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The first meeting of 'the greats'

6/30/2021

We scheduled June 20, at first not knowing it was Father’s Day, for the re-gathering of my kids, grandkids and me post-pandemic. The day offered extra joy because, for the first time, I’d be meeting my great-granddaughter, Ophelia, who was born in December.

We drove the two hours to my daughter’s house and upon reaching the deck of her home, I immediately saw my great-granddaughter playing with her father at the picnic table. She was, at first glance, even more beautiful than the pictures I’d been collecting of her from her birth. She also was smiling and clearly a very happy child.

I did not immediately approach her, assuming that babies can be a little apprehensive around new faces. I indeed was a new face as those gathered had all had met her. Her other set of great-grandparents visit her often since they live nearby and they sat close to her.

I made the rounds of hugging my kids for the first time in more than a year and took a seat at the opposite end of the table from Ophelia.

She peeked (I think) at me but it could have been her just looking around at the table full of relatives.
So there I sat, talking to my middle daughter for a bit, occasionally peeking over at Ophelia, anticipating holding her soon.

Eventually, my first daughter, the grandmother (I still haven’t fully accepted that my daughter is a grandmother) carried Ophelia toward me. She approached slowly. Carefully. And tenderly put Ophelia in my arms for the very first time. She took one look at me, scrunched up her mouth in what i thought was going to be her first smile at me. And…she wailed like a dangerous psycho was holding her!

I bounced her in my arms, I rubbed her belly as if she was a genie's bottle and she magically would stop crying. She didn’t. The experience lasted about two minutes before my daughter took control back. Ophelia calmed down.

We all chuckled.

Disappointing, yes, but understandable because, well, I was a new face.

The party went on and eventually my daughter again approached me softly, quietly with Ophelia in her arms. Ophelia looked at me as if she was acknowledging I was no longer a threat. She was placed gingerly in my arms and…she wailed even louder than the first time.

This time, I quickly handed her back to my daughter rather than have the child get even more upset.

My wife took a nice picture of me with Ophelia in my arms for the first time, crying her eyes out. I posted it on Facebook, because that’s what we do these days, right? It has so far gathered 217 likes. I don’t know what the normal total of “likes” average people get is, but for me, that was a record.

Why expose the lovely Ophelia now to the addition of a blog post about her? I mean do the literally tens of people who follow this blog need to know this?

Well, she’s just that cute…and she can’t read yet so I think we’re safe from the wailing.

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What's in a (my) name?

6/23/2021

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Most of us go through life and when someone asks, “what’s your name?” and you tell them, immediate reaction is to say “nice to meet you.”

My name leads to other issues. When folks ask my name I typically respond, “B. Jay Cooper.” Now that is easier to pronounce, say, than Georgeanne Pauladunkus, but it’s what happens after that gets more complicated.

For decades some folks call me “Jay” because, I guess, when they hear or see “B. Jay” they immediately think the “B” is silent and I become “Jay.” ("Jay” actually is a name I do not like on its own. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know. I just don’t like “Jay” out there naked and alone -- no offense to the Jays out there. Though I did like all the Jays in Jay and the Americans.) Most who call me Jay don't know me well or see me often so I don't correct them.

Others may hear my name and, if they write me an email or letter, it becomes “B.J. Cooper.” Now, in my 71 years of life – actually in my first 12 years of life – I’ve heard everything that B. J. can possibly stand for. Yes, that too. It’s an immature reaction to a name but then again I guess that’s what 12-year-olds do, or those whose intelligence stopped growing at the age of 12.

That's the reason I spell out "Jay" and my nickname is "B. Jay."

I also often get (this happened again just last week, in fact), “Oh, ha-ha, are you related to D.B. Cooper?” (For those too young to remember, look him up. Briefly though, D.B. Cooper was a name the media gave to Dan Cooper who in the 1970s hijacked a plane, was given $200,000 in ransom money and who proceeded to parachute out of the plane never to be seen again. He was presumed dead. But his body was never found. Thus he became a folk legend.)

The history of how I became “B. Jay” is brief but not simple. My full name is “Barry Jay Cooper.” When I was like 3 or 4 years old my mother nicknamed me B. Jay because, family lore has it, she had a friend who was called JB (John B.) and she liked the sound of it so I became “B. Jay.” (Interestingly decades later I reconnected with the daughter of “JB’ who told me he wasn’t called JB at all. )

Most of my childhood friends call me “B. Jay.” When I’d move to new areas where no one knew me, I often briefly became “Barry,” my legal first name. Like in college because that's the name the prof would use. Then again in my golf club identity, guys call me “B. Jay” and a few call me “Barry” because I originally gave them that name. Of course, when I sign anything legal, my name is “Barry.” I normally can tell where people know me from by what they call me. Or actually, really don’t know me.

When I worked for a newspaper and a story I wrote was going to earn me my first byline, the city editor nicely came by and asked what I wanted my byline to read. I said, well, my name is Barry so I guess Barry Cooper. He said, “yeah but everyone calls you ‘B. Jay and that’s a way cooler byline." Thus, my name professionally from that day on became “B. Jay Cooper.”

(Well, except for that one time that I wrote that I thought was a cute feature story on a bee hive that took up residence in a gift shop named “The Bee’s Nest.” To be extra cute, in the lede of the story I changed every “B” word to start with “bee-” instead of “B.” To be overly cute the fella who edited that story proceeded to change every “B” word in the entire story to start with “bee-.” Unbeknownst to me until I saw the paper the next day, he also changed my byline to “Bee Jay Cooper.” I said, too cute didn’t I?)

How’d I get the name “Barry?” Family lore (again) has it that my mother was going to name me Gary but ultimately decided that there already was a Gary Cooper (again, young folks, look him up) in the world and she didn’t want me teased about it my entire life. Yes, the same woman who dubbed me “B. Jay/BJ.”

There’s really no end to this story nor any point.

Just struck me as bee-musing.

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Voting law changes threaten our democracy

6/16/2021

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Both parties, understandably, seek partisan advantage in the debate over voting laws.

Republicans are trying to restrict voting to decrease the number of votes turned out among constituencies they consider more favorable to Democrats.

Democrats seek to stop the Republican efforts to restrict voting in areas that hurt them and to expand programs used during the pandemic (to lessen voters risks to the virus), such as expanding the time to submit and count absentee ballots and Sunday voting. Democrats believe the more voters vote in those areas, the better their changes of winning.

What no one in either party says is what is good for the average voter – the people those lawmakers are elected to represent.

What is that? I think it’s that voters want more options to cast legitimate ballots. Times have changed. Many families have both parents working. Those families led by a single parent need to balance work and child care and so need options on how to cast their vote.

Why should that be done? Because the spine of a democracy is voters casting ballots freely to determine who should be leading them at the federal, state and local levels. Seems a basic to offer those options to them.

Some new state laws take the secretary of state – the official in charge of election management – out of the process to decide when a vote is final and certified. Most if not all of those secretaries of state – Democrat or Republican -- take their jobs seriously. They only want oversee and certify a fair election. That is their sworn duty.

When that responsibility shifts to a state’s legislature it pushes that vote certification to people with a vested interest in the outcome. It brings partisanship into the counting where it doesn’t belong. State legislators in those cases become the ones deciding not necessarily who fairly won the election, but which way an election goes because it’s good for them or their party.

That’s not democracy.

There is some debate over whether we are witnessing the beginning of the end of democracy in America. If we lose the ability to have a fair and legal election, that will happen. Politicians will be deciding who wins, not the voters.

Donald Trump didn’t start this. His positions before and since the election, though, contributed mightily to the perceived need for major changes in election laws by claiming for years really that elections are not decided fairly. That is sparking the dozens of voting law changes around the country.

Trump has convinced about millions of American voters and a majority of Republican voters that the 2020 election was stolen from him. It was not.

Whatever one thinks about Trump and his policies, you have to admit his carnival barking rivals P.T. Barnum.

One reason Trump was so focused on getting the Republican secretary of state in Georgia to change the election results was because he thought if he could "demonstrate" one state got the counting wrong, he could move on to other states with more credibility. He knew the number of votes he needed and he considered that Republican secretary of state in Georgia “his” person since Trump is the leader of the party.

When that official, Brad Raffensberger, refused to cheat for Trump, Raffensberger demonstrated the ethics of all secretaries of state, dedicated to an honest election. With the changes some states are making, a Raffensberger will be removed from the certification process.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, never the statesman, recently said, “The idea of democracy and majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for. The Jim Crow laws came out of democracy. That’s what you get when a majority ignores the rights of others.”

Not exactly, Senator. That’s what you get when a misguided and/or prejudiced majority ignores the rights of others – just as your party is doing in the states now.

Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who lectured on politics at Bowdoin College before going to the Senate, called the American democracy, “a 240-year experiment that runs against the tide of humanity” and that tide usually leads from and back to authoritarianism. King fears the empowerment of state legislatures to decide election results. “This is an incredibly dangerous moment and I don’t think it’s being sufficiently realized as such,” he said.

Put in other words, the future of the country literally is at stake with some of the voting law changes being proposed, and adopted.

While people are focused on the pandemic, on providing for their families, on finding jobs, on health care, on child care and more, not many are likely focused on the changes being made and proposed to voting laws around the country. Understandably. A vast majority of Americans think that last election was fairly decided and recognize Joe Biden as President.

Neither side is 100 percent right on this issue. The principal on voting is simple: it ought to allow everyone the opportunity to cast a legal vote and have their vote counted – whichever way an election goes.

If we lose that, we do lose America.

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The new nearly normal

6/2/2021

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Things are not back to “normal” in this not-quite-post pandemic moment.

While many of us are fully vaccinated, many are not. While new cases are down (thanks to the vaccine), there sill are new cases. While deaths, thankfully, are down, there still are deaths.

That’s why, when I walked into the grocery store the other day, I wore my mask. As I headed to the deli counter, half a big-box store away, I all of a sudden saw people wearing masks – and NOT wearing masks. This was not the normal I’ve been living the past year. When I got to the counter, I asked the fella getting things I requested if we needed masks anymore. He said only if you’re more comfortable that way. Being fully vaccinated, I removed mine.

Then I walked around the grocery just wandering for a few minutes as I took in the new environment of non-mask wearing. I still, of course, wonder if the non-mask wearers were vaccinated or not. There’s obviously no way to tell.

It’s also not back to normal because I still see, every time a TV news story comes on about the pandemic, accompanying video of needles going into arms. Literally. This has been going on since the vaccine became available. Close-up shots of nurses putting needles in arms, the insertion causing an initial depression of the skin. Every time I see it, I react as if I’m being punctured. Seeing the pictures hurts more than the vaccine shot did, which the first time I didn’t know even went in.

I went into our local fish store yesterday, not a huge space. Prior to the “lifting” of restrictions she allowed only four individuals into a store at a time, masks required. I wore mine in yesterday, and asked the policy. Masks required only if you wanted. The store workers still wore their masks. The woman helping me said, “We see more people every day than others” so she was wearing the mask. She thanked me for asking if I needed a mask, though.

Again, that’s not a “normal” question. I likely will be asking it for a while before I feel “normal” again. I need, and I suspect some of you need, some time to remember what was normal before this hideous pandemic arrived.

With most restrictions being lifted, I still worry about more serious outbreaks around the country, with the victims those who refuse to get vaccinated. With bars, stadiums and other venues unlimited in number who can attend, the risk just multiplied many fold.

To try to motivate those not yet vaccinated to get their shots, many states are offering incentives. Like a million dollar lottery or two. I saw one kid, still in grammar school, won a full-ride college scholarship!

What gets me most about those programs to incentivize the unvaccinated is that we even need them. I don’t care that they may get a million bucks while I got nothing – well, except being protected against a deadly disease! That was plenty of incentive for me.

The feeling I got just scheduling the first dose was freeing.

President Biden and others are saying it’s a patriotic duty to get vaccinated. I agree. It’s also a human duty. It protects you and me and that person in the grocery store who I don’t know.

Mostly, it protects you. If you haven’t please get vaccinated. Don’t trust the vaccine? Look around, millions have gotten the vaccine with no ill effects at all.

You can enjoy the “freedoms” I now do without getting vaccinated. But there likely is a limit on that freedom. It isn’t risk-free.

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The first meeting of 'the greats'

What's in a (my) name?

Voting law changes threaten our democracy

The new nearly normal

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