Slaughter of the Innocents

The Gospel writer Matthew (2:16-18) refers to King Herod and his order to kill all male infants age 2 and under living in and around the town of Bethlehem. He had been told that a rival king had just been born there. Jesus survived the horror only because his parents took him to Egypt and away from the scene of the massacre. That infamous tragedy has haunted the civilized world for over two thousand years.

While Herod and Bethlehem seem long ago and far away to those of us living in America today, the horror we felt when reports came in from Connecticut is exactly the same. (Perhaps even more so in our case because we have grandkids living just down the road from Newtown.)  Surely parents of the 20 little boys and girls who were gunned down by a mentally ill 20 year old would have escaped with their loved ones if it had been possible for them to do so.  Oceans of ink have been poured into reporting on this disaster and even more will be written in the days and weeks ahead about what can be done to prevent another bloodbath. But with all this said we still have to express our point of view and design a game plan of our own.

My first step is to check with local school authorities to make sure they are at the top of their game by reviewing whatever security systems are already in place. And yes, we should all learn more about mental illness and how to recognize danger signs. But most of all we should lean on our elected officials to tell them they MUST support commonsense national legislation to actually DO something about the scandalous gun madness here in our United States of America.

Dying for You

Mikado Bragg, was a long long way from her hometown of Longview, Washington, when she left us at 21.  Matthew Abbate, a son of Hawaii passed away at 26.  “Left us” and “passed away” do not do justice to these young people. They were taken from us. They died for me. They died for you.

Scrawled on a wall of a bullet-ridden hovel in a godforsaken zone out in nowhere there is a stark message.  It reads, “The Marines are on the front line; America is at the mall.” It's true, you know.

In earlier times young men were drafted into military service.  We had no choice. Nowadays men and women volunteer to wear the uniform and thus put themselves in harm's way by choice. Some see this as a “you asked for it” reason to distance themselves from military people. On top of that many American citizens simply do not have a clue what “freedom isn't free” is all about.

War is beyond Hell. Those of us who study military history are repeatedly staggered at the terrible cost in human life and lifelong damage to the spirits of their survivors. During World War One on the very first day of the Battle of the Somme, when Great Britain opened a massive offensive against entrenched Germans, the British casualties alone were in excess of 60,000 soldiers!

That bloodletting battle and so many others are simply incomprehensible to us, so we more or less push them aside. Individual deaths in the line of duty however have greater impact on most of us. But not all.

Corporal Brock Bucklin was one of our own killed in action. His twin brother, Corporal Brad Bucklin, escorted Brock's body back from Iraq on a commercial airline. As their plane taxied to the gate the flight’s captain came on the intercom and told the passengers, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an American hero on board with us tonight. As a sign of respect please remain seated while we honor Corporal Bucklin and his sacrifice.”

The few moments of delay where Brad Bucklin could escort his brother's remains to a waiting family were lost forever because half of the passengers on the plane got off anyway.

No doubt they were rushing to the mall.                

Spitting (Part 2)

My recent View from the Observation Deck blog posting (June 2012) spoke about baseball players and their constant spitting. It caused a bit of a stir. Some business readers defend the habit as "part of the game" where adrenalin flow plus physical effort demand immediate outlet. Many readers decried the spitting as a disgusting unsanitary habit insulting to everyone. Television viewers are victimized especially since camera close-ups accentuate every incident. The jury is still out on this one.

Message to grads: It’s your world now

Men and women serving in the military have a special bond that ties them together even after they put their uniforms aside. There is another bonding in our country which embraces young people, parents and grandparents as well as relatives and friends – to wit, the vast audience who attend graduation ceremonies.  

Graduations are rightful recognitions of past accomplishment as well as an exciting first page for a new chapter in the book of life. Each ceremony combines sighs of relief from those who have passed their finals with parental boasting about their offspring. There are other players involved

in the moment of course, particularly the teachers who have nurtured the young men and women who will now be moving on. Then there are the grandparents (many still trying to figure out where the time went when their own kids, not their grandkids, were gracing the graduation stage) relatives, friends and certainly the speaker of the day. It is no easy thing to provide guidance and inspiration to restless spirits chomping at the bit for the post-ceremony parties. It is also a lifelong lesson for graduates – don’t believe any speaker who says he/she “will just take a few minutes.” We audience veterans know those “few minutes” can stretch from here to eternity.                

There are surely electrifying speakers taking the podium at graduation day ceremonies around the world, but the fact is they are few and far between.  Most speakers are well meaning ladies and gentlemen who having drawn the assignment are doggedly determined to do the best they can. Good for them! If you have to speak at a graduation, here’s a tip: Keep it short. Like most sermons or homilies in church, shorter is always better, and shorter than short will make you king or queen for the day. Nobody will remember what you are going to say anyway, but they will remember you FOREVER if you make them suffer unreasonably. It was true this time round for Bryce, Kelly and Carolyn just as it was for you, for me, for everyone else. 

Young people today are conditioned to being congratulated for everything. From kindergarten on up, they receive a prize for something, even just being there. So if you are going for the whole package, that is both the awards and diploma events, be prepared for a very long day. 

Scattered among our ceremonies this time round were prep school graduations. I’m old school when it comes to graduations – caps and gowns for one and all because they are great equalizers. There is greater leeway with prep school attire however – and greater adventure for parents. The sea of white dresses for the young women range from Snow White to near-Hooters.  And many a parent/mother is getting an unnerving preview that the kid who almost drove her crazy is now a women not too far removed from being a bride.  As for the young men, nothing much has changed – the traditional blue blazer, the knotted tie askew, pants cascading down around the ankles.  One soul behind me murmured “for $40,500 a pop, he could at least have combed his hair.” 

Ah well, not to worry, it is their world now, not ours.  It will all work out in the end.

Like the song says, they will always be daddy’s little girls

Some songs, like some romances, are gone with the dawn of the day. Other melodies linger on forever just like the special women we associate them with.

The song “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” introduced by the late Maurice Chevalier in the motion picture “Gigi,” is one such. The truth is little girls do in fact “grow up in a most delightful way.” The challenge is to steer them successfully through their tweens and high-school dating. Sons are widely considered gifts from God, but don’t you think all babies are?

Men pray for a son so that a father and a younger version of himself can go out on the front lawn to throw a football around. So here’s to all of us who have sons, and beyond that to our sons’ sons. Now hold your breath, dear reader, for I have to attempt a transition in the paragraphs that follow.

Let’s not quibble about whether you are blessed more or less by the sex of your offspring. Early on my little Susan knew how to run deep then cut to snag a pass. She was my athletic delight right up to the very moment when Susan and her pal, Jean Scribner, decided that they were going to be “girls.”

So endeth the lesson of my football-on-the-lawn drills.

Short of walking to an electric chair the most challenging 50-yard stroll in the world is a father’s trip down the aisle to the wedding altar with his daughter on his arm. This trail of tears is made worse by the certain knowledge that there is not a man on the face of the earth good enough for Daddy’s Little Girl.

The single saving grace is the near certain knowledge that your departing daughter will remain closer to your side of the family than to his.

The bond between mother and daughter is unbreakable and through no effort of his own a father gains because of this. As for newly wedded sons, we send them off with a sense of loss combined with comedy and sympathy because he will be spending most of his time with them.

Little girls do grow up in most amazing ways for in time they become young mothers and present us with that wonder of wonders, grandchildren. Happily, all the while daughters retain an inner compass that keeps steering them back to check on Daddy.

Life is good.

Spitting

“Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette…” goes the song written by Merle Travis for the country singer Tex Williams.  Besides saving Williams’ waning career, the number went on to huge success on the charts and remains a catchy chorus to this very day. Now thanks to televised baseball games smoking has been replaced by spitting.  It’s just a question of time before another song is born, but how to turn “spit, spit, spit” into a memorable hit?

No one can challenge the fact that television coverage of baseball games has brought what was formerly considered a nasty and illegal habit right into our living rooms every time the batter is up. I was reminded of how far we have slipped as a society during the last division playoffs when a woman seated nearby voiced what most of us keep unspoken: ”Why do they have to spit ALL the time?” Given the multiple shots of players spitting and the millions watching them do it, this disgusting habit is well on its way to becoming the new national pastime. It is surely much more of a macho habit than a physical necessity.

There are serious ramifications here, not the least of which is endangering the health of players themselves.  We are increasingly aware of infectious disease. People are being urged to cough or sneeze into their own arms, wash their hands frequently and consider carefully if they want to shake hands with every single soul they meet. I understand that the dugouts for the teams are never going to be confused with Sanitary Central but the accumulated spittle in small areas constitute danger zones. One can reasonably assume that some players are looking to be out of the dugout and into the game just to escape puddles of spit. Youngsters mimicking their baseball heroes are certainly being ill served. All you have to do is watch Little League games where copycat spitting has become routine.

If there is a bright side to this epidemic it is decreased use of big wads of tobacco held in the check. There are one or two player holdouts of course but the danger of tongue and cheek cancer caused by chewing tobacco has surely lessened. Nowadays there are substitute cheek-fillers like bubble gum. We’ll settle for team managers popping bubbles if they’ll keep our favorite teams competitive year after year, but it’s still an odd sight seeing grownups imitating a little kid’s habit. Sunflower seeds are another ballplayer spitting choice. The flying debris reminds us of the finches sitting on our backyard feeder flicking birdseed shells to grateful squirrels gathered below. Even with all this spitting and the frequent “equipment adjustments” players make while they are on camera, the game of baseball may still live on as our national sport. But as a school of good example? NOT.

Perhaps next year we will see a change, but I don’t think so for bad habits are very hard to break.  The answer may lie in strategically placing attractive spittoons in the dugout and around the infield.

Memorial Day

                      If you close your eyes and keep your fingers crossed, Memorial Day will be here before you know it. The day is intended to honor the men and women who died in our nation’s wars. For most of us May 28 will involve parades, barbeques and perhaps briefly thinking about all deceased veterans whether they died on active service or long after their uniforms were put aside.

                       There are a handful of stories about how Memorial Day came to be, just as there are various cities around this land claiming honor as the site of its origination. The most widely accepted version however credits the ladies of the South who started to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers who lost their lives in The War Between the States, our own Civil War. Many people confuse the purpose of Memorial Day with that of Veterans Day. The latter was originally “Armistice Day” commemorating the end of hostilities (1914-1918) between the Allied Forces and the Imperial forces of Germany during ”The War to End All Wars”. Of course it wasn’t really a war to end all wars because two decades later we had that much larger and bloodier conflict we now call “World War II”. Then there was Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan and who knows what will be next?  Our young men and women will ever be in uniform manning the walls and protecting those of us at home.

                             As most of you know the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld the right of anti-war protestors to show up at funerals with signs to celebrate the deaths of fallen warriors even as service members are being laid to rest eternal. The hurt of such demonstrations has been subordinated to protecting the right of free speech. I understand free speech and how important it is in a democracy; indeed I express my own opinion in this blog site every time I write a post. What I do not understand is the desecration of any person’s memory during holy final moments, particularly one who has given his/her life for our country. As for the few who choose to interrupt and celebrate the death of a service person, my editor will not permit me to use such words in this forum.

                              The legendary General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur, is remembered for many contributions over his long and distinguished military career but none more so than when he said “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” With respects to the general, old soldiers do die and in 2011 we lost the last of them from World War I. His name was Frank Buckles and he served as a corporal and ambulance driver in France. He was 110 years old.

                                   On this coming Memorial Day and on all other days of the year for that matter, don’t forget to remember the valiant men and women of our Armed Forces. As a matter of fact you don’t have to wait until May 28. Whenever you see a man or woman in military uniform, personally thank him or her for their service. I guarantee you that they will appreciate your doing so.