New View Askew

  Solstice  Dawn  (Geez, seems like it shows up in same spot every year!) Annus Horribilis. (No, it doesn't mean horrible pain in the ass - although this year might qualify.) It means "Horrible year" and that's what Queen Elizabeth thought of her 1992. Kinda makes you wonder what she thinks of this year. Anyway, it's been a stinker alright but hold fast, the greatest day of the year is at hand!  For the past many years I have done my best with various solstice stories to help my fellow Northern Hemispherians get through this longest of nights. I had hoped that I could retire or at least slack off a bit but no, this horribilis year requires that I man up and see you through this vale of tears once again. This has been a terrible year, no doubt about it, a horrible year and some say the worst ever. But is it? Let's see: 1347AD , Black Death, 200 million dead. 1520 , Hernan Cortez invades Mexico, kills of 9 of 10 Aztecs through war and disease. 1943 , WWII rages,

  I’m an older guy, a retired military officer and a person who thought he had seen everything in this crazy world. Yet here I am, as bewildered at the next person and wondering what is going on in my country.                                                                      President-Elect Joe Biden We just had an election in which the pollsters were apparently wrong again (except in MN, thank God!) Despite projections – and fervent hope by Democrats – the election was very close in a lot of races and went the opposite way in many others. The big surprise, at least to me, is not that Biden won the popular vote by a substantial margin (which sadly doesn’t matter with our goofy electoral system) but that Trump did so well. I am shocked , as are many others, I think,  that millions of our fellow countrymen would vote for someone that a huge number (most?) of Americans see as deeply flawed and totally undeserving of re-election. In fact, I'm shocked that anyone is shocked that he l

  Like over 75 million other Americans – the greatest winning vote total in history - I am happy with the defeat of Donald Trump, who shockingly had second highest vote total. Yet somehow, I find it hard to be happy about the overall outcome. I’m not talking about politically disappointing, although that is probably true for pretty much everyone on both sides who voted. No, I‘m very dissatisfied with continued gridlock. More accurately, I am unhappy that most of us consider this a good outcome. It strikes me that when the only thing we agree on is that gridlock, for one reason or another, is a natural and positive goal – I won’t get anything but then neither will you! - it speaks to a uniquely American preference for wanting a government that doesn’t work.   I know, I get it, the Founding Fathers in their wisdom created this interbranch tension to make sure no one branch could overpower the others; they obviously they wanted to limit what the government could do and it worked great i

Celebrating Labor in a Time of Pandemic What could be a better time than this particular Labor Day to contemplate the nature and meaning of labor in modern America – and, of course, offer the workers our thanks. When I was a kid, a long time ago, I didn’t think about workers or labor very much. My dad was a laborer and I always worked from the time I was in high school on but I just didn’t think much about it. I guess I always had the image of average men and women going off to work every day doing regular jobs at factories and folks like carpenters and plumbers. Working-class people doing things like building the Hoover Dam or the Interstate highway system and, when I was 21, helped put a man - an American man - on the moon. Solid, middle class folks. Certainly we still have many tradespeople but much of that world is gone now; this is a modern service economy. Today many of us work from home, attending (Zoom) meetings, creating spreadsheets and PowerPoints and d

Marc Gilbertson Aug 30 1949 - Jul 30 2020 I think everyone knows that as you get older, especially as you get really older, you should expect to start losing things: your hair, your memory, your energy . . . your friends. However, I don’t think anyone expects to lose two friends – two good, dear friends - in the span of less than a month. It’s just not right, especially when they had so much life ahead of them. I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s right, nobody said that life is fair. There is a special place in my heart for Marc and there is an additional sad irony that as with Bob Luttio, who was also a friend of Marc's, I had known him since 1975. They were totally different people yet only in their personalities not in the depth of our friendship. (Keeping a friendship going for 45 years shows what kind of people they both were.) Marc and friends - brief respite from hardworking AF Trip to Utah When I joined the unit Marc was this big, handsome dude that wa

There Will Never Be Anyone Like the Lootz Nov 23 1948 - Jul 2 2020 Three Amigos in FL Preparing for Senior Tour - Circa 2011 (and Bob with his beloved peeper keepers!) “So, what are your wrists doing in your backswing, do you pronate or supinate?” Bob once asked me, regarding my crappy golf swing. (My answer is unprintable here.) That, in a capsule, was Bob Luttio, pondering the imponderable in a way that was wholly unique. Bob was one of the first guys I met when I joined the 96TAS in 1975. He was pretty new to the unit as well so maybe that’s why we gravitated together. It’s either that or he saw a kindred spirit who enjoyed the occasional adult beverage and discussing arcane topics (with one of us not nearly as deep as the other.) It was the beginning of a 45 year friendship that ended far too soon. To say that the air force was a strong connection would be an understatement that can’t be overstated. We had many friends – and adventures - in common which o

  . . . Bad Combo! Insult to injury for Father's Day? Father’s Day and the summer solstice, on the same damn day! I wonder if there is a hidden message or meaning to this  . . . "coincidence." Everyone knows that Father’s Day is the least important of all the made up holidays. Don't believe me? Then how come all the FD greeting cards say, "Dear Dad . . . Who Cares, XoXo?!” Also, you can count on one hand the number of times you see a kid waving and yelling “Hi dad” on tv, it’s always “Hi mom!” And that’s okay, that’s the way it should be, dads are meant to toil in familial obscurity. We can’t compete with a mother’s love so all we can do is try to compete with brute sincerity - and the occasional game of hoops or playing catch. A dad’s love may not make for clever Hallmark cards but that doesn’t make it any less real (just a little less obvious.) So we get this one day a year to pretend like we are an equal partner in the hearts of our fami

The View from My Bubble It has long occurred to me that we all live in our own little bubbles. My bubble contains friends who generally look like me, think like me, live the same sort of life and, sadly, often act like me. We don’t necessarily agree on everything but generally we experience life in the same way from the same perspective so in our bubble our understanding of “normal” is the same. I suspect most of us are like that. Clearly, however, everyone’s bubble is not the same and the truth of that has recently been brought home to me in a pretty drastic manner. These are extraordinary times. Because of that, I think everyone knows that our lives are going to change. Still, many of us seem to hope that we all go back to our old ways of life, back to our own “normal” bubbles. I’m here to suggest that is the LAST thing we should do. There is much to like in the “old normal” – but more so for some than others. Put another way, a growing percentage of our ne