Perspective

I haven't had much to say for a week, but I didn't want this blog to go dormant. So tonight I did what I usually do in this case: I dug through old posts in search of repeatables.

And I found this brief post from September 8, 2006:

Gas is only $2.75/gallon today! Woohoo!

I can't believe I'm doing mental hi-fives at the Exxon because gas is ONLY 2.75!! I'm happy the price is going down. I paid $3.09 per gallon at this same station just 2 months ago. I've paid as much as $3.59, shortly after Katrina.

But even $2.75 seems high. Only 20 years ago we were horrified that the price had crossed the dollar-a-gallon line.

So just two years ago, I noted that the highest I had paid for gas had been $3.59. Tonight I paid $3.96 at the same Exxon station that inspired the old post and thought: woohoo! - it's below $4 again.

Perspective!

One Small Barely-remembered Step For Man …

Today, July 20, 2008, is the 39th anniversary of the first human landing on the moon.

Space geek kids of the 1960s like me make note of this date every year. The total absence of any mention of this anniversary in today’s Washington Post tells me that my claim that Boomers run the world might be in error. A quick scan of NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC and CNN backs up my observation that this scientific and cultural milestone isn’t considered news any more. (It is possible that one or more of those news networks might have mentioned it, but I haven’t seen any mention).

Two days before this momentous event in 1969, three thirty-something men were launched into space while the whole world watched on live television. There were no 24-hour news networks then, just three networks that still exist (NBC, ABC and CBS). All three pre-empted their soap operas and aired the launch live, with reporting and commentary by their star anchors, most notably CBS’s Walter Cronkite.

The only “moon” story on cbsnews.com today is about Rev. Moon’s injury in a helicopter crash. The next closest Apollo 11 story is from two days ago; it is about a piece of the spacecraft being donated to a museum. A search of abcnews.com shows no story today and just some passing reference to Apollo 11 in a story about the bald eagle. I couldn’t find anything current on NBC sites either.

Wired.com did something on it a few days ago on the anniversary of the launch. Their story is mostly about Michael Collins, the “forgotten” astronaut on that mission; he’s the one who circled the moon in the orbiter while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took small steps for man and giant leaps for mankind on the grey, sandy lunar surface.



In my opinion, those first steps were an event that changed the world. Apollo 11 redirected in a positive way how we as Americans felt about ourselves and how the rest of the world looked at us. The successful voyage there and back was the culmination of a dream spelled out by a dynamic president years earlier, even though he didn’t live to see it happen. July 20th is a date that should be filled with celebrations every year. Maybe someone will notice next year on the 40th anniversary; our culture tends to acknowledge zero year anniversaries.

At 10:56pm tonight, the exact moment when Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and said “it’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” I’ll drink a toast to the event as I continue looking for the pictures I took of our TV as those moments were broadcast live. They’re around here somewhere.

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Here is more information about Apollo 11:

Astronautix
Space.dom
NASA

Geezin’ Tonight

I do a pretty damn good job of masking my age. If I didn’t talk about this blog to friends, they’d never know I’m even 50 yet, much less … well, you know. And I’m proud to say I’m not locked into or stuck in any era. My attitudes, music tastes, etc. run the full spectrum from then till now.

But after listening to country music all day at work and 30 minutes of alternative rock on during my ride home tonight, I surfed to the 60s channel on XM for a few moments of age-appropriate nostalgia.

And there it was …

Duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh; duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh …

That heartbeat paced jammin’ bass and organ line starts … Duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh; duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh … climbing the scale, the bass drum and snare kicking underneath.

Four bars in, that 60’s guitar soars in on top with the organ melody behind it, with the ever-present Duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh; duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh folding into a staccato drum bridge to Eric Burdon’s soulful voice:

When you complain and criticize
I feel I’m nothing in your eyes
It makes me feel like giving up
Because my best just ain’t good enough
Girl I want to provide for you
And do all of the things that you want me too

Oooooh oh no don’t bring me dowwwnn!!

By now I’ve cranked the sound as loud as I can stand it while driving, singing at the top of my lungs, cruisin’ somewhere between I-70 and high school.

Some music really sounds dated as the years unfold, but this song is just as cool to my fifty-something ears as it was in 1966. Hit ‘play’ below and tell me what you think, especially if you're thirtysomething and have never heard the song before.

... duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh; duh DUHH duh, duh DUHH duh …

News and Age

Do you watch the news on TV? Do you read a newspaper daily? Weekly? At all? Do you listen to a newscast on the radio? How old are you?

If you’re over 50 you might remember when an average midsize city had three television stations and two newspapers. Add in news headlines on the radio and you get maybe ten news sources.

In some families like mine, watching the news was a daily ritual. The local news was part of dinner time, followed by national news delivered by Huntley, Brinkley or Cronkite. And at some point in my youth, there were two daily papers. Mom read both, daily.

Now with cable television and the internet, we have hundreds, maybe thousands of news sources, with the potential for timely updates 24 hours a day. Does anyone still use TV or newspapers as a source for what is going on? And is the source age-specific?

My impression is that younger people don’t care much about news (by news, I mean something other than the latest on Britney’s sister’s baby), and when they do care, they hit the internet for the details. I also assume older people care more about news but choose newspapers or TV for the stories. But I might be wrong about some of those assumptions.

A recent online AARP article says that “Forty-two percent of users 50 and older check the Internet for news daily or several times a day, compared to 18 percent of users under 20.”

Note that I’m over 50 and saw that story on the internet.

Keeping up with the news is still a habit for me and I still like turning pages with ink-stained hands. But I only buy a newspaper about two or three times a month. My main news source is television, followed closely by the internet. Most 20-somethings I know don’t care about the news no matter what the source, even though the same 20-somethings regularly use the internet on their cell phones and use texting constantly to spread the news within their own personal community.

Any thoughts on this from your perspective?

---------------------------------
P.S. - I picked up a paper twice this week. A friend was profiled in a local daily paper and I was profiled in a local weekly. Both stories also appear online and I saw the online versions first. Both stories got much bigger play in the print versions; hers was front page in the Food section with several more photographs and mine was on the front page of the paper. And both stories were about blogs. Slow news week out here in the boonies I guess.

This Made Me Laugh

This message is on a baseball cap advertised on a Boomer web site:

What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it’s all about?

Happy 4th of July

This is a slight rewrite from something I posted two years ago. I still feel this way.

There is a great song by the country-rock duo Montgomery Gentry called “My Town,” which celebrates small town life in America. Their town is in the middle of Kentucky (Lebanon, population 5700).


My wife and I live near a small Maryland town (pop. 3500), less than 50 miles from the Capital of the Free World. As I watch Independence Day fireworks shows from a park in my town each year, I think of the lyrics in the song.

There's a "For Sale" sign on a big old rusty tractor.
You can't miss it, it's the first thing that you see.
Just up the road, a pale-blue water tower,
With "I Love Jenny" painted in bright green.
Hey, that's my Uncle Bill, there by the courthouse.
He'll be lowerin' the flag when the sun goes down.
And this is my town.

The story continues with images of a closed mill, a diner, and the crowds at church on Sunday. Life goes on, the kids grow up and have babies of their own. The storyteller buys the rusty tractor, paints it and proudly shows it off in his front yard. When you hear the song, you can picture the scene and recognize it as a part of the mosaic of lifestyles we celebrate every year on the 4th of July.

The Washington DC suburbs are slowly beginning to invade my small town, but the mentality is still more rural than urban. Many of the families watching the fireworks in the park each year are the children or grandchildren of farmers. The crowd in the park numbers in the hundreds rather than the tens of thousands who witness the rockets’ red glare on the Mall in DC, but they are no less enthusiastic as they watch the modest fireworks show.

Even though I’ve been a city/suburb kid most of my life, I have grown to enjoy small town Independence Day celebrations with their red, white and blue saturation of the senses. Each year I experience the sound of a local country band, the scent of barbeque, the taste of home-made ice cream and the thrill of the grand finale: the fireworks show.

The rockets’ red glare! It doesn’t get more all-American than this.

Although I’m relatively private in how I show my patriotism, soaking in a small town 4th of July connects me with those things that make me proud to be an American. I encourage you to seek out a similar experience near where you live.

Happy Independence Day!!

A Fun Time-Waster Survey

I saw this on KJ’s blog a long time ago and have been saving it for a week when I don’t have anything else to say. This week, for example. Answer these questions on your blog and let us know where they are. Here are my answers.

If you could get a brand new car for free what kind would it be?
Acura TL 3.2

Have you ever lived in a trailer?
No

What is your favorite talk show?
Ellen

If you could be another race would you?
probably not

What did you last color with a crayon?
can't remember

What is on your bed?
two of my dogs, snoozing on the lighthouse-themed comforter

What is your favorite thing to drink when you first wake up?
coffee

What is your favorite brand of shoes?
Rockport

Have you ever been to jail?
no

Have you ever caught some one in a lie?
yes

Have you ever flirted with a cop just to get out of a ticket?
This must have been written for women to answer. If I flirted with any of the cops I’ve met, they’d shoot me.

What do you think about clothes with polka-dots?
looks like a Target commercial

When you see a WAY overweight person does it gross you out?
I feel bad for them

Do you like to drink beer?
Sometimes

Ever broken your cell phone?
no

Do you rather write with a pen or pencil?
a roller ball pen

If you could have 1 thing for free right now what would it be?
round trip airline tickets for two to Hawaii

When is your birthday?
early in the year

What is your favorite color?
depends on what it’s on, but often it’s red

What do you do for a living?
make radio commercials

Where are you from?
New Orleans

What's your favorite food?
Chinese or Italian

Do you like snowy weather?
sometimes.

How often do you watch the news?
Daily

Do you prefer coffee or cappuccino?
Coffee.

Have you ever cheated on a test?
a few times in high school.

Are you on a diet?
not officially.

Have you ever had braces?
Yes, in my 40s

Have you ever had a root canal?
No.

Do you have a good memory?
I have an annoyingly detailed memory for things relating to cars or first meetings

What is your biggest wish?
to know that something I did helped make someone feel good about themselves

What is your worst fear?
being ignored

Do you like rainbows?
yes

Where is your favorite shopping place?
the internet or an Eddie Bauer Outlet

Where is your favorite vacation place?
Arizona/Utah

Are you scared of the wilderness?
not especially

Have you ever been fired?
yes, more than once

How old were you when you shared your very first kiss?
real kiss? 17, I was a late starter. I made up for lost time later.

Do you like Astrology?
yes

Are you scared of airplanes?
I love airplanes but I’m not a big fan of flying

Do you fear heights or the dark more?
the dark

Do you like junk food?
sadly, yes

Do you believe in God?
sort of, but not the God I was taught about growing up

What's your religion?
Unitarian Universalist

Are you scared of death?
I’m afraid of dying before I’m done all the living I want to do

Are you scared of needles?
I don’t like them at all

Are you paranoid of the police?
No

Do you follow or break rules?
a little of both

Cupcakes or soft baked cookies?
soft baked cookies

OXY SCREAM

HI, I’M BILLY MAYS FOR OXY SCREAM !!!!

WHEN I WAS A KID, MY MOM NEVER HEARD OF "TIME OUT" AND “USE YOUR INSIDE VOICE.” NOW I’M ALL GROWN UP AND DISCOVERED THAT I REALLY CAN MAKE A LIVING TALKING LIKE THIS!

MOM DID THREATEN TO WASH MY MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP, SO IT’S ONLY NATURAL THAT I END UP YELLING, UHH I MEAN, SELLING CLEANING PRODUCTS!



AND IF YOU ORDER NOW, WE’LL DOUBLE YOUR ORDER!

… AND, I’LL SHUT UP!

… AND MAYBE I’LL WEAR SOMETHING OTHER THAN KHAKI PANTS AND A BLUE SHIRT!

30 About 50

Sometimes you hear the phrase, “50 is the new 30.” AARP, the organization built for those past 50, prefers to say that 50 is the new 50. In other words, turning 50 is a good thing. It’s a time for looking at life differently, for taking new directions, for starting a new career, or, as in my case, returning to college.

Or to quote their January article on the subject, “it can mean the freedom and confidence to do whatever the heck you want—whether it’s to spend time with family, write children’s books, take to the stage in a corset, or, like Madonna, do all three.”

Here is a list of 30 people or organizations celebrating the big 5-0 this year:

-Madonna (August)
-Prince (June)
-Sharon Stone (March)
-Michelle Pfeiffer (April)
-Ellen DeGeneres (January)
-Prince (June)
-The Daytona 500
-Rice-A-Roni
-the Hula Hoop
-Alec Baldwin (April)
-Jimmy Smits (July)
-The American Express Credit Card
-BankAmericard, now known as Visa
-Alaska as a State
-Deborah Norville (August)
-Shaun Cassidy (September)
-NASA
-Marg Helgenberger (November)
-Jamie Lee Curtis (November)
-Jeff Foxworthy (September)
-NASCAR
-The Grammys (Best Song: Volare by Domenico Modugno; Best Male Vocal Performace: Perry Como, Best Female Performance: Ella Fitzgerald)
-The Jolly Green Giant television ads debut (whose first version scared kids, so they lightened the color and added the ho, ho, ho)
-Kevin Bacon (July),
-Daniel Day-Lewis (April)
-Michael Jackson (August)
-The Chevrolet Impala

-"Look Ma, no cavities"(Crest ad slogan)
-Stereo records
-and last, but not least, AARP

Any surprises? Parts of this list might change your perspective on turning 50, especially if you are in your 30s … or if you’re 49.

The Forecast Tonight: Dark

Does that title sound familiar? Here is the whole sentence: "The forecast for tonight, dark. Continued dark tonight, turning to partly light in the morning.” The line is from Al Sleet, the hippy dippy weatherman, a bit and character created and performed by the legendary comedian, author and free-speech advocate George Carlin.

Carlin died yesterday at the relatively young age of 71. He wasn’t a Boomer but his humor was central to Boomer life from the 1960s and 70s right up to this day. He was outspoken and painfully, brutally honest in his observational humor. He made you laugh and he made you think. He was funny!

Here are a few of his one-liners:

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

When cheese gets it's picture taken, what does it say?

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

“I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

George Washington’s brother, Lawrence, was the Uncle of Our Country.

If there is a heaven and he’s doing a show there tonight, he might have to rewrite this one: I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it.

George Carlin was also famous for the “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television.” And those words are … not going to be said on this blog. Amazingly, at least five of those words are regularly heard on cable television now, so maybe he opened the door for that to happen.

Here is a clip of one of his best observational pieces. This is actually a 1990 performance of one of his older routines. It is funny because it is so universal.



Sadly, the forecast for his brand of comedy is dark; and I don’t think we’ll see his kind of light shining any time soon.

I Finally Did It

My vehicle shopping dilema is finally over. In a post last month I speculated that Boomers often choose vehicles that relate in some way to their identity. An additional observation: car buying was often a passionate endeavor. It still is for some people.

Most of my vehicle choices have been practical as well as passionate. I've owned three station wagons, two of them to haul around audio equipment when I was a wedding DJ. I had a sporty luxury car for a few years when perceived status was important to me. I had a Mustang when it was all about fun. I owned a van when I lived on a farm.

The vehicle I've driven for the past six years was an SUV. I wanted a wagon-style 4-wheel drive vehicle for a long time and was able to justify the high price and low gas mileage because it snows a lot around here and I live 42 miles from work. Truth be told, it was a horrible vehicle for such a long commute. And it got 18 miles per gallon, which is a problem as gas prices keep rising.

So last week, after months of agonizing and second-guessing, I traded this:



for this:



... a 2-wheel drive, 4-door sedan. Ugh!

Actually, I love it already. It handles better than every other car I've owned, it is very comfortable, and it should get 28 mpg on the highway. The trunk is large for this size car and the rear seat folds down, adding to the trunk space.

I'm pretty good at rationalizing, aren't I?

Actually, this is exactly the right car for how I use a car at this time in my life. I know I'll miss the Explorer the next time there is a significant snow event, but all things considered, this was a good move.

Two other environmental aspects of this trade: 1) the Explorer had 164,000 miles on it when I sold it, a personal record and a good example of vehicular recycling, and 2) this "new" car is a used car, so I've recycled again. Maybe I'll set another personal mileage record.

A Thousand Tears

You’ve heard the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words. Is there a picture in your life that led to a thousand tears?

Many images in the 150-plus years of documentary photography have generated strong emotional response.

This famous photo most surely leads you to some kind of reaction:



And this one:



Can you think of a personal picture in your life that has done the same? Perhaps a graduation shot or a wedding picture.

This one picture below on the right caused me to gasp, then to cry:



It is a photo of my childhood home in New Orleans sitting in ten feet of water after Hurricane Katrina.

See the house with the white reflecting roof? Ours is two houses below that. The picture on the left was taken during a routine satellite mapping pass in 2004 or early 2005. The one on the right was specifically commissioned in September, 2005, a week after Katrina, to help survey the flooding.

I call this “our” house because it is still in my family. My sister has been the owner for at least ten years and has lived there for most of that time. She evacuated fifty miles north the day before the storm and learned days later that there was flooding and residents would not be allowed back into the city till the water receded. So she moved into my house in Maryland for six weeks.

We were desperate for news about the Lakeview neighborhood and I spent a lot of time searching the internet for photos. I found many, some as close as a few blocks away. Then one day I found the aerial shots. Till that moment, it just wasn’t real. I discovered I could zoom in, and there it was, the little Dad-built white cottage sitting in water up to its eaves. I literally gasped, then started crying; I was sitting at my desk at work but no one bothered me.

My sister’s initial reaction that night was a bit less emotional. She was in denial at first, thinking that maybe the water wasn’t as high as it looked and maybe there wasn’t as much water inside as there was outside. When we finally returned to the house a month later, we saw firsthand that it was even worse that the picture indicated. The house survived but virtually everything in it was destroyed, partly by the standing water and party by weeks of heat and humidity.

People in the midwest who are experiencing the floods this week understand this kind of loss, maybe more than they ever thought possible. Years from now, pictures will bring them back to this moment in an instant; tears may follow.

It took more than two years for my sister's house to be rehabbed, but that work is done and my sister lives there again. I have pictures of the house taken periodically through the gutting and the rehabbing, but only one picture of the pre-Katrina house, taken just a week before the storm to show off some new landscaping. Those are all emotional photographs in their own right, but for me, this one is still worth a thousand tears.

My Summer Staycation

Trendy vocabulary is often annoying, but the new buzz word staycation is amazingly timely and accurate.

Because of the high price of gasoline this summer, many Americans are choosing to stay close to home for their vacation. I am one of them.

Spending my vacation at home is nothing new for me, however. I’ve done it several times in the 2000s. Instead of travelling, I work on big house projects and take a break on one or two days to do some local sightseeing. Using a combination of car and subway, I can reach the heart of our Nation’s Capitol in just over an hour. Driving for seventy minutes in another direction and I can explore Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, the grounds over which the rocket’s red glare inspired our National Anthem. A thirty minute drive in one of three other directions will take me to a noteworthy Civil War battlefield.


While I’m around the house this week, I hope to catch up on some landscaping projects and repaint my home office. The most significant item on my list, however, is my plan to replace my aging SUV with a more fuel-efficient vehicle. After that task is done, I can look forward to a future vacation.

Happy Dad’s Day

Dad prepared my sister and I for a lot of things we would face in life but I don’t think he prepared us for his death. Not the emotional part. Not the loss we would feel.

He died more than six years ago and the loss has faded, but the memory of him springs into my head at the most unusual times, usually when I’m trying to fix something in the house and I’m using the very same tools he used.

He was a quiet man but had a lot of presence. In a group setting, he’d quietly listen and observe in a way that made it seem he wasn’t paying any attention; then out of the blue, he’d say the one thing that became the most significant part of that conversation.

He was the consummate do-it-yourselfer, and not just with little projects. He built the house we grew up in, nearly by himself. That sturdy little cottage in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans survived the Hurricane Katrina floods. The contractors who rehabbed it told my sister (who has lived there since right before Dad’s death) that it was built more like a commercial structure than a residence.

This is my favorite picture of Dad. He was just a few years older here than I am now. I like this because it captures his classic look and smile. Parkinson’s disease robbed him of that look many years before he died and this shot takes me back to a better time in his life. We honored his long-standing request for a closed-casket funeral, but we placed a framed 8 x 10 of this photo on the casket. More than once that day we heard someone say, “there’s the Benny we remember.”

Much Too Young

I’m sure you’ve heard that NBC Meet The Press host Tim Russert died today, at age 58.

Fifty-eight is much too young for death!

This guy was absolutely my favorite TV journalist. I loved his style. I’ll never be in his league as an interviewer, but I tried to think about his amazing composure while doing my own interviews on the radio. He was prepared, confident and very authentic. If you paid a lot of attention, you might know a little about his personal politics, but he never let the personal stuff show in an interview. He asked the tough questions on all sides and was well respected for it.

A couple of things I didn’t know about him till today: he went to Woodstock; he booked some concerts while in school, including one starring a then unknown Bruce Springsteen; he was the longest-running host of Meet The Press (16 years); he was a lawyer, admitted to the bar in New York and DC; he met his wife at a the Democratic National Convention (in 1976).

He died at work, while in a studio recording voiceovers for this week’s Meet The Press.