Email Buddy Day

I am declaring today "email buddy day." This is the day I am setting aside to respond to my email buddies - or at least those that don't use the "f" word in their messages to me. I give them a special - more personal - response.

The first email today comes from Robert in Portland (Maine? Oregon?). I mentioned the other day that I'm a proud member of the National Rifle Association. He has a problem with that.

You and your gun-toting buddies are all alike. Rednecks all. The NRA and the Republicans - is there a difference? oppose every progress this country attempts while there are people out in the streets of our cities armed with ak47's killing women and children. Doesn't that bother you?

Answer: No.

What bothers me is the fact that people like you are allowed to watch reruns of old Clint Eastwood movies and to fantasize about mayhem in the streets. I have some familiarity with the AK-47. It is a fully automatic weapon that is fully illegal in this country for a citizen to own - or to fire at women and children (without a special federal permit; to own that is, not to shoot women and children with). You probably meant one of the civilian versions of the weapon. I sometimes make the same mistake. You are forgiven. 

What I won't forgive you for is being a coward and for buying in to this kind of bullshit. Show me one instance of an individual (adult/child, male/female) who was killed by someone armed with an AK-47 in 2004 (in the USA) and I'll kiss your hairy, wrinkled, pimpled butt.

Now to more serious matters.

Why am I a member of the NRA? I am not a fanatic. I don't even hunt any more. I did years ago but drifted away from it for whatever reason (I don't drink much anymore either. The two are surely related.). I own a sizeable arsenal of weapons but don't flaunt them. Truth be known, I don't often fire any of them. My daughter will occasionally drop by to hone her skills at dropping an intruder with her Ruger 9mm semi-automatic badass handgun, but with that exception when we go back the turnpike and blow the hell out of a dead tree, I don't "sling much hot lead."

I am, however, a member of the National Rifle Association for what I consider to be the most important reason on earth. 

They protect me. 

I have a passion for liberty. For the freedoms that a bunch of dead white guys passed down to us. For those precious rights outlined in the Bill of Rights (as well as others that are delineated in natural law) that many of our ancestors fought for - and in the case of heroes like my father at Normandy, shed blood to protect.

I know how insecure our freedoms are. There are politicians in Washington who find it cumbersome to have to work around these rights relating to freedoms of speech, religion, assembly - to bear arms in defense of one's home and country- and would, if given the chance, legislate them out of existence.

John McCain comes to mind.

The NRA is focused on one of these issues - with passion and unrelenting fortitude. They - we - accept no less than that our elected representatives (our employees!) adhere to the principles upon which these United States rest, whether they like it or not. We - the people - have a right to keep and bear arms. We make this demand - that the government not interfere with this most precious of rights - for the most fundamental of reasons. One that has been driven home by Charlton Heston, a man of towering integrity - and another of my heroes.

The original amendments we refer to as the Bill of Rights contain ten of what the constitutional framers termed unalienable rights. These rights are ranked in random order and are linked by their essential equality. The Bill of Rights came to us with blinders on. It doesn't recognize color, or class, or wealth. It protects not just the rights of actors, or editors, or reporters, but extends even to those we love to hate.
I say the Second Amendment is. in order of importance, the first amendment. It is America's First Freedom, the one right that protects all of the others. Among freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly, of redress of grievances, it is the first among equals. It alone offers the absolute capacity to live without fear. The right to keep and bear arms is the one right that allows "rights" to exist at all.

Either you believe that, or you don't, and you must decide. 

I do. I have. I proudly send the NRA $35 each year having made that decision.

 

And I sleep well at night.

Now aren't you glad you brought this up, Robert?

Computers Are Our Friends, Usually

This article in the New York Times this morning struck a cord: 

Does Not Compute  

By Nicholas G. Carr

Carlisle, Mass. — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has officially entered what computer professionals call "software hell." After spending $170 million to create a program that would give agents ready access to information on suspected terrorists, the bureau admitted last week that it's not even close to having a working system. In fact, it may have to start from scratch. 

Shocking? Not at all. A look at the private sector reveals that software debacles are routine. And the more ambitious the project, the higher the odds of disappointment. It may not be much consolation to taxpayers, but the F.B.I. has a lot of company. Software hell is a very crowded place.

Consider Ford Motor Company's ambitious effort to write new software for buying supplies. Begun in 2000, the goal of the project, code-named Everest, was to replace Ford's patchwork of internal purchasing systems with a uniform system that would run over the Internet. The new software was supposed to reduce paperwork, speed orders and slash costs. But the effort sank under its own complexity. When it was rolled out for testing in North America, suppliers rebelled; according to Automotive News, many found the new software to be slower and more cumbersome than the programs it was intended to replace. Last August, Ford abandoned Everest amid reports that the project was as much as $200 million over budget.

A McDonald's program called Innovate was even more ambitious - and expensive. Started in 1999 with a budget of $1 billion, the network sought to automate pretty much the entire fast-food empire. Software systems would collect information from every restaurant - the number of burgers sold, the speed of customer service, even the temperature of the oil in the French fry vats - and deliver it in a neat bundle to the company's executives, who would be able to adjust operations moment by moment.

Or so it was promised. Despite the grand goals, the project went nowhere. In late 2002, McDonald's killed it, writing off the $170 million that had already been spent. 

I had the good fortune of working for a company several years ago the corporate leadership of which decided that it needed to keep up with the competition and in so doing, allocated $1 billion to a computer system transformation. What the company ended up with several years later can best be described as a complete mess. An impressive mess but a mess just the same. The new system was slower, more complex, and less user-friendly. It required that the company maintain 700 programmers on their employ. The mainframe people within the headquarters building couldn't
communicate with the PC people. In some cases, mainframe people couldn't communicate with each other. As time went on, upgrades and patches were added, brought in by different providers, some of whose consultants didn't speak English. And we all prayed that, when we had need of a programming change, that someone was still with the company that knew something about the original code. 

And we talked in terms of "man-months" to get a change made. "You want me to alter a field in this report? I can do it. It will take nine man-months." The most frustrating moment I remember in this regard was on a day when I asked a senior programming department head for some rather major changes. I laid out for her what I needed, in great detail. She took it all in, asked a few questions, took lots of notes and told me, without expression , it will take five years to accomplish. What?!!!

"Never mind. We'll make do."

Believe it or not, developing our corporate computer system was not our core business. We actually sold stuff to customers. 

Research by the Standish Group, a software research and consulting firm, illustrates the troubled fates of most big software initiatives. In 1994, researchers found, only 16 percent were completed on time, on budget and fulfilling the original specifications. Nearly a third were canceled outright, and the remainder fell short of their objectives. More than half of the cost overruns amounted to at least 50 percent of the original budget. Of the projects that went off schedule, almost half took more than twice as long as originally planned. A follow-up survey in 2003, however, showed that corporate software projects were doing better; researchers found that the percentage of successful projects had risen to 34 percent.

We learned it the hard way. Such wasted effort. And scarce resources.

But I learned from that experience. A few years later, I was working for a different company and was asked by senior management to take over a troubled department. Morale was poor. Training was substandard. We had your standard personnel issues relating to productivity, discipline, absenteeism, and motivation - or lack thereof. 

And the computer program in use was unsatisfactory. It was purchased from a development firm that came in and designed it for us, at great expense. The company provided consultants and a help desk should we have need, and the software was sophisticated enough to put a man on Mars. I remember too that the company allowed as many users to log onto the system, after we paid - for each one of our employees - $10,000 per year in the way of a license fee.

The problem was, the software was so complex that only one person in the department could run reports from this monster. We had apparently sent her off at great expense to learn its intricacies. Everyone else would input data (it was a multi-user networked system) but only one woman, who would close her office door and work her magic in secret, could actually get this elaborate system to provide us with any meaningful information. Naturally, we had to accept this woman's peculiarities and workplace demands. Without her, we were doomed.

Worse yet, I realized, having sat down with one of these consultants for several precious days, that we were only utilizing about 5% of this software's capabilities. It had functionality that we had absolutely no need of.

So I scrapped it. 

I went out and bought a new program. Off the shelf. Actually manufactured by Microsoft. No consultants. Inexpensive to use. Easy to operate. It integrated perfectly with Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. It allowed for multiple users to input data simultaneously. We generated meaningful and sophisticated reports with it. And anyone could learn to configure the software to spit out whatever data we felt we needed. It worked. It was sufficient. Not being our core business, it allowed us to free up funds for our core business - selling stuff.

What happened between 1994 and 2003? The Internet boom went bust. Stung by wasted investments in complicated software systems, business executives began taking a more skeptical view of such projects. They scaled back their expectations, pursuing more modest software enhancements with narrower goals - and far higher chances of success.  

Equally important, they stopped trying to be creative. Rather than try to customize their software, they began looking for cheaper, off-the-shelf programs that would get the job done with a minimum of fuss. When necessary, they changed their own procedures to fit the available software. Old, generic technology may not be glamorous, but it has an important advantage: it works. 

It may well turn out that the F.B.I.'s biggest problem was its desire to be innovative - to build a new wheel rather than use an old one within easy reach. When it comes to developing software today, innovation should be a last resort, not a first instinct.

I prefer to think of it as graduating from "the school of hard knocks."

Treasures In The Attic

If I could choose my career all over again (and didn't have to worry about making a living), I'd be an attic explorer. Barrymore Laurence Scherer (in the Wall Street Journal) got to experience the excitement recently:

Waxing Nostalgic About Early Recordings
In an old attic, I find a treasure trove for a music lover.

Recently, while looking through an old house for sale in our neighborhood, I came upon a pile of 78s in the attic. (Note to those who regard even vinyl LPs as antiques: 78 rpm shellac discs were the recording-industry standard before 1950.) I mentioned my interest to the owner, who was delighted that the records would have a good home. They had been her grandmother's, and when I came by to remove them, I discovered that the single pile was only the tip of the iceberg. There were several hundred in all. Bliss! 

Paula had two great-aunts a number of years ago who lived all their lives in a small home overlooking the Ohio River in southern Indiana. They were, in their final years, wheelchair bound and, as it happened, died at about the same point in time. In their will, they had decided to leave their home to a neighbor and their belongings to be divided among the closest relatives, including my mother-in-law. 

Paula and I were asked to travel with her mother to the old home to collect those items of value that had been designated for her to have; the remainder of the belongings - clothing, appliances, etc., were to be given to charity. So we made the journey to Aunt Corrine's house, and when we entered, stepped back in time.

The old home was in great need of repair. The two old ladies had lived alone for many years and were unable, both physically and financially, to keep the home in reasonable condition; the roof needed replacing, the siding hadn't had a new coat of paint in years, and all the windows needed to be recaulked. But the interior of the small frame house was of great value; a treasure trove of antiques. Upon entering I was immediately drawn to an old ice box. For those of you too young to know what an ice box is - or was - it was used in the days before electricity was available in the home to keep food cold. One literally put blocks of ice in it on a regular basis, thus the name ice box. You may still hear some old folks refer to their refrigerator as an icebox.

The source for water in the house was a well standard - or hand pump. Someone at some point in time in the past had installed a sink in the kitchen area but water lines had never been run to it so a small hand pump was mounted next to the sink and the old ladies pumped water whenever they wanted to do dishes or make coffee or simply to get a drink of well water.

Facing the well standard in the kitchen was an old pie safe. Those of you who have some understanding of antiques will recognize the name as being an upright cupboard, this one having the classic tin door panels with the pinhole scrollwork on each. I had this pie safe dated by an expert some time later (this was the only piece that Paula and I took) and he estimated it was from the 1880's.

The other furniture in the home was as old. Most of it was, in that early American sort of way, simple, functional, and built to last forever. Unlike the particleboard or veneer furniture you so often find today.

While there I came across the drawers of letters and memorabilia that the two old ladies had accumulated over the years. Being the amateur historian, I took time out to inspect some of it. Aunt Corrine had kept everything, including old newspapers and magazines. I remember she had a small box half the size of a shoe box that contained tiny remnants of thread; the purpose for which I haven't a clue. But there were also a number of items a museum would probably love to have. I saw maps of Indiana from the days before there were interstate highways (dated as far back as 1920). The old ladies had kept their ration stamps from the World War II era. They were still (this would have been about 1988) entitled to purchase - by U.S. government authority - a set of tires and a ration of sugar. And a pair of shoes. Thier ration book still contained stamps for each. From a time long forgotten when all of this country's resources were devoted to fighting a war on the Nazis and Japanese.

They had filed receipts for the sale of tobacco in the 50's. And for the purchase of a battery for a tractor long gone. And there were the flyers from their local church going back decades. They seemed to love their church. They even kept newspaper clippings of weddings of people who are, in their own right, probably elderly today. And who hopefully have fond memories of these two women who are already forgotten by all but a relatively few old souls.

And of course there were the personal letters. That strangers like me should never be allowed to see. They were to be destroyed, whether right or wrong.

Such memories.

Blue vs Gray Ground Zero

For those of you who enjoy researching - or reliving - the Civil War, you will be envious when I tell you I am at ground zero tonight - Fredericksburg, Virginia. In fact I drove through (or near) most of the famous sites of the 1861 to 1864 conflict - names the rest of you should know if you were paying attention in US history class. Appomattox, Petersburg, Spotsylvania. And Richmond. And I went past several battlefield sites the names of which only the aficionado will recognize - High Bridge, Saylor's Creek, Five Forks, Drewry's Bluff.

Unfortunately if you exalt the past, you'll hate the present. I rolled into Fredericksburg at about 6:30 and was rather surprised to find traffic on southbound I-95 crawling along. Believe it or not, it is from the evening rush of commuters trying to get home - from Washington D.C. This is how far they drive these days in order to escape the big city. I'm not sure but D.C. must be 50 miles up the highway. 

What that means for this area is that there is tremendous growth. Which puts considerable pressure on battlefield preservationists to save what they can of a vanishing topography. There is, I'm told, a large tract of land just west of my hotel that was a key part of the landscape in Stonewall Jackson's legendary march around the Union army in May, 1862 that resulted in the destruction of one wing of that army and provided Robert E Lee with what proved to be his most spectacular victory of the war. Today it is a large residential development. With high-end homes.

I guess the moral of this story is this: If you intend to travel to Fredericksburg, Virginia in order to take in those legendary sites like the "muleshoe" at Spotsylvania, or the stone wall or Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg, or Todd's Tavern at the Wilderness, or the Chancellor House at Chancellorsville, you'd better hurry. Either that or anticipate seeing a Denny's where the Irish Brigade met its fate.

Come Visit The Inner Harbor

I spent a relaxing evening down in the Inner Harbor of Baltimore last night. Even though we are in the dead of winter, it was a wonderful Spring-like evening, allowing me to stroll down and see the old navy ship, "USS Constellation" and to partake of the most delicious cajun crab cakes at Phillips' (you have to order crab cakes when you go to Baltimore; it's the law.) For those of you looking for a spectacular place to visit on vacation, come on up to Baltimore. It provides for great entertainment and lasting memories.

The Language Barrier

I rolled into Manassas, Virginia this evening and decided the first thing I needed to do was satisfy my addiction to Chinese food. I'm not overly familiar with the area but I knew where all the retail stores were and I also knew that in one of the strip centers here there would be a Chinese resaurant. There always is. I prefer the small carryout shop as opposed to the big Chinese buffets because I have this strange inability to stop eating the stuff. If a buffet table has twelve kinds of chicken (General Tsao's, Honey, Barbecue, Sesame, etc.), I will go for all twelve. It is an awful thing to watch.

Well, this evening I ran into a dilemma. It had to do with the language barrier. I pulled up to this small restaurant that had the name "Rho Nguyen" on the facade of the building. Hmm. I looked closely at the door and windows to see the familiar "Chinese Carryout," or "Chinese Quisine," or something. Nothing. So is Rho Nguyen Chinese?

The thought went through my mind of an incident several years ago in Chicago. I walked into a restaurant thinking that it was Chinese. It was Philipino. I accepted my error and asked for a menu. Twenty minutes later, I'm still trying to figure out what phanduong pot is. My creative mind was racing. I ended up ordering something that looked like beef and hoped for the best.

I had a similar incident in El Paso about five years ago. I was travelling there regularly and, because I was focused on a business project, I had made no attempt to get out at night and take part in the local quisine. A friend was shocked when I told him I had never tasted the Mexican food the whole time I was there in El Paso. It was suggested that what I needed to do was to walk across the Rio Grande into Juarez and try the food there. I had no burning desire to get my head handed to me over there so I made the decision to go out one night and find some honest-to-God Mexican food - on the El Paso side of the river.

I drove around for a while, looking at several restaurants but each one made me feel like, when I entered, I'd be the only gringo in the place and that nobody would be able to speak English. So I ended up at Taco Bell. Excellent Mexican by the way.

So this evening I had to decide if I was going to try "Rho Nguyen." As I was starting to enter, something came to mind - the name of the last president of South Vietnam before it surrendered to the North Vietnamese in 1975 (I know. I'm the only remaining person on earth who knows who that was. I was always great at Jeopardy.) His name was Nguyen Van Thieu.

Nguyen.

This was a Vietnamese restaurant. And Vietnamese would not satisfy my craving -- at least I don't think it would. Besides I hear they eat dogs over there. So I got back in my car and found the "Chinese Palace." Yes. Oh, yes.

I sit here now, two hours later, completely bloated and uncomfortable. But at least I don't have to worry about some dog having bought the farm at my expense. As it turned out, it was only a chicken. A very tasty one to be sure.

Paula. Paradise.

The Passing of a Generation

Samuel Roseberry died December 21st after a long illness. You don't know the name but his passing is worth noting. Mr. Roseberry was one of a relative handful of remaining World War I veterans alive in the USA today. It is estimated that there are less than 500 veterans of that war still with us.  

Whatever story they had to tell, it is fair to say that it had better have been told by now. For the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who marched off to war in Europe in 1914-1917, their story has gone to the grave with them. Or they remain in the memories of their grandchildren - people like me. My grandfather was a lumberjack in northern Wisconsin when the call to arms came. Despite the fact that neither he nor others from the area around Tigerton spoke good English - German was their first language - they answered the call. And served admirably. An American of German ancestry warring against the Germans.

What a story that in itself must have been. Cousins fighting cousins. Fuhrmans killing Fuhrmanns. His was an American story. Heinrich, son of Gustav, ein auswanderer von der alten land sein, willing to risk his life for ... the United States of America. Like his fellow veterans, my grandfather never talked about his experiences in France. He chopped down trees for a living, then went off to war and fought the Germans, returned to Wisconsin, married my grandmother, Ida, provided for and raised a large family. A family that included my father, Harold Fuhrman, a man who was destined to answer a similar call and to go off to fight the Germans himself many years later in a place called Normandy.

End of story. Unfortunately. 

My grandfather died a quarter-century ago. Son, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, now great-great-grandfather to Chase, Kaid, and Jayla, lumberjack, hero. American. A marker in a cemetery. Dwindling memories.

A generation of our collective family passing into history.

I Could Have Bet Money On It

I woke up this morning, staggered into the kitchen to fix some coffee, and looked out the window at the thermometer. 

Weather.com had advised the evening before that I could expect the temperature to get down to 8 degrees.

We should have been so fortunate.

The temperature was 5 degrees below zero. I immediately got chilled. We have two heat pumps keeping the house nice and toasty in the wintertime and they were running full blast just to keep up. My thought was, after half a cup of coffee got my brain to actually functioning, "Man, am I glad we didn't lose power."

And then the electricity went off.

Five degrees below and we have no heat.

Paula and I learned a valuable lesson a number of years ago when we lived in Hartland, Michigan (This was the first time we lived in Michigan. We didn't learn anything about the great frozen north that time so we moved there again several years later.). On Christmas Day, 1984 the temperature hit a bone-numbing 20 below zero. Our house was heated with fuel oil. It got so cold, the fuel oil turned to jello and clogged the line going to the furnace. On Christmas Day. Imagine our ... consternation trying to find a repairman. On Christmas Day.

Well, from that day forward, Paula and I have always had plenty of alternate sources of heat. Today we gave both the fireplace and the kerosene heater a good workout. 

And we survived. Finally, after eight hours of living like pioneers (we heated water for coffee on top of the kerosene heater), the power came back on. 

I write this in part to tell the fine workers at the power company to please disregard the threatening voice message I left on your machine. I was only kidding. I realize you are not the people I want to have mad at me right now. What with Christmas Day coming.

Stalingrad, USA

I once spent a good deal of time working in the Cleveland / Akron / Youngstown area for a former employer. An AP article, entitled "Newspaper in Hard-Core Ohio Union Town Is Hit With Its First Strike in 40 Years," reminded me of the business climate there, particularly in the Mahoning Valley around Youngstown.

I was an avid talk radio listener and would tune into a local show in the afternoon whenever I could. To listen to the conversations between the host and his local callers was like stepping through a time/space warp into Soviet Russia in the 1920's. There was such hostility, even overt militancy expressed by many of the callers there that I, if I were a manager in one of the plants in the area, would fear for my life. When the title in this article refers to the town being hard-core, it is not exaggerating.

The odd thing is, one of America's largest employers is situated there. Lordstown, OH, just up the road, boasts a state-of-the-art General Motors plant that is the envy of the world, employs 8,000 workers (some of the highest paid hourly employees in the country), and has just gone through a retooling by GM at the cost of an estimated $500 million. The jobs there would be coveted by 98% of America's labor pool.

But you'd never know it by listening to the workers there bitch.

I would hear GM employees call in and complain about work rule (UAW and other union contract) violations relating to overtime, start time, lunch time, shift times, break time, overwork, stress, an endless array of management transgressions relating to the manner in which the employees are treated, environmental issues, sexual harassment issues, race issues, physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse, preferential treatment, nepotism, unsafe working conditions, unsafe equipment, unclean air, impossible production schedules, unrealistic production quotas, inadequate restroom facilities, poorly situated drinking fountains, insufficient lighting, inadequate and hazardous parking facilities, oppressive cigarette smoking rules, and on and on. And the employees make, on average, nearly $60,000, which they think should be supplemented with more attractive overtime pay and better benefits. Add to this group of malcontents all the union personnel in shops in nearby plants, offices, and worksites and you have a cacophony of disgruntled, Marxist Leninist wage earners.

Welcome to Youngstown, Ohio, the friendliest little city in America.

And now the unions at the newspaper have gone out on strike. I think we should show our solidarity. Let's read only weblogs until their demands are met.

Go See Loudoun County

I'm reminded by an article in the Washington Post this morning that I have a nominee for the most beautiful county in the USA. Loudoun County, with its ancient farmsteads and rolling, board-fenced pasturelands, should be Virginia's tourist mecca (unless you have a fascination for trees, rocks, and Herefords. Then head to Bland County.)

Unfortunately for Loudoun Countians, there are two circumstances that are going to destroy its pastoral beauty. It is across the river from Washington D.C. And it has the perfect geography and demography for growth. Explosive growth. Multi-unit, family dwelling growth. Condos. Apartment complexes. Walmart.

The local residents will fight it. And they will have occasional successes. But change there, as with life itself, is inevitable. If you ever travel to Franklin, TN to walk the Civil War battlefield, you'll know what I mean. The site of the famous cotton gin house, around which horrific fighting took place on November 30, 1864, is today a Pizza Hut parking lot.

And that is, whether you accept it or not, the way it is. And should be. I would have enjoyed seeing Franklin as it existed on that fateful day. But the local residents there probably appreciate their sewer system and electricity. I understand.

So life goes on. I would suggest, if you want to see the beauty that is Loudoun County, you'd better head up there soon. I hear Pizza Hut is in expansion mode.

A Sports Enigma

I've always enjoyed sports. That is, I've enjoyed participating. My two brothers and I would play baseball every day in the summertime when we were young. And we were highly competitive. To the point where we hated to ever lose.

I remember a time when the three of us were visiting our grandparents in Gresham, Wisconsin one summer. We were there long enough to get to know the teenagers in the small town. A number of them gathered on the ballfield each day and would get up a game. They were kind enough to let us join in. One particular day the Fuhrmans were all on the same team, in a close game, when a controversial play occurred. 

I was at bat. In came the pitch. I hit the ball; a slow dribbler down the first base line. The ball first rolled foul, but then veared back into fair territory. The first baseman picked up the ball, put the tag on me, and I was declared out. By everyone there except the Fuhrman boys.
We argued that, because the ball had gone foul before it rolled fair, it was a foul ball. The opposing team disagreed. An argument ensued, a rather heated one I must admit, resulting in the cessation of the game amid a lot of shouting.

Now I know a lot of you out there are saying to me, "Jerry, you and your brothers were wrong. You were out." 

The fascinating aspect of this story is that we agreed that I was out too. But we didn't say that during the game. It was only as we were walking back to my grandparents home that we determined that we were all in agreement that we had been arguing in favor of what we knew was a bad call.

And then we laughed. That's how competitive we were back then. 

I could mention too, the fistfight that I got into with Mike Jones after a football game (I was about 14 at the time, he was 16 and twice my size; not smart). I was a really sore loser and picked the fight with him mostly because he was on the winning team. He proceeded to beat the stuffin' out of me. Now, how smart was that? But I'll not dwell on this...

I reveal this only to give you an idea how much I love sports - and work to win.

Oddly enough, as much as I enjoyed playing baseball, football, basketball, tennis, etc., I hate watching any of it on television. I'm just not much of a spectator. It bores me. I gave up watching baseball years ago; I never watched basketball except perhaps college playoff games; and I rarely sit through a football game these days. After all, I've only so many days left...

Anyway, Virginia Tech crushed Maryland last night, for those of you who follow such things.

Virginia Tech scored two touchdowns in the first four minutes and cruised to a 55-6 win before 65,115 at Lane Stadium. Maryland's loss, its worst since 2000, eliminated the Terps (4-6, 2-5 ACC) from bowl contention ...

They're Going To Have Us Wearing Clown Suits

For the life of me I don't understand what the Democrats in this state find so appealing about tourism. Congressman Boucher (D-Abingdon) made it his only campaign issue. And won reelection on Tuesday I might add. And now I hear that our Governor - Mark Warner (also a D) - is happily promoting tourism as the cure-all for our problems here in southwest Virginia. Referring to a new privately funded initiative called the Fiber Arts Guild, staff reporter for the Bland County Messenger Stephanie Porter-Nichols writes: 

If successful, the shop would mesh with Gov. Mark Warner's plan to create an arts and crafts trail in Virginia similar to The Crooked Road, Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail. This driving route, which features bluegrass, country and gospel music sites from Floyd to far Southwest Virginia, was designed to enhance the economy by focusing attention on this region’s abundant music resources.

I swear to God, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I've looked high and low for studies on how much incremental revenue these two geniuses think tourism is going to bring into the area. I haven't found them. If a report exists (and I have my doubts), I'll surely post it so that we can all get a chuckle.

Look, I have nothing against tourism. In fact there are a number of citizens in this part of the country that make a decent living off of people that come here to look at our leaves and rocks. My guess is there will be several that will benefit from a government initiative to bring music lovers here as well. But unless Mark Warner or Rick Boucher can convince Dolly Parton to move to Max Meadows and change its name to Dollywood, the number who will benefit won't be more than several.

But nobody has ever called me closed minded when it comes to new ideas. I'll even go so far as to support a test of their tourism initiative. I hereby suggest that both Boucher and Warner come down to Bland at their earliest convenience. They can put on their blackface makeup and antebellum garb; one can strum the banjo while the other does the Virginia Reel and sings, "Mammy." I'll volunteer to count the proceeds.

That is what they are expecting us to do, after all. While our decent, hard-working neighbors are out trying to make ends meet at the same time that other neighbors are watching their textile mill jobs and coal mining jobs and furniture factory jobs disappear, our governor and congressman ask that we form one big long chorus line, grin, and entertain their tourist friends from up north. And hold a tin cup out should they wish to toss us a few coins in appreciation. 

What we need here are employers. What America's corporations need is incentive. What the politicians can provide is tax incentive. And a modicum of protection. Rather than take our precious income and confiscate a sizeable portion of it for state and federal taxes, only to return a piece of it so that we can build a "pickin' and grinnin'" booth somewhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway, Boucher and Warner should create conditions such that America's leading corporations will want to come here to take advantage of a lucrative tax structure. 

It worked wonders with the maquiladoras in Mexico, for God's sake. Why not lure the same businesses here?

The Melting Pot

I was all over the Washington DC area today. I started out early this morning in Frederick MD, traveled to Fairfax, VA to Manassas, Woodbridge, Springfield, and ended the day in Alexandria, VA. For those of you who haven't been in this area in a few years, here are my impressions:

• There's a whole mess of people living around this town.
• Every one of them was in a car on the area's streets today. What a mess.
• The speed limit signs must have been put up as an April Fools joke and somebody forgot to take them down. Either that or we have been taken over by the metric system and nobody told me. Let's see...55 in kilometers per hour is...yup - 85.
• I was never good with pinball machines. I would set the little steel ball in motion and then watch it fly down the table and disappear into one of the many little holes at the bottom of the gameboard. I felt like that little ball today when my car approached a series of highway signs that read, "I-95 this way. I-295 that way. I-495 Keep Left. I-395 Keep Right. Downtown Straight Ahead. Franconia Road This Exit." Oh, and just to make sure they have you at their complete mercy, this: "Road Work Ahead. Keep Left." What to do? Pray.
• English may be our first language but Vietnamese, Spanish, French (Haitian?), and Chinese are tied for second.
• There are quisines around here I didn't know existed. Ever had an urge for Peruvian food? Go down Richmond Hwy. to Hybla Valley. Honest-to-God Peruvian chicken. And before you ask, I don't know.

I have to say that I find the many ethnic areas of DC to be fascinating. It's not like Miami or El Paso where everyone around you speaks Spanish. Here you can be in an area dominated by Vietnamese immigrants (Annandale), drive five minutes down the road and be in a heavily Hispanic area (Alexandria), get back in the car and drive some more and be in what I can only guess is an area dominated by Nigerians. It reminds me a lot of the neighborhoods of Los Angeles - but everyone here gets along. And seems to have the same purpose in life - to achieve the American dream. It sure isn't like Bland County where we have white folk and ... well, white folk.

Bugs

The invasion has begun. The air is filled with thousands of ladybugs. They swarm at the edge of the forest on the hill above the house; the proverbial cloud of insects. They cling to the cedar siding. They crawl through the cracks in the door to reach the warmth of our home. They land in your hair; stick to your clothing. Why? I don't know. Maybe its just a winter-is-coming act of self-preservation.

It's one of the many fascinating aspects of life here on the mountain. Bugs. We get lots of 'em. I'm no entomologist. Nor do I ever want to be a bug expert. But the little creatures sure can capture your attention.

Take the praying mantis. Have you ever seen one? A really big one? How about tousands of them? They roam the slopes below the house. Why are they there? I don't know. 

What do they eat? I don't know. But they make it very difficult to mow the grass. I am an animal rights person, after all. Er. 

Bug rights...oh, never mind. The downside to this story are the crows. We have a huge colony that dominates the skies in the area. They seem to like to eat the mantises. But that's enough of that. 

Then there are the lightning bugs. They light up the darkness at night all across the valley below, briefly, and are gone.

Only to reappear a few feet away, blink, and dart back into the darkness. An act of...what? Joy, I think. After all, they are only seen on the most wonderfully warm and serene summer nights. I tend to think they are flitting around in celebration of a chance to live, knowing perhaps that they have but a brief time.

And spiders. For some reason (we need that entomologist!) they begin to appear in the early autumn. By the hundreds. They weave their webs in every eave, most windows, in the bushes. They are found in the house, in the barn, in the garage, hanging from the trees. Big ugly, hairy black ones, "daddy long-legs," and small stubby fierce-looking little devils. They all seem to have voracious appetites - for other insects.

We get a lot of moths on the mountain too. Some are huge, colorful, and breathtakingly delicate. Others are simply dull gray. The moths seem to supplant the butterflies, which appear in the spring and flutter about all summer. By the hundreds. One learns to drive slowly down the gravel turnpike so as to not smash the many butterflies that seem to like to gather in the roadbed, particularly when its damp. There are not enough butterflies in this world to have them decorate the front grill of my Ford Escape.

We are well into autumn now. Most of the butterflies are gone. As are the lightning bugs. The moths and the ladybugs will go - wherever they go - when the temperature dips well below freezing. Come December, when the winter winds begin and the air is bone-chilling, snow will be knee-deep and all the bugs will have moved on. Somehow, I think they are the smarter creatures.

Hurricane Victims Far From Shore

I find myself in Marietta, Ohio today. I rolled into town last night and, as I was checking into the hotel, I asked the desk clerk where I could buy some Chinese carryout food (an addiction that I have to deal with). I was told that the only Chinese restaurant that was in the immediate area had been flooded out when Hurricane Ivan blew through here a few weeks ago.

Ohio. Hurricane. Flood.

When Ivan blew through Florida and Louisiana, the news cameras were focused on the damage inflicted on those states. When it came through Bland, Virginia, Paula and I worried that the torrential rain was going to sweep us right off the mountain. We were lucky.

But way up here in Ohio, one can see, along the banks and in the lowlands around the Ohio River, the evidence of major flooding, and considerable damage. I remember remarking at the time, in looking at the weather radar, that this area up to Pittsburgh was really getting hammered with rain. I was right. It must have been devastating to the people that live near the river(s).

I encountered a bit of animosity here also. I was talking to a local woman who said the flooding here in the Marietta area was caused – in part – by the Corps of Engineers releasing water upstream around Pittsburgh to relieve the lock and dam system north of here, but at the same time, adding to the damage downstream. The anguish is understandable. The damage was, by government fiat, shared amongst the many river communities. Understandable and unavoidable.

I hope the government now lends its support and that they recover.

Detroit - Spend Yor Money But Leave Quickly

I lived for several years outside the city of Detroit. In all my travels to and through hundreds and hundreds of municipalities, it is the most depressing of all the communities I've ever been in. Much of Detroit lies in ruins today as a result of what was once called - in ancient times - "white flight." You can literally drive into the area around what was once Tiger Stadium and still see evidence from the race riots that took place in 1967 and 1968. Beginning in earnest in the 1960's, several hundred thousand residents packed their bags and moved - to the suburbs of Livonia, Garden City, Farmington, Warren or Taylor. Others just kept on moving farther away. 

The remarkable thing about Detroit is that it is the only major city in the entire country that has not experienced a renaissance. Even Cleveland, once termed the "mistake on the lake," is seeing its downtown rebound. If you're in the area, go down to the Flats in the evening. Everything you'd ever want to do or see is there. It thrives. So why has Detroit not seen a similar turnaround? The simple answer is race.

If there is one man who should have a statue erected in his honor for having done more to create the pile of ruins that is Detroit today, it is former Mayor Coleman Young. Mayor Young fought his way to power in a time when white people were in charge of the city, and he proceeded to correct the problems Detroit had - the same problems every other city had at the time - with racist hiring practices, racist police tactics, racist housing practices, racist political parties, a racist power structure, etc. Coleman Young was successful at transforming the city and driving out those who stood in the way of black equality and opportunity.

The problem was that Coleman Young was every bit the racist himself. It was no secret that he was intensely suspicious of, and held deep animus toward white people. He is famous locally for having made the comment to whites in the area that they should stay "north of 8 mile," Eight Mile Road being the northern boundary between Detroit and several predominantly white suburbs. Non-black residents obliged him. They fled. With them went their stores, their factories, their small businesses, their churches, their investments, their capital. The population of Detroit has plummeted and the city's economy has suffered grievously since.

Not that the residents of the city seem to care. The preponderance of the citizens of Detroit are black and they'd apparently like to keep it that way. I read (another) piece of evidence of this today in The Washington Times in an article entitled, "Detroit's Plan For 'African Town' Stirs Racial Tensions." It says in part: 

The Detroit City Council, in defiance of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, likely will move forward with plans to create an "African Town" in the tradition of Chinatowns and Little Italys nationwide, even though the issue has turned into a racially divisive economic-development proposal. In July, the council resolved to build up a section of the city devoted to African and black American literature, cuisine and art, which Mr. Kilpatrick endorsed. He vetoed the resolution, however, when it became clear that the council's plan would allow only black businessmen and investors to use the $38 million earmarked for the project. 

To his credit, the current Mayor termed the project to be "both racist and unconstitutional." But the city council overrode his veto. "'The resolutions speak to a real and critical issue that cannot be ignored — the economic disenfranchisement of African-Americans, who represent 80 percent of Detroit's populace,' said council member Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr. on his Web site." In the year 2004. The city of Detroit is fighting an enemy that fled the battlefield forty years ago.

So Mayor Young lives - in spirit if not in flesh. When I left the area in 2001, there was not one movie theater in the entire city (with a population at the time of nearly 1 million people; tiny Wytheville near me has a cinema complex as well as the old Millwald Theater downtown). Residents of the city had to go to the suburbs to do most of their shopping after nearly every downtown store - including some that were legendary - had closed their doors long ago. Thinking about starting a new business in the city? Try to find some serious investment capital. 

And the city council still talks about African-American disenfranchisement. In a city where African-Americans hold the only franchise. A city in ruins. God help them.

Ladder 49

I called and left my son a message last night. "Call me back. We have some issues we need to talk about." The issues? Paula and I had just gotten back from seeing the new movie, "Ladder 49," a thriller about the life of a Baltimore firefighter. 

It was a fanciful and yet not unrealistic account of the dangers firefighters confront every time they get the call to don the uniform and race off into the night to fight a fire. 

Dangers that exceed the tolerance levels most of us care to endure - or even contemplate.

My son is a firefighter in the city of Roanoke.

My call to him was intended to be one in which I was going to tell him of our concern for his life, for the well-being of his wife and our grandchildren, and - somehow - to convey to him how proud of him we are. Without giving away the plot in any way, the overriding message from the movie is this: We are prepared to sacrifice our lives to save others. The pay is not great. The dangers are real. And the call to action is frequent and ever-present.

I got his answering machine. So I left him a mildly humorous "I just found out what it is that you do for a living; you will resign from the force first thing in the morning" kind of message. 

When not fighting fires, my son also serves as an Emergency Medical Technician. I heard that he lost a man the other day to an apparent heart attack. They were communicating with each other as the ambulance was racing to the nearby hospital but the man lapsed into unconsciousness despite my son's best efforts at cardiac resuscitation and that of the hospital emergency medical personnel. They were unable to revive the man. I haven't talked to him in recent days and I don't know any of the particulars. But the man's death weighed on him. And it was only one of many calls he responded to that day. One of many, many days. A day like so many others. 

I recommend the movie. Be prepared for lots of action, some sorrow, and excitement throughout. And in the end - I hope - a certain pride in those that "race off into the night" so that our children and grandchildren can sleep safely in their beds.

If I Don't Get My Coffee In The Morning...

Give me a few minutes to come around. I need my caffeine.

If You're Keeping Score in The Hurricane Count...

If you're keeping score in the hurricane count:

Florida 2
Alabama 1
Bland County, Virginia 2

What's up with that?!

NASCAR Drivers Have Nothing On Us

I'm blogging this morning from Atlanta, GA. Windy. Could Hurricane Ivan be this close already? 

Stuck in traffic on I-85 southbound heading into Atlanta. Five lanes of expressway and we're averaging about five miles an hour. I think I make better time on my tractor at home. This gives me the opportunity to offer up my impressions of Americans and their driving habits. I have the time; I hear there is an accident down near Jimmy Carter Blvd. 

Everyone complains about the crazed drivers on the nation's highways. And believe me, nobody has used words directed at others that I have not used when I'm out here. I have developed the kind of temper that you read about on "News-at-Eleven."

But I have to say, everything considered, I've always been impressed with how it is that millions of people can pull out every morning onto the nations highways and 99.9% of them get to their destination - on time and unharmed. Much is made of the fact that so many drivers lack the basic skills to be on the road. I disagree. I'm always amazed at how most everyone deftly navigates our roads with few mishaps. 

**Time out. We are moving. OK.

I've driven many if not most of our city streets and highways. Los Angeles, Dallas, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, San Antonio, Orlando, Miami, Cleveland, Charlotte, Chicago, and many, many more. Even Washington D.C. (my least favorite). And Atlanta (my second least favorite).

Paula and I lived north of Detroit for a number of years. I learned a good way to beat the daily traffic jams on southbound I-75 there was to leave for work at 6:00am. If I left then, I could make it into Auburn Hills in 45 minutes. If I left any later, though, traffic was backed up. But the drive was fascinating, in some ways scenic. Imagine yourself driving a highway in total darkness and all you can see for miles in front of you are red taillights - thousands of them - snaking, meandering their way toward the big city. Sparse oncoming traffic. Everyone moving in a southerly direction.

And I passed few accidents on my daily commute. Of course when there was one, it was always ugly. After all, average speed in the far left lanewas - I would guess - 80 miles an hour. Even in the far right lane you were in the way if you were not exceeding the speed limit. But except for those moments when two (or more) vehicles suddenly rearranged themselves and each other, most all of us got where we wanted to go. It was spectacular.

**Looks like a fender bender up ahead causing the slow-down, although an ambulance just went by. 

Anyway, drivers amaze me (with the possible exception of the big rig drivers who don't seem to be as skilled as they once were). 

We're about to accelerate. It's pedal-to-the-metal time.
** I should note: "You should not try this at home." I did not type this while in motion. And if you're wondering, I don't have some exotic wireless setup that allowed for me to post this in real time. I saved it in the form of a draft and uploaded it when I got to my destination in Jonesboro. 

All In A Day's Work

Well, I just finished shoveling and wheelbarrowing eight tons of gravel. On my day off. Some thoughts: 

1. God, every part of my body aches. But it is not a girlie-man ache; it's that pleasurable ache one feels after having done back-breaking work in the hot sun, sweated as only real men can, and completed that which needed to be accomplished by end of day. 
2. You want to know why I didn't use my backhoe. I'm married. I don't have one.
3. You want to know why I didn't use my front-loader. I'm married. I'm not allowed to buy one.
4. You want to know why I don't have a cute little woman from the Philippines who is illegally in this country and knows that I know it. Me too.

Update: Boy, am I in trouble. Paula read this post and somehow sees it as reflecting negatively on her. So I feel the need to retract points 2 through 4.

Red Hats Are in Short Supply

My work took me to Crown, West Virginia yesterday, a place you'll never see; a place that doesn't even get enough respect to be on any maps. It is just down the road (if you have the intestinal fortitude to drive it) from Man and a little further away from the largest metropolis in the area, Logan, where they even have a Wal-Mart, thank you very much. Crown is wedged into the mountainous region of southern West Virginia, just a few ridges east of South Williamson, Kentucky. In the heart of coal country.

This part of West Virginia has never been conquered. For two centuries, people have tried but failed. When you work your way into the area, you are overwhelmed by the steep, towering, forested, mountains rising on either side of the road that somehow allow just enough space in between for (almost) two lanes of traffic. There is very little level ground.

What homes there are in the area are plastered to the sides of the hills and mounted atop the jagged ridges that dominate the landscape. As I was driving through the backstreets of Crown (the backstreet anyway), I was forced to slow to a crawl to allow time for the chickens to scurry out of the way.

And there is just enough space in Crown for a customer of mine to operate a hardware, building supply, architectural products, plumbing, heating, agricultural, summer/winter/work clothing, and etcetera store. A place where you can purchase most anything imaginable and obtain, free of charge, the latest news and gossip. It is a place where the locals meet in passing, exchange pleasantries, and move on. 

Recent times have been particularly hard on the area. West Virginia has been losing population, a problem that is most prevalent in the south of the state. What brought people to this area in large numbers (after all the population of Man is 770) are the mines. This area is blessed - and at the same time cursed - by having vast deposits of bituminous coal. 

Cursed these days because of its perceived environmental baggage. Though it is clean burning, West Virginia coal, unlike that found out west, is higher in sulfur, a bugaboo for the environmentalist crowd. The save-the-earth bunch exert great influence in far-off Washington D.C. and have done great damage to the economy in this area, though nobody from "60 Minutes" has ever been sent here to explore the subject. So people here have, for years now, been packing up their worldly belongings and moving "up north." Robert Byrd, the legendary United States Senator from West Virginia, has done his best to pump federal dollars into the area to help stimulate growth. His efforts are reflected in the marvelous highway system that has been carved out of this rugged region. But the local humorists around here will tell you that Byrd only had the roads built so that West Virginians could get the hell out of the state more quickly. The only state in the United States, by the way, that lost population in the last census.

But I learned something yesterday. Red hats are hard to come by at the supply store. Local folk know what that means, though I'm sure none of you do. Part of the standard uniform worn by miners is the hard hat. Rookie miners, in training if you will, wear red colored hard hats to signify the fact that they are untrained and need to be looked after. And there has been a run on red hats of late. Why? Coal is selling again. The mines are hiring. I'm told that coal has sold recently for as much as $125 a ton. That may not sound like much to you but that's a whole lot better than the $25 the mine operaters were getting a few years ago. 

The reason that the red hats are in such short supply is because it has been a long, long time since any of the mines have brought in new workers. For many years the available work force has consisted of experienced miners that have been thrown out of work as a result of the closing of other mines. But most of them are gone now - or are dead. So new blood is being sent down into the mines. Times are about to be...better.

You Know You're in Kitty Cat Hell When...

...your wife captures three feral cats, takes them to the vet for spaying/neutering (to the tune of $300), and then, upon their recuperation, turns the cats loose again. 

...your wife gets a volume discount on spaying and neutering.

...your wife fixes scrambled eggs for said feral cats and delivers their piping hot meal to the abandoned home under which they live. 

...your wife takes a plush padded cat bed to said cats for them to sleep in underneath said abandoned home. 

...your wife keeps a litter box in your barn for the cats that live there, despite the fact that the barn has a dirt floor. Despite the fact that the stalls in the barn are deeply lined with wood shavings. Despite the fact that the barn holds heaping piles of hay. Despite the fact that you own 22 acres of earth in which they can poop. Despite the fact that your property abuts hundreds of thousands of acres of the Jefferson National Forest that they can poop in. No. You have to buy kitty litter for them. 

...your wife continues to buy cat toys – for your barn cats. 

...your wife won’t allow the garage door to be closed (ever) because another stray cat – yet to be snared – visits the garage at night and expects his Kit & Kaboodle and fresh water to be there. 

...you walk into your office and there is a kitty playhouse in each corner, two cat towers near the door, two kitty boxes for them to sleep in and three litter boxes under the stairs! 

...your wife runs out of Lord of the Rings characters after which to name all your new cats. 

...you know that the next time you drive down the gravel road and come upon more cute and cuddly little kitties that some lowlife (who will rot in hell) has dumped there, that your family is about to be enlarged – forever.

*** Yeah, that photo is of Paula and six of her cats sleeping in my bed.

Top Ten Movies of All Time

Listed below in order of greatness are the top ten movies of all time as chronicled by...me. It is a work in progress (hey, I've still got a few years left on this earth).

1. Shakespeare in Love (1998), directed by John Madden
2. The Godfather (1972), directed by Francis Ford Coppola
3. Casablanca (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz
4. The Godfather: Part II (1974), directed by Francis Ford Coppola
5. Doctor Zhivago (1965), directed by David Lean
6. Titanic (1997), directed by James Cameron
7. Jaws (1975), directed by Steven Spielberg
8.  Schindler's List (1993), directed by Steven Spielberg
9. Patton (1970), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), directed by Milos Forman

Honorable mention in no particular order:

• Saving Private Ryan
• The King's Speech
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Finding Nemo
• High Noon
• Raising Arizona
• Fargo
• The Terminator
• The Exorcist
• The Lion in Winter
• Network
• The Secret Garden
• Heidi
• Wizard of Oz
• Lord of the Rings
• Star Wars
• Jurassic Park
• Shrek
• The Lion King
• Men in Black
• Gone with the Wind
• Top Gun
• Beverly Hills Cop
• Chicago
• Ghost Busters
• Jerry Maguire
• The Green Mile

Movies that are completely overrated and will never make my list:

• Forrest Gump
• Ghost
• Gladiator
• Ocean's Eleven
• Dances with Wolves
• Rain Man
• There's Something About Mary
• Fatal Attraction
• American Beauty
• Apollo 13
• The Perfect Storm
• Speed
• The Blair Witch Project
• Out of Africa
• The English Patient
• Pulp Fiction
• JFK
• Philadelphia

Certain of the movies in the last category I wanted to list twice, they were so disappointing, including The English Patient, The Perfect Storm, Out of Africa, Rain Man, and The Blair Witch Project.

I notice, by the way, that five of my top ten picks are from the 70's. That probably means something but I'm not sure what.

What Labor Day Means to Me

Today is Labor Day. What does it signify? Apparently it is a day set aside for America's labor force to honor itself by... sitting on their butts and doing nothing. I know I'm not the first person who has ever brought this up but shouldn't America's unions try to showcase the contribution made by their membership in some fashion other than taking the day off, participating in meaningless parades, and going to the park to drink to excess?

As for me, I intend to celebrate the day by...doing what I do EVERY OTHER DAY - working.