“Why are you here?” asked the young boy as he pulled himself up in the mammoth hospital bed.  He was a small consideration when compared to the various electronics and medical equipment surrounding his temporary abode.

        “Captain Clark asked me to read to you.  He is very impressed with your toughness.  He says you’d fight a buzz-saw just as soon as shake hands with it.”

        Smiling through the dulling pain that was always a constant reminder of his stay at St. Jude, the boy managed to speak up, “He’s my favorite guard here.  He always has bubble-gum.”  Straining to pull his body up farther in the bed, he completed the maneuver and extended his hand, “Hi, I’m Lester.”  And thus began the existential journey of Lester and the Line Tamer.

        The chair screeched as it was pulled across the linoleum floor and placed next to the handrails on the side of the bed.  The old man cuddled four books between his left arm and his stomach.  He picked out the bottom one and carefully turned back the cover.  “I understand you have quite a thirst for learning.”

        “Well . . . I like to know things.  If that’s what you mean.”

        “Yes, yes that’s what I mean.”  Holding up the worn text, “This ain’t no funny-book or the Cliff Notes.”

        “I know,” the young boy replied, almost as if it was the dumbest statement he’d ever heard.  “I’m not a child ya’know!”

        “Well now that we’ve got that settled, let’s begin.”  The old man made himself as comfortable as possible in the antiseptic armchair and turned back the first blank page.  “Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau.  The first chapter he titled, Economy.”

        He continued to read, “When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.”

        This was the first of many readings that the old man would share with the boy.  As a single parent, Lester’s mother had to work during the day.  Lester’s father had been killed in Vietnam and the boy had no memory of him other than the pictures his mother painted of the loving father and husband.  On this day, the old man quit and quietly left the room as the boy fell into a well deserved sleep.

        Thoreau consumed much of their time together in the following weeks and months.  The second chapter began an unacknowledged analysis of mortality.  The old man was reading at his usual steady pace, “Live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”    

        “Do you think Thoreau thought about dying?” asked the small curious patient in the overwhelming bed.

        “He thought about it a lot, replied the old man.  “That’s why he thought so much about living!  He wanted to know that he lived.”

        “How old was he when he died?”

        “I believe he was in his early forties, but the point is that he wanted his life to be meaningful no matter how short it might be.”

        “I think I’ll take a nap now.  I’m so tired.”  With that, the old man closed the book and carefully retreated from the room.

        Nothing was mentioned about death for the next several readings.  When the old man told Lester that the next chapter was titled Reading, a Cheshire look came across the boy’s face and he blurted, “Is that an important part of being a Line Tamer?”

        Pleased that the boy made the comparison, the old man replied softly, “Well yes, it is.  Thoreau was big on reading.  He liked to read the classic literature in the original Greek or Latin.”

        “Far-out!”

        “Slightly taken aback by the colloquialism, the old man continued, “Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been printed in English, nor Aeschylus, nor Virgil even — works as refined, as solidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for later writers, say what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equaled the elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary labors of the ancients.”

        “Do you read the classics in their original language?”  Lester asked.

        The old man couldn’t help but laugh.  “No . . . I’m a Line Tamer, but I’m no Henry David Thoreau!  Besides, Homer, Aeschylus and Virgil have now been translated into English.”

        “But you could, if you wanted to?”

        “The Greek might be a little difficult.”  The old man paused taking a moment for reflective thought but continued, “There’s more to being a Line Tamer than just reading.”

        “What do you mean?”

        “It’s taking what you learn from reading and making it live in perpetuity”

        “Where?” asked the boy with a more than puzzled look.

        Laughing again, the old man responded quickly, “By writing it down  . . . it can last forever.  Just like we’re reading what Thoreau wrote in the 1850’s and when you read Homer.”  The old man paused.  “Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey more than 3000 years ago.”

        “Wow.”

        “Wow is right.  Thoreau said, ‘The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him. No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; — not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself. The symbol of an ancient man’s thought becomes a modern man’s speech.”

        “Will I have time to write something . . . something important?”

        Reaching over and taking the boy’s hand, the old man carefully searched the left side of his brain for a response.  “No one on this earth can answer that question Lester.  Do you remember what Thoreau said at the beginning of the chapter?”

        “Read it to me again, please.”

        “In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.”

        On his next visit, the old man was reading from the chapter on Sounds when he noticed a 9×12 manila envelope on the small corner table next to Lester’s bed.  He innocently inquired, “What’s in the envelope?”

        “Oh, just something I’m working on,” the boy replied coyly.

        “Can I read it?”

        “Not till it’s ready,” Lester insisted.

        “Okay, but I’ll be gentle.  I started writing myself when I was about your age.”

        Lester thought for a minute and bluntly asked, “Can you read me something you wrote?”

        “When it’s ready!”

         Lester laughed as best he could since it hurt when his diaphragm released and his stomach responded to the movement.  The old man continued reading until the boy fell into his usual sleep.

        The next two months was uneventful as Lester and the old man jockeyed around the reading of either of their works.  Lester had been through several new procedures and their time together had been interrupted by this formable array of medical research.

        “After a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what — how — when — where?” read the old man as he began the chapter, The Pond in Winter.  The boy’s mind however, seemed to be some place else.  The old man put down the book.

        “What’s the matter?”

        “I’m just thinking.”

        “Thinking about what?”

        “Thinking about dying!  What else have I got to think about in this place?”  Lester folded his arms and set his lip.

        The old man turned to look into the boy’s eyes, “I wrote a poem when I was only sixteen called, It Feels Like The Wind Off The Lake In Winter.  Even then, as a healthy young athlete, I had a premonition of death.”  Softly chuckling, he continued, “And look at me now . . . I’m an old man.”

        “Would you read it to me?”

        “What, the poem”

        “Yes”

        “Well, I don’t have it with me, but I may be able to recite a few lines.”  You could almost see the old man searching his memory banks as he began,

         The old man picked back up the book, but the boy pleaded, “More.  Can’t you remember any more?”

        Taking a second to let the verse sink in, the old man recited,

        “You are . . . a Line Tamer,” the boy slowly whispered as the old man picked up where he had left off in the tattered book with the secrets being shared between two kindred spirits.

        It looked for awhile like Lester was getting better.  But Spring, both the season and the chapter, brought new rounds of radiation and a haggard bald look that a young boy should never see in a mirrored reflection.  By Memorial Day the unusual book club of two honed in on the last chapter of Walden.  After turning to the last page, the old man was instantly stuck by the closing lines as he read,  “I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”

        As the old man closed the book, Lester looked up quizzically and asked, “Was Thoreau a Line Tamer?”

        “He certainly was!” chuckled the old man.  “As a matter of fact when he was very sick and in bed, just like you, he was asked by his aunt, ‘Have you made peace with your God?’ to which he deftly replied, ‘I didn’t know we had ever quarreled.”

        The old man took sick himself the next day and it was several weeks before he could return to the hospital.  When he approached Lester’s room, a nurse that he knew approached him and told him that the boy had been moved to Intensive Care and the prognosis was not good. 

        The old man went to the ICU knowing that visitors were not allowed, but he was hoping that he could get word of the boy’s condition.  He saw Lester’s mother sitting next to a bed in one of the cubicles surrounded by curtains.  He stood quietly not wanting to intrude, but he could hear the mother’s soothing voice.

        She gently stroked the wasting child’s head.  Tears were streaming down the sides of her face turning the summer highlights of blonde curls into a darkened mane.  A 9×12 manila envelope was clutched to her breast.  She softly asked, “Are you afraid, my precious one?”

        “No mother, I’m a Line Tamer.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx_Nme7KohM

To RETURN click on the LEFT arrow.

Hood

         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SliUaefFDfM

To RETURN click on the LEFT arrow.

The British’s 10^th Brigade consisting of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Seaforth Highlanders and the Royal Irish Fusiliers were dug in on one side of the Ploegsteert Wood and the German’s 88^th Brigade including the 104^th Infantry Regiment and the 6^th Jaeger Battalion were crouching in trenches on the other side.  The ever vigilant “watch” permeated the distance between forces as a “surprise attack” was something that should be expected at a time like Christmas.  Even Pope Benedict XV had failed in his efforts to establish an official truce between warring governments, “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.”  Surprisingly, it was considered by the Germans but stoically denounced by the British.  All of Pope Benedict’s future peace overtures fell on the deaf ears of Parliament, although his ten conditions for a lasting peace became the backbone of President Wilson’s “14 Points.”

At dusk the previous evening German soldiers had begun placing candles on evergreen trees forming a glowing line along the edges of their trench.  This modest celebration continued with the singing of carols, most notably Stille Nacht or Silent Night as the English, Irish and Scots recognized it.  Not to be outdone, the boys from the British Isles returned the compliment with O Come All Ye Faithful and While Shepherds Watched Their Flock.  In the midst of shell craters, blood-stained mud pits and dead bodies; an unofficial truce broke out.

It started with Christmas greetings being shouted across the line.  A number of the Germans spoke English, having lived and worked in places like London, Glasgow and Dublin before the war.  It wasn’t long before calls for visits were exchanged and the parties met in “No Man’s Land.”  Eventually small gifts were swapped as the combatants shook hands and drank together.  In addition to whisky and beer; jams, cigars and other smokes, chocolates and souvenir uniform items were exchanged.  Many of the boys kicked around a football (soccer) and in some of the areas along the Western Front, actual games were played.

The meaning of Christmas was not lost on the battle hardened troops as an early Holy Communion was celebrated at a ruined farm about 500 yards behind the lines and a short church parade was held in the trench.  The truce also allowed a quiet time where recently-fallen comrades could be brought back behind their lines where proper burials took place as soldiers from both sides mourned the dead together and paid their respects.

The smell of fried bacon and dip-bread brought the Brits back to their line where they enjoyed, hot Xmas pudding, muscatels and almonds, oranges, bananas, chocolates and cocoa.  This Christmas dinner fashioned in the trench brought back thoughts of home and family.  The lads opened parcels from places like B. G’s Lace Department and each had received a card from the Queen.  In the darkest hours of the war, it was the thought of Mum and Pop or the girl back in Yorkshire that calmed the nerves and steadied the aim.  For one brief moment, peace reigned, as the memories of death and carnage took a back seat.

Could such a display of peace and forgiveness break out in our nation’s capitol this season?  Imagine one Senator on the right throwing a chorus of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen across the aisle.  This refrain followed by a white-haired Senator on the left leading his caucus in Here We Come a Wassailing.  Then the Senior Senator from Nevada breaks out with Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer!  It may be Christmas . . . but there is no miracle this year.

         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjL0NRD7iZc

To RETURN click on the LEFT arrow.

LaJuana and I watch the political shows on Sunday morning religiously (no pun intended).  After some of my usual ranting, about guests not answering questions or addressing the real issues that are destroying our country, LaJuana turned to me and asked, “What can the regular people do?  What can we do to make a difference?”

I was about to go into one of my standard dissertations about voting when I realized that voting alone, is not enough.  We live in a world of warp-speed communication and the nation is at our finger tips.  Regular people have got to make their voice known, because when politicians are addressing the people, they aren’t talking to you and me.  Somehow, if you’ve worked hard and managed to make something for your family, you’ve become lost between the people that want the government to give them everything and the super-rich that are feeling guilty and can afford to explore their liberal confused bias.

We have developed this presentation to communicate our Solution: To The American Crisis.  Have no doubt that there is a crisis in America, but don’t be confused by what the politicians and pundits believe it is.  Spin-doctors are alive and well everywhere.

The origin of this patriotic remembrance began in a railway carriage in the northern part of France known as the Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918.  Marshal Ferdinand Foch (it was his railcar), the Allied Commander-In-Chief and Matthias Erzberger, Germany’s representative, signed an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, that at the eleventh hour effectively ended the fighting in World War I — known at the time as “The Great War.”  “All quiet on the Western Front” would become many reporters’ byline as they chronicled this day as the end of “the war to end all wars.”  However, WWI officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France.

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed the Eleventh as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

The first “unknown soldier” (from WWI) was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 1921.  Inscribed on the western panel of the white marble sarcophagus are the words: “Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God.”  President Warren G. Harding officiated at the internment ceremonies and since that time it has been tradition that the President or his designee places a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

November 11th became a legal federal holiday with the passage of An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) signed into law by President Roosevelt on May 13, 1938.  Known as Armistice Day, this holiday was dedicated to the cause of world peace and was primarily set aside to honor veterans of WWI.  In Europe however, echoes of German dominance and Hitler’s ambition were already threatening that peace and Roosevelt was well aware of the precarious position that freedom held: “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”  World War II would test the resolve of all free people.

In 1953, an Emporia, Kansas shoe store owner by the name of Al King began a campaign to turn Armistice Day into Veterans Day so that “all veterans” including World War II and Korean War soldiers could be honored.  With the help of the Chamber of Commerce, he found that 90% of the merchants and the Board of Education of Emporia were willing to close down on November 11, 1953 to celebrate the first-ever-all-inclusive Veterans Day.  U.S. Rep. Ed Rees, also from Emporia, introduced a bill that amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting the word “Veterans” successfully pushing it through Congress.  President Dwight Eisenhower signed Public Law 380 on May 26, 1954.  That November, the rest of the nation caught up with Emporia, Kansas and all veterans were honored.

Congress can never let a good thing go unpunished so on June 28, 1968 they passed The Uniform Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 25) that changed certain holidays, including Veterans Day to a Monday, instead of the actual day.  This would give all federal employees (including Congress) four 3-day weekends per year.  Many states did not agree and continued to celebrate Veteran’s Day on the Eleventh. It was quite apparent that the commemoration of this day was a matter of historic and patriotic significance to a great number of Americans, and so on September 20th, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978. Finally, the desires of the overwhelming majority of state legislatures, all major veterans’ organizations and the American people were recognized.

So on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we honor those that have kept us free.  At a time when our freedoms are under attack from abroad and at home, this special tribute to the men and women that have given so much, has never had greater meaning.  Freedom is not free.

Most people probably think they are normal, but what is normal?  ”A return to normalcy” was presidential candidate Warren Harding’s campaign promise in 1920.  His opponents believed that the word was a neologism as well as a malapropism coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term normality). Debate ensued, but evidence found that normalcy was listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857.

What does the dictionary have to say?   Merriam-Webster’s Online Search indicates: “2 a: according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle b: conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern 3: occurring naturally <normal immunity> 4 a: of, relating to, or characterized by average intelligence or development b: free from mental disorder: sane.”

To me it’s a lot like pornography; I know it when I see it.

Every time I get that email showing people shopping at Wal-Mart, I know I’m normal.

When I hear on the news about a congressman that hasn’t paid the taxes on his villa in the Dominican Republic and can’t remember having a $250,000 checking account, I know I’m normal.

Every time I see that PETA commercial with Pamela Anderson working the airport screening line and stripping people with fur or leather clothing, I know I’m normal.

When I see that picture of Chief Heather Fong, the first San Francisco Police Department female Chief of Police; Theresa Sparks (former male), president of the San Francisco Police Commission, CEO of a multi million-dollar sex toy retailer, and a trans gender woman; and Sgt. Stephan Thorne (former female), the first transgender SFPD police officer; I know I’m normal.

Every time someone sends me an email that I just sent them, I know I’m normal.

When Janeane Garofalo calls me a racist because I disagree with the policies of the president, but in the same breath praises the State of California for its progressive legislation (that bankrupted their government), I know I’m normal.

Every time I delete an email that shows huge pythons or wads of rattlesnakes, I know I’m normal.

When MSNBC schedules Hardball with Chris Matthews, Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann and the Rachel Maddox Show during primetime weekdays, I know I’m normal.

Every time Nancy Pelosi opens her mouth, I know I’m normal.

When I hear on the news that David Letterman’s ratings are improving after being involved in a sex scandal with his staffers, I know I’m normal.

Every time the administration announces that a Czar has resigned after having been the “best and the brightest,” I know I’m normal.

When the mainstream media characterizes the overflowing crowds at the Washington, DC Tea Party as “a small out-of-control Hitler-like mob,” I know I’m normal.

Every time another politician makes a career out of the temporary job given to him by his constituents to “fix government,” I know I’m normal.

When Barney Frank is given the assignment to investigate the so-called Financial Collapse, after it became obvious that his committee leadership was one of the major causes, I know I’m normal.

Every time I see the red and blue map of U. S. Counties showing how they voted in 2008, I know I’m normal.

When anyone questions Sara Palin’s intelligence after her book became the #1 bestseller more than a month before it went on sale, I know I’m normal.

Every time the administration accuses Fox News of not being a “news” network, I know I’m normal.

When someone asks the Supreme Court to decide if it’s constitutional to put a cross on a World War I Memorial on government land, I know I’m normal.  As a matter of fact, I believe that using a cross as the headstone for all our veterans lying in graves on government land is perfectly normal.

In other words, I’m confident that I’m normal.  What about you?

Most baby boomer’s movie experience began in the late 50’s when they were finally old enough to go by themselves to the “picture show” on Saturdays.  Horror and science fiction was the genre most likely showcased and in 1958 The Blob starring Steve McQueen was released.  “Beware the Blob!  It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor,” explained the trailer. At Palestine’s Texas Theatre we were standing in our seats looking to see if it was coming down the aisle!  If that wasn’t scary enough, the movie showed the Blob flowing out of the projection booth, after it had already eaten the operator. Wow!  None of us knew who Steve McQueen was or had any idea that he had attended a junior college about thirty miles from our hometown.

Most of us guys were beginning to notice the opposite sex by the next year and packed into the theatre to see Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.  It was probably my first Oscar winning movie, but it wasn’t the 1959 Best Costume Design Academy Award that caught my attention.  My buddies and I soon found that we liked it hot and Marilyn was about as hot as it got for movies at the time!  None of our Dads happened to mention that Candy Barr was stripping for Jack Ruby at the Carousel Club in Dallas or that she had made one of the most famous porn flicks of the era.

Home From the Hill starring Robert Mitchum as Captain Wade Hunnicut, the wealthiest and most powerful rancher in a South Texas town, stirred our interest in cultural identity and heritage.  The 60’s proved to be an “awakening” in freedom of expression and civil rights.  George Hamilton Jr. as the legitimate heir and George Peppard as the illegitimate son; set the stage for dysfunctional families to become the rage in novels and television series such as Dallas.  The family unit, no longer the Nelsons or the Cleavers, would never be the same.

By the time we were graduating from high school; two movies set the tone for lives and careers as we moved from the comfort of mom and dad’s home to the real world of being on our own.  “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” was the memorable line from Cool Hand Luke.  This 1967 Oscar winning blockbuster starred Paul Newman and launched the careers of an ensemble cast including George Kennedy, Dennis Hopper, Wayne Rogers, Harry Dean Stanton and Joe Don Baker.  Joe Don was from down the road at Groesbeck and would later become famous as Buford Pusser in the cult-classic, Walking Tall.  The Graduate (also 1967) made Cougars famous long before Ashton Kutcher ever dated Demi Moore.  Directed by Mike Nichols (Diane Sawyer’s husband), this movie single-handedly took sex out of the closet and put it in the hotel room!  The music by Simon & Garfunkel still resonates today, “And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo wo wo).

In 1971, The Last Picture Show, written by Larry McMurtry from Archer City, Texas, won two Oscars.  This would not be the last time we would hear of Larry Jeff as he would go on to write, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove, Texasville, and Brokeback Mountain.  This B/W classic would drive home the point that we could no longer be irresponsible and must face the realities that life had in store for us.  Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd and Randy Quaid were just beginning their careers as many of us were doing the same but for a lot less money.  Cybill Shepherd and the Director, Peter Bogdanovich married after the film but the relationship ended in divorce — a common fate for baby boomers in the 70’s.

Humor becomes a much needed respite in our lives by the 1980’s. Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) was so funny that in some parts you would literally find yourself crying with laughter, especially if you were ever forced to travel for your job.  Everyone thinks that travel is something you will want to do when you retire, unless of course, you’ve already had to do it week after week.  Steve Martin is a comic genius.  John Candy was certainly his equal as a comedian, but fell into the unfulfilled abyss as many boomers have.  Horace Walpole (1717-1797) explained it like this, “The world is a tragedy to those that feel, but a comedy to those that think.”

Maybe not poets, but baby boomers are not without romance.  Nora Ephron caught the nuance of romance in her 1989 release, When Harry Met Sally . . ., starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.  This movie answered the nagging boomer question, “Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning?”  Apparently Meg didn’t have any problem with the answer as she slept with Russell Crowe while still married to Dennis Quaid!  Only Meg knows if she faked her orgasms with the Gladiator.

As we grow older we tend to look back at the what-could-have-been(s).  In Texasville, Larry McMurtry did exactly that.  Texasville is the Last Picture Show, thirty years later.  Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman, Eileen Brennan and Timothy Bottoms play the same characters from the 1971 picture.  The good part is they all still look pretty good. The bad part is the only place to eat in the town is still the Dairy Queen!

Everyone in high school knew a guy like Forrest Gump.  This 1994 release brought back many memories from our generation — Kennedy, Vietnam, Watergate, Smiley and Apple Computers.  “Stupid is as Stupid does” could easily be made the baby boomers national anthem.  Forrest Gump gave us the ability to understand what is so special about our generation.  Different from our fathers sacrifice and different form our children’s future pay-back.  After all, “Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re gonna get.”

My top 10 ends here, as the older you get, the less likely you are to go to the theatre.  It’s so easy to watch a DVD in the comfort of your own home, but it’s not the same.  The movie experience at the picture show is something that baby boomers will never forget. Perhaps Steve Martin said it best, “You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies – all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.”

We witnessed the formative years of television.  The game show, Truth or Consequences, hosted by Ralph Edwards debuted on September 7, 1950.  On the show, people had to answer a trivia question correctly before “Beulah the Buzzer” was sounded.  If the contestant could not complete the “Truth” portion, there would be “Consequences,” usually a zany and embarrassing stunt. From the start, most contestants preferred to answer the question wrong in order to perform the stunt. Edwards commented, “Most of the American people are darned good sports!” The town of Hot Springs, New Mexico was renamed Truth or Consequences after the game show, when Edwards announced that he would do the program from the first town so renamed. You know they must have been good sports.  Apparently the theme, truth or consequences, however; failed to catch on with politicians in later years.

Television brought us the “immediate news-fix.”  No longer would we have to wait on Special Editions of the major newspapers to find out about a big event.  We all remember exactly where we were when Kennedy was assassinated, but many of us were actually watching TV “live” as Oswald was gunned down by Jack Ruby.  We stayed glued to the tube all weekend knowing that our lives would never be the same again.  Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby, Woodstock; the times they were a changin’ was more than just a Dylan lyric.

We went to the Moon . . . man!  Engineering schools saw dramatic increases in enrollment.  The Taylor Tea Room at the University of Texas at Austin was crowded.  Students began using pocket calculators instead of slide rules, but of course still needed a pocket-protector for mechanical pencils and different colored pens.  “Geek” took on a whole new culture as everyone was scrambling to get in the space race.  We were confident that by the end of the century, each of us would have been to the Moon at least once.

Many took a different trip.  Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was released by the Beatles on their Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 1967.  Even though Lennon denied that the title referred to LSD, the growing disenfranchised youth rebellion took it as a mantra for experimentation.  Many never came back from their trip.  Fortunately, most young boomers simply grew out of this restlessness as reality set in on their shoulders in the form of a job, a family, and the inherited instinct to survive.  Others moved to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco where they became career politicians!

Watergate opened our eyes.  Even though some believed that LBJ was “fudging” with the enemy casualty rates during the war, it was not until after Watergate that the public began to realize that Jack Kennedy had been cheating on Jackie during the entire administration!  Before Watergate, most Americans believed that the President limited his swearing to a good ”hell” or “damn” every now and then.  I vividly remember the first time I ever heard the four-letter-word used in a public place.  It was in a restaurant in 1985.  Apparently, I didn’t see many live comedy shows or attend any Rap concerts.  Watergate was big.  It made the unthinkable . . . thinkable!

With the invention of the integrated circuit by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments, the magic of miniaturization took over progress in the 80’s and 90’s.  In addition to the transformation of the slide rule, home telephones became pocket cells, room-sized IBM computers became laptops and even the written word became digitized.  There is now more computing power in a smart cell phone than there was at NASA when we went to the Moon.  The Internet has put your cousin in Ireland right on the screen, not 12 inches from your face.  The globe has been miniaturized.  Thanks Jack, you are one of the greatest heroes in the last half of the 20^th century.

There are others.  Billy Graham comes to mind. He has preached in person to more people around the world than any other Protestant in history.    As of 2008, Graham’s lifetime audience, including radio and television broadcasts, topped 2.2 billion, and I’ve never heard one credible piece of scandal or impropriety about the man.  In today’s culture, that is amazing.  My parents were heroes.  Not because of what they did or accomplished, but because they were there.  I had two parents that stayed together, loved me and did the best they could.  This may be the last century where such simple expectations exist.  I was one of the lucky ones.

I realize that here in America we haven’t even scratched the surface of “character assassination” when compared to the British Parliament or Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan.  It is the reaction to these descriptive adjectives; mean, mean-spirited, malicious or nasty when used by one side of the congressional aisle or the other, which gives me pause to consider the origin.  Congressman Wilson personally called the White House and apologized to the President.  Even though President Obama graciously accepted, neither the Democrats nor the main-stream media could let it go.  There must be some hypocrisy hiding somewhere.

As a youngster I do not recall, during the Kennedy or Johnson administrations, this kind of reporting by the media.  Civility was in such vogue that none of Jack Kennedy’s tom-cat escapades were ever made public until many years later.  We all know what the Nixon “tapes” did for behind-closed-doors rhetoric, but when did the “mean” become so public?

July 1, 1987.  On this notable Tuesday, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to replace Justice Lewis Powell on the Supreme Court of the United States.  Within 45 minutes, Ted Kennedy took to the floor of the U. S. Senate and christened the ship of “mean” on its maiden voyage:

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”

Teddy’s vitriolic tirade was so over the top that in March, 2002, the verb “Bork” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary; its definition extending beyond judicial nominees, stating that people who Bork others “usually [do so] with the aim of preventing [a person's] appointment to public office.”

The good ship “mean” didn’t stop sailing after Bork’s confirmation was defeated in the Senate 58-42.  The senator sailor from Massachusetts plotted a course into both Bush administrations.  Before the “surge” had time to work in Iraq, Teddy and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid steered into the wind:

“He lied to me personally.” Kennedy said, “Week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie.”

“You have to make your own decisions about what the President knows, this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday,” said Reid.

The entire Democrat side of the aisle audibly booed President Bush at the 2005 State of the Union Address when he cautioned that Social Security was going broke and that something had to be done.  Where was the outrage then?  Where is the recognition that President Bush was right and the financial stability of Social Security has only gotten worse?

Yes, Joe Wilson’s civility was overshadowed by his passion.  He apologized.  Hypocrites get over it!