This whole single parent thing I have been living with since the first of November is starting to get really old.  Last night my son went to spend the night at a friend’s house.  Somehow I just couldn’t face the idea of sitting alone in the house all night with no company other than the damned cat.  Even though I swore off going to bars two weeks ago I had to have something to do.  Abandoning the commitment to stay out of bars, I went to see Karaoke at the place I visited a couple of weeks ago.  It seems there is a regular cast of singers and they were there again tonight.  It was cool stuff.  

One thing was weird though.  As you may recall, the last time I went to this particular establishment, my friends misbehaved.  So this time I chose to go solo.  I really wanted to check out the singing and figured the best way to do that would be without a pack of rowdy’s.  At first things were cool.  The place I went is a local bar in the neighborhood near the credit union I used to run.  I knew many of the customers and caught up with some of the old neighborhood folks. 

As the hour for entertainment neared the local crowd slipped out and the night crowd came in.  I was checking out the tunes and keeping an eye on the TV in the corner.  It was broadcasting a muted airing of the NCAA Tournament.  (Villanova lucked out.)  After sitting alone for a while I began to feel a bit self conscious and moved up to the bar.  I tried to start a conversation with a couple of different people.  In the end I was kind of bummed because as charming as I was it just didn’t seem to work.  Maybe I smelled funny or maybe people are just suspicious of others who hang out in bars alone.  I guess I could see that as being creepy had it not been me, the charming one.   I decided I had had enough fun for one evening and made my way home at 11:00.  I’m such a rebel.  So it goes.

Thursday night while I was working on my blog my son was watching ultimate fighting or something equivalent.  Out of the blue he says, “Hey Dad, have you ever farted so hard that it cracked your back?”  I took it from the question that he just had and was grateful to be in the dining room while he was in the living room.

This is the same kid who, when he was all of about four years old was taken on his first visit to the local Red Lobster franchise.  It was a Sunday noon and we arrived shortly after the Church crowd.  The place was packed with people waiting patiently for tables.  Clayton has always had a gift for gab and as a toddler was short for his age and frequently he would cause people to double-take when he spoke to them.  A typical response to an inquiry on his part would be for the person to look to us and ask, with some incredulity, “How old is he?”  We never talked baby talk to our kids and Clayton was raised along side many of my Harley buddies.  His conversations rarely revolved around typical kid things.

So, the lobby is packed with people dressed in their Sunday best.  Clayton, wearing khaki pants, an I-zod shirt and an argyle sweater saw the lobster tank the moment we entered the restaurant.  He bee-lined right for the  tank and for a brief moment just stared over the top of his glasses in a profound amazement.  We soon caught up with him just in time to hear him exclaim in a loud and amazed voice, “Jeeeeeeesuuuuzzzz Christ!”  The whole lobby was silent immediately and we witnessed a combination of various degrees of shock and awe, a few snickers and some genuine belly laughing. 

Between that episode and the back-cracking-farting story I have to wonder who is responsible for raising this kid.  Must be his mother.

Ok, it has been spring for three days now.  Where is the warm weather?  So far we have seen snow, wind and more snow.   I need a Harley fix and don’t see one coming up for several days.  And to top it off, I think I am coming down with something.  I’m feeling a little achy, a little nauseous and most definitely grouchy.  This is really cramping my karma.  I know, you don’t think that last sentence made sense.  Here is how that works.  I am the king of the woosies when it comes to feeling ill.  I get demanding and whiney.  I suppose that is my mom’s fault for pampering me when I was young.  I suppose that cute chubby little Mexican Ewok look I had going worked well for me.  My mother could obviously not help but pamper me when I was looking helpless and pathetic.  I’m pretty sure that such sympathy does not translate quite the same now that I am a 340 pound bearded bear of a manly man but old habits are hard to break.  So, you add the need for some highway time and no family here to whine at and naturally my frustration gets transposed to the innocent bystanders who cross my path.  Don’t worry, I didn’t go off on anybody today but I sure thought about it.  All day.  I’m pretty sure those evil thoughts count against my karma and I am pretty sure it is my karma that controls the weather.  It’s a vicious circle.  So it goes.

This one time, at band camp…  Well, ok, I was never in band camp.  I used to go to summer Cub Scout camp though.  I used to love summer camp.  We did cool stuff like ride horses, shoot guns and bow and arrows and use flash lights and stuff.  I still dig flash lights.  Not sure what that is all about.  The one thing I did not like that happened every year at summer camp was something that all guys can appreciate.  Chaffing.  That being said, all guys can not truly appreciate the debilitating nature of chaffing in the same way that those of us who are challenged in a height to weight ratio do.   To this day I still cringe when I hear the reference of someone feeling a fire between their legs.  Somehow I believe the reference is associated with something completely different when it comes up in entertainment productions or conversations at the local tavern but it will always make me recall the horrors I experienced at summer camp.  You see, one thing scouts are big on is hiking.  I’m here to tell ya that hiking, for a chaffed chubby kid, on a hot and humid summer day is cruel and unusual punishment.  The problem with it all is that this is a situation which must be endured with silent dignity.  There is no way that a boy on the verge of manhood is ever going to feel comfortable telling an authority figure they can not go on the hike today because their balls are on fire.  Trust me; it’s just not going happen.  So to all the camp counselors out there, if you ever notice a horizontally challenged camper out there walking like he has an alligator in his shorts and there is a hike scheduled for the day, ask him to stay behind and scrub pots and police the campsite.  He’ll love you for it.

Friday!  This one was a long time coming.  You may not realize this but my posts are always done the night before you read them.  I do that to ensure that my crap is always out there for you when you want it.  If you like to start your day with an ego boost born of justifiable smug superiority by reading this and starting your day being glad you are not me, it is here for ya.  If you prefer to read at the end of the day to confirm that your life is not as bad as you feared it is, it is here for ya.  That being said, I’m not all that confident I will be going to work tomorrow.  If you happen to be in the neighborhood with some chicken soup, a vaporizer and maybe some nice foot moisturizing lotion feel free to stop by.  The foot moisturizer won’t do much to heal what ails me but I would never turn down a good foot rub!  See ya Saturday.

Sorry yesterday’s entry was so long.  I was trying to come up with a short topic for today but I hardly believe this is the proper forum to share the dark secrets about my anatomy.  Damn!  Was I talking out loud again?  That inside voice finding its way past my vocal chords has been a problem that has plagued me my entire life. 

            One of the first times my mouth got me into trouble was in second grade catechism class.  I was raised Catholic back in the day.  Nuns were in charge of religious education for us heathen public school kids.  These were not the cool nuns that wear blue jeans and sneakers like they do today.  These were the always frowning penguin variety who wore ugly shoes.   I must admit, however, in the sixth grade, it did cross my mind to wonder what Sister Mary Elizabeth would look like under her habit.  Damn!  I did it again.  Shit!  I said, “Damn!”  I am going to hell for sure.  Every Wednesday night we were scrubbed up and carted down to the parish school where we learned the nuances of Catholic guilt.  The education was very thorough because I still suffer the consequences of those lessons to this day.

            Anyway, we were having a celebration one evening for some obscure Saint Day and in an attempt to connect with with us on a worldly level Sister Olga Ignatius decided to show us a card trick.  I have no idea where the idea came from but I blurted out, “Sister Olga Ignatius, don’t you know?"  "Cards are the tools of the devil!”  I thought I was pretty cute for about two and a half seconds as I turned to see the expected amused reaction from my fellow degenerate public school inmates and then my ear caught fire!  It wasn’t on fire actually.  It just felt like it was on fire.  The next thing I knew I was airborne and heading out the door and down the hall to the office where, as luck would have it, my mother volunteered as the office secretary.  Were I not crying already for the expected loss of my ear the look on my mother’s face surly would have ended all brave attempts to take this punishment like a man.

            Another highlight in my life of thinking out loud came several years later.  My sweet little Grandmother Caballero was diabetic and had lost one of her legs due to complications of the disease.  At the time of her amputation all of the family had gathered at the hospital to be by her side.  Growing up was wonderful with the Caballero clan.  It was a large family and with the exception of a previously mentioned female cousin who beat the crap out of me at the playground across from my Grandmothers house, I felt very close to all of them.  Actually, even Debbie ended up being really cool.  She never told anybody about kicking my ass and that showed a lot of class. 

            We were all gathered bedside around my Grandmother shortly after she was brought to her room from recovery.  All thirty-two of us.  The air was heavy with concern and about the only sound to be heard were rosary beads clickity-clacking as the Hail Mary’s were being pounded out faster than free ink blotters on bingo night.  I had recently arrived with a cup of coffee and my sister whispered to ask if I would get her a cup.  Suddenly with no heed paid to the subdued quiet of the room I cantankerously blurted out, “Go get it yourself, you have two legs!”  I’m not sure if the horror of the insensitivity of what I said or the glaring disapproval of the entire world who loved me was more painful.  Either way, I couldn’t find my way out of that crowded hospital room fast enough to get my sister her damn coffee.

Perhaps the worst of my failures to contain my inner voice came on the occasion of my wife’s graduation from law school.  We hosted a large reception which included friends and family.  The events of the day surly came as no surprise to the Mexican’s in attendance.  They had seen me in action before.  I was very proud of my wife for her accomplishment and took the opportunity to make a toast in her honor as the guest list had reached its apex.  I very eloquently expressed my admiration for her and her accomplishments and explained in detail how hard she had worked, how difficult the last three years had been for her and how much she had sacrificed in pursuit of her dream.  I did a fantastic job as I recall our mothers blotting the tears of admiration and pride for her determination and fortitude from the corner of their eyes.  As I wound up my eloquent toast some evil little demon entered my mind and I finished off the toast with a raised glass of champagne and said, “See honey, I told you I could be a freekin gentleman!”  Only I did not have the common sense to clean up the language in front of our Mothers, Grand-Mothers and my rosary saying Aunts.  After the brilliant oration of respect and affection my closing was so shockingly inappropriate and anti-climatic that I don’t even think anybody even raised their glass to their lips.  I am smooth.

I am thinking that a guy who has had five brain concussions should have been able to get a pass on that one but I didn’t.  Once again I have failed to write a short and concise entry for my blog.  When I said I would keep it short, I guess I lied.  And you know that part about this not being the proper forum to share dark secrets about my anatomy?  Well if you got the impression I was suggesting that it is short?  I lied about that too!  Yep, I am sure of it.  I am going to hell!

You may wonder how I got to be the way I am if you have visited this site on more than one occasion.  The answer is simple.  Brain Damage.  I have had five brain concussions in my life.  I think that means that originally I was destined to be a great scholar.  If it were not for an inordinate amount of grey matter between my ears how else could you account for the top heavy body structure which had me land on my head on so many occasions?  I was chatting with my sister blogger, http://www.hahnathome.com/ about this topic and had mentioned that I have had five brain concussions in my life.  She replied, “Gosh, you’d never know."  You can glean a lot of meaning out of the text in an instant message window.  Sometimes I wonder why I call her friend.

My first concussion came in 1969 when I was trying to impress a cute brunette in my third grade class.  It was the dead of winter and we had received a freezing rain the night before.  Back in the day ice covered roads were not sufficient reason to close school because we were tough and as for danger, we liked it!  At Christmas break a girl named Tangi moved to our school.  Tangi had moved from California and when she arrived in the middle of winter she had a tan.  I was in love.

Anybody who saw the Tom Cruise movie “Risky Business” is very familiar with the scene where Tom slid, clad in his underware, across the entryway of his home.  I invented that move.  Well I didn't do it in my underwear.  I was wearing snow pants over my tighty whities.  Okay, so I was a short chubby Ewok looking Mexican kid and looked nothing like Tom Cruise.  It is the slide move I want you to envision here.  Tangi was standing at the corner of the asphalt pad behind our school talking to her friends when I thought it would be really cool to slide on by on the ice covered asphalt while saying something clever.  I don’t remember what I said because the next thing I knew the world was upside down and I was on my way to landing head first, feet toward the sky in what must have resembled a perfect full pike position dive that morphed into a twisting full gainer which ended up with me flat on my back wondering where the hell I was.  The move had to earn major points based on the fact that it was executed with the  nth degree of difficulty. 

The resultant goose egg on my head was about the size of a grapefruit.  Hey, if you don’t believe me e-mail my sister and she will put you in touch with my mom!  The problem with this goose egg and later diagnosed brain concussion was that it had occurred during recess while we were in the middle of taking our Iowa Basic Skills tests.  Math was the subject we tested on that afternoon and I earned a ranking at exactly the eleventh percentile that year.  As I alluded to earlier, kids were tougher back in those days so going home with a brain concussion was not an option.  I did my best to finish my test.  My low ranking put the school administrators into a tizzy and they were sure that there had been some mistake in school placement and that I should most probably be enrolled at the school where the short busses stopped. 

My next concussion occurred later that year; in summer actually when I tried to do a back flip off the side of a pool while enjoying a cub scout outing.  Let me make a suggestion to all readers.  If you know of any chubby kids who lack the agility and wear-with-all to clear the concrete edge of a swimming pool when attempting a back flip, which they could not possibly complete even if they jumped off of a high board, discourage them from that.  The next summer I was involved in a race with a friend while riding my five speed JC Penney Swinger bike and the derailleur protested under the duress of girth which resulted from not riding bikes enough as a child.  The overloaded derailleur let the chain slip free as I was in a full tilt down stroke with my furiously pumping Ewok legs.  My inertia carried me freely over the handle bars and I landed, you guessed it, head first on the concrete of Edwards Blvd. in Cedar Falls Iowa.  It took the city years to patch the resultant pothole.

Concussion number four is the only one I am a little bitter about to this day.  My uncle had taken his kids, my brother, sister and I to a popular sledding destination called Hartman Reserve.  Hartman Reserve was made up of nature trails which lined the river bluff along the Cedar River.  It remains a beautiful refuge to this day although all of the great sledding hills are now covered with wood chips, railroad tie stair steps and hand rails.  There used to be a lot of different runs that were more than enough of a challenge for me and I always had a great time there.  Then there was the mother of all sled runs.  Suicide Hill.  To this day I am not sure if the legends are true but the hill supposedly got its name after the death of a cousin of somebody everybody in the neighborhood knew.  So anyway, I have this cousin, Debbie.  She is about the same age and had kicked my ass at the school yard across from my Grandma’s house one summer.  She wanted to brave Suicide Hill.  I thought she should go for it.  Maybe Mother Nature would exact some revenge for the ass whoppin’ I had taken the summer before.   At this point my uncle intervened and told her,  "No way."  She persisted and somehow it occurred to him that if I could survive the ravaging ravine that maybe it would be ok if he let his eldest daughter take a run at it.  Uh uh, no way, I was not interested.  This is the point when my brother showed his Judas Iscariot side and started in on me being a pussy and pointing out that my girl cousin was braver than I.  That worked.  The next thing I really remember was my flexible flyer was no longer flexible and I was surrounded by family members dropping F bombs and trying to feel for a pulse.  Cousin Debbie never did get to make that run. 

Our family doctor warned my mother that I really could not afford too many more brain concussions and there was brief talk of having me wear a helmet everywhere I went.  I won that battle and still refuse to wear a helmet unless I am traveling in some backwards hick no good state that has a law which requires it.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, concussion number five.  At age twelve I was the proud owner of a beautiful sky blue Honda SL 70 with a trick white stripe down the tank.  One day I was in need of some wind in my hair, (that need began early with this one) and so I took my Honda over to the local church parking lot and began racing around.  The Honda drew the attention of some of the other neighbor kids and they began riding their bikes around my personal race track.  Somehow a little girl managed to turn in front of me as I was approximating my attempt at breaking the world land speed record and I broadsided her bicycle.  She was launched into the lawn of the church.  I, you guessed it, went head first into the concrete.  That one cost me about a week on the couch with ice packs and an emergency bucket by my head.  I’m pretty sure that final concussion actually knocked loose enough brain tissue that it alleviated my top heavy burden as I have not had a head injury since then.  I even managed to split a deer in half while doing 75 miles per hour on the way home from Sturgis one year.  Jeans and a T-shirt saved me.  No helmet, no head or neck injuries.  Broken ribs and road rash are no fun though.  I’ll tell you about that one some other day.  Be careful out there today!

           

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.”  Dennis Wholey.  It has been said before in this space that bad things happen to good people.  While it is fundamentally agreed that such situations are void of rationale or explanation it is possibly more significant to ponder what we do when bad things happen to us.  I am taking the liberty of assuming that my readers are by nature all good people.  There is a classic coping mechanism that has withstood the test of time.  Primarily this model is described as the Five Stages of Grief but I would suggest that the steps outlined can be applied to many situations in our life.

            The first step, denial, is where we seem unwilling to accept that fate has delivered us unwelcome news or circumstance.  At this point we may choose to act as if nothing bad has happened or is about to happen.  Obviously, until we face our circumstance we will be unwilling to deal with it in an adequate manner.  The second step is not hard to realize once we have come to grips that something has gone afoul with our plans.  Anger seems to come easy to me once I understand that something is not working out the way I had hoped or planned.  I am blessed with the ability to remove myself from this step fairly quickly once it has set upon me.  The next step, bargaining, is where my feet begin to be mired in cement. 

            Bargaining can be an art form.  Key to successfully moving past this step is to not make an ass out of yourself.  Things occurring in my life from time to time have proven too large an obstacle for me to survive without doing the “make an ass of yourself” thing.  I am prone to demonstrating needy behavior in the bargaining stage and this is not something that I am proud of.  I seem to constantly make the same mistakes over and over when I am in this stage.  It is a time when I hope for my problems to go away.  I seem to be willing to do anything and everything I can before resigning to the fact that there are issues that I must resolve.

            After failing at bargaining we become resigned to the inevitable truth.  The fourth step is depression where hopelessness becomes the overwhelming feeling we experience in dealing with our problems.  I’m not a big fan of depression and rightfully so as feeling bad about something is the least productive of all the steps.  Many people I know are good at depression but I just never found it to be much fun so I avoid it as much as possible.  Finally after we acknowledged there was a problem, it pissed us off, we have unsuccessfully tried to weasel our way out of it, realized it wouldn’t work and bummed out about it we are at a point where move to the acceptance phase of our grief process.  This is where we are able to finally begin the work of moving on.  When bad things happen to good people too often it can lead to an unhealthy state of paranoia.  It helps me to keep in mind that “just because I am paranoid, doesn’t mean “they” aren’t after me!”  Is it Friday yet?

“"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” Abraham Lincoln          

When we vote for our representatives we are doing so in hopes that our candidate will act as our voice in Washington.  Our representatives occupy the congress but they do not actually control it.  Special interest lobbyists control our congress.  Historically lobbyists tried to affect how our representatives voted, now these lobbyists have actual power.  Daniel Troy is the top lawyer for the FDA.  Prior to this position Daniel Troy was an attorney who specialized in representation of pharmaceutical firms.  It is ironic that in a government of the people by the people and for the people we would have a man who committed his life to the corporate interests of the drug industry is now the legal steering arm of the people’s agency which was established to protect us from unsafe food and drugs.  Anne Marie Lynch, a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America who had lobbied against price controls on prescription drugs was appointed a top job in the Department of Health and Human Services.  Tom Scully, a health care lobbyist is now in charge of Medicare.  Charles Lambert, a lobbyist for the cattle industry is the Agriculture Departments undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs.  After pledging in writing that he would not participate in any matter involving his former employer for a period of 12 months met with them at least 12 times in that following year according to the Denver Post.  Stephan Homstead is assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  His previous position was an attorney at Latham and Watkins where his major clients were power companies.  One of the new rules which came from the EPA shortly after his appointment included twelve paragraphs which came virtually word for word from a proposal written by his former firm.  J. Steven Griles, number two person at the Interior Department once bragged that he wanted to “turn the lights out” on the office that regulates the mining industry.  Griles was a key player in the effort to allow mountaintop coal removal which resulted in twelve hundred miles of Appalachian streambeds being buried in toxic sludge.  (Take It Back, James Carville & Paul Bagala)

 When combined with the K Street lobbyists these former lobbyist turned policy makers have begun to cause a backlash by the American Public which we can only hope will continue to push for change.  Sensing this fundamental disapproval by the people legislators are quick to bring to committee lobby reform proposals which is a beginning.  Lobby reform proposals which have been presented to date are shying away from any real or significant regulation of penalty for egregious influence peddling.  In recent typical fashion our representatives are talking all around the proposals which would effect meaningful change.  Who can blame them?  The cash cow they ride is very lucrative.  “Polls show that Americans are fed up with what is increasingly seen as a corrupt Washington way of business. Ninety percent of Americans favor banning lobbyists from giving members of Congress anything of value. Two thirds would ban lobbyists from making campaign contributions. More than half favor making it illegal for lobbyists to organize fundraisers. Seventy-six percent believe that the White House should provide a list of all meetings White House officials have had with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/smith_hoersting_200602210809.asp  

“When corruption involving members of Congress in bed with lobbyists was big news in weeks past, elected officials raced one another to the microphones to deliver full-throated cries for reform. Now that the spotlight has shifted, the reformist passion has cooled.  It would help to have tougher rules requiring the immediate disclosure of anything of value from lobbyists and restricting the use of corporate jets and travel financed with private money. And slowing the revolving door through which players move from government official to lobbyist wouldn't be a bad idea.”  http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=186966

             Most reform proposals have focused on more disclosure for lobbyists, efforts to reduce or eliminate privately financed travel for legislators, increasing the time former legislators must wait before being appointed positions as lobbyists from the current one year to a two year wait period, and mandatory ethics training.  The problem with all of the money influence in Washington is that by the nature of the current system our legislators are going to have a commitment to keeping their donors happy.  More oversight of the activities will not do a thing to protect the integrity of our legislators.  In the case of the Abramoff scandal, rules were already in place and the parties involved just chose to ignore them.  Meaningful reform would require disclosure of all contact with lobbyists, disclosure of all legislative amendments which provide perks or loopholes for any interest group, and eliminate all fundraising activities by or for incumbent office holders.  It is time for publicly financed elections in this country.  This is highly affordable as it was reported by Joseph E Canter, United States Elections, 2004 at http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/election04/campaign$.htm “in all federal races in 2000 congressional, senatorial, and presidential, candidates spent a total of $1.6 billion.  Compare that to the energy bill passed in 2005 where legislators handed $2 billion in subsidies to the ethanol industry and 8.1 billion in tax breaks for oil, coal and electric utilities.   

             Jeffrey H. Birnbaum reported in the Washington Post on July 22, 2005, “The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750”  Lobbyists can and do earn annual salaries in the $400,000 range.  Lobbying is one of the fastest growing career fields in the United States.  If you are considering a career change and feel like working on K Street would be for you, more power to ya.  If you love America and would like to see our legislators be held accountable to the people rather than corporate and special interests you should pay attention to what your legislator is saying about lobby reform.

Ahhh, home again.  As I write, it’s pushing 2:30 PM central time.  My morning began rudely as the alarm screeched me from my contented sleep at the gawd-awful hour of 4:45 AM Eastern time.  I had a flight scheduled to depart from Ronald Reagan Airport at 6:30 BC.  (BC = Before Christ - was even awake, I am sure) That didn’t sit real well with me as we did not return home from a dinner party until after mid-night.  Still, as groggy as I was I would not have done anything different in anticipation of my early departure from Washington DC.  We had been invited to dinner by my wife’s boss who has a beautiful home in Maryland.  We could not audibly appreciate her home under her specific orders.  It seems the home is located too far from the District for her tastes.  Somehow she has it worked out in her mind that if she does not become too attached to the home she will be able to move closer to the city.  Great house though. 

            Everything about the evening was wonderful.  Our kids were invited and made to feel very much at home and the dinner was to die for.  The main entrée of dinner was inch and a half Rib Eye steaks that were of the quality to make any Mid-Westerner proud.  I have long clung to the smug assumption that while the East Coast may have superior seafood, culture, world influence, diversity, topography, shore lines and college basketball teams, they could not hold up to us when it came to meat off the hoof.  The world as I know it has just been shattered.  The spouse of my wife’s boss is Dutch, fluent in five languages and has all of the cool electronic toys that I dream of possessing.  He doesn’t own a Harley though so I think I may be ahead a bit in the cool stuff competition.  Another couple joined us, He being a high level FEMA manager and She, an entrepreneur who is involved with a successful on line Juris Doctorate program. 

            So there we were, a Dutch Tree Doctor, his spouse the New York City born Department of Justice Program Director,  a Wisconsinite FEMA director and his dot.com education entrepreneur spouse, my spouse who refuses to let me tell you anything about her profession, (she’d have to kill us) and I enjoying a wonderful evening of great food, conversation and drink.  It did not take long for me to have the feeling I had been friends with this group for a long time.  Occasionally life works like that.  You find yourself in the middle of a group of people with hugely diverse backgrounds and experiences and everybody connects.  I don’t normally shy away in any social situation but typically I am most comfortable in settings which are more reflective of my working class heritage.  Yet somehow with all of the education and power that was in that home that evening I never once gave consideration to the idea that I was on the outside looking in. 

            I could attribute the success of the evening to the host and hostess being gifted entertainers, which they are, but the feeling I left with was that their hospitality came more from the fact that they are just wonderful people.  I gave that consideration during the evening and proposed a toast with some Godly nectar, a glass of 1985 Graham’s Port, and expressed my appreciation that I found it remarkable that in a world so large and diversified that we could end up making the warm connections we had that evening.  To experience an evening like that so far from home with people, whom for the most part, I had never met before, made for a very special evening.   Ain’t American great?