OFF THE ROAD

NO MORE A ROAD WARRIOR

Between Indianapolis and Phoenix

    7:40 AM and I'm sitting at the bar, the only seat available in  the crowded airport restaurant. My wake up call had come at Midnight on my body clock, 3:00 AM in Indianapolis.

     "What'll you have to drink?" the bartender asks after putting out another gin to the guy sitting at my left and another beer to the guy two spaces down on the right.

      "Coffee" I say watching the constant milling of people in and out of the tight space between tables and the shifting of spots at the bar.

       The guy to my immediate right asks to be topped off on coffee as he holds a paperback in his left hand, his right hand working on an omelet.

      I'm looking around and amazed at how young these travelers are, most of them are on business. After the years I've logged you can spot the road warriors from the tourists. 

      In that moment a switch that had begun to turn a few nights ago, completed its click.

      The flight got in at 1:15 AM. For years I've used a particular car rental agency that offers something called a rapid rez so you bypass lines, go immediately to the garage get your car and on your way. A breakfast meeting awaited after what would be the usual first night of battle with hotel pillows and bed, heating system and the likely impossibility of opening a window for real air. Sleep would be a challenge, but the rapid rez would get me moving that way. Wrong! There was not a waiting car. A lot attendant broke the news the computers crashed and I'd have to go back to the terminal and wait in line. Guess she see could the color drain. 

      She said "I'll be over in a couple of minutes to help you."

      No one is happy at the counter, especially the folks waiting in line. The clerks are doing the best they can, filling forms by long hand and swiping credit cards, but as the clock ticks and sleep disappears, the best laid plans are washing away as though being soaked by the cold rain outside.

     The young lady arrives, takes my credit card and disappears to the office behind the counter. Several minutes later she reappears with temporary paperwork explaining the form that would need to be explained in turn to the gate keeper.

     Loaded, seats adjusted, trying to figure out the heating and defrost controls, I roll up on the gate man who seems more perplexed than anything, but lifts the bar and I'm out into a driving rain at a temperature hovering above freezing.

     It's funny but after you've been away from a place for a while you begin to doubt your directions. I thread the on and off ramps and follow the signs to the downtown trying to remember my old short cuts, but loosing confidence as I drive. That and the place continues to be built and changed for SuperBowls, and NCAA Final Fours and myriad conventions.  My destination is a grand hotel I've been in more times than I could recall, but I couldn't recall where in the hell the entrance was. 

     The clock is running on me and chance of sleep is flying away as I circumnavigate the block a couple of times, cursing about what have they done with the entrance. Then I remember, though new buildings conspired against a clear vista.

      The car has been sent to the valet garage and I've been given keys that must be swiped before the elevator will assign my floor. This is new and requires a juggling act of shoulder bag, plastic bag with water, suitcase and keys.

      Ah, into the room, suits and shirts hung up, dob kit out and it looks like there may be a decent pillow on the bed. Still sleep time is being chewed up and that breakfast meeting is getting closer. Teeth are brushed and I reach for my mouth wash wondering the moment it hits my tongue why it had become like a gel.  I didn't have time to riddle that before the taste slammed me in the head with a realization-I had just taken a big swig of shampoo. Have you tried to rinse out a mouthful of shampoo?  I hope you never must.  That is when the switch began to click down.

     Now sitting here marveling at the youth of the road warriors, my nostrils assaulted by a few nights of dry hotel air, and damp chill of Indianapolis winter, my throat equally scratchy I knew definitively the road has passed me by. Even for vacation travel, I get a big sense of dread whenever I think about the packing, airports, the transfers, the hotels and what have you. I love to jump into the car and go explore, but it is the airports and the planes and not being in control that is the problem. 

    On this morning I'm listening to several weaves of conversation-missed connections, mechanical delays, scrambling to reschedule meetings, security clearance nightmares and etc. Been there and done that. I logged many thousands of miles at 36 thousand feet, all around this blue marble. There was a time I thought I could do it forever. On this morning, that seemed like a lifetime ago.  

      All I wanted now was to hug Lana, pet the cats, see the big Pacific and rolling Santa Lucia Mountains, smell fresh air, real air and be with others who also appreciate an eclectic little village, miles from roaring semis, hotel air and shampoo for mouth wash. Guess I should surrender my road warrior credentials.  

      There's a post script though, since life is not a fairy tale.

The light rain falling as we deplaned down the steps and walked across the runway felt good in this drought inflicted state. The snafu in this land of contentment was a baggage conveyor that broke down as several of us seemed eager to end our individual odysseys. Oh well, the video loop that kept playing over the bag less conveyor featured the scenic best of the coast, vineyards, hiking trails and at least, we were home.

      And the soaking my bag got, waiting to take its turn in the tunnel seemed to have dissolved those road warrior credentials. Amen!

     SOMETHING GOOD

    For many of us who were Ball State University students, the above was probably a staple of our diet.  Pizza King was a local enterprise that etched itself into our history. This particular 8 inch personal creation is one of our favorites, eccentric though it may be. Hamburger with barbecue sauce.

It must be tasted to be appreciated.

   Anyone who has visited Indianapolis will recognize this as the century old and venerable Shapiro's Deli. The number of lunches I enjoyed here, and even a few dinner breaks with my Mom is incalculable. After spending a day shooting video on this last trip, being outside in a chill, though locals said it was a "nice" day, I stopped in for a bowl of their warming Matza Ball soup.

    There were a couple of other memory moments-below a plaque at the Indiana State Museum.

MOM'S MOMENT

   We would never visit the cemetery that mom did not want to pause at this sculpture. It was one of her favorite places.  The title is Innocence. Over the years it has become one of those special places for me.

    Now it is a place where I remember and in a very real

way, feel my mother's presence. Moment's like this can make the travel worthwhile.

    See you down the trail.

WHY NOT?

THE PRODUCT OF GOOD WOMEN

    Being a bit vague here so as to respect privacy and embarrass no one, but wanted to share gratitude and admiration for some wonderful Cambria women who recently hosted a baby shower for my daughter and her mother. 

    The nickname for the little person in gestation, as suggested by these creative folks, is Strawberry. Thus the motif. I was not there of course, but Lana was overwhelmed by the class and loving spirit of it all. Daughter is in Florida but made an appearance via phone video.

    I thought something charming with a warm back story might be a nice placement.

 WHY NOT ALTERNATIVE IDEAS
or
A PRAGMATIST'S SANTA WISH LIST

    Decades of political reporting has more than likely tooled a warp to my sense of things. Years ago I heard the late John Chancellor of NBC news say it well; a lot of us (reporters) have a bias toward problem solving and pragmatism. It makes sense.

     Many of us start-or at least our generation started, on the police beat, seeing the Charles Dickens underbelly of the American dream. We covered school boards, zoning hearings, council meetings, legislatures and saw the anguish of decision making and compromise. In political campaigns we often saw the difference between promise and performance. So many of us skew toward practicality and are skeptical about ideologues and demagogues. Sadly this is a season for that in a kind of perverted populism.
     So with political shills in the background here are a few notions that are not likely to end up in a candidates platform, but they are least pragmatic and deserve our attention.
      No civilian needs an assault weapon. Those are tools for  professionals. Shot guns, hunting rifles, pistols are another matter. Being lethal, weapons should be licensed, users should be trained and tested. There are places where guns should be off limits, like in the old west stories, check your gun at the door.
      The Supreme Court, not the NRA should interpret the Second Amendment. Frankly too many are simply wrong, unstudied and lack an historical perspective when they start spouting Second amendment arguments.
      A basic component of all public education should be teaching the value of human life.
      As a follow up, this is especially so in an age when so many children grow up gaming where death, dismemberment, combat and other violence is part of "play." This affects judgment and sensitivities. 
      Education should begin in the first two years of life. The brain is ready and their are more neurons to be trained. Human potential and fulfillment can be nurtured by a holistic approach to learning. Parents should be trained as to how to enable their children's learning and development at an earlier stage. This would include intellectual, physical, nutritional and emotional development.  Yea, I know it's radical but in the last two thousand years how much have we advanced? When did warfare, starvation, crime, brutality, and other such human behavior go out of fashion? We know more now about brain function than at any time in history and to ignore it is, well, stupid. Stupid is as stupid does. Learning in the 21st Century could/should contribute to advancement. 
       In the extraordinary air time and media space given political talk, couldn't we benefit by a little more pragmatism? And just maybe there would be fewer mass shootings.

    

      The "World's tallest Christmas Tree" 

Monument Circle, Indianapolis

     See you down the trail.

     

     

COULD IT LAST FOREVER?

HOPE NEVER DISAPPOINTS

Awaiting the Light

December Sunrise in Cambria

   Our good friend Jim asked the other night, "Can you imagine how our parents felt? The Depression happened, a world war was underway, millions were being killed, everything was affected and no one knew how it would turn out."

    Our world, with Isis, mass shootings, discord and division and changing nature falls into a perspective doesn't it? "Was ever such!" There has always been trouble, trials and tribulations. Isn't that why this season is so precious? One need not be a Christian to find a cause for cheer, merriment, hope and joy at Christmas time.That's part of the magic.

      That magic was at work as we sat in historic Santa Rosa Chapel. Listening to the rich strings and angelic voices I thought how wonderful it would be if the moment could go on forever.

      Frequent readers may recall this candle lit night in the 145 year old Chapel on a hill overlooking Cambria's east village is a definition of sublime. Enveloped by sound and the good cheer of those fortunate enough to crowd in, something is triggered. It is as though this night is a portal to all good Christmas memories and feelings.

      It happens now as Bruce Black begins with hilarious tales of his little grandmother and then launches into his annual recitation of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, I hear a second audio track, my fathers deep voice and inflection as he reads the story to my brothers and me. It is a memory cell in my brain. I love to hear it, again.

     The finest gift of the evening is Judith Larmore's Christmas Reflections. 

      She grew up in my mother's Indiana hometown and recounts places, things and feelings of home. This year's story, A Handsome Marine at the Door was exquisite and  again dampened my cheeks. Happy tears that added luster to the glow of candles. As Lana said her description of Christmas displays and the wooden floors in the Five and Dime take you back. She even made the glistening of snow and icy Indiana winters appealing. As Judith noted it's just not fair, the evening must end.

      So much of the transcendence of the evening is the music, simply world class.  Vocalists Molly Pasutti and Helen Robillard. 1st Violin Brynn Albanese, 2nd Violin Mario Ojedo, Viola Peter Jandula, Cello Grant Chase, Bass Ken Hustad, 1st Flute Suzanne Duffy, 2nd Flute Maria Apostoles,

Harp, Hammered Dulcimer, Button Accordion Jill Poulous. Guitar Justin Robillard, Banjo and Guitar Eric Williams, Bells Tim Novoa, Mandolin, Tenor Recorder Grand Chase. Cambria resident and composer John Neufeld provided a special arrangement of Pie Jesu. 

    I repeat myself, but I wish everyone could experience the unique magic that happens in this little chapel in the Santa Lucia mountain and sea side village of Cambria. It is an evening that should never end. I suspect that is the kind of thing Charles Dickens had in mind when he said we should keep Christmas in our heart all year.

    The madness of war, hate, the uncertainty of change, the suffering of loss will not abate, but neither will hope or chains of memories made on nights like this.

     "God rest ye merry folk, let nothing ye dismay."

     See you down the trail

    

WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A STORM

IN A TENDER SEASON

   The Back Story

     Huddled together as a group of freshmen we thought it was an odd order. As new pledges we were told that in a few weeks we would be required to sing WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A STORM. Really?  Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1965? The Beatles, Rolling Stones and 60's Rock was more our tune. But we learned it. We sang it and 50 years later those once reluctant college boys have repeatedly drawn strength from those lyrics.

When you walk through a storm

keep your chin up high

and don't be afraid of the dark.

At the end of a storm

is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a Lark.

Walk on through the wind,

Walk on through the rain

Though your dreams be tossed and blown,

Walk on

With hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone,

You'll never walk alone.

THE APPLICATION

    This time of year is an emotional fountain. Difficult and taxing in the best of times and health, but crushing and bruising for those who struggle.

      Someone dear to us has suffered a horrible betrayal and a loss of dreams.  She hurts, so do we  and we know so do countless others for many reasons.  Loss, illness, change, devastation and fear also stalk this season of joy, merriment and memories.  

       As we usher in a season of light and hope, we offer these as an early gift and just maybe a guiding light.

  

 This year as we encounter realities we would not seek,

we find solace also in the continuum of life.

   One may draw from the quiet wisdom of age and stamina evident in nature.

   Moments of serenity and memory.

  Storms in nature and in human emotion pass, in time.

   On the other side are beginnings, buds of newness and often a renewal.

  Walk on, with hope in your heart.  You'll never walk alone.

  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.

NOT SURE

   The protracted Presidential election process is like a window into American character. What are we seeing?

    From this view I see the case that big money is so powerful it has created an industry, electioneering and it is at odds with good government. Getting elected in America has almost no connection with governing in America. They are different orbits, different universes. What it takes to get elected has almost no connection with what it takes to govern. In fact so much effort is spent on raising funds it should raise flags the system is at least out of kilter if not broken.  

      A member of the US House of Representatives will spend as much if not more time raising money for re-election than she or he spends on doing the people's work.  Members of the Senate are also trapped, but with 6 year terms, they can attend to governing and legislating. Maybe it's time to change house terms to 4 years, if we can't reform campaign spending. 

    This election window also exposes the damnable situation in which the Republican party finds itself. The evangelical, right wing and loony fringes control the nominating process and have driven the party to being out of touch with the majority of working Americans. Real Republicans are forced to play to the right and still they find themselves trailing vanity candidate Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson who is so unqualified to be a President he belongs in the Sarah Palin zoo.

    It also exposes the travesty of making New Hampshire and Iowa important. Those two states have long eclipsed their real  value and role. It is not the fault of New Hampshire and Iowa. The fault is with the media and the parties.

    Campaign reporting has digressed to numbers and carnival. It is more about the process, the horse race and personality than substance. Journalism has been dumped for entertainment, hype and gotcha. True, there is a refining process in being exposed to 24 hour coverage and examination but it has gotten so silly as to be almost pointless. Why should performance in Iowa and New Hampshire dictate a candidates true viability everywhere else?  It is because the system is so top heavy with money and contribution momentum and because the media has top loaded those two states and their own process in the hype circus that life is imitating bad art.

     The best chance at a cure is old advice.  Limit campaign spending.  Shorten the campaign cycle. Make it impossible for candidates to transport their war chest to any personal use. Get rid of PACs. For their part the media needs  a serious season of self evaluation and analysis. News managers need to realize the point of the campaign is not to build ratings, sell advertising, aggrandize careers, but to examine true and relevant issues and the women and men who are asking to be hired by the public.

LIVING FREE-POST PARIS, CHEERS AT 700, MEN BEHAVING BADLY

LIVE FREE

     Hanging around a 700 year old Oak was a good place to absorb the shock of Paris and to think of life.

     Don't you think there have been millions of conversations framed by how do we live free but safe? I hope most of us desire freedom over a safety that comes in the form of eroded liberty. Giving up even a centimeter of civil liberty hands a victory to terrorists. 

     The British during the blitz are models to emulate. Stay calm, carry on, continue with life as free people. That is as much of an in your face rejection of the terrorists as we can demonstrate-to live freely, cautious, careful even, but by not ceding liberties. 

    The French, our longest ally appear ready to fight back by that course and by applying military strikes at the dark and evil core.

     After 9/11 we responded with the Patriot Act that we have since learned went to far, gave over too much and we've adjusted. Those who protect us in law enforcement and national security need room to work, but when citizens lose freedom and privacy we begin an erosion of a free and open society and we lose the high ground. We also lose our sense of purpose. 

     Thoughts on understanding the enemy follow below.

     

     Looking at things from the top of an old volcano lends a perspective. We close this post with a return to calming nature.

      Besides wrestling with the Paris attacks I've been thinking about how badly my sex can and too frequently behaves.

 MEN AS SLOW STARTERS?

     That is way too kind. Men have been too frequently cowards and weasels. 
     To our positive, history records some who have been reasonable, fair and committed to equality, but when you examine the right to vote for example and the evolution of suffragettes you see men failing to do the right thing, nefariously and repeatedly. 
      Fear of change, animosity at losing the club house lordship in relations with women, no longer able to plunder or abuse. Women with the right to vote, they worried, would change everything. Men feared it so they fought it.
      The battle was in England where women tried for decades to gain the vote. The struggle birthed suffragettes who made the fight larger, public and persuasive. The marvelous film The Suffragette tells a personal story in that time. Strength, forbearance and suffering under maddening inequality. It took courage to risk what they did. In this axiom men were thugs, cheats and liars. Women won, eventually.
     So now in the second decade of the 21st Century with worry that a regressive strain of politics targets hard fought rights, a little history is helpful. The battle for the right to vote commenced mid to late 1800's. The movement gained force in the early 1900's though stymied by British Parliamentary politics and a heavy press management. That is when women stepped up the fight and it is the setting for this film that is one of the years most important. 
     Carey Mulligan creates a laundry worker who's life leads her to the movement and through her we see the struggle, told personally. Helen Bonham Carter, Ann Marie Duff and Merryl Streep with a small role of an historic character paint a vivid portrait of the passion, determination, suffering and character of the women who earned the right to vote. Prison, beatings, hunger strikes, forced feedings and family separation were the cost horrible at the time, little known today.
     The American Suffragette movement paralleled the British.
In 1918 English women over 30 could vote and could be elected to Parliament. Voting rights were later extended. American women's rights came two years later. The obstacles were the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Too many men failed to see that in extending full citizenship to women you create a more valid and extended public square and private commerce. It broadens experience and perspective in both deliberation and industry. Aside from making sense, it's right. 
      This kind of historic remembrance is important. Rights are precious and fragile.

REJECTED BY THE HUMAN RACE

     There is no place in the 21st Century for ISIS. They are puppets who wish to make war on modernity. They are not religionists and they are not political strategists. They are a cult of death, manipulated by zealots and self appointed fanatics who pervert aspects of a faith founded by a man who had revelations in a cave and then who built a religion that required war fare.

     Even the most open minded of Christians or Jews have questions about some aspects of Islamic belief, but the true deep thinkers in each of the three largest religions in the world have found ways to coexist and learn from each other. So at the risk of angering some of you, we should separate Islam, Judaism and Christianity from conversation about ISIS.

     They may claim to be doing war for their god, but they are really all about imposing a world view that goes back perhaps as far as the third century. They are ignorant. Their leaders are dysfunctional sociopaths incapable of navigating the complexity of a modern life. They can't handle reality so they try to create their own vision of an imagined history. And they recruit the uneducated, unemployed young. Being on social media doesn't mean enlightenment.

    Fundamentalists of every stripe are arrogant in their assumption of rightness and are by nature close minded. But few are such retrograde jackals as to worship death and to make God an angry, vengeful force incapable of anything but destruction. When you consider their destruction of history, their hatred for art, culture, music, their inability to relate to women, their barbaric penchants you are reminded of the personality profile of the sick young men who perpetrate mass shootings in the US. Both behaviors are beyond the bounds of civilization. They are very much alike.

    Everything about them is illegitimate including the god they've created and who they use as an excuse to be brutal thugs, patriarchal bullies, sexual miscreants, simple minded rejects and failures at almost everything in life. It is life they can't handle and so they soak in death. Their leaders bastardize a belief system to justify their own demented dreams and to make up for their own personal weaknesses.  

    This world is troubled enough. There is no place for a cult of curs. There is nothing about ISIS that should survive. There is not one idea they speak that is worthy of negotiation or serious reflection. They deserve the death they celebrate. It should be the task of all nations to destroy them.

AND NOW A MOMENT OF PLEASURE

    A group of friends, boomers all, grouped in this Land Rover from South Africa for an excursion of Halter Ranch in the Paso Robles appellation. 

     Here atop an old volcano that created soil conditions perfect for grapes.

    Another stop at the Ancestor Oak.  700 to 750 years old and believed to be the oldest in the US.

    Autumn color apparent in the acres of vines.

     As you admire the long view of Halter Ranch consider the extraordinary back story. That long road in the left of the frame was the landing strip of a previous owner of the land.
     The man who built the winery purchased some 2000 acres, but planted on only a little more than 200. The rest of the land is a nature preserve and includes a three mile animal safety habitat. A man of means, he has a history of buying land around parks and preserves and giving it away to create larger areas. Ecology, sustainability and walking the talk.

 Cheers to life, love and the freedoms that sustain us.

   Peace!

   See you down the trail.