Aunt Sophia And The Popemobile

Growing up under the watchful eye of a living saint was not easy. Actually, at times it was more than this poor boy could stand. My Aunt Sophia, know to us as Soph, was truly a wonderful woman. Four of her sisters were Ursuline nuns, Mothers Matilda, Florence, Zita and for the life of me I can't remember the fourth one. (I tried to call my Mom but the Cardinal game is on TV and she won't answer the phone when the Redbirds are playing.) Her first qualification for Sainthood was that she stayed married to my Uncle Socks, and that feat alone would have earned her a box seat behind home plate in Pearly Gate Stadium. But there is plenty more on the path to Sainthood.

While her health permitted she made lap quilts for the elderly and inform. She raised the money, bought the goods and made the product, and then gave them away. When she could no longer sew she moved her business model to baking cookies, selling them and then she gave the money she made to one of several convents she was affiliated with to help the poor that the nuns served.

I could go on with Aunt Soph stories for pages, but suffice to say she was what she did and not what she said. This brings us to the Popemobile.

Pope John Paul was doing his US Tour some years back and the Tour ended in St. Louis. The Pope hopped in his jet and headed off to the Vatican and the job of making sure that the Popemobile (hereinafter the PM) was properly loaded in a container and returned to the Popegarage, fell to my sister Colleen who worked for an international freight forwarding company.

The task of driving the PM from the private airport to her warehouse to be packaged and shipped was gladly accepted by Colleen. On the way to be dropped off, she cruised by and picked up Aunt Soph and the two of them climbed in, buckled up and took to the streets of St. Louis in John Paul's modified Mercedes. Now keep in mind that the Pope's visit to St. Louis was a big thing and everyone, even Baptists and Lutherans were familiar with the PM.

At every stop sign and all along the route people got out of their cars and snapped pictures, waived and blew their horns. Aunt Soph, with a great smile, returned the waives and smiled for the photos. She talked about that day until she passed at 104. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What Are Your Childhood Summertime Soundtracks?

A friend recently posited a question about our summertime memories from our youth, specifically the soundtrack we remember in our minds eye. My first thought was Johnny Mathis' slow tune "Chances Are" and dancing a slow dance with Kathleen Sullivan at the CYC dances.

The nuns, with wooden pointers, would be patrolling the dance floor looking to insure that there was light between the bodies of the dancers. Never one to be deterred by nuns and their classroom weapons, I took whatever opportunity I could get to grind. Those summers were innocent. Thank you Johnny, even today you are on my Pandora channel list.

The second quest my friend raised was, "...what is your sound track for this summer?" Now this one wasn't as easy to answer. I pondered it for several days. I easily went past songs that entertain me, like most Americans I like to be entertained, often too much. But this summer is much different, the middle class is disappearing, people are going hungry, in some European, as well as North American countries, people who can no longer feed their children are dropping them off at social service and religious facilities. No, this summer is different, way different, way less innocent.

And then it dawned on me, this summer's theme song, for me, is "The Ghost of Tom Joad", by Rage Against The Machine. This song covers this summer perfectly. Rock on, Comrades, up the Revolution, are you ready to die to protect your freedoms?

The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time

Having another birthday always makes me reflect on my past adventures. As I was pondering my past and gazing out the window of my home office I spied a large bobcat crossing the creek on a fallen sycamore tree. I watched as he effortlessly leaped the final six or so feet onto the far bank.

I was immediately transported back to Mississippi, circa 1967. I was making one of my regular beer runs, you see Oxford, home of the university was in a dry county, and the entrepreneur in me couldn't pass up the chance to fill the demand. Having had several cans of my cargo it became clear to me that I needed to make a pit stop.

I hadn't seen another driver on this back road route so I pulled off into a small unmarked field road and proceeded to prepare myself to bleed the lizard. Just as the flow started I looked down into the ditch and to my shock and dismay, I was faced with a female bobcat with several kittens having dinner.

I can still hear her hiss, and although she made no aggressive move, I somehow found myself standing on the hood of the car. I quickly zipped up and slowly backed out onto the road and resumed my illegal activity. Of all of the places I could have stopped that day, I picked the wrong place at the wrong time.

I've Been Away

I've been away. Well, not exactly away, but rather away from this blog. It's not that I don't have anything to say. I doubt that that will ever be a problem for me. My mother tells me, and anyone else who will listen, that I started talking before I started walking, and I haven't shut up since.


No, lately I've been traveling through life like a Choctaw. The old saying goes that the Choctaw travels through the woods with his eyes and ears open and the European travels Through the woods with his mouth open and his eyes and ears closed. I've sort of been keeping my eyes and ears open and keeping my opinions to myself.


I have been speaking for others by ghostwriting several business blogs, a lawyer, an entertainer and a high-end hairdresser. I somehow found my way back here, I don't know what I want to say, maybe just to say that. I intend to post here some in the future and share some random thoughts about this or that. SO, anyway, I'm back, and it feels good. Dog Out

I Learned Dharma

Last Saturday I visited a friend in a nursing home. He wasn’t there because of age but rather, he had taken drunk and during that drunk fell and broke his leg. The drunk continued for another week and the leg became infected, badly infected, and but for the keen observation and quick response of the owner of the cheap, “No tell motel” that he called home, his alcoholism would have achieved its goal of killing him.

After six weeks in the hospital without insurance or a pot to piss in for that matter, the hospital was more than happy to dump him off at this other facility some two hours away from Nashville in the foothills of the Eastern mountains. But enough about this guy, he’s going to get it or he won’t, that’s up to him.

As I was leaving the home, walking down the hall to the next building and into the main building, past dozens of rooms full of old people, some there and others not, I suddenly felt sorry that their lives had brought them to this place and this condition. I experienced that life was impermanent. I learned Dharma from that walk.

Dog Older and Out

A Thought On Casualties

During a two day car trip from Nashville to Scottsdale to deliver a car to my sister I listened to a book on tape titled, "A Concise History of the the Middle East Over the Last Twelve Hundred Years". I'll admit that I fast forwarded to the last six hundred years after it became apparent that little had changed in the political, religious and social landscape for the first six hundred. Conquerers came and conquerers went but never, not once did, an outside power bring any change to the region. A great deal of time was spent on Iraq, or the land that has become known as Iraq after it was created by the European powers after WWI. Had anyone of the giant brains in the Bush Administration spent any time, even a light perusal, studying this history, the last thing we would have done was invade. VP Dick Cheney had it right when interviewed after the war to liberate Kuwait and he said that to invade Iraq and oust Sadam Hussein would mire us in a war we could not hope to win. Unfortunately, when he was in power and his oil company puppet masters told him to secure the oil fields for them, he forgot.

When the war on Iraq began my friend Paul and I spent long hours discussing the situation. Paul, one of the most widely read of my friends, and I shared our ideas and our prognostications about the outcome. Paul has kept up with the death toll. Now this might sound odd to some but the death toll in a war can tell us a great deal about the politics of the ones waging it on our behalf. This is an update for your edification:

TOTAL U.S. ARMED FORCES CASUALTIES (dead + wounded) = 31,645*

TOTAL U.S. ARMED FORCES CASUALTIES + NON-HOSTILE INJURIES/DISEASE = 28,308^?

BLACKWATER CASUALTIES (dead + wounded) = 12,917i?

GRAND TOTAL U.S. ARMED FORCES & MERCENARY CASUALTIES (dead + wounded) =

*72,870*

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All Coalition Dead:

U.S. 3760*

U.K. 0169

Other 0129

Total 4058

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As of 07-31-07:

U.S. 118* Died of self-inflicted wounds

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U.S. WOUNDED:

03-19-03 to 09-07-07:

15,291 Wounded returned to duty w/in 72 hrs.

12,476 Wounded not returned to Duty within 72 hours

27,767* TOTAL

As of 07-31-07:

07,459 Non-Hostile Injuries - Medical Air Transport Required

20,849 Diseases/Other - Medical Air Transport Required

28,308?

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BLACKWATER MERCENARY CASUALTIES AS OF c. July 2007 (conservative estimates):

00,917 Dead

12,000 Wounded, applied for benefits

12,917i?

The Popeye Point

Until the recent troubles with the mortgage industry, the financial industry and its talking head puppets in the media were crowing about the rising numbers in the stock market. Every time I heard a glowing report on the market translated into a strong economic outlook I found myself saying to the TV “...and the stock market has what to do with the economy”? I know, I know, talking to the TV, or to anyone for that matter who is not there can be consider suspect behavior. All right, I admit that I’m crazy, I have papers that prove it…six pages in the last report.

But as crazy as I am, I thought the people in the Bush administration were crazier. Time has shown me that they are not crazy at all. They are lying, cheating, no good sons-a-bitches and the majority of the American people still buy into the myth.

When Bush took over in 2001, he had predicted a surplus of $516 billion for fiscal year 2006. The 2006 deficit of $248 billion, missed the Deciders projection by a mere $764 billion and change. Bush then went on to say that the numbers are "proof that pro-growth economic policies work" and are "an example of sound fiscal policies here in Washington."

Sound fiscal policy? Even conservatives disagree. Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation said, "The White House has a track record of projecting budget numbers to be a lot worse than they end up, which therefore helps them defeat the gloomy expectations and declare victory." If Bush does manage to make the tax cuts permanent, it will add more than $3 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. The federal budget would be virtually in balance if there had been no tax cuts. Ooops, is Bush stupid or just a liar?

Meanwhile, what we see in the economy as a whole is an immense shift of wealth from the poor and middle class to the very rich. It seems a little painful to have to point this out yet again after six solid years of it, but these strong economy stories are just lies, damn lies based on some sort of statistical masturbation.

While lightening the tax burden for the rich, other parts of the Bush economic program continue to undermine the middle class in this country. As you may recall, in 2005 the credit industry successfully rammed a disgraceful bankruptcy reform bill through Congress. It's working out just the way we expected it to: Middle class families are borrowing more than ever to make ends meet. Most families go under if: (a) they lose a job or (b) they have a health emergency crisis.

An attorney friend of mine sums up the legislation's impact: "It's designed to make life miserable for anybody who owes money. It's a help-the-banks, squish-the-little-guy law."

One of the lessons of history is that we don’t learn anything from history. If the powers that be would read just one book I suggest that if they value their interests they might want to read Das Kapital and the section about what I call the “Popeye Point”. That point occurs when the squishees declare, “I’ve stands all I can stand, I can’t stands no more.” At that point there will be a place along the wall for the ‘haves and the have mores.” It might make a good reality show.

Dog Out