Mom's Marathon

"What are they putting out?" me Mom demanded of me brother Phil, watching a crew shoving signs into the curb in front of her house.

"The Detroit Free Press Marathon is Sunday. It's coming down our street," he explained as they sat on the porch. So no, it's not 'her' marathon, and obviously she's not participating directly. Still, it's an event, and events are cool, right?

Mom is surprisingly excited about it. I doubt she ever considered before exactly what a marathon is, other than knowing it's a long race. But now, she's looking forward to sitting on her porch tomorrow morning, a free front row seat to the annual Detroit Marathon. "I bet they'll like the Halloween decoration Sammy's (another of me brothers) put out," she opined. 

Sports never interested Mom, but the idea of watching the race from the catbird's seat really appeals to her. She's excited like a child. I hope the weather's great, and am myself happy for her. Not to get all sappy about it, but especially these last few years, I'm really happy when she's really happy.

Ella's right at mile three, runners. She'll be waving at ya.

Understated Joe

Me Grandpa Joe could be, indeed he generally was, the kind of guy to go off on a dime. We expected it, quite frankly. He also had many uses for the world, 'hell', many of them actually rather profound in their employment. But at times he might actually be understated on both counts.

As a rule me Pops answered the phone for Joe's welder rental business. Joe only answered when Pops was out or otherwise occupied. One time he took a call (I don't know where Dad was) from an old but annoying customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, wanting to rent a welding machine. It seems though that on Cloyce's last rental there had been issues with whichever of Joe's units he had. Cloyce decided to use the opportunity of having the boss's ear to lament them.

He made the mistake of calling when things were very busy at the Shop. Still, Joe listened, holding his tongue surprising well. He waited until a break in Cloyce's litany of woe to say to him calmly, "Well, I'm so busy right now that I don't know if I even want more more work. So you can either stop whining and tell me when and where you want a machine, or keep talking until I tell you to go hell and hang up this phone."

Cloyce shut up about the troubles and got his welder. Maybe he was reading between the lines, or rightly caught the undercurrent of me Grandpa's intent.

Mom's Guard Nuns

Me Pops used to travel to a lot of trade shows as part of his job. Mark, one of the guys who regularly attended shows with him, often teased him that my Mom had ways of keeping an eye on him as he moved about the country. She had spies everywhere, he told Pops, so he better be good.

Needless to say Mark got a big laugh one day as he was picking up Dad at an airport in some distant city. As me Pops walked along the hallway after departing the plane, unbeknownst to him he was being followed closely by two nuns in full habits.

They weren't following him per se, of course. They simply happened to be getting off the plane immediately after him. But Mark would have none, ha, ha, of that. "See? Your wife's got people checking up on you!" he cackled at the old man.

Even Dad saw the humor in it.

Commercials Irritate Me: A Curmudgeon Story

I fully realize and completely accept that I'm old school. I will add, however, that I don't see anything wrong with that. Ain't that exactly what an old school old man would say?

What brings this on is a commercial which just played for the umpteenth time. It's the one where Little Caesar's pizza is promoting its new pizza calzone hybrid. Hybrids all are the rage these days, you know.

My thing is, if you want pizza, why don't you get pizza? Or, likewise, a calzone if you want that. Still, that leaves the question: aren't pizzas and calzones essentially the same thing anyway? The style is different but the substance is the same, so far as I can see.

And what's the point of all this choice? Really. Doesn't it all just run together and become a blur? That's sure what it seems like to me.

Get a pizza. Or get a calzone. I don't care. But don't talk to me about the hybrids. Because, I tell you what, you're just being played. They don't care about food innovation. They just want your money.

For the record, get the pizza. Better value. Yes, that's old school old man talking again. You should listen to him.

Morning coffee at the Shop

There were two things in particular which I loved to hear me Grandpa Joe say and they were both associated with working for him. They were, "Let's get that coffee,"(as though there was only one coffee in the world) and, "Let's get them vittles," (as though those vittles) whenever he decided it was time for a break.

It struck me even back then that his words sounded almost as though we had to hunt them, had to track them down, as if the coffee pot didn't just sit there on a table by the office or that the snacks weren't right alongside it. The vittles were the snacks which he always had me or me Pops or me Uncle John buy for the morning coffee break. Joe paid for them; I think he genuinely liked treating us, but I don't doubt at all he looked forward to them too.

Vittles were the height of the workday for a young boy like me. There were always single serve and two for everyone, an assortment of cupcakes, pies, donuts, and cinnamon rolls. I hoped every morning for a Hostess French Apple pie, which was really only their apple pie with raisins added, but it seemed significantly different. Joe and Pops and me and whomever else was there would lay into them vittles like we hadn't ate in days. Uncle John rarely did, and I don't know why. He would buy a paper and sit nearby reading it as the rest of us fell into sugar induced stupors. At times I wondered if something was wrong with him, but that was surely the kid in me thinking such stuff.

It was 15, maybe 20 minutes of the day. But man, I miss gettin' them vittles.

I will if you will

Despite what some of my friends on the left might say, I am more than willing to follow the science. In fact, I'm willing to make you a deal. If you will follow the science that a unique and individual human being with his own personal DNA is created at the very moment of conception, I will more readily consider your arguments for vaccine mandates and climate change.

Any takers?

A Sermon (though not on Religion)

One of the arguments made across the political and national spectrums in favor of vaccine mandates and vaccine passports is easily summed up as, the government makes us do other things, so why not those?

This is an intellectually dishonest argument; it is simplistic and ignores a great many things. To begin with, an awful lot of the things government compels us to do are in fact morally wrong. We can debate about the specifics, but suffice it to say (and I believe that in their hearts even my liberal and progressive friends would agree) that there are areas where existing government intrusion into our lives is wrong. Or are there actually folks out there willing to argue that an act or idea is right merely because a government thinks so? Let's hope not.

Yes, there are times and places where government does in fact have the right to cajole individuals into acting certain ways and in certain manners. But as a practical matter governments cannot dictate every move we make (though they may try). If government were to attempt to really make us do right rather than wrong in every conceivable instance (if we could actually conceive of every instance) I assure you that the amount of new regulations necessary would make the current tax code read like a children's book. The ifs, ands, and wherefores would require that much analysis. And they would still be incomplete.

Yet governments must act against the truly awful things which may occur in the world. I have to believe that, as a matter of right reason, there are guides and standards which we can appeal to in determining where and why they can act. Indeed anyone who argues for any public act at all must, in their hearts, believe this too. Aquinas taught that as government can't see to everything, it should only prohibit (or by logical argument encourage) only those things so vile and debased (or so good and and laudable) that without whose prohibition (or sanction) civil society could not exist. 

The question then becomes, is COVID so great a threat that it requires massive government intrusion into our lives?

Emphatically, no.