SMART PEOPLE

I hate to be one of those guys who is always pointing out a problem but never offers any solutions. My last entry pointed out what we should not be looking for in a presidential candidate but did little to shed any light on what we need to be looking for this year. I know I said we had better get someone smarter than anybody I ever knew but failed to give any examples. After giving this some thought over the last two days I have a few suggestions for the type of person that should be considered.

The first example I thought of was the person who invented ‘spell-check’. Now this man or woman is smart, double barrel smart. Not only did they have a tremendous vocabulary, they know how to spell all the words correctly and even invented a process that identifies your mistake instantly and gives you options about what you are trying to say. When you think about what this invention saves just in onionskin copies and eraser rubber alone it is phenomenal. Millions and millions of trees have been saved and secretaries all over the world are spending more time at home and with their husbands and kids than can be imagined.

My next candidate would be the man or woman who invented the pull-top drink can opener that stays on the can and does not pull off to become either litter or a small weapon for self-mutilation. During the 60’s and 70’s when the first generation of pull tops were first introduced many strange and sometimes dangerous practices were adopted for disposing of the shiny little rings. A lot of our neighbors from north of Kentucky (Yankees) found themselves collecting these little baubles and stringing them together for home interior decorations. Strings of thousands were used to decorate family rooms, man caves and neighborhood bars. Now this practice certainly was a big help in keeping the Great Lakes litter free from the vast amounts of aluminum left around their shores by beer drinkers but really did nothing for the home décor of the area. Here in the South we also became pretty good at stringing the little aluminum flaps together but we used them mostly for body and automobile decorations and cheap jewelry. A lot of our women still carry the scars of being slightly lacerated around the neck and arms from necklaces and bracelets given them by their boyfriends after a day at the lake, fishing and supposedly drinking beer. We also used the little chains for decorating of our cars during that time. Nothing said ‘I’m a man’, like a string of beer can tabs artfully draped around our sun visors, rear view mirrors and back windows. Of course to our mothers they were from Coke cans but to those who mattered they were always from the vast amount of beer we could handle.

My last nomination must go to the inventor of the greatest invention in history. I think the feeling is almost unanimous that the person who invented the ‘Thermos’ bottle was the world’s greatest inventor and probably smart enough to lead this country for four years. I know it started with as a joke but who among us after hearing that old joke is not still thinking about the truth contained in the humor. You take an inanimate object like a ‘Thermos’ bottle and pour something hot into it early in the morning and it is still hot late in the afternoon. You take something cold and pour it into the same bottle early in the morning and then in the late afternoon it is still cold, and the question still baffles us as to how it knows just what we expect it to do. All of us snicker when we hear this old joke, but we really don’t know and we always leave pondering that last question,
“How do it know”.

Smart people come few and far between, we’d better find us one this year.

Drinkers, Bowlers and Presidents

What are we really looking for in a presidential candidate? We’re making these three people, which we will choose from, jump through hoops that do not tell us anything about how they might or will lead. Obama is trying to bowl, Hillary is downing shooters like a trail rider coming off a six month cattle drive and McClain is eating chitlins with the girls down at Gee’s Bend while they sell their quilts. What in the name of good sense does any of this mean and how does it make anyone a better President? Thinking and acting like me and you is not what is important, thinking and acting like the leader of the free world is what counts. Neither me nor anyone I’ve ever known (and I’ve known a lot of people) needs to be the President of the United States. We’d better be finding someone for that job, not someone we’d like to bowl and drink whiskey with on Saturday night.

After growing up in a southern rural area, four years of undergraduate school,three years grad school and a lifetime of living, I know literally hundreds of people that can do every one of these things well and I wouldn’t vote for any one of them to lead the Lions Club. If we were getting a bunch together to go back to Panama City for a reunion houseparty or some kind of bowling for dollars for a charity then maybe all this would be important. Are we so simple and gullible that we buy crap just because someone on MSNBC or Fox News tells us that it is necessary to lead a nation as diverse as ours? I really don’t want my President answering that 3:00 a.m. call everyone’s talking about after he or she has knocked down a few boilermakers bowling in the basement at the White House.

As voters we’ve got to start looking for someone who is a different and smarter than the good ole boys. We tried the good ole boy approach eight years ago and it doesn’t work. I know Little George reminded us of John Wayne a little when he stood behind the microphone and with a little squint in his eyes told us he was going to bring in (dead or alive) Osama, and when he stood in New Orleans and promised help was on the way. The fact of the matter is that running this country is too complex for 99.99% of the people living here. We better start looking for the person that actually is smarter and capable of pulling us back together for the times ahead.

I know many will point to Ronald Regan or John Kennedy as just good ole boys with average grades that lead this country in magnificent ways, but these guys had smarts far beyond your average citizen. They had the ability to galvanize the national imagination, resources and will of the people to confront problems of the day and solve them together. They had the ability to create consensus among all our citizens to accomplish a vision they laid out for us.

I have had the privilege of knowing many smart and capable people in my life. Leaders in business, religious and humanitarian fields, men and women that excelled in most everything they undertook, but I have never known a person that I thought could lead our nation through good times much less trying times. We’ve got plenty good, and sometimes great; drinkers, bowlers and phony do gooder ass kissers, we need someone smart, decisive and compassionate and we need them now.

Now for the drinkers, the golfers, the bowlers and the phonies, there is a meeting at Geno’s Pub at 4:30 next Friday afternoon. Be prepared to stay deep into the night.

Squirrels Gone Wild

I have a serious warning and I don’t know how to get in touch with MSNBC to get it out. Every time I call any news agency I get sent to a directory where by dialing a two-digit number I can choose from any one of 200 political experts. I can learn about either Obama or Hillary or John McCain’s choice of bathroom tissue, wart treatments or bodily functions. I really have some news of my own that I think Americans could benefit from, and maybe help me with, if I could only break this election obsession of the media to get it out to the public. For want of a better avenue to warn my friends I must depend on this simple means to protect as many as I can.

WARNING:

Squirrels eat awnings. They eat big, long, expensive fabric awnings faster than Tony Stewart can circle Talladega. We had this nice green and white-stripped awning that ran the entire length of our house when we moved in two years ago. I don’t know how long it had been there but it was in perfectly good shape on a Sunday night about a month ago. On the next day, Monday, there was a whole the size of a basketball directly above the main exterior door leading from the patio to the inside of the house. By Tuesday the hole was as large as a garbage can lid and growing. Now the worse part of this tragedy was that the culprit was fearless and impossible to intimidate or scare. A medium size brown and slightly graying squirrel was eating my damn awning and money like M & M’s in a bowl on the coffee table. I could walk out of the door with a broom to confront him and he would stand there and watch me until I got within range then gingerly step one step back onto the roof and out of reach, give me the squirrel finger and glare at me with a mean stare. I don’t have a gun so I resorted to a small tub of rat poison as a counter measure and I think he ate every grain of it like a side order of fries.

It has already cost me $70 to just get the awning taken down and I am waiting on an estimate to see how much it will take to recover this huge frame that looks like the infrastructure of a Delta IV rocket. My problem is I have no idea about how to avoid Killer Squirrel destroying the replacement. If anyone has any time tested remedies please let me know. The battle between the mad rodent and me could go on forever. We are like Hamas and Israel; this may become the 100-year war, generations to come continuing this fight between mortal enemies.

Death to the Squirrels.

I’ve got it figured out. I know why less than 50% of our citizens even bother to vote. Watching last night’s big debate in Philly did it for me, the light went on and with my keen since of observation I saw our problem.

We’re not sick of government or politicians, we are sick of pompous network newsmen. Now whether you like Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama you had to get tired of the smug, know it all attitudes of the two jackasses asking the questions. Both Senators are pros, not perfect, but pros. They have had everything in the world thrown at them for over a year and have done their share of throwing, that’s politics, but we are down to the lick log and it time to see what they each have in the way of substantive ideas. For whatever the reason the morons questioning them looked like cub reporters for the National Inquirer.

If my preacher, who I think is one of the finest men I’ve ever known, were running for office these two clowns could make him look like a pervert. The line of questioning would go something like this.

1. Q. Dr. Greer, is it true you grew up in the mountains of Tennessee where illegal whiskey was a large part of the economy?
A. Why yes, that was back in the 50’s and 60’s, that’s right.

2. Q. Well Dr. Greer, is it not true you drove numerous bootleggers around in a long black automobile on many of their last rides on this earth?
A. Yes, my family was in the funeral home business and we did take care of most of the people in the area.

3. Q. And when you ‘took care’ of the persons working outside the law, did you not continue to associate with the families of these outlaws long after they were gone?
A. Why yes, sometimes it took us a long time to get paid. And we had to stay after them on occasion.

4. Q. Well then you did take money that had been made illegally from these various crime families.
A. Well they paid us most of the time.


5. Q. Did you not change your mind about a career in the Army and leave the Army before you had completed the 20 years service needed to retire and then go to a left wing liberal college near New York to earn a degree?
A. Yes, it was a liberal arts college; I got a PhD and entered the ministry.

6. Q. And since that time have you consistently advocated that people with money should give a portion of their income to worthless, non-working street people?
A. Yes I have, I think that’s what Christ taught us to do.

7. Q. Oh, so you’re a Christian, I guess that means you don’t worship with Jews or Catholics or Muslims at all on Sundays, am I right on that?
A. Well I have my own congregation I’m obligated to on most Sundays.

8. Q. So you feel no obligation to Jews, Catholics of Muslims for their well-being or chosen form of worship, isn’t that right?
A. I respect them and their choice of religion but I choose to be a Methodist and have an obligation to my congregation.

9. Q. I guess you feel an obligation to take a part of this country’s hard earned bounty and just give it away to strangers in Africa, just because they are starving and need it, is that right?
A. Yes I do.

By this time Dr. Greer would see where all this was going. He would ask if the host were not interested in his position on Health Care, Education, Energy and the Environment. Mr. Gibson and little George would quickly plug ‘Nightline’ coming up at 10:30, break for one last word from their sponsors, and with one last smile say “thank you for joining us and be sure that no matter what, you vote.”

Now do you understand why we are disillusioned?

Just when I was beginning to worry about my summer vacation I get some really good news. President Bush said Friday he was going to look into the airline crisis that caused thousands of flights to be cancelled last week and hundreds of thousands of people to be left in airports across the country. Hopefully the President will bring Mr. Cheney in on this effort to help correct whatever is wrong. These two have done such a good job on everything they have undertaken over the last seven years that I have full confidence in the two of them and their administration getting this mess straighten out.

If they can work their magic on this problem the way they have on; the war in Iraq, the corporate scandals, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the overall economy, the immigration issues, the waste and abuse at the veterans administration and the spiraling price of oil, then travel by air will be a breeze. Within just a few weeks the long lines at ticket counters and families sleeping in waiting areas will be just a bad memory, much like the dead and decaying downtowns of the rust belt and the news stories on the corruption in the government of Iraq. As Mr. McClain, the heir apparent to the Bush legacy said of the economy, the crisis will soon become just a figment of our imagination, a bad dream we are not capable of rationalizing. Our President can do it, ‘mission accomplished’ will again be the message, this time from the tarmac of DFW, with planes landing and taking off in the background. This time Mr. Bush will fly in wearing a commercial pilots uniform. He would be more at home in that uniform than he was in the fighter pilot outfit he wore to declare the Iraq war finished and done.

Thank you for you efforts Mr. President, Disney World looks safe for another year.

Decoration Day

I always know when the pollen is in the air, the cars start turning yellow and my eyes constantly burn and water like a sprinkler system that it’s Spring and time for ‘decoration’. I’m getting to the age where very few Southerners and absolutely no Yankees have any idea what you’re talking about when you mention, ‘gettin ready for decoration’. It was time in my life that I love to remember, ponder and to this day miss very much.

‘Decoration’ was the day in our part of the country where families remembered and honored the dearly departed members of their families. My Dad’s family had most of the generations before my grandmother buried in a small cemetery adjoining a little country church named Ireland. Now none of these people were Irish as far as I can tell and I have no idea where the ‘Ireland’ name came from but most of those buried there were either ‘Moores’ or ‘Donaldsons’, my grandmothers’ ancestors.

‘Decoration Day’ was always on Mothers Day. Every year kinfolks from as far away as Ohio and as near as Boaz would start arriving on the Friday before and the pallets and old army cots would come out to make room for everyone. There was always a big contingent from Birmingham that would pile in and a few stragglers from Mississippi and Tennessee. I was young and never really understood how I was related to anyone except that my Mam Maw was kin to them thence they were my relatives to.

Friday night was always the big hamburger cookout night. Somehow an old fashion portable bar-b-q grill would appear and my Uncle Bill would cook hamburger patties for what seemed like hours. The menu never changed, hamburgers, with all the fixin’s, baked beans and potato salad that all the aunts would chip in to make and either fresh lemonade or heavily sweetened ice tea to drink. If my dad’s generation were really into it there was a freezer of ice cream but always a ton of the sweetest, chewiest and most delicious brownies anyone ever put in their mouths.

Saturday for the adults was for decorating the graves in the small cemetery at Ireland, down in the country. All of the ones who came early loaded their cars with what seemed like tons of flowers and plants (never artificial) to be placed on the graves of our ancestors. The men of the family made sure the little cemetery was covered with no less than two feet of pure white sand. The place always looked like it had been moved from Destin to Marion County by the Saturday before Mothers Day. For the kids Saturday was a day to roam and play in the woods near the church or in the piles of white sand that had been left when all the graves and cemetery were covered. I don’t remember what we ever ate on Saturday but I just know it was always great. On Saturday night everyone would gather on Mam Maw’s front porch to talk and remember growing up poor and happy. The adults would remember the same stories year after year. The time Marie got her first car, after working for Mr. Moses at the Courthouse. How she came out to the old home place at Fowler Flats and loaded up Mam Maw, Codelle and my Dad, who was just a little boy at the time, and bounced them up and down the road while she learned to drive. They always remembered when Lola left to go the Chicago to attend nursing school and got home just a day after I was born and how I had grabbed her finger from my crib in the little hospital and how since that day I’d always been her favorite. Those and a thousand other stories from everyone gathered taught me about my very special family and how hard life had been at the turn of the century and on through the 20’s, 30’s, and into the 40’ when things finally began to ease up a little.

Sunday morning was the big time of the weekend. My brother and I would go with my Dad to Mr. Dillard's ice plant to get, for many years, blocks of ice to ‘hold everything until dinner’.(dinner being the noon meal) Later when Mr. Dillard got an ice crusher we’d get several bags of ice to ‘ice everything down’. After we loaded everything into coolers, a possession of 12 to 15 cars would leave Haleyville for the 10-mile trip down into the country to the little church and cemetery where all our ancestors had been resting for years and years. Most ‘decoration’ days someone would have asked Judge Bobby Aderholt to preach a sermon. Bobby, who recently retired as a Circuit Judge, was probably just a young lawyer at the time and it was long before he fathered U.S.Congressman Robert Aderholt. Bobby was really a pretty good preacher, although he turned out to be a great long term judge, and he would give this bunch of Donaldson’s and Moore’s a pretty good fill of religion before the real serious business of eating got underway.

After the service the men would move the pews from the Church to a shady area to the side of the little church. Like magic white table clothes and more food that the my little mine could ever imagine would appear up and down these makeshift church pew tables and those gathered would begin the ritual of serious eating. My brother Jimmy and I would always be on the lookout for some big relative from Birmingham named Warner Reese(I never knew how we were kin or even his last name), who always brought his food contribution in a big cooler boldly sporting a huge 'Falstaff' logo on the side. Since alcohol was forbidden in our family we somehow knew Warner Reese would one day implode before our very eyes but either fortunately for him or unfortunately for us it never happen. Warner Reese was always worth watching. He was a big man, almost the size of our dad, but he dressed like someone from a big city like Birmingham. Light colored suits with big flowery ties, a tan or white hat and two-tone shoes. Jimmy and I thought he must either be the Governor or at least Mayor of Birmingham. I was so disappointed later in life when I learned he was actually a debit insurance salesman. What a waste.

By 3:00 everything was over. The entire party had loaded their coolers with the few morsels that were left and headed back into Haleyville to pick up their bed rolls and suitcases that were scattered across the town in the homes of all the local cousins and kinfolks. That night we were all back in our regular beds and things were quite for the first time in three days. We were back in school the next day and things were mostly business as usual except for the fact that we once again had met our family. Some of them we liked while some simply raised our curiosity, the fact was that once again we knew them. I really hate that my kids don’t have a ‘decoration day’; maybe there is another Warner Reese out there somewhere and mine and Jimmy’s grandkids will never get to see him.
What a waste.

John McCain, a man of the people? I don’t think so. Some how I missed, after all the talk about John McCain, the fact that he is the son and grandson of Navy Admirals. Not the kind who call the local yacht club to order, but the kind that rules the seven seas and Pentagon.

America, not unlike ancient Rome, treats our military leaders like some kind and royalty, and I guess deservingly so. The reason is, I have always presumed, is that it allows them to maintain their focus on matters of war and the defense of our nation. The problem arises in the fact that by so doing, they are insulated from the everyday problems and annoyances that plague all the rest of us. The staff to maintain a General or Admiral is enormous. There must me a live human to assure the availability of everything from the right soft drink, (diet or regular, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, etc), a driver, a shopper, a cook, a valet, various housekeepers, a caddy and always a full staff of clerical personnel. The children of an Admiral, especially the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, always seem to have a direct line to the Naval Academy and are sent forthwith on to their careers in the service of their lineage.

I suppose this is a time honored tradition with merit, but it does to a large degree, shelter these families from the day to day trials and tribulations all the rest of us face in our civilian lives. Who has ever heard of an Admirals family being forced to move because of a foreclosure? Not in my recollection have I ever heard of any Admiral losing his pension or health benefits because the company he worked for had been stripped of all its assets by a corrupt executive or moved out of the country because of the cost of labor in this country. John McCain did serve his country with great honor and sacrifice, but nothing in his background gives him any insight into what the vast majority of Americans are facing today. He admits that he knows very little about the economy. A fact that is easily understood when reviewing his background. An early life as the son of a military icon and an adult life in political office does nothing to prepare him for the role of Chief Executive of this country. It also lends nothing to his resume as a man for the people when he’s married to a woman worth over $100,000,000.00.

I’d like to see something in his bio about the number of times he has actually shopped in a Wal-Mart, Costco or Target. Tell me about him even knowing a person, much less being the person, who carries his child to an emergency room with a broken arm, knowing he has no insurance or has less cash in his pocket than the co-pay he’s going to be ask to produce by some fat woman in white shoes.

Right now the last thing we need is a rich, life long government employee running this country. This man has no idea or any way of knowing what the majority of people in this country are facing today. God Bless our military, but don’t expect the Admirals and Generals to give you directions to Kroger’s.
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My response to my friend Jim.

Jim,

Here goes my answer to your questions about why Barack Obama is causing so much stir in our country today. I start with the presumption that the vast majority of the people making up the electorate of this country are basically honest, good and hardworking folks. I know there are many who do not fall in this category and they sometimes draw far too much attention from the others who do. I think this majority wants to believe in the basic principles we learned as children that the United States stands for equal opportunity, hope and moral character. Basically, they want to believe we can all live together, work together and unite for a common purpose and enjoy a national sense of pride with a strong moral compass that simply says when something is not right we just don’t do them, regardless of who it benefits or hurts. The runaway partisanship of the last several years has eaten away at this fundamental belief so many hold so dear. I personally blame the 24/7 news proliferation; talk radio and the constant perception of one group being played against the other for political and financial gain as the main culprit.

When gas prices are at $3.25 per gallon and the oil companies are making one hundred and twenty billion dollars ($120,000,000,000.00) per year and still receiving eighteen billion dollars ($18,000,000,000.00) per year in tax credits it just doesn’t feel right. Especially when we constantly read of the over fifty million to one hundred million dollar ($50,000,000.00-$100,000,000.00) salaries the executives are making, the Gulfstreams they fly around in and the lavish life styles they lead. When billions of dollars are drained from several multi-national, but yet domestic companies (re: Enron, MCI, etc), our population is smart enough to know that something is amiss. Sometimes our gut just tells us that something is not right. When we are fighting a war that is costing us billions of dollars a day and over four thousand lives, that we were led into on the basis of facts that were never true we just become even more disillusioned

I also believe that voters in this country are not buying that a simple change in the party controlling the White House will change things much. If that were the case I think Hillary Clinton would be a shoo in. I guess we are collectively thinking that it just time to seek a new wind to guide our ship of state. We’ve probably finally seen the wisdom in the old saying that ‘if you keep on doing the same things there is no need to expect a different result.’

Obama is the only hope for real change the people see. He may not be the best possible man for the job, but he is different. He does have a strange middle name, his preacher did say some crazy things over a thirty year ministry and he is partially black, but he has accomplish a lot of good and positive things in his short career. The voters in his state saw enough good to send him to the Senate. He has participated in crafting some very good bi-partisan legislation, he does enjoy the backing of other people that have proven records as successful leaders and he is different from the politicians of the past if in nothing else but his age.

The voters that are gravitating to him do it with a lot of hope. They are realistic enough to know that he may not be the man. They do know that something has got to change and that we must once again become a united people or we will surely fall. We know he is young, well educated, well spoken, somewhat proven and with an understanding of divisiveness that the normal national politician will usually not have. Maybe he is the one, we can only hope. We just cannot continue to be torn apart, whether it be by race, financial station in life or by party lines.

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

That’s my take on this. I believe it is this huge middle of the road younger voter that is making this decision. I don’t believe it is the voter that calls himself conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat; I believe it’s the guy who says there has got to be a better way and that voter hopes and prays Obama is the right man.

I got an e-mail a few minutes ago from my old friend Jim Leverett who is a die-hard Republican. We have talked and corresponded several times about the upcoming Presidential election and he knows I'm a Democrat and of my leanings toward Sen. Obama, though he doesn't agree with me. Today he wanted me to explain why Obama seemed to be drawing such wide spread support and what was there about him that energized the people like he did. I going to give him a real answer someday this week but for now I thought the following might make my future explanation easier.

Dear Jim,
I would write you back with a full explantion but since it would be so much like a blog I must refrain since you don't like those. I did get the e-mail with your question about what makes Sen. Obama seemingly popular but have been busy and not had time to respond to your inquiry. I will address in more depth later in the week.

Before I try I would recommend you get completely off the Rush Limbaugh and Fox News cool-aid. A few suggestions to follow before trying to understand:

Say 100 times every night:

1. "Just because it is Republican doesn't make it right."

2. "No one is either right or wrong 100% of the time and even Bill Clinton did many things right."

3. "The world did not begin nor end with Ronald Reagan."

4. "Sometimes the rich do harm the poor."

5. "Joe Lieberman may actually have his hand up John McCain's back making his lips move."

I know this will be hard but you can do it. After a few days when you are more open minded I will explain why Barack Obama looks pretty good to a lot of people.

Your old buddy,
Jack Norman