Tucson Sisters in Crime, University of Arizona Geology Senior Lecturer Dr. Jess Kapp

Dr. Kapp is also Associate Department Head, but the title was getting crowded and would have needed an “and.”  How’s that for an excuse?  Yes, what would something I’ve written be, without some humor, a Monty Pythonesque look at life and some genuine silliness?

I placed Geology in the title, because I wanted you to ask:  What do a mystery writers group and a geologist have in common?

Well, to quote my writer friend Piper Bayard, “I’m glad you asked.”

She was there because a chapter member roped her into it.  🙂  Isn’t that the way of the world?  🙂  They have something in common.  They’e both been to Tibet.  I have a vague connection:  I wrote my Masters Thesis about Tibet.  They still have me beaten and are on a higher plateau.

.     Well, I’m glad Dr. Kapp was roped into it.  It was a most entertaining morning.  OK, by now, Graham Chapman of Monty Python would be saying “Get on with it!”  I will.

Her purpose, which she definitely met, was to show that when you write a mystery, you need to have your fictional detective investigate and ask questions.  Dr. Kapp does the same thing, only with geology.  It’s a rocky road.  🙂    Scientific method creeps into both.  It’s called investigation.

Her slides were great.  You spend lots of time up mountains.  Some end up on ice, like the geologists in Greenland risking their lives to check the flow of water from melting ice to show global warming.  Do you see an Indiana Jones streak in here?  Only the villain is erosion.

I was already excited before Dr. Kapp spoke.  My father, Marvin Charton was a longtime chemistry professor at Pratt Institute and had an interest in geology.  My mother, Barbara Charton is also a chemist and still teaches part time at Pratt.   I’m not a scientist, but know basics and enjoy research and investigation.

There were slides of timelines, showing the continents splitting off from each other.  Another Pythoneque view:  Click on Galaxy Song.

There were also many slides of rock formations.  Luckily, Dr. Kapp is at the University of Arizona.  Arizona has all sorts of rocks.  You thought the Grand Canyon was just a giant hole in the ground.  🙂

What did I come away with?  Keep asking questions.  In many professions, this is a key.  For writers and geologists.

Thank you, Dr. Kapp!  Please come again!

Some links for you:

Her Web Entry at the university.

Personal Website:

Twitter:

Huff Post:

Amazon Profile:

Reflections on Tibet:

 

 

 

A Tale of Two New York Mets World Series, 1969, 1986

If you grow up as a New York Mets fan, you understand heartache and pain.  I once wrote an essay about why Eastern Europeans should be Mets fans and sent it to a Hungarian friend.  

 

This will be more specific.  The 1969 and 1986 World Series.  

1969:  Season started out, well, like a typical New York Mets season.  Losing. In those days, the Yankees were a losing team as well, so a bit less of a sting, and the Mets outdrew them.  Tom Seaver threw a near perfect game. Suddenly, they started winning! If you’re a Mets fan, you enjoy it, but you keep waiting for the fall.  There has to be a catch.

This was the first year of Divisional Play.  The Chicago Cubs, had been way ahead most of the season.  They collapsed, and the Mets took over the National League East on September 10th.  When they won the National League Pennant and were going to the World Series, who could believe it.  

The opponent was the Baltimore Orioles.  The Orioles had a good 1960’s. Until 1954, they were the perennial American League doormat, St. Louis Browns.  

I have a cousin in suburban Baltimore.  My uncle was still alive. They were visiting and he had fun telling me what the Orioles were going to do to the Mets.  I held my tongue but believed him. If the Orioles won, the fact the Mets made it that far was something to be proud of.

It’s now Game Seven.  I got off the subway at DeKalb Avenue.  I was coming from school in Bay Ridge and going to Hebrew School nearby to prepare for my Bar Mitzvah, which was coming up on December 13th.  Of course, I would’ve loved to have been in Shea Stadium to see the game, but tickets were tough to come by.

The Southwest corner of Flatbush and De Kalb Avenue, across from Juniors Restaurant and on a diagonal from Long Island University, had a bar, at the top of the steps to the station.

I watched the last half inning, when the Mets won from that bar.  Hebrew School was a short walk on Schermerhorn Street. My teacher, an Orthodox Jew Mrs. Traub was displeased.  Enough said.

The Mets won though!  It was the same year as the Moon Landing.  Anything was possible!

There used to be a bakery called Ebingers.  They had a branch on Montague Street. There was a New York Mets cake they baked.  I remember it cost eighty-five cents. I know Mom, thinking about food, yet again.

I also remember Casey Stengel, the first Mets manager, shaking his head and repeating, “Amazin, amazin.”  He dealt with the Mets first season with one hundred and twenty losses. Amazin…

The 1986 World Series was very different.  With brilliant manager Davey Johnson at the helm, (Ironically, he was the Orioles Second Baseman in 1969, and made the final out, when hit hit a fly ball to Cleon Jones), the Mets won one hundred eight games, finishing twenty one and a half games ahead of the Phillies.

They were playing the Boston Red Sox.  This is important. Two years earlier, I married someone from Boston.  She’s a fanatical Red Sox fan.. Mom warned me about mixed marriages, but did I listen?  Of course not! If I were a Yankee fan, the relationship wouldn’t have gone anywhere. Now, domestic bliss was being challenged.

On top of that, we were living in rural Virginia at the time.  My father figured the Red Sox would win. My wife Elaine keeps saying, “He should’ve listened to his daughter in law.  Back then, Red Sox fans were used to major suffering. I’d need another essay for the history of Red Sox suffering I’ve seen personally, and with my silly looks at history.

Well, we’d only been living there for a month.  (I was there for a job). The well to do farmer across the street befriended us.  His running joke was which one of us would be sleeping on the porch.

Game Six is what most of us remember.  The Shea Stadium scoreboard briefly flashed “Congratulations Boston Red Sox, 1986 World Champions.”  Then the ball went between Bill Buckner’s legs. I keep telling her, you have to admire his courage to play with bad knees and ankles.  Manager John McNamara made the call to leave him in.

It almost made Game Seven anticlimactic.  Elaine was unforgiving. She wanted to see Buckner and McNamara hanged from the Citgo sign, behind Fenway Park.  She got her victory in 2004. After Game Seven, the phone rang. Elaine mumbled, “I’ll get it, I know who it is.”  It was my then brother in law, John. All he said was, . “Nice game, huh?”

Chapters Three Through Five, A Warped Look at Russian History.

Chapter Three:  Saving Ivan at School from Grandpa?

Galina is a language tutor, so she can take time off between sessions.  Grandma and Galina go to an appointment with Mrs. Ivanova.

Mrs. Ivanova is as beautiful as Ivan says.  She meets them in an office, so they can have privacy.  Tea and cookies are served.

Galina begins.  “Mrs. Ivanova, how can we help keep my father out of your hair?”

Mrs. Ivanova sighed the sigh that’s been sighed for centuries in Russia.  It is one of world weariness and hardship. “If only it were that easy.”

“True,”  Natasha said with the same sigh.  “In Russia, there is always something.  The security guard has already told us how much he likes Grandpa.”

“The principal likes him too, they are Afghan veterans,”  Mrs. Ivanova sighed.

“So to quote Lenin, what is to be done?” Galina asks sadly.

“Let me think about it.  I can’t ban him, yet. The principal likes him, but maybe if interferes enough, and it can be proved, the advancement of the children is suffering.  Let me think about this and I will be in touch.”

When Galina and Natasha got outside, Natasha muttered. “We need to do something about the old fool, but what?  He has friends in low and high places.”

“Mom, I think I may have an idea.  Let me think it through.”

 

Chapter Four:  Grandpa Takes Ivan on a Walk.

Ivan is being well treated by Grandpa on their walk.  Ice cream, a walk in the woods. Ivan still respects Grandpa as an elder, but is beginning to wonder about him.  He wonders if he’s learning what not to do.

They come to a building.  The writing says Veterans Club.  Ivan is curious, but wondering what Grandpa is up to.

Both Grandpa and Ivan are greeted warmly.  It’s a large room full of cigarette smoke, sweat, and vodka.

The veterans rarely have young people in their midst.  Ivan has his cheek pinched and is picked up and carried about the room.

Ivan asks Grandpa for a Coke.  “We don’t have that American swill here, you will get juice and vodka”

Ivan has never had vodka, but is curious.  He is given juice then shots of vodka. Ivan feels important with the old men.  He’s feeling the warmth of the vodka, when Grandpa takes Ivan over to an older man seated in the corner.

“Boy this is Mr. Kirilenko.  He’s ninety-four years old and fought in the Great Patriotic War.  Like your great-grandpa he went all the way to Germany. Sasha, we need to make sure Ivan grows up a strong Russian.  There are some bad influences.”

“Come, boy,” Sasha said.  Ivan sat next to him and began his story.  

“I’d just graduated from secondary school, and was about to start a factory job, when the Germans crossed into Russia.  They were just one of many. Germans have been trying to conquer and undermine us for eight hundred years!

Well, as with Napoleon, we left him an empty Moscow, plus we of course can handle winter better.  So arrogant, those Germans. They thought they were going to wipe us out and settle in our Motherland!  More fools they!

I fought in all the major battles.  Stalingrad was the hardest. Once the cowards surrendered there, we were on our way.  There was much hardship, but General Zhukov and Stalin led us to victory!”

Ivan had questions.  “Why didn’t the Red Army save Warsaw from the Germans blowing it up?”

“So the Poles would be demoralized.  The Poles need to be kept in place! Always making trouble.  They think they’re better than us. So do the damn Czechs! Russia is the protector of all Slavs.”

Ivan laughed.  “We hear the Czechs are rich.”

“Because they sold their souls to that bum Vaclav Havel.  Poland had that Catholic, they called him John Paul, who helped the Poles be rebellious again.  All those centuries, they never stop and they look down on us? Anyway, before you so rudely interrupted, we liberated concentration camps and arrived in the heart of darkness, Berlin!  We got our revenge, and taught those nasty Germans what real Russians were like!”

Like Grandpa, he busily got himself all worked up.  Ivan wondered if he would do that, when he was their age.  Ivan wondered if men’s intelligence declined with age. Mom and Grandma kept their intelligence.  Then he made the connection. The vodka. The shots were already getting to him. So that’s where old men got their courage and bravado.  

Mr. Kirilenko snapped Ivan back to reality.  “Boy this is why, Russia lives! We are strong, and President Putin will keep us that way! Now go home, stop the foolishness your Grandpa Zhenya has told us about, and be a real Russian man!

Grandpa was happier than he’d been in a long time.  He held Ivan’s hand and sang as they walked back. Grandma and Galina greeted him at the door.  No amount of juice could cover the vodka.

“YOU GOT MY SON DRUNK!”

Galina’s yelling brought Grandma to the front door from the kitchen.  She smelled the vodka. “You old fool, have you finally gone mad? Where did you take him?”

“To my veterans club!  They enjoyed meeting Ivan.  Mr. Kirilenko enforced my Russian history lesson.”

“That fool?!”  He’s worse than you are!  I’ll make sure to kill you, long before you make ninety years old, if the booze doesn’t do it first.”

“Dad, Anton is already angry about what you did to Sergei.  Only some fast talking on his part kept Sergei’s parents from pressing charges.  Any more bad attitude toward Sergei, we will press charges with them. Understand?”

All Grandpa could manage was a belch.  “A belch works, you old fool. You took my grandson to be with those morons.  I’d like to say I don’t believe it, but I do. What’s to be done with you. I know, another night in your room.”

 

Chapter Five:  A Call from Mrs. Ivanova

Galina’s phone rang.  “Mrs. Ivanova, always a pleasure.  A debate? The students and the veterans?  Sounds interesting. Let me know. Thank you, bye.”

“What was Mrs. Ivanova saying about a debate?”

“She wants the children to debate the veterans.”

Grandma responded with a sly smile.  “The kids will win.”

 

Chapter Two A Warped Look at Russian History.

 

Grandpa Zhenya is worried.  Ivan, in his mind might be betraying the Motherland.  He gets no sympathy from his wife, Natasha. Grandma responds to Zhenya by taking his bottle of vodka away, muttering “Stupid old fool.”  Ivan’s parents also worry that Grandpa is filling Ivan’s head full of all sorts of things. Galina, Zhenya and Natasha’s daughter came to the house one day, angry, with tears of rage.

“I know sweetheart, I know, I know,” Natasha said as she poured Galina a cut of tea.  

“Do you know what dad did?!”  Galina was so enraged she shouted.

“Yes,” Natasha said in a world weary voice.  “He was proud of himself and wore all his damn medals to go see Mrs. Ivanova.  He was even prouder, when he called the Uzbek child in the class an Afghan terrorist and tried to strip search him for bombs.

“That child is Ivan’s best friend.  Anton and I adore him. We are also mortified.  We’re friends with his parents. Sergei’s father is Russian, his mother Uzbek.  If they press charges, I won’t blame them I may even help!”

At that point, the front door was flung open, as Grandpa Zhenya tried to march without stumbling into the living room singing the duet of the two army deserters from Prince Igor.

“There will be no more vodka for you, you old fool,”  Grandma Natasha shouted.

“Woman, I’ve done my patriotic duty and shown what a real Russian is.”

“Yeah, a stupid Russian.  Dad you need to get sober,”  Galina said between sobs. “The boy you tried to strip search is Ivan’s best friend.  Anton and I are friends with his parents. This cannot continue and won’t continue, if I have anything to say about it.

Grandpa belched.  “You are doing a poor job raising him.  I saw the picture of the black from Los Angeles on Ivan’s computer.  Computers are bad for young boys, who need to be out in nature hunting and joining the army.

“To get killed?  This makes Russia great?”  Galina said her tone between sadness and rage.

Just then, Ivan came home and greeted his mother and grandmother, glaring at his grandfather.

“What no hug for grandpa?”

“Maybe to strangle you, you old fool.  That’s right, you humiliate him in front of his friends and teacher and then you try to take the clothes from his best friend, plus you smell like a goddamn distillery!

Go get changed take a shower, if you’re nice, you might even get dinner.”

Grandma’s tirade made Ivan and Galina smile.  Grandpa went into the bedroom. To sulk or obey Grandma’s instructions, no one knew.

“OK, Mom.  How are we gonna clean up the mess he made?”  Galina asked quizzically.

“Simple.  We are going to see Mrs. Ivanova and save Ivan’s reputation.

 

The First Battle of Southie September 12, 1974

I was inspired to write this, because my post “Southie is My Home Town,” gets the most hits on my blog.  I wrote this short story, may make this into a detective series, depending on interest.  Let me know what you think.

 

September 12th, 1974:
Ray Lynch thought he’d seen enough conflict in Vietnamese Rice paddies, not thinking battle would follow him home.

“Oh lad, the mess we are havin’ here. You had poor timin’ becomin’ a Boston cop now.” Ray Lynch senior had been a Boston cop and you could still here traces of Galway in his voice.

“I didn’t come back from Vietnam to fight my own.”
“Lad, the choice may be made for you. You’ll go where you are told.”
“Captain said that yesterday at roll call. We are not Southie’s on the thin blue line, just Blues.”
“Yup. You better get goin’ you don’t want to be late today, they’ll think you’re doin’ it deliberately.

He thought back to that conversation, now that he was on the line with his best friend, Billy McDonald. They grew up together got in trouble together and served in ‘Nam together. Now they were on the line, waiting for who knew what.
It was only Five A.M. but some demonstrators with signs were already milling around at the top of the hill where South Boston High School stood. The orders came to allow peaceful demonstrating but the buses were not to be blocked. More demonstrators began showing up. It was easier for cops from other neighborhoods in some ways, but if they were from Charlestown, the same thing would be happening there.

“Ray, I can’t believe this.”
“I was just sayin’ that to my dad. We don’t like it, but we have a job to do. “
“You scared Ray?”
“Not of getting’ hurt. It ain’t like ‘Nam. We’re fightin’ our own here. I am afraid of our own neighborhood civil war. Before we were on a side in someone else’s civil war, now it could be ours, brother against brother.”
“I hope not, it could never end.”
“You are so right.”

The conversation was ended when they heard chanting from down the street. The buses were coming.
“Mother of God, I thought we’d seen the Yellow Peril in Nam.”
“Yeah, but this time the peril is from our own, not the buses.”
The chants began, “Here we go, Southie, here we go!” People started singing Southie Is My Home Town and yelling epithets at scared kids in buses.

“Billy, this sucks. Scaring kids not much younger than us in buses. They probably don’t wanna be here.”
A group of women got down in front of the buses and starting fingering rosary beads and saying “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”

Then the first rock shattered a bus window. Then more rocks flew. Ray and Billy and to see who threw the rocks. They didn’t see who threw the rocks, but saw several women beating up a young blonde man with their pocketbooks and kicking him in the shins.
“Ladies ladies , stop it!” Ray cried. Billy reached over where a notebook lay in the street. Ray suddenly recognize the blonde beehive hairdo of his childhood babysitter, Mrs. O’Malley.

“Mrs. O’Malley, for the love of God, what is going on?”
“That fuckin’ Commie was writin’ about us!”
Billy came over with the notebook and started reading.

“I just came from covering Belfast, same women look the same just as hard.”
“Who are you?” Billy asked with a tone of annoyance creeping in his voice.
The shocked blond pulled out a wallet and showed a card. Heinz Schmidt, Der Spiegel. “It’s legit buddy he’s a reporter. “You OK?”
“Just a little shaken officer.”
“Here’s your notebook pal, be careful”
“Ray, the two of youse are lettin’ him go?”
“Ladies, he is a reporter, he is within his rights, and we can arrest you right now for assault.”

A ladies hand threw a rock hitting a bus window injuring a girl inside. “Mrs. Donnelly I saw that, Anne Marie Donnelly, you are under arrest.”
“Ray, you would defend niggers over your own?

The Battle of Southie had just begun.

Native American Portrayals.

I thought of writing this, because yesterday at Tucson Sisters in Crime, (I am a member),  the morning speaker was Barbara Deloria, daughter of writer Vine Deloria.

This is not something I thought a lot about, but yesterday made me think.  I’m not originally from Tucson, but Brooklyn, New York.

Until yesterday, I’d forgotten that I met Mohawks as a child.  I grew up in Brooklyn Heights and they lived in a nearby neighborhood called Boerum Hill.  Some of them were in my Boy Scout troop.

Most Mohawks live in Canada, (Ontario and Quebec), with a few in Upstate New York along the St. Lawrence River, which is the International Border at that point.

The men would go to New York City to be the ironworkers on new skyscraper projects, because it was said, the heights didn’t bother them.  Heights bother me, I can’t imagine walking on a beam, hundreds of feet above the street.  I never got to know these kids well, because they moved back and forth from the city to where they were from.

The Mohawks are certainly not the image you normally saw in movies and on television.  I remember the movie Drums Along the Mohawk, from 1939, but they meant the river, not the tribe and the Last of the Mohegans, Masterpiece Theater on PBS.  That was the Eighteenth Century.  In the Seventeenth Century, the Dutch settlement was Manhattan, South of Wall Street and up the Hudson Valley to what is now New York’s state capital, Albany.  (Then called Fort Orange).

The era depicted in Drums Along the Mohawk was during the American Revolution.  Just west of Albany, WAS the frontier.  Loyalist attacks with the occasional Seneca war party.  There were “good guy” Indians, in this and Last of the Mohicans.  In the former, it was the Oneida member Blue Back.  In the latter, Chingachgook and Uncas.

Forward to the Nineteenth Century, and the West.  Normally predictable.  Cavalry defeats Indians.  Even in the depiction of Custer in They Died with Their Boots on, you were not cheering for the Indians, so much as picking on Custer for his stupidity.

I was young, saw these movies as entertainment, without thinking of the consequences, for the people involved.  If I thought about it at all, just saw it from my young eyes as, “That’s the way it went.”  The cavalry were doing a job, the Indians, well, the Indians.  It’s the danger in dehumanizing people.

Living in Arizona now, have Native American friends and want to see things from their point of view.  Moral of story.  Reach out and don’t just watch and read what is popular and simple.

Shootings in the United States

The title is general.  As we go on, you will see why.   Shootings occur in other countries, but the United States is singled out because of the number of shootings we have.

Do I own a firearm?  No.  My wife doesn’t like them and the apartment complex I live in doesn’t allow them.  Would I own one if I could?  Probably.  I would need to decide what I would use the firearm for, which firearm would suit the purpose and make sure I had the right training.

You have to learn to drive a vehicle, fly a plane, or use tools properly.  A firearm is a tool  in the right hands!

What else has to be covered?  American culture and the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.  I know some of you are tired of hearing about the Second Amendment, but I will give you my take and philosophy of all this.

OK, go ahead yell at me, here’s the Second Amendment.    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A lawyer friend told me in a workshop she was presenting; “Watch where the commas are placed.”  Apparently, there are lawyers, who fight over these things.  I’m not a lawyer, but I know how to ask questions.  Let’s go comma by comma.

A well regulated militia.  If you just take that literally, regulated means controlled.  A controlled militia, with rules.  Does this mean the National Guard, or every local gun club?  Does government compel local communities to drill?    Necessary to a free state.  Again, important in the Eighteenth Century.  The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.  Arms mean firearms, and not be infringed.  If you take this literally, any gun control is illegal.

A lot has changed since the Eighteenth Century.  AR 15’s did not exist.  Nothing says you can ban them, but nothing against regulating them.  Yes, then you will have the many court cases to narrow it down.

OK, what about a new Constitutional Amendment, with more details than the Second Amendment?  That would have to be voted on in one of two ways:

1.  A two-thirds vote in both houses of the United States Congress.
2. Two-thirds of the fifty state legislatures.  (Thirty-eight states).

In realpolitik, do you see this happening now?

The National Rifle Association.   I posted the link, so people can see everything they do.  Unless the right to be a lobbyist, for anything is made illegal.  Again, needs a system change.

Criminal and psychological issues:  Yes, an AR-15 makes it easier to kill more people at a clip, but deal with the criminal, or mentally ill person with the AR-15.

One good thing about the guns in this country:  Besides two oceans to protect us, who in their right mind would invade us?

This is for my friends in other countries:  How far do you trust your government, with police, NOT to become repressive to you, as citizens?  I watched a program on PBS last Monday about civilian police departments in the United States getting old military armored vehicles.  Do they really need that?

There is also more than the mass shootings.  What about West Baltimore and the South Side of Chicago, with their homicide rates?  Our culture seems to take that for granted, but people in those neighborhoods have to live it.

Even with the mass shootings, unfortunately, I think we as a culture, (Not all, but many), have become numb.  Doesn’t the same thing happen after every mass shooting?  Sadness, questions asked, talking heads drone on, then it all fades.

For any of my readers, have you ever handled and fired a gun?  I have.  I felt both power and responsibility.  It was in 2008, when I took a class at the Tucson Citizens Police Academy, and they took us to their firing range.

Guns have always been a part of American culture.  The first Europeans didn’t land unarmed.  We had a violent revolution to break away from Britain.  As one of my Canadian friends stated, “Canada was released by Britain in 1867, with the British North America Act.”  It was completely non violent..

Where I’m going with this, is American culture would have to change drastically for complete gun control.     Countries have changed their cultures.  Japan eliminating the Samurai and scaling back their military after World War II.  Germany after World War II.  Those were all major catastrophic turning points.

The United States isn’t there, unfortunately.  Not enough people have been affected yet.  Not enough people are angry.  Look how long it took for labor conditions to improve, the Civil Rights Movement, for example.

Do I trust politicians?  In most cases, no.  They are going into politics for their reasons.

To sum up:  A solution will be a long time coming.  The way our laws are set,  especially the Second Amendment, the laws are on the books already for firearms.  The will has to be there for another Amendment for the Second Amendment, with more details.    Don’t trust most politicians on any issue.   What it adds up to though, is this country would need a major cultural shift to have what Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom have.  All very different societies.

What I wanted to do was ask questions.   All of the solutions create different issues.   If you take all the guns from the citizenry, it ups the chance of tyranny, from a malevolent government, that doesn’t have your best interests at heart.  If I’m going to disarm, I want civilian police to not have armored vehicles.  You can own an AR-15, but need to keep it at the range.  Where else are you going to use an AR-15 out and about, except for bad purposes?

If we have any gun laws, no more state or local restrictions, everything needs to be Federal, because our nation is so mobile.  I get that criminals don’t care about the laws.  We will still have shootings.  It’s what can we do to cut the number down.

For now, until laws change, this is what I would do.  Keep AR-15’s in storage at a local gun club.  The Second Amendment doesn’t say you can be freewheeling with the right to bear arms.  The amendment does point to a well regulated militia.  There are restraints.  Constant practice should be a given.  It works for the Swiss.   It may change down the road, but not now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eagles Bird Patriots.

There was Super Bowl XLII, a team called Patriots, and a team called Eagles, a symbol of America.

There are two teams in the National Football League with bad guy personas.  There are the out there Raiders, soon to be denizens of Las Vegas.  How long will that last?  They just keep moving.  They are like the biker gang, that rolls into town, wreaks havoc and rides on.

The Patriots are quieter, more like a Bond villain, without the flash.  Give Bill Belichick a Downeast Maine accent, it would complete the picture.

Well the Eagles pecked at the Patriots game plan.  There is next year.

They Come From the East.

You’ve been watching the news with refugees marching through Europe, on the way countries they think are the Promised Land.

They are leaving countries with violence and going into the unknown. Gambling the unknown is better than what they left. Things have to be pretty bad to give up what is known. In the United States, we have the people coming over our Southern border, but not like this.

We might have that if our border were deeper into Central America. In our case, most are economic migrants, except some of the ones from El Salvador and Honduras, which now have some of the higher murder rates in the world.

Before the American Civil War, people in free states helped slaves escape through what was called the Underground Railroad. Again, nothing like the numbers being seen in Europe.

I called this essay, ‘They Came from the East.’ Why? This history and genetics buff in me took over. Most population movements into Europe came from the East.

The modern people in Europe (not Neanderthals) headed North from the Balkans and through the Iberian Peninsula when the glaciers from the Ice Age retreated. The pattern is thus worldwide. Farmers replace Hunter-gatherers. In Europe, this began about 8000 years ago, with farmers venturing from the nearby Middle East. (The more things change, the more they remain the same.)

Then, the Indo-Europeans, in what’s now Southern Russia, domesticated the horse, were warlike and had iron weapons. They led the charge up the Danube and into the heart of Europe. Then you have the weakening of the Western Roman Empire. All these tribes are coming from the East and overwhelming the border. Sound familiar?

Now, you have the scenes in Greece, Macedonia, Budapest and the French port of Calais. How different is this from any other migration into Europe? You can watch it happening on a screen. It might have been interesting to show Goths and Huns on TV, but, of course, it didn’t happen.

They are still coming from the East.

Better Late Than Never Season Two:

Well, it’s Europe, but they added Morocco.  After all, it’s only eight miles from Spain.  Just a detour.

OK, let’s see.  Went to Germany for Henry Winkler, Sweden for Terry Bradshaw, cause he thinks he’s a Viking, until they were run out of the Viking camp.  Lithuania for William Shatner, and George Foreman.  I’ll get to that.

Jeff Dye, well, he’s just a sidekick and arranger.  🙂

Started with Munich.  Pretzels, beer, hangover.  I liked the nurse in the hangover hospital.  I’m in heaven.  No, you’re in Germany.  Oh does that conjure up images.  Terry Bradshaw naked in the park.  You need to know this, because it happens again.  Snowball fights at eight thousand feet on Germany’s highest mountain, looking into other countries, but how would you know the difference, unless you were told?  You just see mountains.  If the mountains are in Italy, is a bowl of pasta superimposed?  There was also the auto race, which was fun.

Then Stockholm.  Let’s see.  The fermented herring sounded fishy to me.  I like herring, but I’m not sure I would like this stuff, based on the reactions.  I already mentioned the Viking camp.  Terry Bradshaw, you’re no Viking warrior.  Then, the meatball restaurant, where the owner told them NOT to play with the balls, though Jeff Dye did a good job as a wide receiver catching meatball passes from Terry Bradshaw in his mouth.  They botched the formal dinner, when their instructor walked out.  Luckily Sweden was not at its imperial peak and Charles XII wasn’t king.  That might have gone badly.  They did well with Abba, though.

Then Lithuania.  The peasant village, well the rich Americans not pulling their weight.  Was touching about the dancers from the village William Shatner’s family came from.  George Foreman meeting the family of the boxer he fought in the 1968 Olympics.  He got to see the Lithuanian Boxing  Society members, but only after they had to judge goats.  They were goaded into that.  I knew the entrance to Russia was fake.  No sign of the big city of Kaliningrad, Konigsberg traditionally.  The mock KGB camp did put a good scare into them.  Only the pedantic history buff, (me) would know this.

Next, back in Germany, Berlin.  My goodness, Today show and Al Roker are there, surprise, surprise.  🙂  Terry Bradshaw as a Bear, not a Steeler?  (He wore a bear costume, bears are the symbol of Berlin).  When he took the head off, I liked the man who playfully asked, “So this is what you do in the off season?”  Fox Sports doesn’t pay enough, so Terry Bradshaw has to fly to Berlin and moonlight.

It was touching finding the stones in the street in front of where Henry Winkler’s family lived in Berlin and the letter left for him.  When they dressed up for the comedy club, that was great.

When William Shatner and Henry Winkler are shown sitting together chatting, I remember my Brooklyn roots.  The two old Jewish guys sitting on a bench on Eastern or Ocean Parkway.  (Two wide Brooklyn streets, with sidewalks and benches, for old Jewish guys to sit and kibbitz).  Just add Bernie Sanders to the mix.  I can see them sitting their and arguing.  I remember arguments like “What do you know?”  Kids knew not to throw their two cents in.  If was free entertainment.

Next stop, Spain:  Two stops there, first Barcelona.  Barcelona is still part of Spain, Catalonia hasn’t broken away yet, well certainly not if Spain has anything to say about it.

I admired Terry Bradshaw having the courage to do the para sailing.  Except as in Munich, he lost his pants.  Not sure what a shrink would say about it.

All that food.  Hey, looked interesting.  Then there was the art.  The Gaudi building, and the sculpture class where…Henry Winkler was the naked model?  Poor George Foreman, passed out as though Ali hit him.  Well George Foreman can sleep anywhere.  Must be imitating knockouts.

The human tower was amazing, poor Terry Bradshaw couldn’t look as the little girl climbed all the way to the top.

Then down the road to Madrid.  Bullfights.  They all managed to survive.

 

Ah, now Morocco, exotic, William Shatner kissing the cobra on the lips?  Don’t the red shirts in Star Trek normally pull stunts like that.  The Go Kart race was fun.  The wishes they got, especially the visit to the boxing gym.

Will there be a third season?  I hope so.  I have two suggestions for trips.

1.  Israel:   George Foreman is the most recognized group member.  Terry Bradshaw the least.  I’ve read American Football is catching on in Israel, with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft paying for football fields and bringing NFL Hall of Famers to Israel.  Terry, may finally get some respect, like Rodney Dangerfield.  Shatner and Winkler are both Jewish, George Foreman is an ordained minister.  Jeff Dye can ogle the gorgeous women in the Israel Defense Force, (Careful Jeff, they have guns).
2. More of Africa.  Have George Foreman’s DNA done and see if a specific African group in a specific country can be traced.  Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, (In the 1970’s. Zaire), where George Foreman fought Ali in the “Rumble in the Jungle.”  Then, maybe Nigeria, and definitely South Africa.

 

Not sure how the countries are normally chosen.  For example in Europe, would have expected France and the United Kingdom  Who asked me?

The show’s funny.  None of the United States Ambassadors to these countries have been called in to explain this, nor are Ambassadors from these countries camped out on the State Department doorstep, though there’s always a first.

Keep it up, gentlemen.  The show’s funny, and we have to keep our Ugly American image, somehow!  Thank you for the fun.