A Baron, Fried Chicken & Trailblazing

There were two of us "souls" on this twin-engine Beechcraft Baron, the pilot and me. The pilot was my dear friend Steve--an excellent pilot by the way; thank God. We had just taken off from Boise, Idaho, headed for Portland, Oregon. The air-traffic controller comes on the radio and says something like, "I'll be losing radio contact with you for awhile, give me your vital information." So Steve says, "There are two souls on board." and gives our names, the phone numbers of our next-of-kin, etc.

We're over the Rockies, presumably, the clouds are so thick you can't see tomorrow. Then Steve says, "That's not good!"

Two people you never want to hear that from: your pilot and your doctor.

The crisis involved the plane's wings and props beginning to ice up. Long story; happy ending. After all, I'm sitting here typing this on a lovely Saturday morning with a good cup of coffee.

There are those moments for us "men of a certain age" when we wonder what kind of mark we're leaving. Not to sound morbid (and for the record, I'm feeling great), but one of these days, when your funeral is over and family and friends are back at the church eating fried chicken, potato salad and German chocolate cake. What will they talk about?

He was funny. He talked a good game. He was rather arrogant and self-obsessed; after all who writes a blog 'all ABOUT me' other than the Pioneer Woman and young, hipster women who post pictures of their cats and their food?

Worse yet, what if the only thing they talk about is how good the chicken is?

So, what would I want people to say? I've given that some thought. It's a work in progress, but so far I have this: He was funny. He loved his family and they knew it. He spoiled his grand-girls so rotten they now all have blogs with huge followings, where they post a lot of selfies. And, he was a trail-blazer.

My inspiration for this new vision is this line from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Let me say right now, I love the sentiment in this, but I have a few issues with Ralph's rhetoric. More on that in the next post.

To be continued...

What's In A Name?

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. --William Shakespeare

I get the Bard's point, but you have to admit, a name and the thing or person it represents come to define each other. For example, our two grand-girls are Karlee and Harper. Before they were born, when the names were chosen, I liked the names, but they didn't yet have a face or a personality--they were, at that point, pretty much just words. Don't get me wrong, they were carefully and wonderfully chosen. After all, they were to be the names of two very special girls. 

Karlee's name is sort of a mash-up of her parent's names--very cool. Harper happens to be the name of the woman I believe to be  one of the greatest writers ever: Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird. I doubt that's why her parents chose the name but it has that significance for me anyway.

As their five and two years, respectively, have passed, these girls have defined those names and vice versa. I can't imagine them being called by any other name.

And NOW--drum roll please--there will be a third grand-girl, to be named later. Being POPS is a wonderful thing.

It is not my job to name the third, but that doesn't keep me from pondering possibilities and wondering what the perfect word is that this little girl will bring life to.

The name game is very complicated these days. Back in the day, there were fewer choices or so it seemed. The only resource for ideas, other than helpful family and friends, was a paperback book of names and their meanings you could pick up at the grocery store between the TV Guide and the National Inquirer.

Today though, there's the WWW. Now you can Google prospective names, click on images and see if any stripers, serial killers, politicians or their mistresses pop up. There you will also find all kinds of research to guide the process:

• Names most likely to get you beaten up at recess
• Names of kids teachers hate (or love)
• What the celebrities are naming their kids
• Names that may get you stabbed in your sleep when they're teenagers
• Most popular names

The prevailing opinion seems to be to avoid "popular" names, because you want your kid to be unique, plus (and I'm not making this up): it will be easier for them to have their own name as their handle for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc, etc. In fact it is recommended that as soon as you've picked your soon-to-be-born's moniker, you should go ahead and set up all those accounts. That way on Baby Wallabee's very own Facebook page you can post: Wallabee's first steps, his first word, his first haircut...

So, I've been giving it some thought and research. One thought I had, because I'm a big fan of Downton Abbey is that it might be good to have an aristocratic sounding name like Lady Mary, Lady Edith, Lady Gaga or the Dowager Countess of Grantham.

Thanks to the baby's daddy for the graphic.

One thing to consider, the names of our two grand-girls share a common characteristic (as do the names of their parents), the third letter of their names is r. "Paris" came to mind but that Hilton girl tarnished that one. I thought of the cute little pop singer from New Zealand, "Lorde" but that would be a lot of pressure. Although her 5 year-old sister does a moving rendition of Lorde's hit: Royals.

If her parents chose to follow the lead of celebrities, as often happens in baby-naming, according to my extensive research, the name "North" would work. That of course is the name of the poor baby born to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Yes, you're right, that makes the baby's name North West.

Well, as you can see, I am not one that should be naming anything. So I'll just stick to being Pops. I have two witnesses who will tell you I'm pretty good at that (as long as I have my wallet open). BTW: the name Pops has no meaning whatsoever for me without those two and soon to be three grand-girls.

Lurleen Lumpkin

P.S.: Turns out maybe the baby's daddy maybe shouldn't be naming babies either. He suggested the name "Lurlene." His justification: It rhymes with the name of the baby's paternal grandmother (Arlene) and it is a tip of the hat to Lurleen Lumpkin a character on The Simpson's. Simpsons creator Matt Groening is related to the baby's momma, Kara. And, it fits the third R qualifier.

Know The Difference?

I remember as a wee lad hearing my maternal grandmother speak of someone saying, "He doesn't know sshhhtt from Shinola." She had a way of saying THAT word (not Shinola; the other one) where there was no mistaking what she was saying and yet it didn't seem to be the real, dirty word.

I remember feeling well on my way to mature manhood because, at probably no more than eight years-old, I knew the difference between the two.

I remember my "Nan" as she was known, threatening to "backhand me across the room" on several occasions, but she never did; as in, "David Lee if you don't stop drumming on that table I'm going to backhand you across this room." There were numerous switchings however with limbs from the elm tree in her front yard, but still we knew we were loved unconditionally.

I remember "sassing" her, once, to very near her breaking point.  We had walked in her house from playing outside. "David Lee is that dog sshhtt on your shoes?!" I looked and replied, "We'll it's not Shinola."

If you're not familiar with this pithy little colloquialism, or even if you are, check out this father / "son" talk from the movie The Jerk.  

I hadn't thought of Shinola in years, that is until I ran across a brave new venture in Detroit, Michigan. When I read about this new company, I wondered if they knew "sshhtt from Shinola." Turns out they did. They actually purchased the rights to the Shinola name from the now defunct shoe polish company.

Not only have these brave souls started a company named Shinola, in Detroit, of all places, but it is a watch-making company. Do these people know that watches are being made in Asian and Middle-Eastern countries for pennies? In fact, most "Swiss" watches are made in China. 

"Lest anyone doubt that the watches it makes are Swiss, watchmaker Swiss Mountaineer emblazons Switzerland’s national flag on the dial of each timepiece. Does it matter that except for their Swiss movement, the watches’ components are made at a factory in Shenzhen, China? Or that Swiss Mountaineer is owned by a Hong Kong company called Golden Hawk? Under Swiss rules that are as precise as its clockworks, Golden Hawk can label its watches Swiss-made as long as at least 50 percent of the value of the movement comes from Switzerland." from the New York Times

Shinola, the company, is going to be fun to watch (no pun intended). I think it is a wonderful thing that young entrepreneurs are creating a company that makes extremely well-made products in the heart of industrial America. And it's not just watches. Shinola is also making bicycles and leather goods, AND shoe polish--how could they not. Please know that I am not being paid or compensated in any way to endorse Shinola, but just as I could from a very young age, I can discern the crappy from the cool, and this new Shinola is cool indeed. Check them out at The Shinola Story.

Coming Of Age in 1969

It may have been "twenty years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play,"

But 45 years ago today, the band was in Washington D.C. marching in the presidential inauguration parade of Richard M. Nixon.

I had turned eighteen just a few days earlier, a senior in high school, and playing drums in an all-city marching band from Tulsa. I expected to be wide-eyed with wonder at being in the Nation's capital, and playing "Oklahoma!" for our newly-elected president. What grabbed my attention though and held me spellbound were the anti-war, anti-establishment protests dominating the scene.

It is not hyperbole to say that it all oozed in to my psyche. In retrospect it is not surprising either. Just a few days before the inauguration, I had registered for the draft (the Selective Service). Ironically, I could not register to vote, because, although at that time an eighteen year-old was old enough for armed service, he was not ______________ enough (fill in the blank: mature, intelligent, responsible, informed, serious-minded, etc.) to vote. Already at just eighteen that kind of stuff became a seed of suspicion toward the "establishment" for me. Of course the reigning zeitgeist made for very fertile ground for those varieties of seeds. 

In the months before all of this, my "life" as a drummer had taken me to Detroit, Montreal, Quebec and New York City where protests and riots were everywhere. A Time magazine reporter writing about the era said, "America seems to be verging toward a national nervous breakdown."

I can remember on one of those trips sneaking out of the hotel where our group was staying in NYC and going to Greenwich Village to hang out in the music clubs, hoping to see the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and so on. I didn't, but the experience was heady; in a drug-free way (at least for me).

1969 still seems larger than life to me: The Jets (with Joe Namath) won the Super Bowl, The Beatles gave their last live performance (on the roof of the Abbey Road Studios)*, the secret bombing of Cambodia, student takeover at Harvard, The Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, July 8 the first withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, Easy Rider released, Edward Kennedy drives off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, killing Mary Jo Kopechne, The first man of the moon, the Manson "family" killed actress Sharon Tate who was eight months pregnant with Roman Polanski's child, Woodstock: 3 days of Peace and Music, The Brady Bunch premiered, the Amazing Mets won the World Series, Sesame Street made its debut on PBS, the first draft lottery since WWII was held.

Not that it ranks with these noteworthy events, but in May of 1969, I graduated from high school and in the Fall started school at Oklahoma Baptist University. Why OBU? Apparently they had a dearth of drummers and offered me a percussion scholarship.

At OBU, I was a part of the weirdly-worldly (not an official designation, in fact, I just now made that up). It wasn't hard to qualify for this label; OBU at the time was in a bit of a bubble: intentionally and strategically, protected from the rising counterculture. I guess it was because I had the privilege of travel and experience, plus the overrated mystique of being a drummer in a rock and roll band, or maybe it was all in my head. I had already been a part of a few minor protests and moratoriums: seeking the change of the voting age from 21 to 18, some anti-war stuff, etc.

There was one though: it seemed profound at the time. 

The Kent State shootings occurred at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. The Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds on unarmed college students on Monday, May 4, 1970, killing four students and wounding nine others.

As a result, a student protests were organized across the country. Hundreds of universities cancelled classes and locked down buildings. I was proud to be a part of the event at OBU. But as we sat through the day and overnight on the OBU Oval, wearing black arm bands, discussing the state of our country and world, and wondering whether we could make a difference, it all seemed a little silly and isolated. Maybe we did make some difference though. At least I was different. I wanted to DO something. I still do.

Don't skip this part. Back then, no doubt I had delusions of importance and occasional altruism. The fact is I was pretty self-absorbed; oh, not in a Justin Bieber brand of narcissism kind of way, but in a way that dictates at least this: for all of those who knew me back then, please forgive me. Maybe the Washington Elite was right--maybe I was too stupid to vote at 18. The dean of students who encouraged me not to return to OBU for my sophomore year certainly would agree with that.

My intent here is not to romanticize those days, but if I have, well... After all this was my first Coming-of-Age. It should be a bit romantic, right?

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*Have you heard the rumor? Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are re-uniting at the Grammy Awards this year.