clots which had traveled from the legs into the lungs. Typically, pulmonary emboli are discovered in dead people when they are autopsied. Charlie had miraculously survived, no thanks to me.

Testing revealed that Charlie has an inherited blood disorder called “Factor V Leiden thrombophilia”, which genetically pre-disposes her to developing blood clots. It can be life threatening, as we found out in Tulum.

As I recall, Charlie experienced a couple of mild heart attacks while she was in that hospital. When the experts finally figured out what was going on, they did a cath lab procedure where she was fitted with an inferior vena cava “basket” to catch the clots which are traveling north toward the lungs. She was also prescribed medicine which dissolves the clots caught in the “basket”.

Besides almost dying, Charlie has been warned by her doctors to avoid long periods of sitting, as on airplanes. A maximum of 5 hours, tops, we were told. So, that pretty much ended our passion for world travel. (As an alternative, we bought an RV to “see the U.S.A.”)

On the bright side, Charlie survived my impetuous decision to fly her home instead of heading for the nearest hospital. Charlie’s doctor in California was not happy with me.

She could have died.

So, despite my numerous efforts to bludgeon, poison, and heart attack my wife to death, she is still alive and kicking. She’s a tough old bird, for sure.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

Probably every human being who lived within an “empire” thought that his/her world would always be that way.

That would include Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, and British, to name a few empires that lasted hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Eventually, times changed and nations that were once major players on the world stage became spectators in the grand scheme of things.

Ebb and flow.

The United States has been a great nation since 1900 and the world’s premier superpower for less than one hundred years. However, many of the things that made America great in the past (stable democracy, cheap labor, industrial might, quality of education, natural resources, etc.) are not what they once were, allowing other countries the opportunity to chip away at America’s dominance.

I’m sure that the U.S. will remain at or near the top of the heap for the foreseeable future, but the “world order” is constantly evolving and nothing lasts forever, particularly when our government in Washington D.C. is in a constant state of war with itself, making problem-solving (hence, progress) almost impossible.

It has appeared for quite a while that China would be the next dominant superpower. Lots of people, lots of industry, lots of exports, and a government which tends to have a long-term, strategic outlook. However, in its rush to modernize from 3^rd world status over the past half century, China seems to have “outrun it’s coverage” (to use a football expression), growing too fast and big for its own britches. It appears that an economic course correction may be in order.

India, which has 17 percent of the world population (like China), has a lot of smart people who are poised to thrive in the digital age. Indian universities are graduating 1.5 million engineers per year. These are the young folks who will be designing the future of tomorrow via artificial intelligence and the systems that will allow A.I. to change the way people live. For better or worse. engineers invent the things that change the world.

To put things into perspective, there are approximately 1.8 million engineering jobs in America at this time; all the while, India is graduating almost that many professional engineers each year. What does that tell you about the future?

Currently, there are a lot of unemployed/under-employed engineers in India vying for important jobs in their chosen fields. Many of these smart people, who speak very good English (remember, India was a colony of the British Empire from 1858 to 1947), are the folks who we encounter over the phone when we call “customer service” to complain about a product or service that doesn’t work. Many of these smart Indians have taken jobs in the silicon valleys of California and Texas, where they will develop skills to take back to India.

Some of these clever, under-employed Indian tech geeks are also the villains who perpetrate Internet scams. “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.” Digital crime pays.

Science and math are the backbone of engineering. It seems to me that these academic disciplines are revered in the countries that are up-and-coming while they are under attack by politicians in the United States. Scientific principles like biological evolution, global warming, and the benefits of immunization, to name a few, are the regular targets of derision by conservative politicians, conspiracy nutjobs, televangelists, and podcasters operating from their mom’s basement.

Political “truths” (beliefs?) and actual facts are often opposites. The extent to which America relies on the former, rather than the latter, to keep pace with the developing world will put drag on our society and imperil our standing as a dominant world power.

Let’s hope future historians will not write an epitaph that says the United States “believed” it’s way into becoming a second-rate nation.