YOU WONDER and WHO YOU GOING TO CALL?

WHO'D THUNK IT

Out on a Limb

    He said it was a true liberal's dilemma.

My friend was miffed that he found himself in league with Ted Cruz.

     "Hate to say it, but the idiot's right. Mitch McConnell is a liar."

    If you missed it, the right wing ideologue called his Senate leader a liar. That set off fireworks in the clubby old boy, old girl parlor. Republican Senators railed at Cruz for his lack of decorum and civility.

     "That's the other thing about this. As bought and paid for as most of the Senate is, I like the pretense of civility, you know, "as my honorable friend from the great state of…." and etc. Cruz is just a cur dog cretin, but McConnell is a lying son of a bitch, among other things."

     I told him he wasn't damned by association, being in alliance with both Cruz and Republican defenders. He should enjoy the show. Between Cruz and Trump the GOP is getting taken through the sawdust of the side show tents. Historic establishment Republicans are likely spinning in their graves while living traditional GOPers may be seeking identity change. 

REMEMBERING A DEFENDER

    I had my first Hell's Angels sighting the other day. It was a large public venue and in came a couple of fellows flying the colors.

    I was honestly terrified of the Hells Angels when I read of them as a high school kid. Their exploits of taking over little towns or running drug rings were no doubt amplified by movies but as a reporter a few years later I learned some of these motorcycle gangs are truly criminal gangs.

    I'm not saying these two gentlemen are anything but law-abiding and tax paying citizens who even volunteer at their church thrift shop, but seeing their famous logo stirred alive an old memory.

    The Monkey Brothers, Steverino and Dave, lived just around the corner. Monkey was not their surname but it was what all of the neighbors called them, even the vintage, proper, diminutive widow Mrs Picquaneou. Their heads were an interesting shape to say the least.  And maybe it was because they went through life being called Monkey Brothers they copped the tough guy, bully boy attitude. Dave was more passive, but older and bigger. Wiry Steverino spent his time spitting through his teeth, chewing gum or tobacco and making fists, if he wasn't pushing you, shoving you, knocking you in the back of the head or kicking over your bike.  Maybe because they lived so close, and their mother could speak to mine across the alley as they hung out wash, Steverino left my younger but bigger brother alone and gnawed at me only on rare occasions, however-

    When we went to the junior high school on the edge of the downtown, the Monkeys made friends with the Dork. They called him that, I certainly did not. He was huge for his age, and as we used to say in those days, a little slow. His upper lip hung over his jaw and it began to twitch when he was ready to "smash yer face," as I learned the hard way.

     Steverino and I were the same age and competitive ball players.  When I made the basketball team and he did not, he must have commissioned the Dork to kill me, one smashed face at a time.  

     I walked to school with a friend, Bill Paris. Bill was a good guy, a little too small for basketball but a great second baseman. A couple of times as we got to the alley where the Dork was standing by to "smash yer face" Bill tried to jump in and pull the big guy away, only to be tossed aside where Steverino started pumping away with his fists and spitting in his face. I was starting to get stomach aches thinking about having to get to school and past the face smashing. Basketball season was a blessing because we practiced after school and the Monkey Brothers and the Dork had gone their separate ways by the time I was walking home.

     I had a paper route in the same general area so some days after school I would detour to my route and collect. I was starting to feel better about things until the Dork and Steverino began laying in wait on the way to school. Two days in a row and my buddy Bill is also getting hammered and we show up at school, mussed, banged up and ashamed.

      I digress for a moment to tell you Bill had an older brother also named Dave. He was a high school guy, handsome, a letterman and popular.  He was a kind of neighborhood role model and Bill and I were embarrassed that he might learn we were getting our faces smashed and butts kicked.  

      OK, day three and I see the Dork coming out of the alley and Steverino coming at me to shove me into the Dork, when out of no where a high school letter jacket blurs into the scene and the Dork is up against a wall, his jaw being squeezed with a finger pointed in his eye. It's Dave who shoves the Dork to the ground and grabs Steverino by the back of the neck and lifts him off the ground. He tells the sprawling Dork and the shaking Monkey Brother that if they as much as say anything to his brother Bill and his friend Tom, he would be back to finish them off.

     I never saw much of the Dork after that. And Steverino seemed to go out of his way to avoid any contact. And our great Defender became a hero.  I thought about him the other evening when I saw those leather vests.

PLEASANT ENDINGS

Lana has raised a couple of giant sunflowers this year…. 

and this one reminds me a bit of the Dork.

  See you down the trail.

CHEATING, LYING AND MOMS

VARIATIONS

 Spirit Room-Jerome Arizona. 158 curves in 12 miles of Highway 89A.

SPIRITUAL ARCHITECTURE

 Inside Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona Arizona, in red rock country. 

 Courtesy of Chapel of the Holy Cross Sedona Az

 Courtesy of Chapel of the Holy Cross Sedona Az
DEDICATED TO TOM BRADY

   An overnight construction in Cambria. 
OH WHAT A WEB WE WEAVE
WHEN AT FIRST WE DECEIVE

LIAR AND CHEAT

     Dashing and handsome Tom Brady is a public superstar and a great quarterback, but he is also a liar and a cheater.

     Several writers and commentators have taken on Mr. Brady since the investigation revealed his participation and knowledge in the scandal of deflated footballs. They are right to do so.

      The NFL is considering sanctions, if any. I suggest Brady play the next season in a jersey with LIAR on the back in place of his name.

       His coach Bill Belichick is a winning coach, but he too is a cheater. Patriots fans don't like to hear any of this, but it's true. Sneaking video of opponents, as engineered by Belichick, or deflating footballs is not the reason the Patriots are one of the great modern football dynasties. They are good and that makes cheating and lying all the more tragic. They don't need a sneaking, cheating advantage.
       Brady has lost my respect. He may be an exceptional jock, but he is a failure as a man. To be in his vaunted, high profile position and to lie repeatedly is the sign of a coward and weasel, as well as a cheater and liar. 
      You have to wonder when games went from being about play to being about only winning.  I've been an amateur jock my entire life and admit winning is a lot more fun than loosing. But they are games and principles, honor, sportsmanship and a conduct code still matter. There are rules of the game and they should matter despite the big money influence that dominates so much of our sports culture.
       Winning at all costs matters only when good people or societies are engaged in war against evil, like Hitler, Isis, disease, starvation, atrocities and even dishonesty. How you play the game, at all levels, speaks to who you really are.  
       The Patriots are a sad use of a good name. They are liars and cheaters. They are nothing to look up to.

SWEET, BUT TOUGH

    This is about the age Mary Helen Decker Cochrun became a mother by giving birth to this blogger.

     A bride during WWII, she endured the long absence of my father as he fought in the South Pacific. By then she was already a child of the great depression and had lost her father to blood poisoning when she was merely 16.

     She was one of the "greatest generation" who helped turn post war 1950's America into a place where families grew and the middle class flourished as parents participated in their children's lives and educations. She brought four children into the world and she buried three of them.

     "Nothing prepares you for the loss of a child" she said, still her faith remained strong and abiding. She was always about giving, sharing, being a shoulder to lean on. People sought her out for her strength and grace. She was tough, a survivor with firm views. She always supported the underdog, the working person, those who told the truth. She demanded that of her children and of public officials.

       She was active in politics until full time mothering limited her involvement. When I went to college she returned to work as an administrator, seeing three boys who needed rearing and educating. Dad's salary would go only go so far as they were supporting their own aging mothers and they insisted on traveling with their three sons to widen our view of life. Her daughter she lost early. Her two younger sons she lost with in the same year, as they both had reached young manhood. She had done a good job of being a mother to my irrepressible and accomplished brothers.

     I'm sorry for those who did not have a good relationship with their mother. My mother and her influence is one of the treasures of my life. As my daughters celebrate their mother this weekend, I will celebrate Mary Helen Decker Cochrun and that special selfless love of mothers.

     And kind and gentle as she was and as sentimental as is this remembrance, I can hear her saying that Tom Brady's behavior is disgusting and would be embarrassing to his mother! Yea mom, at least! 

    See you down the trail.