A LINCOLN LEGACY

      We've celebrated Thanksgiving as a national holiday of praise and thanksgiving since President Lincoln declared the day in 1863.

     As an odd year begins its exit we pause in our family to take note: Family, friends, faith, health, healing, memories, dreams & goals, kindness, love, courage, creativity and hope.

     History recounts the first American Thanksgiving as 1621 when 50 Pilgrims and 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe celebrated a harvest festival.

     In the beginning those English men and women, unhappy with the Church of England and English society and seeking a new life on this continent, treated their hosts with civility and appreciation. The immigrants and the first citizens celebrated for 3 days. History records those early accords were changed in time.

     Perhaps this year we can reflect on why and how those first good intentions were lost and why so much of this nation's history is built on an illegitimacy and a forced occupation. It is a not a weakness, rather it is a sign of integrity and greatness to examine our faults and ask where did we go wrong, how could we have done it more wisely and with honor, and how can and should we adapt, change and make better choices going forward?

     Is there also a further lesson? The first national Thanksgiving came midst the civil war, but Lincoln had the wisdom to ask for praise, prayers and thanksgiving. In our 2016 divide, should we do no less?

     I'm also grateful we live where we can acknowledge our wrongs, chastise inequality and pray for better ways, in our diverse ways.

     See you down the trail.

     

    

Taking for Granted?

California Persimmons-Mill Street, San Luis Obispo

for granted?

    Blogging brother Mike, keeper of the Genial Misanthrope found in the Rich Blogs list on the right of this page, launched  a rumination with his Just A Late Fall Day post.
     His thoughts on our peaceful and bountiful lives, vis a vis most of the earth's population, punched my guilt button. Assignments put me in some of the most desperate and fearful places in the world. Upon returning home my gratitude for how good we have it pushed that button too. I regret that too many of us take too much for granted. So, motivated by Mike's reflections we will today celebrate some thoughtful, creative and simple but wonderful things.

the great experiment

      This is the pin I received 62 years ago as a Polio Pioneer.

I'm grateful my parents agreed to let me take part in America's largest public health experiment. 
       Polio ravaged communities in the 1950's. In 1954 600 thousand school kids became the first to take the Salk vaccine as human guineau pigs. 443 thousand of us got shots of the experimental vaccine while 210 thousand got a placebo. It worked and soon inoculations were offered to all.

       Today is World Polio Day. The disease has almost been eradicated though there is more work to do, and remembering is a part of that. I don't recall being terribly frightened about taking the experimental medicine. I was more frightened about the disease which had crippled or killed in our hometown. 
      We also realize the Polio Pioneer public experiment was one of the first society changing events involving boomers.

it takes a village  

        There are places where this election year has been a joy. A couple of weeks ago candidates for our village government, the Community Services District, gathered for an open forum. By the way that really is Ed Asner at the far left. He began the evening by saying he "had a big mouth." He was there to help moderate and to offer his own brand of humor. 
         The forum was civil, intelligent, helpful and was evidence that when approached properly, representative government is as good as it can get, a real conversation among neighbors about a common future.

party in the garage

    Friends who are nearing completion of a major construction project invited friends to a "bless this building" dinner in the new garage.

     Shame on me if I ever take hospitality and friendship for granted.

    Regardless of what it is, seeing a plan come together brings satisfaction.

   Celebrations are for remembering.

    No one can see around the bend. No one lives in constant bliss. Complex problems, changes, the hurt of dear ones, health and so many other matters are real. But there are moments, memories and situations where the best response is to simply be happy and grateful. 

     Mike, thanks for getting this train rolling.

    See you down the trail.

      

ACKNOWLEDGED GRATITUDE

THANKFUL

    It's a great idea isn't it? A day devoted to gratitude. Among the blessings I count this year is investigative reporting. Yea, a little out of the mainstream, but still appreciative enough to share a post.

     It started when a legendary radio newsman Fred Heckman hired me from a little station in Muncie Indiana to join his 50 thousand watt "Voice of News" market leader in Indianapolis.

     As a young reporter I "went back to high school," undercover, to document drug and gang problems. Later, the Black Panthers, New Mobilization Committee to End the War, Beaver 55 (draft  board vandals), SDS, Weather Underground and others were part of my assignment, so was fraud in public demolition projects, religious cults, corruption in the police department, doctors making mistakes and more. Thanks to Bruce Taylor for mentoring and editing my first investigative documentary.

     Thanks to Chris Duffy for hiring me to set up an investigative team at the NBC station and to my news boss Bob Campbell for giving us time and resources to do the job of investigating the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and their paramilitary operations and recruitment of students, medical straight jacketing and neglect in state mental hospitals, fraud in public housing, the political use of Grand Juries, more police corruption in yet other communities, toxic waste dumping involving mobsters and a well known trucking union, illegal chemical recycling, the failures of busing to end segregation, drug smuggling, another round with a religious cult, criminal motor cycle gangs, Soviet and Chinese spying on defense contractors and in University research labs, lagging efforts at locating MIA's, Muslim "charitable" groups as cover for bringing "students" to the US and more. My trusted colleagues were Ben Strout and Steve Starnes. We had each other's back more times than I wish to recall.

     Thanks to John Hendricks founder of Discovery and TLC and program executive Steve Cheskin for buying and commissioning programs from my documentary company ranging from political assassins, training with Snipers, training with FBI Agents, to archaeological digs in the jungles of the Caribbean and work in Africa. Thanks to Mark Nisenbaum, Megan Fisher, Alan Bucksot, Brian Ho, Jung Park, Ted Coats and Eric Harvey.

     Thanks to Scott Blumenthal for hiring me into LIN Television and permitting me to set up a CBS affiliate investigative team where we pursued Department of Transportation practices and costs, laxity of security in airports, airlines and freight haulers, security weaknesses at federal installations including the world's largest nerve gas depot, security gaps and lack of oversight in the commercial food chain, and many more. It was in this posting I directed my last investigative effort that won a Peabody and alerted the world to military command decisions that resulted going for the cheap in the head gear worn by US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq where brain injuries and head trauma sky rocketed. Thanks to Doug Garrison a former FBI agent who I appointed to run the team that included Karen Hensel, Loni McKown, Rick Dawson, Pam Elliot with help from my Assistant News Director Kevin Finch and Executive Producer Stacy Conrad and editor Doug Moon.

       I'm on this memory lane because of the great film Lana and I watched with our youngest daughter. SPOTLIGHT tells the story of the Boston Globe's I-Team's breaking of the Catholic Priest pedophile epidemic and the role of the Church, and others in Boston, in covering it up. It is an extraordinary film and features brilliant performances by Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, John Slattery and Mark Ruffalo. I think Ruffalo and Keaton deserve Oscar nominations. 

       I hope tens of millions of people see it, not only to memorialize the valiant efforts of the Boston Globe team, but also to pay tribute to real journalism, which seems to be shrinking in the face of modern media penchant for hype hustle, personality, bombast and shill. 
       Like my colleagues those who engage in investigative reporting sacrifice a lot, endure unique pressures and put a lot on the line. Those executives who permitted time and resources could have made other choices that would have been easier, cheaper and not fraught with legal reviews. Instead they trusted. That is special.

      In this season of gratitude I wish to thank my wife Lana and daughters Kristin and Katherine for "sharing me" with years of reporting, pre-occupation, missed family time, stress, risk and immersion in the belief that trying to get at the truth and reporting facts makes a difference in the world.

      Investigative reporting is important. It is hard work, costly, risky and there is much less of it now than there used to be. That is a shame. I'm grateful for what there is of it and for my small role in having been about that kind of work.

   See you down the trail.

CHANGING-THANKFUL-WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE?

CHANGING

   Highway 46 overlooking Morro Bay.  Thanksgiving will be green this year.

     The tinge was prompted by three light rain events, the most significant accumulation being 1.2 inches. It is a start.

    Cattle trails appear on the slopes as lines on weathered hide.

   We are also grateful for the green of Thanksgiving and the promise of more rain.

THROWBACK GRATITUDE

   November 1976, our cabin home in the woods in southern Indiana where we continued a tradition begun years before-our Friend's Thanksgiving. It began before we were parents and when many of the friends were single or just getting hooked up. 

   By 1976 it had become a feast indeed and our little cabin was full of great and grateful friendship.

       

  After the ample meal your's truly did the best he could to fight the affect of L-Tryptophan. 

A HOLIDAY BONUS

  Frequent readers of the blog have noted periodic references to or comments from The Catalyst-AKA Bruce Taylor. Here is an early 80's iteration of said madman!

  BTW-it was on his blog this week where I raised the issue

of "authenticity" of this holiday of thanks. 

   The first Thanksgiving may have been in or near what is now El Paso Texas and in 1598. A young spanish scion of a family with Royal alliances and who had done work for the King of Spain in this New World, launched an expedition in the summer of 1597. They were to travel to a land grant holding the young man earned near what is now El Paso.

They commenced from southern Chihuahua near Santa Barbara (Mx). It was a hellish a go. Drought, flooding, hostiles, near starvation before crossing the Rio Grande. Later after a period of recuperation the young Juan de Onate arranged a feast of thanksgiving. The Spanish provided game, the Indian's provided fish, a mass was said by
Franciscans and apparently a happy event was launched. Historians have said this celebration was one of the significant dates in the history of the American Continent. 

It seems the feast we gather is identified with the English, who as you note, gave thanks more than a half century later.

    His follow up post includes a notation that some scholars believe the Spanish celebrated even earlier in Florida. Despite the historical debate, it might be good to add a Spanish, Texan or Mexican touch to your traditional feasting.

   Regardless of origin, a day given to being thankful is cool.

So too is this-VERY GOOD PRICE- for California!

Safe travel.  Happy Thanksgiving.

See you down the trail. 

LUCK-FORTUNE-BLESSINGS-AND YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THESE BEFORE-PLUS THE SECRET OF THE WISHBONE

GETTING PERSONAL HERE

     Being acclimated to the pace of life in a village tucked between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific I was caught off guard by how many people were in motion and doing commerce in our near by "big town."

       Our favorite natural food super grocery was a festive crowd doing an animated ballet with little carts, baskets, shopping aisle slide-bys, earnest product choosing and cheery chat. Very cheery since after all San Luis Obispo repeatedly has been called one of the happiest places in America.   

      I paused for a few moments just to take it all in.  Wow, I thought.  All of these folks from across every demographic and life-style possible, and believe me in California that is a wide spectrum, every one of these folks were fixated on the big day, the gathering, the feast, the party, the family or the friends.  No, they were not all on the same page or in sync with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln who, in two eras, birthed and certified a day of Thanks, but they were full of anticipation and in motion to the moment.  I stood there chuckling, smiling largely at the very prospect that we can still get up for a time certain to pause and at least pay a token regard to all that is good in our lives. And out here you can stand there with a shopping basket in your had and just chuckle away and barely draw a second look.

         Less than 24 hours later our tennis foursome was taking a break between matches chatting with a well known village resident.  His hair is coming back in, but he is still weak and drawn from the radiation and chemo.  He moved with a kind of creakiness though he is trying to get back to regular play.  One of our group, a good friend of his, asked what he was doing for Thanksgiving-she was worried he was going to be alone.

         "Me and my old dog are going out someplace for a walk and then we'll both have some chow," he laughed.

         She worked on him, telling him about her daughter's gathering, all the room they had, all the food they were going to have, how he should join them.

          No, he declined.  He said he'd turned down a lot of offers and appreciated every one's kindness but he'd be just fine.

         Luck, fortune, life's unveiling, your circumstance.  Regardless of where you are on this spectrum, there is this chance to pause, do an audit and count the good in your ride around the sun.

     This force of creativity, this exotic and unique woman, this artist and gardener who has put up with me and all those years of chasing stories and documentaries around the clock and around the globe is a blessing who has made my life a thing of even more beauty and fulfillment. Our two wonderful daughters, one who is in Connecticut and will be in New York City this holiday, and the other who is in LA on this day of thanks are  blessings indeed. The three of them have multiplied my understanding of love.

    The beauty of this planet and the special grandeur of California and the health and ability to hike up to 11 thousand feet in the Sierra, for example, has a special place in my heart of gratitude. I hope not to take such blessings for granted.

TURKEYS ON PARADE
a tribute to the bird of the day

REEL THOUGHTS REDUX

       Steve McQueen's 12 YEARS A SLAVE is an example of brilliant and ethical film making. It could be one of the most important films made.  Why?  Because it immerses the viewer in a vivid reality that must be embraced so the lessons are forever remembered and never repeated.

    This puts the hateful, ignorant, violent and destructive nature of American slavery out there with a force that crushes.  Yet the powerful dignity of humanity survives, carried in the heart of a man who is done so many wrongs and injustices you wish you could put your hands on the slavers, plantation owners and other allies of that horrible part of our history. 

    The acting is superb and the film making so extraordinary that you become an emotional captive of that era. You may never encounter cinema villains that provoke such dark rage in your heart. This film gathers you into a time and culture that enslaves your sense of hope and leaves you desperate as to how any human, let alone American citizens, could think, act and behave in such vile, brutal and evil ways, even while spouting Christianity. 

     We've all "studied" slavery, but we've never seen a window into that horrible human enterprise like this. Every performance was masterful and contributed to the stark approximation of truth, as history. Chiwetel Ejiofor who portrays the real man, Solomon Northrop must be a candidate for the Oscar.  His performance of the true life journey, while fighting desperately to retain dignity is something you'll never forget, nor are you likely ever to put away the frank retelling of a time in our past that should haunt us forever. 

     It's a special film. I wish everyone would see it.

              THE SECRET OF THE WISH BONE

     HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

     See you down the trail.

THANKS

THE GIFT

Dad used to remind us to make the most of each day.

This day, set aside as a special time for reflection, family, friends and celebration is a great pause on our journey.

Make the most of it. Enjoy.   

  May you all know the serenity and strength

of the ancient Sequoias.

 Happy Thanksgiving!  See you down the trail.

GRATITUDE IS UNDER VALUED

LOOKING FOR IT

      I'm grateful for a walk my mother took with me one autumn day as the oaks, sycamores, elms and maples were resplendent.  She said it was one of the most beautiful falls she had seen.  It was an unusual thing, a hike in the park with my busy and laboring mom. As we strolled beneath old and ancient trees ablaze in red, orange, yellow and crunched over the leaves on the path I noticed the world, maybe really for the first time.

     Natural beauty stirs a deep awe in those who are sensitive to it. 

 PIER LIGHT

Seeing it again

subtle changes in seconds

     Thank you to the cosmic set designers!!
     See you down the trail.