Holiday Baking

Finally, I have the time, clarity and impetus to get a post together. It's amazing how quickly the year has scooted by since last posting before Thanksgiving.

Every year, I say that same thing because once Halloween goes by it seems like the final 61 days are a blur of decorating, shopping and trying to train myself not to nibble at the Adorable Wife's "holiday baking." Quotes here are used to identify the exact words she uses, but they may convey the wrong concept. "Holiday baking'' might cause one to think of Betty Crocker hard at it ten days before Christmas, slaving over the oven to hand-craft gifts of homemade treats for friends and family. Dressed in a A-line and pearls with immaculate hair, nails and makeup, Betty
thoughtfully loads cookies, tarts, cakes and candy into baskets or tins and garnishes them with bows which she herself ties. The full force of "holiday baking" might even give one to assume Betty hosts a Christmas party in her beautifully decorated home at which the prized treats are distributed to anxiously expectant neighbors, local power families and her kids' teachers.

But that isn't what happens here.

Adorable Wife starts worrying in late August about what to do. She bakes cookies, candied orange peels and fudge for all of her heftiest donors and a few things for a couple of girlfriends, but not for others in general. She really should forget the girlfriends because they're always dieting anyway or are allergic to sugar. Regardless, just after Halloween Adorable Wife lays in a load of pecans, condensed milk and chocolate chips just so she will know they are there when she's ready to crank up the oven in six short weeks.

And finally in December, she cuts the bear loose. Demands are made of her employer for time off, since most everything is given away to work-related friends of the institution. I am summoned from my winter hibernation to assist. Then for three days there is a fury of white flour dust in the air and gritty, dried brown sugar residue on the counter tops. The kitchen is a whirlwind of cookie sheets, bowls of all sizes awaiting washing, orange peels cooling on racks and displeased comments regarding the unsatisfactory grade of butter I allegedly bought. The oven, roused from its eleven-month rest, runs constantly.

My job is usually to wash bowls as they are emptied, cookies sheets when they are almost cool enough to touch, spoons and measuring vessels of all kinds as well--and have them instantly available when Her Adorableness demands them. This is the first year in many that I have been present for the entire ordeal, so I had a front-row seat for the whole thing.

Wife prefers not to work in a dress, heels and pearls, but in a warm-up suit and sneakers. Things being what they are for her, the warm-up jacket often gives way to a T-shirt and I am commanded to open a window. Also, after all of this ''holiday baking'' is done and over, there is no party. There is no gaiety or salivating neighbor waiting at the door. Adorable Wife merely shovels everything into little boxes and runs deliveries each day for a week until all is gone. By Christmas Eve, I once again have the grit off the countertops and all the bowls back in the cabinets.

There is no more baking for the next twelve months. It was once true that Adorable Wife would make a cake in September for my birthday, but since the time all the icing slid off the top layer that seems to have gone by the wayside. I guess my birthday cake really doesn't qualify as holiday baking anyway but it was a nice gesture.

So now Thanksgiving is done, the baking is done, Christmas is done, and after tomorrow, New Year's Day is done as well. That finishes off ''the holidays" as we have come to call the time, loosely from Thanksgiving to the New Year's. The long, dark tunnel of winter is before us with little to look forward to until (for me) March Madness begins. Even with that, I can't say I will miss much about 2010. Except for the November election, I must admit 2010 was pretty bleak for me. Like the New York Mets used to say, ''maybe next year.''

Wrong again.

Having taken most of a month off from blogging, much of which was spent holding breath over the election, I have been able to reflect (like the President, Katie Couric, and countless others) what this election means. But do you need someone to tell you that? Some things seem obvious, others less so, but here goes.

1. This isn't an embrace of Republicans or Conservatives, but a thorough rejection of Obamacare, Cap-and-Trade (energy credits trading and taxing), an incredibly ineffective stimulus program-the largest success of which has been political paybacks to large labor unions and other Democratic supporters. It's also a rejection of the people who created and enacted these...things. And it's a rejection of the Pelosi/Reid closed-door politics which denied the people a healthy legislative debate on the content and execution of these topics.

2. The citizens want their country secured. No one has seen to that. How many terrorists have walked uncontested into America shoulder to shoulder with other illegals? Where are they right now, and what are they planning?

3. The citizens want their economy fixed. The proven remedy is to reduce taxes and reduce even more the spending of government funds. Of course this makes political paybacks and buying loyalty through government freebies much more difficult and is unpopular among Democratic legislators. This is a simple cyclical occurrence which we routinely have in our economy. It isn't rocket science, and folks want the leaders to do what they know has to be done.

4. The citizens want the debt of the country reduced, and fast. If we have to go without a stimulus, and departments all have to cut budgets across the board, so be it.

5. The citizens want the health care bill repealed, Cap and Trade dead (and not run by executive order through the EPA, but dead as a doornail), the stimulus program cut off and spending controlled. Soon.
That's basically what the election was about. It isn't complicated. I was pleased that people finally woke up and recognized that Candidate Obama was telling us exactly what he intended to do, and to his credit, got it done. Unfortunately people were voting for a rock star, for the first black president, for a nice guy, all the while overlooking what he was actually saying.

Really, people need to listen more. Obama, Pelosi, Reid--they did exactly what they said they would. It is going to take some time to undo damage of this scale. That's why so many Democrats were discarded, and may yet be cast out in 2012. On the strength of his charm, Obama will probably be reelected but severely limited by an unfriendly Congress and suspicious electorate.

At any rate, this is our take here on what the election means. The President, all the network media talking heads and the daily papers will tell you that this election was the people clamoring for more cooperation in Washington. Horsefeathers. That's just more spin from the liberal spin machine whose fax machines and emails carried that message to Democratic leaders all morning on Wednesday, November 3rd. And they got it wrong again.

Think Pink

Everything this month is pink. Women in pink. Men wearing pink lapel ribbons. High school kids, boys and girls alike, wearing pink t-shirts, socks and shorts. Pink dye in the fountains. Pink newspaper pages. NFL players and officials with pink gloves and whistles. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting something pink.

Clearly it's breast cancer awareness month proudly sporting pink as the color of the cause du jour. Women no doubt live in the shadows of this affliction, having been drilled since youth to remember yearly exams, self-examination and know the advantage of early detection. It may not be a conscious concern each day but surely it weighs on a woman's mind from time to time, if for no other reason than propagation of this particular affliction. Everyone knows someone who has contracted breast cancer. Many know someone who did not survive it.

Clearly breast cancer is a terrible disease, affecting even women who undergo surgery to remove masses that might possibly serve as a platform for cancer to develop. Awareness is high and seems to increase each year with more walks, runs, pink days and media attention than the year before. Women are constantly reminded to be vigilant.

With the possible exception of Muscular Dystrophy, I think no other affliction approaches the public relations and media frenzy that accompanies breast cancer month. Make no mistake, it is well deserved and does much good teaching and alerting women to the danger.

It leaves me only one observation: Where is equal time for men?

Seriously. Men are not commonly stricken with breast cancer. Many, however, are hammered with prostate cancer and it too can lie undetected. By the time symptoms develop, you're way behind the recovery curve. There doesn't seem to be any hype associated with it though. No fun runs, no walks-for-the-cure. No Susan Koman standard-bearer. No awareness month. What color do we wear for prostate cancer? Who walks for men?

Perhaps the public doesn't care that men get sick. Females are supposed to be the fairer, gentler gender (a highly subjective view, I must add) and need more attention, more nursing, and must suffer more publicly. I don't know. In this era of political correctness and not caring to bruise any feelings about anything, should men not be granted a bit of support against a disease particular to men?

None of this is asked to diminish the dread and horror of a breast cancer diagnosis. Not at all. But when will society fall in behind men with prostate cancer? The treatments are unpleasant to discuss or contemplate. Cancer of any kind is an awful future to face, but many men face it too. Perhaps men are expected to be stoic and suffer in silence, but why should that be? Correctness demands an balanced approach.

Again, take nothing away from the pink cause. It's a good thing and promotes life-saving practices. But who is looking out for men?

Just wondering.

34 in the bag

In my vanilla past there have been, and are, a few significant women that have had an effect on me. I don't mean role models, or runway models, or Playboy models, but women I have actually known that have somehow shaped my life a lot or a little. There were a few that temporarily changed my habits, like the gorgeous young Italian woman (who, appropriately, taught Italian) in college that caused me to linger in the hallway after Criminology just to see her walk by on her way to her classroom. But I refer more to those who had a longer-lasting positive effect.

Of course there was my mom with whom I was always close, but becoming more close after my father died far too early in life. Her life took her from an Iowa farm without electricity or plumbing, to college, through a teaching career, through World War II as a civilian Navy file clerk, to life with our small family. Things she taught me to do and be, and to not do and not be, are always with me and always will be just as Mom herself is.

I can point to my mother-in-law as one whose caring and endurance and hard work--all with a sense of humor--helped me form a lot of my adult life and parenting skills. Always putting everyone else first, she set the standard high to ''love thy neighbor.'' No one else I have ever met comes close.

My daughters continually wow me with the things they accomplish. They are not bank presidents or genetic engineers but regular responsible people, one a dedicated mother and teacher; the other a multitasking psychologist who works with seniors. They, too, are determined and work hard. When your offspring grow up and take on the world as they have it is gratifying and humbling all at the same time.

There are some others; a teacher, a friend who has dropped out of my life, a few other women I have personally known who have impressed me or effected my life in some way.

Then there is Adorable Wife, now on the eve of anniversary no. 34. Words fail me.

Her good qualities are great and her no-so-good qualities are actually pretty tolerable. If the daughters are hard workers they learned it from mom. She balanced what became full-time work, two grade-school (and later high school) girls and all the activities and diversions that accompany adolescence, aging parents who often depended on her for help, and my own demanding job which kept me out of the house and unable to help.

Sure, lots of women do all that and more, some as single parents. Others have huge obstacles to overcome with health, work and income. We didn't have most of these. But Adorable Wife, operating not on college education or hard-knocks experience but on her own wits, took on the task of helping support the family in fund-raising.

Fund raising makes strong men wince and women turn their heads away. It's difficult to humble yourself enough to ask for money and still have the dignity to accept any answer. It is more difficult to do it over and over, occasionally with the same benefactors and get results. It's difficult to create events that honor benefactors and alumni and do them with style. It's hard to get supporters to come back year after year and want to help. But they do. She got them to.

I am amazed, awed and just plain lucky. Some women refuse to work, expecting to stay home, go to country clubs and have domestic help. Others are all about career at the expense of family. It's all about balance, and somehow Adorable Wife has found her balance. I love her forever for who she is but also for what she accomplished in these past twenty years, setting out not to help shape an institution but merely to support it. At the same time, she kept home and family together and prosperous. There is a sharp temper and streak of stubborn, but incredible warmth and caring and concern as well. It takes all of these to do what she has achieved. And then, of course, she is adorable too.

Thirty-four is a funny number to pause and make observations like this; usually it's on mulitples of five years or ten. The number is meaningless. I should have done this a long, long time ago.

Well done, Adorable Wife!

Cleaning the attic of the mind

Amazingly two weeks have passed since Lufthansa cut me loose and they still owe me expenses and a severance check. This is cruel irony; had I failed to immediately respond to obligations posed by bosses in Frankfurt, Dallas or Minneapolis, I would have had much phone time explaining, and pledging repentance. When the shop closed, everyone was paid off that day: unused vacation, bonus, final weeks' pay, severance-all of it. But with me they seem to feel no urgency. Unless I get an attorney involved, I don't think anyone at the company is overly concerned about making explanations or repentance. Their shoe seems to fit both feet.



Unemployment is attractive only to those still working. It is pleasant to have no hard schedule to keep but also a little like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis-just wondering how bad it is going to be. At least the weather has been agreeable, sterling days in early fall. Gorgeous blue skies, trees still wearing full summer green with only the earliest hint of color here and there so far. Every day has been swept clean with gentle warm breezes, occasionally punctuated by a cool nip suggesting sharper days yet to come.



The birthday has come and gone, over a week ago now. Adorable Wife hustled up some pity greetings from a few of her friends, but I didn't hear a word from any of mine. I guess I have never made much of it over the years but it was disappointing just the same. Old Norton came through three days later on Friday with tickets to the KU-New Mexico State football game. Characteristically we endured rain in the first quarter so that we'd be comfortably wet the rest of the game. And - horrors - umbrellas are no longer permitted in the stadium. I was forced to leave it outside under a bush with some others. Just to round out the evening, when we went to retrieve it we found it had been stolen. Adorable Wife had been quite clear instructing me to guard it with diligence but displayed remarkable restraint when informed the next day. At least the Hawks won, but it is witten that NM State is weak this year making the victory slightly hollow. Only time will tell if KU was good or just scheduled well.



Then there are the resurging Kansas City Chiefs, 3-0 at the bye week but having played three of the weaker teams in the league, with only the Chargers having any claim to competence. But alas even the Chargers are struggling so we can't really assume confidence from defeating them. The Chiefs really have shown some improvement though and maybe this is "for real" as Jack Harry might like to say.



Rob and Steve play on a YMCA flag football team on Saturdays, and a perk that comes with the lack of work is that I get to go watch. No need to go in and prep a NFL charter any more; idleness has a benefit. The games are fun; some of the boys are really into football. Some are there for the glory. Others are there only that their fathers might channel themselves back through their sons.
"Mean Green" in the huddle
Robbie has a true understanding of the game, good focus and the physical ability to perform. He can pass, catch passes and sniff out the ball like a bloodhound. Steve usually gets in a couple of good plays but is easily distracted by things in the grass or sideline noises. Steve is not quite as long-legged as his brother and thus not as fast but when he gets the ball he gives it everything he has. If the boys get a Players' Association together, I have no doubt Steve will probably wind up as the players' rep.

Steve also likes to give the crowd a victory dance when he makes a good "tackle." The dads who coach are men of infinite patience but I think their time will pay dividends in years to come.

Anniversary number 34 is closing in quickly and Adorable Wife wants desperately to celebrate with a road trip. She does not know to where, but wants to go just the same. We had discussed a short trip to California to visit her brother but with finances fading quickly away that seemed inadvisable. It will have to be postponed several weeks anyway what with our powerful social schedule already in flaps-up. Maybe we can go out to Blue Springs and watch the Ford dealer paint falling leaves on the showroom windows. Nothing's to good.

That's the bad part of not working--no money coming in. A few days in Torrance might have been a nice diversion, but not once you go to suck at the public trough. I would have eaten too much anyway, and now that I have lost 15 pounds and kept it off I am trying to be careful.

The mid-term elections are only weeks away now. It will seem longer with the barrage of political ads, mostly negative ones, squeezed into commercial time. Finally the country seems awakened to half- and non-truths told by the Left in the last election, and apparently realizes they made a huge mistake. I can only hope we elect enough clear-thinkers to repeal Obama-care and Cap-and-Trade, and cut off so-called stimulus spending. By most accounts, notably the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus spending has been a miserable failure. If they extend the '01 and '03 tax reductions, we can put some cash in the hands of small business and get the economy rolling again. Then and only then can additional taxation be considered. But before any of this can happen voters will have to clean house in Congress and I guess in the meantime we will have to endure the self-righteous claims of politicos in the negative ads.

Tomorrow is Thursday with work two weeks gone. I'd sure like to see those checks show up, pay off my credit card and get on with life. Which in my case is filing for unemployment compensation. Only one ghost of a job opening has floated past so far and with each day passing gets less tangible. Day trading may be the thing to do? Buy lottery tickets? We shall see.

Done

Finally, the post-KC career has ended. Trips I made this summer to "hot spots" that needed an extra pair of hands are done, the fires all having long ago burned out. A month in Detroit, a couple of weeks in Minneapolis and finally ten days of hell in Denver. I am sort of glad they are letting me go after Denver. I really wouldn't want to deal with their retail program there again.


As much as I love Colorado I couldn't go reprise all that nonsense in the Denver shop. I found the staff arrogant and the other folks they flew in pompous. If I could buy just one of them for what they're worth then turn around and sell them for what they think they're worth, I wouldn't need to file for unemployment. Never have I witnessed such an unhealthy abundance of self-esteem and curiously, never have I seen such a disorganized startup.


I worked 50 out of 72 hours at one stretch, which leaves just enough time to go home, eat something, sleep and go back to work. And it doesn't get you that much sleep. For that I wound up without a "Thanks for your help," "Appreciate you hanging in there with us," or even a "Just go to Hell and don't come back." No traditional hospitality room and no pizza in the conference room. Not even a clean lab coat every day. Borderline disdainful on their part, and I am getting a little old for this.


So now, back at home in the comfort of my own swivel chair, I am told that no other assignments are forthcoming in exotic places like Detroit which signals the end of employment with this company and the end of a long, not particularly distinguished career. That's OK. Lufthansa is difficult to work for and seems to enjoy squeezing the Americans it employs. I haven't got a raise in 7 years. I actually took a promotion and lost money.


One thing strikes me after all this traveling: We are a nation of immigrants. In Detroit, you need to learn to speak Arabic. In Minneapolis, Somali. In Denver, of course, Spanish. Look around and recognize the buildings, factories, names on the map and mountains. But listen and you might think you're in Yemen.


It is, thus, good to be home. Now begins the long search for suitable work. The position I want doesn't exist so I will have to settle for what I can get. Hopefully I won't need to learn a foreign language.

One more word on air travel: Don't. Drive or take the train. Planes are crowded and airlines/airports/TSA are disdainful of us who pay their wages. Indeed, the golden age of air travel (if one existed) is long past. I suppose if you are going to Australia it's inevitable, but to St. Louis or Dallas? Take a second look in the driveway.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Twin Peaks

Once again, Adorable Wife has taken to the highway and gone on a shopping binge. Together with Drinkin' Buddy trips are made annually, usually to the shoppers' temple in Osage Beach, Missouri, where an outlet mall exerts a strong magnetic attraction to the polar opposites among us.

But this year is different. They may yet go to Osage Beach, but Adorable Wife and Drinkin' Buddy surprised everyone this year by heading for Tulsa. Yeah, that's right: Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not exactly the first place you think of when asked to name popular venues for hitting the racks.

The difference is that these two fearless browsers aren't looking for Cartier, Armani or Elizabeth Arden. They seek Ross Family Stores, and Tulsa has five. Adorable Wife discovered Ross several years ago and became quite taken with them, wading in chest deep to shop with other True Believers.

Tulsa has all the other names they need as well: Macys, Penneys, Gordmans, all the usual suspects. It remains unrecorded what can be purchased at these stores in Oklahoma that is not on the shelves in Kansas City. The rest of us in the family don't know what Ross carries that cannot be found at Kohl's or Sears at comparable prices here. Perhaps it is simply the act of release: escaping from from the surly bonds of home for a few days. We all would understand.

On this trip our intrepid shoppers found a rustic, log-cabin-style restaurant in the corner of a Tulsa mall, much as one finds the Olive Garden or Mimi's Cafe at the fringes of a shopping center here. The name of this affair was "Twin Peaks" and figuring it to be a steak house or similar enterprise, the girls ventured in. Adorable Wife, not yet through the door, noted the loud music and told Drinkin' Buddy this might not work out. Once inside they were greeted by the hostess, wearing "flimsy" attire, and it dawned on them that the clientele was men-only even though the hostess told them "we do get a few ladies in here."

But not them: out they went. Maybe "Twin Peaks" should have tipped them off but the girls were just hungry, not looking for work. Perhaps this is why they headed for Tulsa though. A town that puts a gentleman's club in a mall is thinking out of the box. They can market. Maybe their merchants operate similarly and have better selection and prices than competing venues.

All I know is, the outlet mall in Osage Beach doesn't have a strip club.

Monday, August 23, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (Aug. 23)--My hotel room here is about on the edge of where the old Twins' stadium sat 'way back when. Maybe Harmon Killebrew stood here warming up. Maybe Mickey Mantel or George Brett walked through my bathroom on the way to the team bus, I don't know.

But I do know they didn't have to listen to the incessant parade of Delta airplanes departing to the south, throttles firewalled and barely three hundred feet in the air. For the last six weeks I have lived in hotels seemingly built directly under the glide path of landing airplanes. If the wind shifts they depart across the parking lot, vibrating the window glass and drowning out the television or telephone calls.

I suppose the ALer's had some noisy old Northwest Orient jets with which to contend over the years, but they were only at the ball park for four or five hours. I don't know how the people in the apartments next door have put up with the roar, beginning at six in the morning and going until well after sunset. I should be getting used to it but it only gets more annoying. The Detroit airport was the same way but no one lived anywhere near it, just us schleps in the hotels.

When landing from the north, the planes streak across miles of Minneapolis, the last two or three miles slightly above the treetops. Yesterday I took a drive around the Twin Cities and noticed how low the planes were at Lake Nokomis, a city park in a neighborhood of classic American homes. It looked like the streets the Cleavers, Andersons or the Nelsons might have lived on. Except for the racket from above.

After that I went up to downtown Minneapolis, and over to St. Paul, suddenly realizing there was no airplane noise. For five whole hours, no airplanes. Both city centers are quite alive, with people out on foot everywhere. In Minnieapolis the after-church crowd was all over downtown, in the streets, in the restaurants and on Nicollete Mall.

Over in St Paul the univeristy crowd was having late morning coffee on the sidewalks at several java huts and diners near "the U" as the University of Minnesota is locally known. And all over downtown St. Paul, people were heading for the big city park on Sibley Street and on the lawn at the beautiful state capitol building. Mickey's Diner was discharging the last of the breakfast rush, with a crowd of them lingering on the corner.

After that I drove over to Wisconsin, about 10 miles east. The state border is the St. Croix River. Where I-94 crosses, it is as aide as a lake and a gorgeous marina blue as far as you can see. Sail boats are popular there and the day was quite warm. It looked great.

And back to the hotel. Crossing the Minnesota River as I approached my exit, I saw an airplane climbing from the airport. Even in the truck with the windows up and the air on it made its presence known. Welcome home.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (Aug 17)--Having been exposed as a fraud and expense account squatter in Detroit, the company has moved me on to Minneapolis.


I left with mixed feelings, like there was a job not yet done. I didn't leave a trained replacement behind, but it really seemed like they didn't want me to and didn't care. I wonder if the shop was in trouble with a customer and brought a few of us in for the customer to see; sort of a visible response that they were making every effort to make things better.


Well, nevertheless, I left. Friday night, the flight home continued my Friday Night Fights on the airplane. An anticipated thunderstorm delay in Detroit never materialized but storms developed en route over Kansas City and the four-state area. Flying along next to this storm gave us spectacular views of lightening shooting back and forth across the tops of the clouds. The show was amazing, entertaining me until the pilot announced that the Kansas City airport was closed. We would be diverted to St. Louis.


After two hours on the ground there, we were finally cleared to resume the trip to MCI. Again, we flew alongside a magnificent storm (the same one that cost us an on-time arrival) with flashes of light as intense as a nuclear detonation. It was awesome indeed but everyone was dog-tired and few observed the show.


Now here I am in Minnesota. To which I drove, I might add. I need a break from air travel. And it is great to have my own transportation, having not to depend on the whim of others for a ride to work. Or more importantly, a ride back to the hotel.

Access to Minnesota is gained by traversing the Iowa countryside, most of which appears to be on the verge of flooding. Rivers there were high and standing water was everywhere around Des Moines. Further north the traffic thins, the rivers run more clear and it's hard to fathom there are hungry people anywhere with all that corn. The long evening shadows brighten the greens, letting them sparkle against the shadows. Iowa in the summer is not awe-inspiring like the Rockies, but it has a majesty all its own. (Note that Iowa in the winter is a completely different proposition and there are few romantic observations to be made on its behalf.)

Anyway it appears that summer here is about like that in Kansas City, only about 10 degrees cooler. Unfortunately it is just as humid, or more, if that's even possible. So far the dew point and temperature are nearly the same, never more than 9 degrees distant from one another.

The Mall of America is across the street, quite beautifully maintained inside and still a draw. But the local shop I am assigned to is less hospitable than I had hoped, less even than Detroit. And hot. They have the most feeble air conditioning I have ever seen. The docks have no fans. The managers are rather curt. The building is wholly inadequate for the business it is expected to process. Heaven help them if they get a health inspection. I have been working in the dishroom, the very bowels of the enterprise. It is hot and steamy, with stagnent air. Oh, for a couple of floor fans.

Minneapolis itself is as green as Seattle, lush and verdant; a visually satisfying place. It appears to be prosperous but I have seen very little of the city and thus not exposed to competing declarations. We shall see.

I don't know how much more traveling this company expects me to do, but it is beginning to wear a bit. I guess as a lame duck I have the luxury of not having to take much crap. But at the same time, I would like to continue to take their money. Meager as it is, it's all to which I have access at the moment.

DETROIT, Mich. Aug. 2--On the road for the third week now. I have remembered my work shoes and watch, making this endeavor slightly less arduous but hardly less tedious.


Professional road warriors must live bleak lives. They shuttle from airport to airport, conference room to conference room, hotel to hotel. Their forums are not front porches and city parks but Blackberries and laptops. They are well versed in the nuances of security screenings at Denver versus Orlando. They chat easily with hotel van drivers, flight attendants and local corporate managers. They attend sporting events in unfamiliar cities to entertain employees, customers and clients they might otherwise loath.


That is not the life for which I am on a narrow path, but it is a life I have seen a number of men and women lead. I am getting a little up-close look at it and it indeed is, to be redundant, bleak.

For openers, there is the distance from family. Cell phones help but there is always the lack of company and touch. Sitting here in Michigan, I can't see Steve's expressive face as he yells at his sister with the equally expressive face. I can't hug my wife after her long day of working her job, caring for her often rebellious-mother and attending to her aged aunt.

Living out of a suitcase is not very exciting either. You never have quite enough clothes or the right clothes for various situations, and shoes are difficult to deal with if the suitcase is a carry-on like mine. Then there is the world of flying in the modern era. Consider the plight of the road warrior who is forced to ride airplanes:

>Fewer flights exist across the board to accommodate travelers. Airlines had an incredible waste of capacity through the 90's when fuel was cheap and times were good. Now, the sooner you make your reservation the better your trip will be. These airplanes are full and uncomfortable.

>Checking your bag has become a luxury. Unless you are a frequent flier with free bag checking privileges, the cost is $20 to $30 for one bag and you had damned well better not let that bag weigh more than 49 pounds. Overweight bag penalties are $100 or more.

>On some flights, airlines won't let you select a seat until the day of travel. On that day you had either best get to the airport early or hit the keys and surf for whatever bone the airline will throw your way. Otherwise it is a center seat in the last row, between the two fat guys.

>Everything the airline does now costs. Unless you ride first class, alcohol has always been sold, but now food (if there is any), blankets, pillows, talking to a reservation agent, checked bags, are all for-sale. And American Airlines shamelessly offers to upgrade you to priority boarding status for $10 so you don't have to fight with the unwashed for a spot in the overhead for your carry-on. Just dreadful.

>As always the airline will never fail to make you feel like a prisoner of war. It begins with the government going through your bags, shoes, pockets, and forcing most men to take off their belts. It continues with the list of violations for which you can be taken from an airplane in chains which flight crews defiantly announce as you taxi out. Everything is done for the airlines' convenience, right down to demanding a credit card for a sandwich--no cash accepted. And don't ask for help or information if your flight is delayed or cancelled; they are just to busy. Usually trying to help the flight crew who is stranded.

My first flight home was cancelled due to a storm that ran through Detroit like fury, as good as any summer storm in Missouri. It was late, than later, than later still before American Eagle cancelled it. But the agent that finally showed up at the gate just flat said, "if you need help rebooking a flight, you need to go to a service center or call the 800 number. I won't be able to help you here." She had little information, personality, style or interest in anyone save for the crew that was stuck at the gate with her.

Travel, unless you are riding first class, is best done on trains or in private automobiles. Take your own food or stop and dine where you choose. Bring your own pillow. Take all the shoes you want.

It can be fun, enlightening and educational to be out and about but doing so "on the clock" is a just work.

Motor City

OK, so here I am in Detroit. Well, actually Romulus, Michigan. This is where the airport and all of the airport-related businesses are. I have been temporarily detailed to the Detroit-Wayne County airport station to help on the dock.

The dock at 5:00 PM is utter chaos. Somehow I can't imagine running it by myself for long but I think that is what these folks have in mind. The regular supervisor is preparing to go on vacation next week and that would leave me in charge. They don't have anyone else, so I am looking forward to this like another colonoscopy. They are insane, and a little desperate.

I have not actually been into Detroit and don't plan to go. It isn't really a travel destination. Sometime I would love to go upstate and see the lakes. I would like to go over the big bridge to the upper peninsula. But Detroit itself doesn't hold much. The population dropped here from 1.5 million 30 years ago to about 650,000 at the last estimate. The city is greatly uninhabited, compared to what it was and the tax base is correspondingly eroded. Like in Kansas City the folks who paid the taxes and earned the money moved to the suburbs, or off to California, so I can visit all the big-city blight and decay that I want at home.

But this remains a vital population center with the attendant airport, McDonalds, interstate highways, cell phone stores and other perks of urban life, so indirectly, here I am. More insanity.

Getting here isn't a breeze. There are only a few nonstop flights and they are packed. I connected thru Memphis on the way here, getting in with just enough time to walk the fifty miles from gate B41 to B12. I arrived in time to see not one but three very large women boarded into the first row of economy. They were dressed to kill, every one of them, but apparently unable to hoof it down the jetway. They were rolled in aboard wheelchairs, one right after the other, holding up boarding for all 9,000 economy passengers. Utter insanity.

I was in the window seat, with the fat guy in the middle seat crowding me and the fat lady in the aisle seat to his left. Either he or the fat lady had gas, which is a bad deal for several reasons:
1. other people may think it was me, not them;
2. you can't get up and walk away easily; and
3. the windows don't open.

Now going home, I get to experience delightful American Eagle's regional jets which have a stunning 50% on time rate. They are claustrophobic, smelly and route me through O'Hare the traditional worm hole of airline travel in the United States. Whole airplane loads of people disappear there. Yet even more insanity.

The alternative to all this is for me to tell the company to forget it, and cut my severance check.
I really don't want to travel like this but neither do I want to give up employment before I have to in the Obama economy. If I could start my retirement job (parking cars for Avis) then I would be gone in a New York minute, but I can't, so I won't.

Worst part of all this is that I forgot my work shoes and wrist watch, and I can't see from day to day how our tomatoes are progressing. But one good thing: It isn't hot and humid like in KC. These people think it's hot but I have seen and been in hot and this ain't it. Maybe Avis is hiring here. I could do that for a while, at least until November. Sound a little insane? It's catching.

Rocky Mountain High

Long's Peak, from downtown Estes Park -- Elev. 14255 ft.

ESTES PARK, Colo. -- This is a work in progress, to be completed upon return to the flatlands where the air is hot and heavy with only a gasp of wind trying to move it around. Here, near the mountains in Estes Valley, a hot day is maybe 81 and the humidity rarely gets above 15 per cent. The sun is warm and where we stay the pool is always heated just enough for a comfortable entry. The light breeze sails down from the peaks and keeps one fresh all day long. It whooshs through the pines and firs, often bringing a few clouds in the late morning that gather and provide some light rain in the mid afternoon.

Oh yes, it is pleasant in the mountains. However cold it may be here in the winter, it is picture perfect in the summer. Literally, in fact, picture perfect. God crafted the Rocky Mountains into something as colorful and picturesque as anywhere on earth. Green of the evergreens, pinks and grays of the mountains themselves, bluest of blue skies and white the white of snow caps or foaming water rushing downhill in an alpine river.

Enough of that; there are lots of nice places to vacation.

There are things to be aware of here, if you get out in the remote country: cougars, fast-moving storms with lightening, elk and bears. Cougars are seldom a threat in or near the town, but can wreak havoc if you head up a back-country trail. Elk are everywhere. You need not piss them off. They are large and have enormous antlers and sharp hooves. Now as to the bears, something has changed. I have been coming here for almost all my 59 years and--until last year--have not seen a bear. Now I have.

This is not the first one; that was last year. A shaggy cinnamon bear walked the streets of Estes Park unmolested, and nearly unnoticed, save for my wife who saw it trot by on the sidewalk right in front of her. Faithful readers will recall the bear and his countrymen tried to raid the trash outside our cabin in several noisy episodes.

No, this bear simply stayed a safe distance, presumably with her cubs who popped up occasionally. They made no effort to cross the road and menace us or our refuse.

We surmised the economy has been as hard on the bears as it has on the rest of us, forcing the Park Service to lay some of them off. Thus they come down into the edges of the city, like the Okies of the 1930's heading to California, looking for food and employment. That also is probably why the elk drift into town and graze on peoples' lawns. It is not recorded that either elk or bear has filed for unemployment benefits.

Far and away the most dangerous thing we encountered on the trip was our granddaughter. Annie is a cute, lovely 2-year-old with the disposition of Tyrannosaurus Rex. To add to her resume, she can go without sleep seemingly for a week, which is probably why the bears didn't come near us. A bit of a princess, that girl, but when rested and well fed she is as sweet as can be. Unfortunately on the trip out she ran afoul of the law and spent a few hours in jail.

One of the other wild creatures lives on the mini-golf course which we frequent while in Estes Park. Often mistaken for his smaller cousin the chipmunk, the Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel is ubiquitous, charming and usually hungry. This fellow has taken up summer quarters in a buckent of sunflower seeds, which is about as good a way to vacation as any, I suppose.

Usually we take up residence in Hayley's ice cream and fudge shop, also a good way. Katie and Rob here are working hard to keep Colorado green by causing money to be left there. I know this place is good because the vanilla malts are good. If those are good, everything else will follow in line. I know way too much about this for my own good.

But all good things must come to an end. Seven nights at 7522 feet is fleeting. We have to trade in the 47 degree mornings for Missouri's 80 degree mornings, during which one does not want to work the crossword puzzle out on the deck--no matter how charming the sunlight looks. So we load up the car again and journey back down into the high plains, watching the mountains fade into the haze as we get further east of Denver. After the shock is worn off we can enjoy the trip. Everyone -- well, almost everyone -- helps drive back to KC.

Now we are home and back to cutting grass and other mundane chores that do not involve daily trips to an ice cream shop. There is no anticipation on the trip back, only a little dread of the vacation having ended and the imminent return to work. But there is always the opportunity to be thankful we got to go in the first place, and came home intact: the car undented, the riders healthy and without bear injuries, and actually a few pounds lighter!

And Kansas may not have the majestic mountain peaks which it ceded to Colorado in 1861, but it has a summer vitality all its own, with lots of blue sky too. Hey, if it weren't for Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, who would go to Colorado anyway?

Goodbye old friend

So we are on our last day at work, six of us left out of the thousands who had worked there over the years; some for a day, some for a lifetime. I brought my camera in to take a few pictures to document that we cleaned up the trash collection areas, but more so to take a few pictures of the last people I worked with in the aviation industry. They were a little like family. Two of them I have worked with for twenty and twenty-five years.

This camera wasn't state of the art. I bought it eight years ago. It was a 2-meg Canon Powershot which took terrific pictures. The files it made were easily sent as attachments and took little room if posted to a blog. A really great camera for me, serving me well for all this time.

I set it down and haven't seen it since.

Someone threw it away or stole it, I don't know which. As an item to fence, it wouldn't bring much. I had four rechargeable batteries inside and four spares in the case, all of which were worth more than the camera itself. I guess most wouldn't know that but camera technology changes so fast it's insane. Eight years is a lifetime in that business.

That was Wednesday. Friday night I bought a new one, another Canon. This one has been out for nine or ten months, the SX120 IS. It is inexpensive and has about the same features the other one did, just with a better lens. I don't need a lot of extras, but I do appreiate the improved zoom and larger screen.

It just gnaws at me that someone may be holding my pictures from family events, my depot trip last fall to the Ozarks, and the photos I took on the last day with my work family. If it was a theft, it is going to disappoint him/her greatly when he is offered squat.

The new one is smaller and lighter, but last Wednesday I lost my work friends, all five of them, and my camera who was kind of a friend as well. We have been lots of places together, places even Adorable Wife has declined to travel.

That's enough loss for one week. I hope everyone else is healthy and happy right here.
The new camera takes good pictures too, like this one of the salvia in the back yard. We just don't have a history with each other yet.

Summer of Healthcare, part II

"OK, here's what we'll do. We'll get them in here, make them nice and comfortable and take a long tube with a camera and some tools on the end of it and run it right up their butts. We'll take movies of their intestines and they'll love it. We'll make a fortune."

So maybe it isn't this simple, but it still so successful that even the empty heads at Medicare can get their brains around it.

This then is the second part of my summer of healthcare, all of this prompted, of course, by my impending unemployment. First the minor surgery for cyst removal and now my 5 year colonoscopy. It is nothing one anticipates but it really wasn't that bad.

For starters, they changed to a different anesthetic. Before, they loaded you up with Demerol. It leaves you groggy and sleepy for a while, but after you get home you have what may be the greatest nap in the world. The new knock-out of choice is the same thing Michael Jackson overdosed on last year. You are out and awake with no concept of the loss of time and at least as clear-headed as you were before they began the procedure.

Last time I woke up about half way through--this time there isn't a chance in hell you wake up until they want you to.

The prep is also a little easier. There is no - and I still don't even like to use the word - enema. It has been replaced with 38 doses of Miralax with a half gallon of Gatorade. It isn't a huge improvement because no one can drink a half gallon of lemon-lime Gatorade in three hours. The attempt is enough to make you borderline sick, but at least that's it. No enema to follow up at the end of this gag-fest.

The people that work doing colonoscopies all day long are cheery and friendly, and very reassuring. Some how they sense that folks are leery of having a load of stainless steel fed up their Sigmoid, and do their best to answer questions and allay all fears.

I just kind of wonder what they all talk about while they're at work. If they could write it down or put it on tape they could make a fortune. The books they might write would sell millions and turn into movies starring Adam Sandler or maybe David Spade and their brothers in bathroom humor.

Actually I have no doubt these folks are very professional. Most all I know who work as physicians and staff are extremely careful, exacting and as skilled as their training and experience permit. And this particular procedure has been recognized to actually save money in the prevention of colon cancer. Medicare is even planning to cover them at 100 percent, assuming that Medicare survives. But it is a reflection of the effectiveness of what they do.

But you just know they have to have a few really good stories. I hope I'm not one of them.

Hiding place

Finally, we are closed.

We worked the last airplane and made the last retail run to the stores. We all enjoyed a last chance to be with each other at a farewell dinner. Except for six of us left behind to ship everything out everyone has scattered; some to new jobs, most to unemployment. A couple are done working for good.

So now all that is left is to load up some trucks and send forty years' equipment and payroll records and steel shelving off to other more successful shops. A group of people piles up a mountain of paperwork in that amount of time.

But not now, not with the wheels of commerce ground to a halt. It is odd now, working in a place that was once vibrant, active and loud. The hum of all the coolers is gone. The ice makers aren't dropping ice with the familiar metallic clang. The air conditioners still blow air but it is no longer very cool. They are old and porous enough that gas doesn't stay charged long and leaks away. Just like the business and the employees.

9-11 was the end of it in stations this size. Accounts were already beginning to downgrade service and the attacks merely accelerated the process. So much had already been lost. Full-service airlines became full service in name only. United distinguished itself from Southwest only by offering a reserved seat or perhaps a flight overseas.

Full service lives on in the hubs and in gateway cities with international flights. Flying back and forth to Europe, one might not notice the changes as much as in Kansas City.

I can't help wonder if the city had offered to cut the rent back that we might have been able to make a go of it. They wouldn't hear of it, although the building has been paid for several times over. They simply were satisfied letting 15 more folks go on the unemployed rolls and their building go idle.

That's OK: At least a few city employees will have a new place to hide from their supervisors--unless the supervisors are hiding in there too.

Adventures in surgery.

Last month, after years of off-putting, and with the imminent demise of my employment, I mustered up the courage to visit my doctor about the removal of a cyst that had taken up residence under my scalp oh so many years ago. At other visits he had assured me it was harmless but would continue to grow. It did continue to grow, it itched and worst of all it stymied Adorable Daughter who is also my trusted barber.

Facing the loss of perhaps the most opulent and all-inclusive Cadillac health insurance ever assembled, I knew it must no longer be postponed and made the call. Doc said OK, go see a surgeon. And he gave me the name of one he said was competent.

So I went to see the surgeon, He was pleasant enough but seemed anxious to move on out of the room. I was a bit offended, having taken pains to bathe and wash hair. The surgeon was also a man of very few words. Included in the words he failed to use were "...this is really minor" or "...I do these all the time" or "back to work the next day..." but he said none of those things. He did say he could do it there in the office, which I thought was a good thing. Then he said, "You will have quite a bit of discomfort from this--I'll probably leave you a scrip for some pain medicine." Then he left the room, with the "quite a bit of discomfort" ringing in my ears.

We set the appointment for two weeks hence and I set about to imagine how bad it might be.

Remarkably, I discovered other people have had the same procedure; I thought I was the odd duck. [I may yet be the odd duck, but not because I had a cyst to extract.] But in all of these other accounts I could not get a sense of how much recovery would be required and what the complications are from having folks saw on your head.

So the appointed hour arrived and I presented my head at the office as instructed, but that was the only instruction I had. They did not advise me what to wear, what to eat, what to expect or damned little else. The procedure actually only lasted less than 30 minutes which I assume is thousands in Central Surgeon Time, and was really quite pain free. I kept waiting for it to hurt as the day wore on, but it didn't happen. Good for me because the good surgeon chose against pain meds.

"Just take whatever you usually take for a headache," he said. And that was about all he said. Not even a good-bye or a go-to-hell; he just walked out and after you've had a fellow with his fingers right there on your skull for a half-hour you feel you should get a proper farewell.

By the way, the scalp bleeds profusely and the gore is incredible. The nurse advised me to go home, shower all the blood out of my hair and expect the wound to bleed for a while. It did.

She also told me not to freak when I looked at the water running into the drain in the shower. "It will run really pink," she warned. It did.

Maybe the low point of the whole thing was trying to lay still while he was cutting a hole in my head, and listening to the nurse who assisted say "Is that a cyst or a lymphoma?" He answered that it was probably a cyst but I had not entertained any thoughts of housing anything other than the cyst. Equally low was that very few asked afterwards "How did it go? How are you feeling?" What the hell good is it to have surgery if you don't get a little attention and sympathy from your friends and coworkers? You guys can see me, right?

But in the end, the surgeon of few words was right for not loading me up with percoset. Amazingly I really never was anything more than moderately sore. I have had much worse pain which didn't involve the medical community. A couple of days ago they took the stitches out, and I didn't feel that either. So it looks like Doc picked me a good surgeon, very skilled but seemingly contemptuous of us peasants.

And the best part--Adorable Daughter can cut my hair without complications. I don't want to do this often but you really need to take care of a good barber. Could be they're harder to get than good surgeons.

Next up: Colonoscopy!!

On the road again

I seem to be the only one I know that gets any of this.

Put yourself back in 1955. You are driving along a long straight piece of highway through a pastoral country setting. On your left are cultivated crops growing military-like in their neat rows, alternating with pasture or ground left fallow. On occasion a barn and farmhouse zoom by. On your right is open prairie with more agriculture in the distance, but pacing the highway is a railroad track. It is a main line and you know that because of the poles and wires following tightly along the right of way. They carry electrical impulses not only of communication but of signal indication as well.


Punctuating the track are those line side signals, silver-painted masts with a ladder for maintenance and the black-faced heads. In the center of the head is a hooded light which displays the condition of the track ahead--occupied or clear.


The signals and poles zip by. If only a train would pass to enliven the drive. In those old days you might have longed to see one of the road's passenger fleet. Immaculate stainless-steel sided cars stretching into the distance, let by a streamlined first-generation diesel locomotive. They would glide by almost noiselessly, faster than you could legally go on the highway, with passengers resting in air-conditioned comfort. Which incidentally, few of us had in automobiles. The named trains all carried a lighted sign at the end of the last car proudly proclaiming its identity.

Or maybe a distant haze on the horizon would convert into a pinhole-sized light which seemed to stand still. As you drove toward it the light would begin to be defined by a the blackness of a working steam locomotive, large and menacing, with almost a mile of freight cars in tow. The cars would be from everywhere carrying almost everything. Look-alike unit trains of coal or double-stack container freight were still in the future in the mid-50's.

Sometimes you might catch a meet: two trains passing each other in opposite directions, most often with one waiting on a siding while the other holds the mainline. Sometimes you could catch a glimpse of the signal changing colors as an unseen train approached. If the railroad had semaphore signals, you might get the rare opportunity to see one change positions as you and a train both passed by one.

Trains could sure put life in a trip. Midwestern scenery is fine and watching license plates used to help break up a long trek. Burma-Shave signs were an exciting find. But there was little to compare with the ever-changing life along the rails. Work crews were always out with exotic-looking machines. Sometimes your gas stop was adjacent to a small town's wooden frame depot, complete with a high-wheeled baggage cart on the brick platform and a mail-bag post next to the tracks. And a water tower for the steam engines. Or perhaps as you crossed a major river you would see a magnificent railway bridge, black from soot, dwarfing the trains that used it.

Airplanes get you there faster but they just don't have character like trains did back then. Now, following a rail line is much more sanitized. Steam is gone forever. The communication and signal lines are disappearing leaving mainlines looking bare. Signals are strategically placed to maximize their effectiveness. Passenger trains are a rarity and freights are often land-bridges of impersonal coal and foreign-owned containers.

But you know what? I'd still rather follow the rails. Like I say, I'm the only one that gets it.

Brave Travellers

Adorable Wife recently returned from a trip to a convention of educators, administrators and staff associated with parochial schools. All seemed to go well enough. Eight other souls ventured into the north woods with her on this four-day expedition. All nine Brave Travellers are accounted for, safely returned.

There were traditional gaffes:

Barely an hour en route in the rental van, Adorable Wife had a wardrobe failure similar to those of Janet Jackson, Katherine Heigl and other notables. While in the past I have assumed these episodes were accidental, she is beginning to establish patterned behavior. Not sure I should be concerned at this point but photos taken in early childhood have set her deportment in a straight line for a few weeks at a Tiger Woods-style clinic.

In the quiet hours preceding dawn, Adorable Wife rose to exercise. Not wanting to parade her statuesque self into the hotel's workout room and attract the attention of men many years younger, she tried to manipulate her bedroom television's in-house exercise video to keep her company. Claiming unfair working conditions due to the elaborate and confusing remote control, she not only failed to locate the desired video but activated an in-room presentation of -- she claims -- Avatar. Flustered she called the clerk and explained the situation, not wanting a large debit for in-room movies on her hotel bill. The charge was removed, and we all really want to believe it was Avatar.

A sudden stop on a highway, caused by conditions best not discussed in this forum, sent several items flying in the rental van which conveyed Brave Travellers on their journey. One flying item was a cell phone which deposited itself with remarkable accuracy in a cup of water. Someone suggested that a soaked Blackberry could be returned to usefulness by packing it in rice overnight. The call went to Adorable Wife for some rice, but alas she had packed none. The Brave Travellers were forced to obtain rice at market prices, which Wife handled on their behalf as usual.

She also bought a can of carpet cleaner to launder away a substance (which she would not identify) that was spilled on the cargo floor's carpet as a result of the same sudden stop.

And rice as a cure for a drowning phone is apparently dead-on. Field reports claim full recovery.

Wife is now on a two-glass limit for wine consumed in a six-hour period. Explanations need not be aired here but let the record show that age is not the only cause of failing memory. Her coworkers are supposed to be watching her a little closer since last year's birthday discomposure, but she undoubtedly escaped their scrutiny. The Timber Lodge Incident, as I will call it in years to come, is to be one of those definitive moments in life; a hinge upon which the door of existance swings.

Minnesotans could probably step up their signage for visitors to the next level. Adorable Wife and others walked in the rain for a mile looking for a place to eat lunch during a midday break. They found one but on returning to the convention hall discovered that catering was available right there in the same building, dry as a bone and warm as toast.

Adorable Wife is all about shopping. Trips were arranged to the out sized Mall of America, built on the site of the old Twins' stadium in Bloomington. Historical anecdotes regarding said Twins went unappreciated. Brave Travellers ate, drank and shopped with lust as though that were the true motivation for the adventure(?), with the convention an afterthought. I can prove this with the pile of debit card receipts that she toted home.

Incredibly, Wife kept track of jackets, shoes, reading glasses, room keys and cell phone with remarkable accuracy. On a normal junket Brave Travellers have to set aside a time budget for her to return to her room for many of these lost necessities. If Brave Travellers fail to cooperate, no quarter is brooked and loud public pronouncements will be made. (Regrattably I cannot say with reasonable authority the Timber Lodge Incident is somehow negated as a result of this years' improved tracking of jackets.)

There were other amusing occurances of a less public and blogworthy nature. We are just glad to have Adorable Wife back in the fold, but as soon as she returned Adorable Daughter and family left for an exciting weekend in Omaha. That put us in charge of Fearless Dog. Dog is a great guest and loyal companion but has no tolerance for other creatures--squirrels, dogs, cats, deer, etc., and has sensitive digestion when Adorable Daughter is gone away. The best thing is, though, that he cares nothing for shopping.

Disarray

The city council passed a budget last week with hardly a ripple in the local journalistic waters. Almost unnoticed for its lack of acrimony the council had an air of stealth as it went about its business. Last year there was a demanding and thoroughly delusional city manager backed by equally delusional councilmen and women on one side of the process and the much-maligned but wiser Mayor on the other.


Somehow confused that he was sitting on a pile of money, former city manager Wayne Cauthen (yeah, they cut him loose) steadfastly insisted his misguided budget was achievable and reasonable. Never very distant from the fore was always a streak of indigence in his demeanor, as if he were felt less respected because of his minority status and was constantly brooding. Maybe because of this he was able to enlist the weaker council members in his support; hell, I don't know--maybe they just agreed with him, because most of them don't seem too bright either. He seemed to have plenty of respect, but just didn't get what services the city really needs.


In opposition was Mayor Mark Funkhauser, a former city auditor who labors under the onus of supporting the Obama administration. Nonetheless he has years of city hall experience that told him and reasonable people there was no way in hell that budget would be manageable. A nasty fight ensued. Compromises were effected, and the city is still here but the city manager abruptly was dismissed several months ago with very little said.


Can't say that I miss him. He never had the professional attitude that is demanded of someone in that line of work. He built an empire of assistant city managers, aides and assistants, actually appointing a "chief of staff." Perhaps we can make a case for the President to have a chief of staff, but a less delusional city manager might get by with two or three assistants and some good department heads. Cauthen didn't get what Funk does: The public wants cops, snow removal and pothole patching, not neighborhood development and organizing.


Despite backing Obama, Mayor Mark Funkhauser is otherwise exhibiting uncommon common sense day after day. He realizes that the livability of the city is fading, along with its tax base. Block after block of the urban inner core is worthless. No one wants to live there, among drug houses, gangs, weed-covered vacant lots and abandoned dwellings. The school district is a mess, administered by a board of union hacks and big-shots. Amid all this people want to feel safe in their homes, want their trash picked up and want the water to run when they turn the tap.

I wonder how much of this the councilmen get. Kansas City is only surviving because of a large surrounding suburban area in the extreme north and south, annexed decades ago mostly as farmland while the core city was still livable. Now it provides the heart of the residential tax base, and the council's biggest issue in three years has been the mayor's wife. Perhaps now, a year before elections, they are just getting around to genuine concerns as witnessed by the smooth budget passage and Cauthen's ouster.

Then there is Power and Light, thought to be the savior of downtown, which may become the next albatross around the city's neck if the enterprise can't make its interest payments and the city has to pick that up too. Hey, thanks Kay Barnes. (Can't imagine what kind of nonsense she would have supported in Congress.) It's a nice area but parking is rare and prices are high. Perhaps the city didn't need this debt at this time, and should have worked to bring offices back downtown from elsewhere in the city. Maybe some big retailers could have been enticed back on to Petticoat Lane. You get some people on the street and the bars and restaurants will follow anyway if the city cleans out the drug dealers and bums. Make it easy for cafes and clubs to open up, cut license fees and permits. Back the inspections off. Get government out of the way.

But that isn't what happened. Kay left a mess for the Funk to clean up. She left him debt, a deluded city manager and a rapidly escaping population and business community. I've heard Funk refer to livability for those of us left here. I hope the council is beginning to get it. Cops, snow removal, pot hole repair. A swimming pool in the summer and a growing--not shrinking--tax base. And maybe a little humility; I'm beginning to think I work for them.

Fun and games with your health

March is almost gone, slipping away faster and faster as the month proceeds. With much more going on than in the first two months of the year it is amazing how quickly this period of transition from winter to less winter accelerates through the calendar. I wanted to get one more post in before April shows up.

The fools that we have (hey, not we; I didn't vote for anyone who supported it) elected to represent us in Washington have made the largest power grab in U.S. history by passing a bill providing for national health care. Upwards of two-thirds of the constituents don't want it, at least not in its current form. I just can't think of anything that will kill off a health care system that has developed the greatest patient care in the world more effectively than turning it over to Uncle Sam.

What are these people thinking?

"Oh," you say, "It is good but what good if no one can afford it?"

Actually it is a fairly small slice of people that can't afford it. There are others who do not care to have health insurance although they could work it into their budget if they were inclined. The system we have is clogged with -- especially in the south and south west -- illegal aliens who are here to get free care. They know that they can't be turned away from an emergency room until stabilized, which is all any of them really want. Who pays for that? We The People.

The same goes for Americans who have other priorities than health care. Some have addictions that are costly and leave little room for CIGNA or Blue Cr0ss: cigarettes, alcohol, new cars, house payments beyond means, or maybe they just like to eat all their meals in restaurants which in itself is a health hazard. So when they get sick and show up at the ER, who pays their bills? We The People.

Regardless, the real number of folks unable to afford insurance is small and once again, Washington liberals have separated us all into two groups--the wealthy 10% and everyone else. They refuse to admit there is still a large, functioning, independent middle-class out here. Maybe they do know we're here because apparently they are doing their best to destroy it.

We are told we just can't carry on like this by the same pe0ple who manage nothing well. The Post Office, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, WIC, Fannie, Freddie, Gennie, and the War on Poverty have all been horrible, wasteful and dreadfully expensive flops with no end. Again paid for by We The People.

What should we expect from a group of men and women who are mostly lawyers and have never had to meet a budget, hire and fire people, bring in a payroll, live up to a contract, or stand even for hours on an assembly line?

Think of something the government runs so well that you care to have it in command of your very life. Exclude in that consideration the men and women in uniform of the armed services, as they are folks motivated by unselfishness and sacrifice which is very much the opposite of what has motivated last week's vote.

It was a vote on a bill full of very un-American provisions, the worst of which requires each American to purchase health insurance or pay a large fine--administration of which falls to the Internal Revenue Service. Do they not have enough power as judge and jury as it is?

This hopefully will be the effort's undoing. Attorneys General of approaching half of the states have filed suit against this law as being patently unconstitutional. By what provision of the constitution does the Congress have authority to mandate that a citizen buy anything? If that stands, what else would they require of us?

And by the way, if I can't afford to buy health insurance how will I pay this $5000 fine? Gee, maybe the government will give me the money for both the insurance and the fine! And then, they'll figure they have to pony up for all the illegals in line behind me. Or maybe ahead of me, I don't know. We The People again.

We have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Probably if the government backed completely out of health care altogether we'd be better off. Without Medicare and Medicaid and general welfare, the market would seek it's own level and we'd know the true costs of staying healthy. Some of what truly makes medicine so expensive -- lawsuits, malpractice insurance, government intervention, insurance company regulation, and poor health habits of Americans -- remains ignored because of liberal political alliances or plain ignorance.

There is a case to be made that all of our industrial rivals such as Japan, China, and the Europeans have socialized medicine; that we have to follow suit to remain competitive in a global economy. I maintain these nations have traditionally had government care while we all have cared for ourselves and grown into the greatest industrial power the world has ever seen.

Japan rose in stature, not because their cars are cheaper but because they are good products. The cost of employee health care is built into every car Toyota builds either through the taxes the employees pay on their wages for socialized medicine or for what the employer pays, or both. The cost of American cars not much different. The customer pays one way or the other. If Japanese health care costs less per person there are many variables, aside from the simple fact that the government administers the plan. Having the government do something doesn't make it less espensive, even in Japan.

And with no insult intended toward the Japanese, what have their contributions been to modern health care? What supports research and development of new treatments and therapies in that great nation? Or in Canada, Great Britain, France, Russia, China? Americans--as usual--have lead the world in this too.

Better think twice, Mr. President. Incentive to go into medicine for our brightest people has sustained us well and wrought great things in the past 234 years. It isn't perfect but there are many obstacles to be swept from the path of affordable care without turning it all over to Uncle Sam. Too bad there wasn't an incentive for bright people to run for Congress as well and stuff this whole thing in the dumpster behind a hospital where it belongs. We The People need some help. This isn't help.

Sunday March 7.

Something has changed.

For the last couple of weeks I have seen weak, tired sunlight on the other side of the shades early in the morning. I also have noticed that when I drive home after work I am in daylight. It is never something that I notice in increments. It just hits me that its not dark any more.


Here in the waning weeks of a very long, cold, dark, winter rich in snow and bitching about snow, the lengthening days give hope that there may yet be a day when we can venture outdoors without life support. Even yesterday and today we could get by most of the day in a light jacket. It is only a temporary respite. There are more days ahead of cold, cold rain, maybe some snow, and low temperatures. But it does appear our annual venture around the sun is still operating--not stalled permanently in late January.

In a month it will be close to tolerable outdoors; in two the trees will have their veil of fresh light green and high school seniors will be cleaning out lockers. And in only a couple of weeks the much-anticipated northern Missouri severe weather season will begin, a sure sign that we are into Spring. If not in name, at least in fact.

Some things break loose in March: the KC Auto Show, the Big 12 Basketball Tournaments, the NCAA 'Big Dance, Lent, Easter; all of them pointing toward more sunshine and warmer weather. As Thanksgiving usually leads us into cold weather, the Final Four lead us out of it.

As I write this the Academy Awards are on, that annual festival of celebrity self-appreciation. Although I don't have a lot of use for the aloof, liberal stars that sneer at our way of life and deride our wonderful country, the Oscars are good for one thing--they mean winter is almost over. Normally I'm not in that big a hurry for it to finish but this March 7 I am cold, tired of being cold and ready to sit in the sun like a reptile and warm up.

Doin' any hiring?

My luck has run out. After thirty years in the airline business I will be out of work May 27. Our company executive board can no longer endure the losses and is closing our station. Kansas City airlines will be left without a full-service commissary for the first time since modern air service has emerged.


That isn't so much of a shock. There isn't a demand for these services on the short-haul flights which arrive and depart at MCI. The public has long ago given up the luxury of inflight dining. Flight attendants run a drink service, then hold down jump seats during the time they used to serve passengers. That isn't totally unfair, as some have endured pay reductions, downsized crews and layoffs all in the name of survival. A two-hour flight may carry food for first-class passengers, but only on the longest hauls is a complimentary meal served to the rabble in economy class. For several years we have survived on boarding food, ice, and elaborate meals for NFL and major league baseball charters during their seasons.


The 17 of us that are left of the 400-plus employees who once serviced airplanes here have steadily watched service decline as fuel, security and payrolls have gone through the ceiling. The public demands have shifted and with this the air carriers are only too pleased to oblige.

I wonder what some of the folks I have worked with will do. A few are barely literate, having poor reading and writing skills with little prospect of improving either. To what kind of work can they look forward? One is caught with 15 months to retirement. Another is not physically prepared to take on unfamiliar labor. Yet another is partly disabled and has become a creature of routine upon which he depends.

So here we are, victims of change. Not so long ago one might assume that he or she could join a firm, create some value for it and expect to stay there for 30, 40 or more years and retire. Today's climate no longer supports that; just a fact of life. And now I get to close down a second shop in seven years. Maybe that should be my new work--closing down businesses who have outlived their usefulness. Now that is a job I could expect to keep indefinitely.