The fun continued yesterday when I got on a plane for a simple one-hour flight. Everything was on time. We boarded on time. Pulled away from the gate on time (of course, “they” do that because that means it’s an “on-time departure.” They
may pull back 10 yards and stay there, but it’s “on time.”) We did that, pulled back, sat there a bit. 

Then we moved into line for takeoff! And moved up in line! And sat. In silence. No word from the pilot. He’s too focused on …sitting there, idling and waiting. Finally, after about 20 minutes he comes on the loudspeaker and says, and this is a quote: “Well, we have some weather (Editor’s Note: We ALWAYS have weather, sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad.) And we’ll be getting an update from ATC in 10 minutes.” Every profession has its jargon; it’s just that folks not in that profession don’t know it, which, I guess is what makes it jargon, or a secret language or a code.  I didn’t know what ATC meant and figured he slipped and told us about some secret airline/weather agency he shouldn’t have mentioned and we shouldn’t know about.

Fifteen minutes later he came on and said, and this is a quote: “Well, the traffic is pretty crowded flying north so ATC is trying to find us a new route and we should know that in 13 minutes. So, you can use your electronic devices and I’ll
get back to you in 15 minutes. I’m going to shut down one engine now and I’ll be back to you in 30 minutes with an update.” THAT is a quote! Thirteen minutes, 15 minutes and 30 minutes, three different messages in three sentences. Instilled real confidence in that pilot who I’m trusting to take me up 35,000 feet and fly me 400 miles and get me back on terra firma safely.

Now, the guy over one row and back one is on the phone, talking in too loud a voice to be on an airplane and I’m getting a tad annoyed but don’t say anything for the sake of peace in the cabin. The flight attendants announce drink service and
bring around … water. I took it to avoid dehydration, but pretended it was Macallan 12.

I opened my book, again, (“Whitey Bulger”) and read about a guy who killed people almost for the fun of it. Probably not the “how-to” book to be reading right then. The woman sitting next to me and I exchanged not a word all this time (not a complaint, just a comment). The woman across the aisle is fidgeting because she’s been on three business trips in a month and misses her kids.

Thirty-five minutes later the pilot comes back on to say he’s still waiting to hear from ATC (Anybody to Call??). Some time goes by, along with more silence from the cockpit. Then the plane starts rolling. We appear to be moving, after nearly two
hours of not moving, into position for takeoff. But no word from the pilot  so I figure we’re not taking off yet, maybe just moving to a more out –of-the-way spot on the tarmac (short for tarmacadam, did you know that?) And then, we are up in the air, I assume on our way to our destination now that ATC has, I assume, approved us, in secret, of course.

No warning, no announcement nothing, just we are on our way. 
 
As soon as we landed, that loudmouth one row over and one back is on the phone immediately and, as the rest of us are standing up, getting ready to “deplane,”  I hear him say: “Yeah, he got laid off today and then he went to Galveston
because he’s seeing someone there. He just got divorced and it was a pretty nasty breakup …”

I got into the terminal and immediately went to the ATC for relief.

I made a trip a couple of weeks ago that, when I was on it, was aggravating and frustrating and now, with a week or two of unwinding, is funny (kinda).

The “fun” started when I landed in Manchester, N.H., and went to the rental counter to pick up my car. The nice young woman at the counter went about her business, processing my rental and then, holding my driver’s license, said, “Sir, did you know that your license has expired?” (In the category of Things I Wanted to Say But Didn’t: No, I didn’t know it had expired or I wouldn’t have tried to rent a car, knowing that would be wrong.)  Instead, I took the license back to check myself because I NEVER let anything expire nor (almost ever) pay a bill late. Indeed, it had expired four days prior, on my birthday. I live in the District of Columbia, not known for its great customer service, and I had not received a notice that it was about to expire (as I was supposed to).

Fortunately, I was travelling with someone else to the meeting and she had a (valid) license and rented the car. I then got on the phone to my wife, who is good on the computer (she’s been to the end of the Internet and back) and asked her to see if she could renew my license online. I then went back about helping my friend find her way to our destination.

A few miles out from the airport, I heard a noise similar to that thumping you hear when you get a flat tire (a rarity these days, I know, but I’d had one just a few weeks before. See June 7th post.). We pulled over so I could check the tires (the extent of my mechanical abilities) and none were flat. So, we get back on the road and, after a minute or two, the noise returns, louder. We pull over. “Sounds like a belt,” my travelling companion and now driver, said. I didn’t know engines still had belts, so figured she must be right. 

We then called the rental company’s “roadside assistance” number, expecting a tow track would appear in moments and/or a new car would be brought to me (I mean, this was an enterprising rental company, if you get my drift). Instead the woman on the phone, who clearly was not in New Hampshire but somewhere else in the United States, said to me you need to drive to the our nearest store and we’ll give you a new car. So much for picking me up.  “Roadside assistance” apparently nowadays means, “call us from the side of the road and we’ll answer!” 
 
Where, I said, is the nearest outlet? Since she was not of New Hampshire, she asked our location. Not being of New Hampshire either I made some calculations and guessed my location. There’s a shop in such and such a city, she said, and I said, no, that’s too far away (as if I really knew). She said there’s one in Bedford, I said that’s closer, good. She checked and said, “But they have no cars.” So, not a great candidate to trade vehicles.

Finally, I said we’d return to the airport, which we did. A smiling young man in a bright white shirt welcomed us and said “How can I help you?” I said we just rented this car 30 minutes ago and it’s making a loud noise and I want a new car. “Yes, sir,” he said, “we’ll get you in a new one!” At that, another not-so-smiling young man in a white shirt jumped into the car we had and drove out of the garage. I kept asking where my new car was and the first young man, smiling,
said “Yes, sir, we’ll get you a new one!” Before he got me a new one, the other young man returned with our original car and said, “did you have the back windows cracked open?” I said I didn’t really know, but doubt it since we had the air conditioning on. “Well,” the second not-so-smiling young man said, “the windows were cracked open and THAT was the noise you heard. The compression of the open window hits the doohickey of the whathickey and produces that noise.” I
said, if that’s the case, then it's worst designed car I’ve ever seen and I want a new car. “We’ll get you a new one!” the first, smiling, young man said! And, finally, they did and we drove off, again.

Talked to my wife who was able to get me a temporary license over the computer and, after talking to a public servant, because the computer would not accept the license number on my license as valid, even though it was a valid license number. That government servant told her that I was, indeed, notified my license was expiring via email, which is how the efficient city government does it nowadays. (No, I did not receive such an email because had I received it, you
know what I would have done? I would have RENEWED MY LICENSE).

Needless to say, when I got to my destination, that Macallan 12 tasted extra good.

I’ve been involved with writing of one sort or another for more than 45 years – I was a reporter, in press work in politics, a public relations consultant. I have been involved with hiring folks who need to write (from speechwriters to op-ed writers to just people who can send an understandable email to others) for almost as many years.  

I came to the conclusion long ago that writing is becoming, unfortunately, a lost art/craft. Finding good writers is very hard. I’ve always thought it’s because our schools don’t focus anymore on the three R’s (readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic) like when “I was a kid.” There’s a piece in the New York Times today -- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-english-major.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
– written by someone who’s been a college professor and laments, in the article, the loss of humanities majors as young folks focus on majors more likely to pay off quickly in a job to pay their bills and make their parents proud (both excellent goals).

You can read the piece, of course, on your own but one of the points is that there are fewer humanities majors than 20 years ago. For example at Yale University there were 165 English Lit graduates in 1991. In 2012, there were 62.

Some folks these days (and in older days, I think it’s just much more prevalent now) think good writing is using words you don’t use in every day conversation The author of the column – Verlyn Klinkenborg, a Times ed board member, author and college professor – says that in his experience,  “Whenever I teach older students …I find a vivid, pressing sense of how much they need the skill they didn’t acquire earlier in life. They don’t call that skill the humanities. They don’t call it literature. They call it writing — the ability to distribute their thinking in the kinds of sentences that have a merit….” 
  
A former boss of mine, the late Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige – who was an English major at Yale many years ago – used to ask people who work for him to write somewhere between, Hemingway and Zane Grey, the author of untold Westerns, written in plain English. When I was a reporter, folks used to say they liked my articles because, “you write like you talk.” Great literature, no, but I guess I could communicate through writing.

Writing hits everything you do whether you are working in a career focused on writing or not – you have to communicate in writing be that via memos, emails, or whatever. And, it’s not just the skill of writing; it’s how writing something down focuses you on explaining and organizing your thoughts. It forces you to think about what you want to say and, then, how to say it. Being a good writer also can organize how you speak, to explain things.

I am not a grammarian. I don’t know how to use commas properly, for example; or when to use a semi-colon, so I don’t know if I just used it correctly or not. I was educated long before computers and spell-check took over society. Spell-check is nice, but it’s not always correct. There’s an old-fashioned device that can help. It’s called the dictionary.
 
And, since I’m not a grammarian, I have had a copy of Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” on my desk for reference for about 40 years – yes, the same copy I bought 40 years ago. Despite what the current generation tells you (whichever current generation over time), English doesn’t change all that much.

Short  answer: I don’t know. But I do know that many of our new “frontrunners for the 2016 nomination” aren't defining that path either.

I just read a piece by Bobby Jindal, Louisiana GOP governor, who said he’s laid out seven “ideas for change.” Let me briefly sum them up: stop looking back, compete for every vote, reject identity politics, stop being the stupid party, stop insulting the intelligence of voters, stop being the party of  “big,” focus on people not government. (Read his call to stop the navel gazing here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/bobby-jindal-opinion-gop-needs-action-92933.html?hp=l8)

Thanks, governor…but where are the ideas for change? I see navel gazing. Now where do you lay out a policy path for change, which is what the Republican Party really needs. I know the Tea Party types think they have that, and what they have is 100 percent acceptable…by them.

How about instead of stopping things, moving things forward. Like, on immigration which is now stalled in Washington after great fanfare that THIS would be the year to pass it. Or gun control, which never got going despite the emotion and horror over the Newtown shooting even after the great fanfare that THIS was the year to get it done. Or, well, or a lot of things.  

Jindal’s seven ideas for change amount to a hill of beans. I agree with most of them, but that isn’t change – that’s just smart rhetoric to make him sound anything but a Tea Party-er. The party needs sensible ideas on POLICY. That’s that thing that doesn’t move in Washington anymore. Let me say it again POLICY. There, that’s the change we can all believe in. ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING. Not building stonewalls on every important issue simply to position yourselves – Republicans and Democrats – for the next election. Tell you what, I'll take just one idea -- just one -- on how to get something done in Washgington because they aren't getting anything done in Washington of any signficance.

One thing I definitely agree with Jindal on –stop insulting the intelligence of the American voter. They aren’t the ones demanding 30-second ads. You’re the ones giving them to us. They aren’t demanding sound bites to fit a short cable news piece. That’s what you give us. We aren’t demanding whistle stops at airports substituting as talking to the American people. You perform those, you pack the audience with supporters and you get the pictures you want, all happy, exciting and accepting warm for 24-hour news channels. What choice do we have?

Jindal does lay out some policy in his treatises on governing (or, better put, on his positioning himself to run for president) but they are generalities we can all agree on: a government that provides a level playing field, creating a
sustainable energy policy, a better education system. You won me over, governor, I want all those things.  Thanks
for the destination. Now, whither the route to get there from here?

Your eye should immediately go to the lower part of this picture. (No, not the cheerleader's legs, President Bush's socks). 

In a break from the hard-core discussion of Washington politics, the frustrations of driving, travel and national spelling bees – let’s get back to the topic of … SOCKS!

President George H. W. Bush has taken to wearing outlandish socks, as many of you may be aware from past posts about his, and my, ankle apparel. And, tomorrow, June 12, is his 89th birthday. So, the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation is celebrating by asking everyone to wear their craziest pair of socks and posting a picture. For details: http://www.georgebushfoundation.org/socks.

There also is a pretty funny riff on the presidential sock habit by Barbara Bush here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx5ZE5nE9X8.

So, join the fun, put on nutty socks, and celebrate “41’s” 89th!
 

Today is my birthday. I am 63 years old. As this realization hit me, I wondered, as I’m sure we all do, “how did THAT happen?” I longed to be just a little bit younger. As I was mourning my aging process, I was also reading today’s Washington Post. The article is about the Newtown, Conn., shootings. You can read it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-newtown-shooting-mourning-parents-enter-into-the-lonely-quiet/2013/06/08/0235a882-cd32-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html?hpid=z3

 The reporter, Eli Saslow, basically takes you through a few days in the life of one set of parents who lost their seven-year-old son, Daniel, to that senseless act of violence seven months ago. It is a heart-wrenching story, and, at times, tear-producing. It’s not often a news story makes me cry. This one did.

How can you not lose it when you read about young parents losing young children who simply went to school that day? Those parents are frozen in time. They can’t move, yet, beyond the tremendous loss they have suffered; the tremendous loss of young, innocent lives that did no wrong.

The fear those children must have felt; the lack of understanding of what or at least why this was happening to them. We all feel that feeling, why did this happen. We’ll likely never know.

Those parents are fighting for gun control, at least a realistic form of gun control that, if they achieve it, will give them at least a moment’s satisfaction that they did something positive with their grief. Maybe in that moment of satisfaction, they won’t grieve as painfully the loss of their children, before that sense of deep loss returns.

Today, for me, reading that story made me glad that I’m 63 years old.  Far worse things have happened to other people.

My dad, who passed away three years ago at age 92, bought a Honda Accord in 1993. Had a sun roof, had that new fancy cruise control, power windows, “loaded” as we used to say.
 
My guess is he never rolled back the sun roof and never used the cruise control. Twenty years later, I’m driving that car having taken over ownership when my parents moved into assisted living. I leave her (I call her Hillary Honda) stored in a garage over the colder months, rescue her in the summer and use her as our summer car at our retirement-destination in Massachusetts.

A few weeks ago, when I took Hillary out of storage the battery needed a major recharging, not having survived, as it has the past few winters, with the aid of The Tickler, a device that keeps the battery charged. Took it to my local mechanic who replaced what I think was the ORIGINAL battery in the car. That battery survived TWENTY YEARS without dying.  It was a battery with the Honda logo on it, which is why I think it was the original. My dad, an accountant by education, kept meticulous records and had the oil changed every 3,000 – 4,000 miles like clockwork. When I took ownership of the car, it had about 87,000 miles on it. Today, it has 91,000 (I repeat, it is 20 years old. That’s an  average of 4,550 miles a year).

Today, I took it to the Honda dealer because, when we replaced the battery, the anti-theft device on the radio killed the code and the only place I knew it to be was on the radio, so it had to be pulled out of the dashboard.  (You're thinking my dad wasn’t as meticulous as I thought but my guess is he did write the code down, I just couldn’t find it.)

 “When we got it up on the lift (it also had a flat), we couldn’t believe what good shape it’s in,” the guy at the dealer told me today.   “The technician wants to buy it, and so do I, if you want to sell it.” My local mechanic offered to buy it, also. 

Good feeling when you’re driving a 20-year-old car and the experts want to buy it. 
 
I’m debating selling it after this summer since it’s getting close to the time I’ll retire and move to Massachusetts, and we already have two cars (my nearly 10-year-old Beetle convertible and my wife’s 20-year old Ford pickup, also in
excellent shape).

I’m starting to think about selling the Honda now because it will take me a long time to get myself prepared to give it up. Not just because it’s in great shape, but because every time I drive it, I picture my father behind the wheel.

And how is that not a keeper?


 

I flew north over the weekend to see my two oldest grandsons graduate from high school. It reminded me why I don’t like flying – other people, which is the same reason I don’t much enjoy driving. I got a double-dose on this trip. I drove from Washington to Baltimore to get the plane to Hartford, drove from Hartford two hours further north to where the kids live, and did the same on the return. This gave me the “joy” of plane and car travel all in one trip! I am blessed.

On the plane, well, of course you get jostled by folks moving toward their seats, bumping into you, slapping their carry-ons against you. That, nowadays, goes without saying. Worse, you get the person who’s in the seat behind you who always needs – whether young or older – to grab onto the top of your seat to help them ease their way down into their seat. This, of course, means they are pulling the back of your seat about five inches and jolting you. I really don’t know why they need to do that when the plane is on the ground and stable (I don’t really know why they’d need to do it if it were in the air. But there you go.) Then again, when they do it, can’t they say, “Excuse me” or something that at least acknowledges they are disturbing you in a really annoying and physical way? Do they think I didn’t notice? 

A woman behind me today kept putting things in and taking things out of that seat back where they keep the air safety card that no one ever takes out when the flight attendant asks us to. The woman behind me must  have had  man-hands because she dug her knuckles into my back each time she pulled something out, or put it back.
 
And, of course, there also is always that guy who is carrying one bag, and has a computer bag or briefcase slung over his shoulder so that when he pivots to look for room in the bin opposite you, slams you in the head with his bag. More joy.

Also, have you noticed that each time you get on a plane, the plane seems smaller – you have less leg room and your knees are coming closer to the back of the seat ahead of you? And those bins ARE smaller; the flight attendant admitted it on my flight today. (I tried to figure out why they would make the bins smaller when that gives the passenger no more room –unless you are seven-feet tall and you get more headroom while you get less leg  room.)

It goes without saying that when you’re driving on major highways you always get those folks who swerve in and out of your lane so they can pass whoever is ahead of them that they feel is going too slow to meet their needs, even if it is
within the speed limit. Actually, I don’t know why our taxpayer dollars are wasted on speed-limit signs when most drivers seem to view them as suggestions, and not the law.

To make if even more fun, there were major thunderstorms in the Northeast this weekend so I drove parts of the way in conditions that in a snowstorm would be considered  “white-out." That way, though, I really didn’t even see the cars  swerving in and out of my lane because I couldn’t see five feet in front of me.

 I  have to say that in a weird way the travails of travel were worth it though. I got to see a significant milestone for the two 18-year-olds and got to be with all my grandchildren. Still. 

Everything in today's society turns into a controversy, and the Scripps National Spelling Bee is no exception. The Most Enjoyable News Story I Have Ever Read appears in today's New York Times. You can find it here - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/nyregion/some-say-spelling-of-a-winning-word-wasnt-kosher.html?hpw&_r=0 .

Actually, if I were you, I'd go read that now, rather than the rest of this post because it is laugh out loud funny! Especially if you're of Jewish heritage. You cannot read it without thinking either of one of the old (funny) Woody Allen movies or the deli scene from When Harry Met Sally. You have to read parts of it with your Jewish grandmother's voice playing in your head.

Basically, it lays out the debate over the proper spelling of knaidel (a doughy dumpling or matzo ball), the word that won the spelling bee the other night for Arvind V. Mahankali. Among the experts interviewed, the reporter went to Queens and talked to 80 and 90 year old Jewish folks (it doesn't get any better than them in a disagreement). It also will remind you of every conversation you had with a non-Jew over the pronunciation of Chanukah or Hanukkah. Non-Jews never get the "ch" or "kh" sound straight in their minds. And, when the do, they still can't pronounce the holiday.

Have you read that Times piece yet? No? Then go now, I'm done. And  you'll enjoy that article tremendously. I know I have a lot of chutzpa to say that. But in this case, I am right.