Last May, Judy, Sherry, Laurie and I took a train from Chicago to St. Paul (visiting 2nd cousin Molly McMahon and her cool family, joined, to our surprise by Gwennie, Tom and Mole), Portland (visiting with 2nd cousin Kaeri Schaefer and her also cool family) and then to Los Anglese (visiting 2nd cousin Brian McVickar and his joyful friend Danni).

Before we left, Laurie suggested to all the nieces, nephews, and kids that they think of interview questions for the 4 of us to discuss and record on tape for posterity.

The only two people to respond were Anita and Becca. Anita asked us to share our memories of Gary and I'll cover that separately.

These were Becca's questions:

-What are some traditions the McVickar family has?

-What are some life lessons you've learned from your siblings and relatives??

-Everyone talking about their memories of the Bill Bradfield situation. (You already knew I was going to say that.)

-What are some random memories from childhood that bring you joy?

-Mom (Laurie) talking about how she came to find out Paul is her real dad. What do others remember about this? (You already knew I was going to say that.)

-What do you think makes a McVickar a McVickar?

-What ancestors do you feel most connected to and why / what do you remember of your grandparents?

Traditions:

Funny to me how few I can think of, and by "few", I mean I can only think of one, waving to people or blinking the front lights as they left the house and drove west on Black Horse Road across the front of our property. Not many people know about it now and of those who do, seem not to want to be bothered with it, except Trev who still embraces it with enthusiasm. 

Life Lessons from Siblings:

This is a tough one, because I can only think of one thing specifically, which is when, after Gary died, Laurie observed that our body only allows us to experience grief in portions we are able to handle because if it hit us all at once, it would be too much to handle.

But in a more general sense, the way they, and their kids too, have helped me, is they just just care about me and make me feel I'm important to them. There just really is no more important gift one can give.

Bill Bradfield

Way too many to put in print but I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that it was kind of an exciting time for me as a 20-something year-old to be so close to someone who was on the front page of all the local papers and magazines and who was someone I visited often throughout, growing close to all the people involved and guilty in the eyes of many.  

Joyful Childhood Memories

- playing games outside, occasionally in the dark

- going to swim at Sixpenny and Hopewell

- visiting and visits from my best childhood and maybe even adulthood friend, Jim Daly

- time alone, staring at the ceiling 

- watching TV shows as a family on mom and dad's bed

- sledding in the front yard

- Downingtown Friends School 

- Hanging with the Bradfields, kids and adults, including daytrips to the Jersey shore

Laurie Finding Out

I wasn't there so I can't add anything but I do remember the family dinner probably not long after when Mom and Dad not only telling Judy and me that news but also that their real 1956 wedding date was in April, not February, which is when they wanted us to think they'd been married because I was born in December of that year (you can do the math). It was nice to have Laurie as a full biological sister but it didn't really change anything since we always thought of she, Gary and Sherry as full siblings anyway.

A McVickar a McVickar

Well, we are opinionated and outspoken but good listeners; strong but gentle; spiritual but not all religious; Democrats in every case except for Wyatt; good friends to have; loving, tolerant, fun, funny, emotional, communicative...and although not every one of those fits every one of us, there is one thing we all have in common: We are all very, very lucky to be in the extended McVickar family - siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, second cousins, and however to describe the luck of having the al-Rubaiay family as part of ours now too. LUCKY! 

Ancestor Connections and Grandparent memories

Sadly, we can't go too deep here, as none of us knew our (Matthew) McVickar/(Arno) Osterhaus grandfathers. My maternal grandmother, Clarita Osterhaus, who we called Nanny for some odd reason, was always pleasant with us though rarely seemed to have much interest in knowing us at any level. We thought of her as quite wealthy, though I doubt she ever had much more than $40-50,000 to her name. She would allow Mom to buy each of us one "expensive" gift - up to $40 or so - at Christmas that she would pay for, of course. When Judy, Laurie and I were all under ten years old, she would occasionally put red lipstick on all three of us and I remember being disappointed when it was decided that it would not be appropriate to include me. She and mom loved to laugh together. She would drive out once a month or so and she and Mom would catch up on all that was going on in their worlds. I don't remember them talking on the phone much, or ever, really. 

Our maternal grandmother, Sarah Jeannette McVickar, who we called Mema, was 11 years older than Nanny and was reminiscent of the character of Aunt Bea on The Andy Griffith Show, if considerably less gregarious. She was strict with us when she would watch us when mom and dad went away on vacation, with a number of peculiar rules required of us kids: 

- we couldn't drink any milk at dinner until we finished all our food

- the oldest kid - Laurie - got to decide what TV shows we watched

- we had to "make a BM" before we were allowed to go to bed

- and we had to say prayers first too: "Now I lay me down to sleep" is all I remember.

So other than those two wonderful ladies, I guess the only ancestral-type folks I had any real contact with were Dad's siblings and Uncle Art was and still is an inspiration to me. He was a wonderfully playful uncle and also was incredibly fit, well into his 70's. In fact, I remember him not just playing volleyball with us at age 76 at a family reunion, but playing extremely actively, even more so than some of the rest of us.

I hope that helped, Becca! Sorry it took so long. Let me know if you have any more questions. You'll think of many after we're gone.

I was surprised to read in this article in The Athletic about finding workplace happiness, in their case, in terms of the teams they play on, that two of the most important pieces of advice in Dale Carnegie's landmark book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” originally published in 1936, are the two things I've often declared as my "philosophies of life" as my nephew Skylar begs us to share: Connections and Validation.

"(Joey) Votto was struck by a passage about connection. One of the best ways to reach others, Carnegie wrote, was to offer sincere appreciation. It wasn’t enough to show up; you had to be intentional."

Research by Jane Dutton, an organizational psychologist, has spent nearly three decades researching this, "has suggested that there’s an even simpler way to foster happier work places and more cohesiveness among team members. The answer is in what Dutton calls “high-quality connections,” a term she coined to describe the brief, positive interactions between colleagues.

"Studies have shown that an increase in “high-quality connections” can improve physiological health and increase measures of energy and vitality. It can also increase resilience and coordination in organizations. In other words, fostering more connections may be more powerful than trying to change a company’s culture.

“'This is such a simple idea, but I’ve been stunned at how powerful it is,' Dutton said."

So, what's new is old. Dale, I bow to thee. Glad I didn't try to write a whole book only to find out you already did 90ish years ago. 

And by the way, thanks for validating my philosophy of life, proactively or maybe retroactively. 

I just want to post this link as an ode to my buddy Michael P. Rellahan, the extremely gifted writer who unfortunately is no longer writing columns for the Daily Local News. 

But you can still enjoy any or all of them here:

https://michaelpcolumns.blogspot.com/

 I think most of us have wondered how people could feel that it was okay to actually own people as slaves 150 or so years ago. 

I've wondered if the same mindset allows someone to support Donald Trump as President. Or in any other way.

To me, they are both indefensible and come from the same place.

The question Dems need to ask open-minded (non-Maga) potential voters:

"What upsets you more - the situation at the border or our heathcare system as it currently exists?"

The question Dems need to ask themselves:

"What upsets you more - our healthcare system or trans rights?"

Picture this

 News Item:

Detroit assistant general manager Sam Menzin resigned his post last Thursday, just before the team was planning to fire him for improper workplace conduct. Multiple women, including two Tigers employees, confirmed to The Athletic that Menzin sent them unsolicited lewd photos, some of which date back to 2017. Find out more. Nah, I'm good, thanks. Besides which, I just don't get dick pics. Literally or figuratively. And I am fine with that.

I mean, even if it has all been with m'lovely!

 We've all heard the expression, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

I'm just wondering if it's okay to ignore the best sex I've ever had.

Oh, so like maybe you have a better idea!?

 

"The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas."

- A. Whitney Griswold, President, Yale University, 1954

So, my fellow Dems, it isn't enough to declare President Musk's ideas as bad.

We need to be clear about what are our better ideas.

So far, I don't see enough of that coming from us.

Yeah yeah, I know I have too much time on my hands

 Here are things I think about...but refuse to Google apparently:

-            Why are some words bad? Bad parenting probably.

-            Why do words hurt? Seems just like getting punched in a sore spot, the more tender you are, the more they hurt.

-            Why do we say things to hurt?

-            Why are there silent letters? That’s just dum.

-            Do antelopes eat cantaloupes?

-            How do trees get so tall just from dirt, water, sun and a tiny acorn?

-            Why do we stop growing? (No fair referencing my belly!)

-            What is it about music that we love so much? 

-            Why doesn’t all our hair grow like the hair on our heads?

-            Why don’t trees leave a massive indentation in the earth where they grow from, after having sucked out all the nutrients?

-            If the water cycle is a fact, how and why can we run low on water?

-            Why do we use big words when little ones will do?

-            How can the US ban the sale of semiconductor chips to China, when we bought them from Taiwan in the first place? And isn’t that ban all the more reason for China to invade Taiwan?

 -            At the equator, the Earth moves at around 1,000 miles per hour due to its spin. And they tell us that we don't feel the Earth spinning because it rotates at a constant speed, and we are moving with it. So why would I fall off the top of a moving car if I'm moving with it?

Discuss:

-            If you had a choice between never feeling emotional pain or physical pain the rest of your life, which would you choose?

-            Do males or females change more (in all ways other than physically) between the ages of 13 and 31?

-            If you add zero to any number, did you add anything to it?

                                        I'm done. I hope I didn't add nothing to your brain.  

A Plan for Winning, not Whining

Updating my list of suggestions for the Democratic Party on how to win future elections.

Democrats will:

1 –Aid and protect you with:

- access to quality, affordable health care

- free adult vocational education of any kind, including:

    - classes on job-related computer skills, from spreadsheets to coding

    - classes at community colleges 

    - hands-on job-training in the fields of plumbing, electrical, mechanical, HVAC, etc.

2 - Reduce the strangulating power that corporations have over our lives that keep all of us from a better life

3 - Reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credits to companies and industries unrelated to the common good)

4 - Incentivize corporations to share their profits with their workers

5 - Remove limits on contributions to Social Security accounts so high earners and their employers pay their fair share

6 - Put American citizens’ needs ahead of anyone entering our country illegally

7 - Limit the power of investment houses to buy up houses and hold them from the market in order to force an increase in the price of housing 

8 - Pass laws requiring term limits for all federal and state level politicians

9 - Institute age-limits for Supreme Court justices

10 - Nominate justices who will overturn Citizens United reducing the role of money from billionaires and corporations in politics

11 - Only involve our military in fighting wars that have an impact on our own national security

12 – Reduce unnecessary overseas military installations and use the money to strengthen our factory towns

13 – Commit to a full audit of the nation’s drinking water systems and make repairs a top priority, giving everyone access to clean water

14 - Oppose hate speech toward people who have different political opinions from ours, no matter how much we disagree. Our fellow American citizens are not the enemy within.

15 - Do everything we can to keep the government out of your life…unless you actually need or want its help. If the private sector can do it better and for less cost, the government shouldn’t be doing it at all.

16 –Give special attention to supporting small businesses, which create more jobs than all the Fortune 500 companies combined. This includes removing burdensome regulations and unnecessary government-imposed requirements.

17 – Make sure all spending on our national defense is spent efficiently and is directed toward the most up-to-date weaponry.

18 – Make sure our veterans have access to free mental healthcare for life.

19 – Give substantial incentives to corporations of any size to provide free onsite childcare

And 20th, never forget to remind people how wonderful they are. The best of what makes America great isn’t based on how we vote. It’s what we do every day regardless of our party affiliation: getting our kids off to school, shopping, making dinner, going to religious services, volunteering at the food bank, cutting the grass for a sick friend or neighbor regardless of what their voter registration card says, caring for our elderly parents, and yes, maybe even running for public office.  

As James Brown said, “People feel you before they hear you.” I have plenty of people in my life whom I love and respect, who are thoughtful, loving, supportive people…who vote straight Republican, yes, even including for Donald Trump. We need to validate, and try to understand, their feelings and beliefs, just as we’d ask that they do the same for us. 

This is an excerpt from an email I recently sent to a friend:

I have lots of takeaways about the election. One can correctly blame Biden; Kamala's emphasis on joy while ignoring people's pain; paying Beyonce and Oprah $1m to endorse her; worry about the border (why?!); the Dems fascination with people's identities, from gender to race; along with the list you included above. 

I think it's every single one of those things.

Thing is, we Dems need a candidate who has many of the same goals as the absolute political genius lunkhead in the oval office right now - questioning everything about the way our government works and playing more hardball than many Ds are comfortable with.

What annoys me about the Ds right now is we are doing so much navel gazing, philosophizing, ruminating, discerning and threshing, but not coming up with specific plans instead of general ones, that speak the language of the guy at the end of the bar. Or maybe just the bartender. 

FCNL had a call the other night of actions we can take to fight back. I signed up for it but opted to get the transcript. It's 33 pages long. I've read, or at least breezed through, the first 16 pages and so far, the only thing they've said is to lobby moderate Republicans. Genius! The rest of it is thanking each other and explaining problems we all already knew about. I'm not going to read the rest, but if you do, let me know if it gets more constructive.

I am working on my own list of things that Dems should be pimping left and, especially, right - specifics, that speak the human language, with no references to ad hoc stopgap subcommittee bipartisan bilateral blue ribbon adjunct hardworking American roll up our sleeves best practice bread and butter existential inflection point game changer kitchen table common sense initiatives. (Did I forget anything?!)

 Another home photo I love, taken during a small snowstorm at 2am.

Ruben Gallego for President!

I used to post articles like this, with my comments, on Facebook, but for some reason, I'm just not into doing that anymore. In fact, the last post below this, I put on FB and a few days later deleted it I guess because I don't want and care for, approval from the masses and I don't feel like pushing my political views on anyone anymore. Or at least not to the extent I had been. I still post (political) things there from time, but not generally and definitely not to the extent I had been leading up to the election.

And why I even post them here I'm not entirely sure. My blog data says that anywhere from 5-20 people look at my posts and honestly, as far as I can tell, really only 1 or 2 do: my dear niece Becca, bless her heart, actually truly does read them, though I think my sister Laurie checks in from time to time. So who I'm writing for, I'm not really sure, especially the political stuff. But I enjoy it. Maybe it's for venting. I really don't know.

Anyway, here are the two excerpts from this interview with Ruben Gallego that I like best, with my favorite parts in red:

"You won Latino men by 30 points in an election in which Trump dominated that group. I know men are a very broad group, but what do you think Democrats have misunderstood about them? 

That we could be working to make the status of men better without diminishing the status of women. 

A lot of times we forget that we still need men to vote for us. That’s how we still win elections. But we don’t really talk about making the lives of men better, working to make sure that they have wages so they can support their families. I also think some of this is purely psychological — like we just can’t put our finger on it. During my campaign, I noticed when I was talking to men, especially Latino men, about the feeling of pride, bringing money home, being able to support your family, the feeling of bringing security — they wanted to hear that someone understood that need. And a lot of times we are so afraid of communicating that to men, because we think somehow we’re going to also diminish the status of women. That’s going to end up being a problem. The fact that we don’t talk this way to them makes them think we don’t really care about them, when in fact the Democrats on par are actually very good about the status of working-class men. It was a joke, but I said a lot when I was talking to Latino men: “I’m going to make sure you get out of your mom’s house, get your troquita.” For English speakers, that means your truck. Every Latino man wants a big-ass truck, which, nothing wrong with that. “And you’re gonna go start your own job, and you’re gonna become rich, right?” These are the conversations that we should be having. We’re afraid of saying, like, “Hey, let’s help you get a job so you can become rich.” We use terms like “bring more economic stability.” These guys don’t want that. They don’t want “economic stability.” They want to really live the American dream."

And:

"How do Democrats stand for what they believe in without being seen by voters as outside the mainstream? 

"It’s easier for us to be hit as being extremists if we’re not also known for something, if we’re not fighting to make someone’s life better, to bring down the cost of living, raise wages. 

If we’re not actively fighting for that, it’s going to be easier for people to take the most extreme positions and say, “Well, that’s actually what the Democrats are.” I think most Americans are very much pro-L.G.B.T. I think they are pro-women’s rights. I think they’re more aligned with Democrats than with where Republicans are. But when we aren’t identified as doing something for the grander America, they’re just going to be able to say, “They’re just so focused on these small little niche groups instead of you.” And that resonated.

I know someone’s going to say: “Well, the G.D.P. under Biden was the highest. And we had the lowest unemployment ever. Ruben Gallego is wrong.” Yes, that was all true. But people were not feeling it. People were just not feeling it. If we want to lie to ourselves and say, “Well, things were really good, the economy was really good” when people were telling us it was not, we’re going to continue having this problem. It’s going to be easier for people to take away some of these basic rights if we allow the middle of America to continue to suffer economically."

This column really spoke to me. I know there are plenty of my friends who are so ready to fight, resist, activate and push. God bless them. I'm behind them. Like way way behind them. I'm not there. My goal is to try to be a better person. To be kind. To plant seeds of joy and love and return to basics. Friends, family, every person I know or even meet for the first time. A smile. A conversation. A hug when appropriate. And someday, I'll be ready to reactivate. Just not now.

"Now is a time of quiet. A passionate activist friend told me she doesn’t feel very resisty yet, but one thing that characterizes deserts is the stillness, until the wind blows. And, boy, when it blows, it’s like an organ. You can hear its shape and power because everything else is so still. How or when will the wind start up? How could we know? But it always does. Spring is less than two months away — warmth, light, daffodils, life bursting into its most show-offy self.

“Give me those far away in the desert,” Saint Augustine said, “who are thirsty and sigh for the spring of the eternal country.”

"I can tell you this: The resistance will be peaceful, nonviolent, colorful, multigenerational — we older people will march with you, no matter our sore feet and creaky joints. There will be beautiful old music. There will also be the usual haranguing through terrible sound systems, but oh well. Until then, this will be my fight song: left foot, right foot, breathe. Help the poor however you can, plant bulbs right now in the cold rocky soil, and rest."

In case you aren't tired of me expounding more on validation

Thinking more about my posts a few weeks back about no longer needing validation, this article impressed upon me the other side of that thinking which is that if one doesn’t need to be stroked, as it were, one also eliminates, at least theoretically, any need to be defensive or to feel (negatively) judged. If someone speaks to or of me unkindly, it wouldn’t/shouldn’t matter. If I don’t need or seek validation, it doesn’t just mean I don’t need to be judged positively, it also means I don’t care if I’m judged negatively.

That article helped drive that point home for me, where the husband, who came to admit the problem in his marriage was himself, was at his worst when he was criticized, or felt judged by his wife. As I read it and he gave an example, I thought, “Dude. Either accept it or ignore it and move on.” Easier said than done, of course, but that’s what I strive for, not always successfully, I admit, or as Cheryl can tell you (but probably wouldn’t).

The other thing from that article that stood out to me, is the impact of one’s childhood on how healthy one’s adult relationship with a partner might be.  For me, as my sister Laurie used to frequently remind me, I was annoying as hell as a 12-14 year old, ok, maybe 11-15 year old…and sometimes 68 year old…before I began around age 15-16 to retreat semi-permanently into my bedroom, coming out only for meals.

The root of my being annoying was a quest for attention, negative being better than none at all. I grew up in a very loving, supportive household, but as wonderful a man as my dad was, my tween years sensed that his interest in his art superseded his interest in being a present dad, though I suspect that is what he likely learned from his dad. (And my greatest fear might be that my kids feel the same about me and my interest in sports. It’s not true, you guys! Being a dad was my favorite thing ever in my entire life!)

And so, as I moved into adulthood, I believe I probably brought some of that need with me, hard as it is to admit, or put in permanent writing. Close friends of mine once called me a gadfly, and, once I looked it up, it hurt, but if that is their or anyone else’s perspective, I can’t help that. It does regretfully though fit my narrative.

Finally, if one accepts the idea that one’s childhood will impact one’s relationship with a partner in adulthood, then I have one last observation.

I remember in my 20’s being confused by women who, while we were still in bed after sex, possibly at my/our most vulnerable, asking me personal questions about former girlfriends.

I think it was my aforementioned sister Laurie who I asked at some point what the heck that was all about and she said it was probably so they could find out what I might say about them someday if things didn’t work out. In the bigger picture, maybe they were trying to probe my emotional depths as to whether I portrayed likely negative (break-up) experiences in any kind of angry, vengeful tone or if I thought of them positively (which I did, in every case) to see what kind of person I really was. (I mean, it’s not like guys’ personalities change any once they achieved conquest…orgasm…had a mutually beneficial loving intimate interaction with a girl! Amirite?!) Or heck, maybe they just wanted to know if they had any competition to worry about.

So now I’m thinking that if their goal was to get some sense of what I might be like as a long-term partner, they’d be better off asking about my childhood and how happy I was and how validated I felt.

In a family where the youngest got the most positive attention (and not without reason, Judy was everything I was not – happy, positive, fun to be around, full of joy) and the oldest, Laurie, got plenty of negative attention in my tween years, I felt very loved but not often terribly happy, and rarely validated.

 I just love this picture for so many reasons, I just gotta include it here.

Cheryl working from home on an icy day.

Father and son at 2006 opening day

I love the simplicity of this special day that I summarized in an email on 4/4/2006 to a group of people I thought might enjoy it:

Sherry called me today and suggested that I write an email to everyone about my day with Trev yesterday, and since I have some time to kill - what a concept! - between work and a political meetin' (Gone With the Wind reference) at 7, I’ll do it now.  The meeting at 7 is with a Democratic Party group whose main goal is to defeat Rick Santorum. Yolanda, if you don't know who he is, he's our senator and maybe be politically to the right of GW. He’s a very, very bad man.

 

Anyway, yesterday, Trev and I did our annual day together - his 7th opening day, which is pretty impressive when you consider he's only 5 years old (one in utero, obviously).  (Opening Day is the first day of baseball season - the first Phillies home game of the year.)

 

Last year was the first time it was just Trev and me, Cheryl very nicely agreeing that between the expense and the hassle of taking both Trev and Emma, and likely Evelyn too, it would be easier to have it just be a dad/son thing.  And as with last year, I took the full day off from work. Of course, Opening Day should be a national holiday, but we won’t get into that right now.

 

Last year we stopped first at the Reading Terminal Market and pretty much got there and Trev wanted to leave to get to the game, which was still 2 hours from starting which was just too much time to kill with a 4-yr old in a crowd of 45,000+.  But this year, we went again and it went much better.  We had lunch from one of the many homemade food-type vendors– macaroni and cheese and a big delicious piece of cornbread (When I asked Trev if it was better than mommy’s, he said, Yes, but don’t tell her!) and pink lemonade, which we agreed was actually red, since that is the Phillies color.  Then we got some Bassett’s ice cream (I have a picture of me with Anneke eating ice cream there) and then some of the amazing double chocolate chip cookies from the Famous Deli, which I believe is what they’re famous for. I took them home for Ev and Cheryl and brought the rest in to work, where they were quickly gobbled up.

 

Geez, I need to leave soon, so I better speed this up.

 

So we left and got to the game pretty quickly with about 20 minutes to spare, which was good cuz it gave us time to get the most important thing of the day – cotton candy, of course! And we saw the guys parachute in with the ceremonial first ball, which was then thrown out by Kimmy Meissner who just won the world figure skating championship and trains nearby. (Art Garfunkel sang God Bless America at the 7^th inning stretch, but we were long gone by then).  And they had a huge flag covering center field carried by a hundred military types and the Phila Boys Choir sang the national anthem and the Phillie Phanatic was all over the place – all quite the spectacle.

 

Let’s see, well, by the fourth inning, the Phillies were losing 10-0! But more importantly, we had time to go out and get hot dogs and more lemonade and walk all the way around the stadium with Trev on my shoulders most of the way. We only actually sat in our seats for about an inning, which happened to be the inning the dumb cardinals scored 8 runs! And Trev just squirmed the whole time, climbing on me, running up and down the aisle, literally poking the 20-something year old in the seat next to him in the shoulder with his finger and then looking away. And he was showing off his shiny penny that he had gotten squished flat into a pig at the Reading Terminal (long story) to anyone who would look. And generally just being very excitable, not bad, just uh…active. So we left about half way through the game, Trev falling asleep on the almost 2-hour ride home (big traffic jam).

 

So the best part of the whole story is last night, I was carrying Trev into bed, and I told him what a great day it had been even if the Phillies had lost. He paused for a moment and said “They did?!”

I just laughed and told him I loved him and gave him a huge hug.

 

Perfect.

 

Oh yeah, and of course the only bad news is that they won’t be able sell beer at the Phillies games the rest of the year. Why? All together now: “Cuz they lost the opener!!!!!!!”

 

(Uncle Art told me that joke about 40 years ago.)

 

Love to you all.

 - Jame

As the pendulum swings...

Just a few thoughts about a topic that I find to be an almost universal concern among the males of a wide age range I've brought this topic up to: What it means to be a male right now. A concern that I believe had a great deal of influence on the unfortunate outcome of the 2024 election.

Men are confused right now, which is a bad thing, but some of the reasons are good ones, including the fact (opinion, actually) that men's roles needed to be shaken up.

Here are a few links that I found interesting or just fun:

This article "outlines the current state of America’s working class men and describes recent trends in the key areas of employment, earnings, health, and family."

From the article:

- Working class men face alarmingly high risks of dying young, particularly from “deaths of despair” such as suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related deaths. 

- They are also more vulnerable to other health challenges, including workplace injuries and chronic diseases. 

- Young working class men (aged 25 to 34) are more likely to die than middle-aged non-working class men (aged 45 to 54).

- Employment rates for working class men have significantly declined over the past four decades. 

- Black working class men have persistently faced the greatest hurdles in the labor market, while white working class men have experienced the most dramatic recent declines in employment rates.

- Meanwhile, wages for working class men have been stagnant.

- Marriage and family formation rates have declined significantly among working class men. 

- Social isolation is on the rise, with fewer close friendships and weakened social bonds, contributing to a deeper sense of loneliness and disconnection. In the past there was hardly any class gap in marriage and family-formation. Today there is a huge one.

So those are all the problems, but here is one definite solution! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XOt2Vh0T8w

And finally, for those who think there's some advantage or in any way that it’s still better to be a man than a woman, I have two words for you: multiple orgasms.

 

Sometimes I wonder if I'm being pranked by making me think Cheryl is actually my wife. I’m just not worthy.

I love that girl.

We have met the monsters and they are not disambiguates

I’m not going to write much about this, except to excerpt from this interview two things:

Take a look in the mirror. Might that be a monster looking back at you?

In her wide-ranging, weirdly fascinating new book, Humans: A Monstrous History, historian of science Surekha Davies tells the story of humanity as an epic of monstrification, following the evolving definitions of what it means to be human, and of what it means to be placed outside of that definition. Davies describes how Westerners saw that the places they colonized were populated by beings who looked, ate, spoke, and behaved differently — and to fill the gaps in their understanding, imagined them as monsters, beyond the limits of humanity. She traces how that impulse underlies how humans have built nations, drawn borders, created scapegoats, and justified the destruction and enslavement of whole populations.

But monsters are us, writes Davies, and understanding the process by which we make them and how they continue to dominate our imaginations is a key to recognizing our mutual humanity. She proposes that people might reclaim monstrification to embrace difference, rather than reject it — first by recognizing that the boundaries between the human and monstrous are drawn, by humans, for human purposes — and that it’s possible to draw those boundaries differently, or not at all. Understanding humanity, that is to say, means understanding monstrosity

And this:

You bring up in the book that humanity is good at dehumanizing people and humanizing non-humans. And you can see this in capitalist work relationships, in the evolving idea of who is allowed to have free speech in the United States; increasingly it's these corporate beings, while people are dehumanized, made into numbers, made into raw material, made into resources.

That's an interesting question. I think the category of the human has always been like growing and shrinking, growing and shrinking. In certain times and places, only if you were a male property owner, could you vote. In the early 17th century, in the British Caribbean colonies, these slave and servant acts were written to disambiguate the Christian servant from the black enslaved person. There are these moments when stories are told in order to separate groups, to make it easier to exploit one group of people, to divide up groups that actually had a lot in common.

Or maybe I just like it because I’m in the third season of Dr. Who which is chock full of monsters!

Or…or…maybe I just love the word disambiguate. I would love to find a time and place to use that in a sentence.

In fact, the times did a-change...

Cheryl and I went to see the Bob Dylan biopic a few weeks ago and we both really liked it a lot. I’ve never been a big fan of his, but after seeing the movie, have a new appreciation for him. And soon thereafter, Peter Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary fame passed away.

So I listened to a few of their songs. And a handful of Dylan’s. And what hit me most solidly, well besides trying to make any sense of meaning of Dylan’s lyrics at all, my previous post about poetry and lyrics notwithstanding, was the earnestness which drip from their every word. They delivered each lyric with great intent and feeling and importance.

And it all took me back to that time – the 60’s - when I was a kid and the world was pretty darn wonderful. Not only was it wonderful, if kind of boring to be honest, but it was a time of simplicity and great hope and excitement about the future. Our family hung out with people like us, many of them Quakers: the Marohns, Kietzmans, Browns, McQuails, and, at Quarterly Meeting gatherings, the Zorns. All people who shared our values and our belief in love and caring for each other and a gleaming future absent of prejudice and war. And seemingly all the families drove VWs – bugs, buses, Carmen Ghias, squarebacks – and they were a beautiful simple political statement of their own.

We had soundly defeated the extremism of Goldwater and the John Birch Society and we were sure we were going to march and protest and wear our peace sign medallions until we had left Vietnam. It was a time of great promise.

It's going to take 4 years of all kinds of body contortions: chin up, stiff upper lip, growing a spine, keeping an eye out, and the nose to the activist grindstone

My approach to Trump’s first term was not unlike the path our country too often takes when outraged by the actions of another country: all-out war.

My approach to his second term will be more aligned with the way I’d prefer we deal with conflict: diplomacy, finding common ground, listening carefully to their positions and trying to understand then, but speaking truth to power when necessary, working together to find acceptable solutions and calling out injustice when we see it.

And in this case, making sure as many people know our position, in specifics, on any given issue, when I disagree with the solution they’ve forced on us. But also, more radically, give the other side credit when they do something I agree with or that has proven to be successful.  And I desperately hope President Trump will take the same approach with us…as well as the foreign countries doing things we don’t approve of.

Along the same lines, I watched the recent Senate confirmation hearings of the (likely) incoming “SecDef” Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and cheered on the Democratic Senators grilling him about his personal shortcomings involving excessive drinking on the job, financial mismanagement of organizations he ran, and allegations of sexual assault, as well as statements he has made regarding women in the military. It wasn’t until I read posts from Mark Cuban that I realized I should have been jeering many of their questions instead. Sure, 1 or 2 of the Senators should have attacked him about those semi-relevant issues, but what they really should have peppered him with were questions about the actual job ahead.

Cuban wrote: “I'm sorry but the Dems are ridiculously bad at their Hegseth questions. IMO, if you want to prove someone is incompetent, you ask them the hardest strategic questions they will have to know to succeed at the job. What would I ask? "What was your analysis of the Houthi Bombing in October? What counsel would you give POTUS regarding next actions?" "What should the US strategy be in Syria ?" " How would you counter Chinese aggression on the south China Sea ?" ‘How would you assure civilian oversight of DOD’"

And it is similar to the bigger issue I started with. What are the real issues here – his past or his future? It’s like a comparison of China’s foreign policy vs ours. They care little don’t care at all about human rights. They care only about how it impacts them financially and in terms of global power. Meanwhile, the US (to our credit) cares greatly factors in a country’s record on human rights when making decisions related to foreign policy. Or at least we have, historically, particularly when Jimmy Carter was President.

And we should continue to, but respecting their approach and working with them, not against them to right those wrongs, not taking a militaristic approach, but the same approach I’d use when my friend or neighbor has a different way than ours.

All that said, a number of friends have reached out, asking how we are dealing with the then impending Trump presidency. This was my reply to a friend this morning:

"I/we are really trying to not just stay above the proverbial fray but avoiding it entirely, or as much as possible. Frees up a fair amount of time, at least. Just ignoring it and pretty much everything DJT-related beyond the unavoidable headlines. I'm just in a completely different place than I was 8 years ago. Acceptance and revulsion co-mingled, and an absence of hate or protest, with a touch of hope that he can do some really good things. What I see in the headlines are just so effing awful. People talk about Dems needing to grow a collective, or even individual, spine/s, but my hope is that some of the Rs do, as they begin to realize what exactly he is doing to the people of this country. Collins and Murkowski in particular, but even Mitch McConnell and John Kennedy (LA) among others."

Sitting in the clubhouse, Right in the front row!

The legendary Milwaukee Brewer (and ex-Phillie) Bob Uecker died today. Hard to say what he was most famous for - his announcing, his hysterical appearances on The Tonight Show as a guest with Johnny Carson, his TV commercials, his movies or TV shows.

In this article in The Athletic, this line stood out to me for personal reasons, because I can attest to it: "Uecker was a fixture in Brewers clubhouses, as much a part of the fabric as the clubhouse attendant or bench coach."

Back around 1979-80, I took a vacation, first visiting my sister Judy in Vermont, then driving to Maine for a few days of camping by myself at Acadia - alone except the night I asked my lunch waitress to dinner and to my delight, she said yes.

Heading south, I decided to take in a game in Boston at Fenway against the Brewers, my first time there. After the game, I went for a walk around the inside of the stadium and in the concourse behind third base, I noticed a stream of reporters filing into the Brewers' locker room, so I surreptitiously jumped in line and followed them in.

Seeing their slugger Gorman Thomas at his locker, I went over and sat next to him, telling he was my friend Jim Daly's favorite player and engaging in general small talk particularly about his memories of being a kid and going to major league games. At some point he asked me why I was there and I told him I had sneaked in. So he gave me another minute or two before he kindly said he needed to get going. So I thanked him and looked around the clubhouse to see who else I might talk to or what else I could do to prolong my stay.

Seeing a big spread on a table in the middle of the room of meatball sandwiches among other things, and not having eaten since breakfast, I moseyed over and made myself a nice big meatball sandwich.

Leaning up against the table, halfway through the sandwich, surveying the room, I looked in the manager's office and made brief eye contact with the aforementioned Mr. Uecker, quickly looking away so as not to get his attention, but then quickly looking back to see him nudge one of the other people in the room and point at me saying something I couldn't hear. Moments later, he came out of the room, came over to me and asked me who I was and why I was there.

So I told him the truth and he gently told me I'd have to leave...which I did. And that is my riveting Bob Uecker story.

RIP Jimmuh

Jimmy Carter has long been a hero of mine, even before I met him, primarily because of his insistence on pairing foreign aid to any country's record on human rights.

Many years ago, 1997 to be exact, Colin Powell organized a Volunteerism Summit in North Philadelphia. Current, former, future and wannabe Presidents Clinton, Carter, Ford, GHWBush, Gore and their wives were there, along with Powell, Nancy Reagan, Arlen Specter, Mayor Rendell and various others, including LL Cool J. We all first met on the pockmarked Simon Gratz High School football field, where I stood about 10 yards in front of the stage furiously taking photos until I ran out of film (remember that?!).

Eventually, we were all shepherded into buses to be ferried to our assigned North Philly post were we would be clearing litter-strewn lots, painting buildings, etc.

As my bus slowed to a stop to let us off, I saw out my window that President Carter was holding a mini-press conference half a block away. As soon as my bus came to a stop, as the leaders were directing us to a different assignment, I, pretending not to hear them shouting at me to stay with my group, hustled over to join President Carter's group.

I got there just in time to see President Carter begging away (forcefully) fro the assembled media because he wanted to get to work. And when I saw where he was headed, I, also semi-forcefully, made sure I was as close to him as I was allowed and to my surprise, I eventually found myself painting the outside of a dilapidated North Philly building, virtually and almost literally elbow to elbow with him, each paint roller in hand.

My two enduring memories of my interactions with him that day came first when we were directed to a place where there was some rather beautiful graffiti on the side of the building. When the (ex-)President came to that spot, he paused and looked at it and asked me whether I thought he should leave it alone or he should paint over it.

I commented that it really was pretty enough to leave alone but was otherwise non-committal. President Carter paused, stared at it for a moment longer and soon started framing it with his roller, filling in all around, and leaving it for all to see.

My second memory is when we were all sitting on front steps of row houses, finishing up the boxed lunches provided to us. There were two attractive young college-aged looking women who wanted to have their pictures taken with President Carter. I vaguely remember that one of them wanted to sit on his lap, and even may have, though what I remember even more than Jimmy's big toothy grin as the two college girls fawned over him, was his wife Rosalynn standing to the side, watching, not smiling, until finally she said "OK, enough of this. Time to get back to work, everyone!"

Years later I drove around North Philly hoping to remember correctly the location of the building President Carter and I had painted together and after some circling around in parts of the city many would never go within 20 blocks of, I found the spot. It had since bulldozed to the ground, nothing in its place.

I am tempted to list all the incredible achievements of his presidency as outlined here, but if you need to be reminded, either open that link, or let me know and I'll copy and send it to you. It's worth it. He really was a great President...and by all counts as great a person.

Though certainly the punishment wouldn't have fit the crime

If Joe Biden hadn't pardoned his son, I think Hunter's punishment should have been to be put in a cell with Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.

 

Thank you, Senator Schatz! Asked who the Dems should look to as a Presidential nominee in 2028, he said: "I think whomever we nominate has to talk like a normal person. A person who is real. If you had them over for dinner, you could understand what the hell they were talking about. And so I think we are looking for someone who can plausibly fit in as a human being all across the country. I don’t know who that’s going to be. But the challenge is going to be, how do you maintain your progressive values and not sound like you just got your post-doctoral thesis in sociology.”

I've been saying this for so long that my original examples of appealing politicians who speak like the rest of us were Ed Rendell, John McCain and Joe Biden.

Enough with…Existential crises! Inflection points! and Blue ribbon ad hoc stopgap measure bipartisan blabbityblahs! Sound like a normal person — like the guy at the end of the bar.

Like, dare I say it, Donald Trump.

 Yet another reason I'm glad we elected Barack Obama in 2008: So we won't have to refer to Elon Musk as our first African-American President.

Roll over, Bill Shakespeare

By popular demand, by which I mean 100% of my responders...and very possibly, readers..., and by which I mean, well, Niece Becca, I am going to post the poem, if one can even call it that, that I referred to a few posts below when I was writing about um, checks post, poetry.

As a reminder, this was what I wrote while on my 4871 mile bike trip from San Francisco in 1982 passing through LA, San Diego, Flagstaff, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Burlington VT, home, and finally around the field in Veterans Stadium before completing the last 60+ miles to Atlantic City.

God?

God? Why do you put the wind in my face

instead of my back

 so you could help push me along?

(A gust of wind on my back)                                

God? Why do you keep the sun so bright 

when my water bottles are dry 

and the next town is 25 miles away?

(A small cloud covers the sun)                            

God? Why do people throw things at me as they pass

and miss me with their cars

 by only a foot or two?

(A car slows down as it passes and the people inside              

 ask me if there is anything I need)            

God? Why do I carry on these running

 conversations with you,

 if I keep telling people that I don't believe in you?

(A gust of wind on my back)                         

Perfect sense

I remember when my kids were born, holding them, thinking they were perfect in every way, and with Cheryl and me as parents, and having been born into such an amazing extended family, they would grow up to be perfect humans. And I think it’s safe to say I was not the only parent thinking my kids were and would grow up to be perfect.

And yet we know, as humans, no perfect little ones grow up to be perfect big ones. At least not by the time they learn to talk, no matter what Pink sings:

Pretty, pretty please
Don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than
Less than perfect

Pretty, pretty please
If you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing
You are perfect
To me

On the other hand, after reading any obituary or going to any memorial service, by the time we die, you’d think Pink, and we parents, did indeed have it right.

Dunworryaboutit!

I’ve often heard the admonition that one shouldn’t worry about what other people think. And I always thought the saying was meant in terms of what they thought of me (duh!), or ourselves anyway.

After the 2024 election, it took me a month or so to realize, it also applies to what people think about anything.

As I once concluded, completely unscientifically: there is no single opinion that is held by every person in the world, because if they did, it wouldn’t be an opinion, it would be a fact.

So why should it upset us so when people have different opinions than ours, including for whom we vote.

Don’t worry about what other people think

(Postscript: Turns out I wrote something very similar 8-9 years ago: https://jmcvickar.blogspot.com/2016/01/go-ahead-and-try-me-tell-me-what-you.html I wonder how many other times I've done that.)

But no, seriously, what do you think of me now!?

So now, back to the topic of validation. I recently decided that I don’t want any more. And it is one of the most freeing exciting energizing decisions I’ve ever made. Like breaking up with a bad girlfriend. (Or so I hear. I’ve never had one. A bad one, that is. I’ve had girlfriends. Seriously.)

I reluctantly confess here in electronic print, for the ages, that I used to, at worst, want, and maybe even seek validation. Plaudits, approval, any form of positive reactions to, well, me. My humor, my appearance, my verbal contributions, my blog entries, my observations, my possessions, my wife, my family, my fantasy baseball team. 

And I just don’t anymore.

It was a conscious decision, a flick of the internal light switch, to just no longer care whether people told me I had done a nice thing or was wonderful or smart or witty. Okay, I admit that it will still get me all a-twitter when someone actually does say something nice to me or laughs at something I say. It's just that I no longer seek it or, more importantly, no longer am hurt if I don’t receive the bon mots I thought I deserved. (And don’t bon mots just Sound delicious!)

And as simple as it sounds…yeah, it actually has been just that simple. Though there have been times where I’ve had to remind myself that I don’t care if someone doesn’t notice that I was the one who had that brilliant new idea or observation first. Or notices that I did some unexpected chore, or heck, even an expected one (I am a male after all) around the house or did something nice for someone. And when I do remind myself, I feel the joy all over again of not even caring.

Part of it too is that it means that I simply accept me as I am. I don’t need external approval. I only need to be happy with myself and what kind of person I am. Doesn’t mean I think I never do, or more likely say, anything wrong or hurtful, or don’t have things I can be better about. In fact, one of the things I like about myself, or anyone, is a desire to keep trying to work on one’s shortcomings, but also accepting that we are human and none of us is perfect. It is all so incredibly freeing. And yeah yeah, more than a tad embarrassing that it was ever so important to me in the first place.