So Long, Ron

I recently received word that a friend of mine, who moved away from the area a few years ago, had died. His name was Ron Daughtry, and we had a few adventures together. He died of pneumonia, not related to the Wuhan Flu, which is of little comfort to his widow and other loved ones. Still, it reminds us that people die every day of other illnesses. He was way too young. I figure he was around 80 at the time of his passing.

I was thinking of Ron even before his death, primarily because I was thinking of the newspaper article I published around one of our misadventures. I was thinking of the article because I am in the process of planning a similar, though unrelated, excursion. I will have to do this one alone.

The article that follows was published in the Morgan County Citizen in August of 2010. I entitled the article “In Search of Elizabeth Lumpkin,” but I think the newspaper changed the title to something else.

The photograph you see above is one I took with an early digital camera. (Ron is the fellow in red shirt that you see in the photo.) The quality is not very good. Before publishing the article, the newspaper sent me back to the grave site with their photographer, and she took several high quality photos. Unfortunately, the newspaper’s website does not include articles from 10 years ago, so I couldn’t use their photos. This caused me to search for any photograph of the grave that I could find. I couldn’t find a single photo, but I did run across a master’s degree thesis from the University of Georgia, in 2012, which made reference to the following article in a footnote. I truly have become a footnote to history.

In Search of Elizabeth Lumpkin

I blame my friend.

My friend loaned me a copy of the book “Rambles Through Morgan County, Georgia” by Louise McHenry Hickey (1971, reprinted 1989), and in reading this book I discovered that Elizabeth Lumpkin is buried in our fair county.

Elizabeth Lumpkin, who died at age 33 in the year 1819, was the first wife of Wilson Lumpkin, a man who held several important public offices during his life, including that of governor of the state of Georgia (1831 – 1835). Elizabeth Lumpkin is just the sort of minor historical figure that intrigues me, and so I decided to visit her grave.

It is interesting to visit the graves of the famous, and I’ve visited my share, but the graves of the nearly famous can be just as rewarding. I value a photograph of the grave of Ottmar Mergenthaler that I took in the late 1970s or early 1980s, in Baltimore. Once upon a time school children learned about Mergenthaler and his invention, and I suspect that even today newspaper publishers of a certain age still recall fondly the inventor of the Linotype machine. He is no longer famous, but still intriguing.

And so it is with Elizabeth Lumpkin. She married a future governor, gave him children, lost three in infancy, and died young. Best of all, she is buried nearby. I had to see her grave. The problem was finding the grave.

Mrs. Hickey was not very helpful. Here is her description of the grave’s location, in its entirety:

“Some miles out from Madison and Rutledge, on the Centennial road, and then turning off on an old but seldom used road today, and into a forest of tall, whispering pines, that makes one gasp, ‘this is the forest primeval,’ we suddenly came to an old rock chimney of a burned house. And a few yards further on, treading over a floor of pine needles, through tangled vines and overgrowth, among the shadowy trees, we found the moss covered tomb, a square kind of vault, several feet high, built of rocks. Inserted in one side is a marble slab with the following inscription, which dates back to an epoch of Georgia history: ‘Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Lumpkin and three infant children, being the wife and sons of Wilson Lumpkin. Mrs. Lumpkin died November 30, 1819 in the 33rd year of her age. Beloved and lamented by her family and friends. She lived the life and died the death of the righteous.’”

A few minutes spent with Google Earth will convince most anyone that the grave cannot be near Centennial Road. This is a problem with portions of Mrs. Hickey’s book: the book is a collection of articles, some dating back to the 1940s, and a few street and road names have changed during the years. We know, for example, that Old Post Road was once South First Street, and that Academy Street was once South Second Street. Clearly, the Centennial Road that we know is not the Centennial Road that Mrs. Hickey knew. Either that, or the seldom used road that she described is a very, very long dirt road that has been obliterated with time.

During this phase of my research I happened upon a Cemetery Survey of Morgan County, dated 2007, posted on the county’s website. Each cemetery is marked with a fairly large cross on a not-very-detailed county map. In most cases, the lack of detail is not a problem. For example, it is not difficult to find the Mars Hill Church Cemetery using the survey map, given that the cross is shown near US Highway 278, and there is a Mars Hill Church Road intersecting US Highway 278. But the cross that marks the location of the “Elizabeth Lumpkin Cemetery” is in the middle of a cluster of parcels of land off Davis Academy Road, and there is not a landmark, such as a road, that can be used to fix the location of the grave.

I drove along Davis Academy Road until I was fairly convinced that I knew where to begin. The most likely location was a parcel for sale, accessible by what appeared to be nothing more than a logging trail. I guessed that the grave would be found somewhere on that parcel. But, given the fact that there really wasn’t a road there, I decided that it would be a good idea to enlist the aid of a like-minded but more experienced partner. So, I contacted Ron Daughtry, retired timber buyer, and a man who had spent years hiking along logging trails, and in a moment of insanity, he agreed to join me on this quest. Ron called the realtor who listed the property, and obtained permission to hike in and search for the grave. And so it came to pass that on one hot, humid Saturday morning we plunged into the woods, in search of Elizabeth Lumpkin.

We did not find the grave that day, but we did find the remains of her house, the stone fireplace that Mrs. Hickey described. The grave was supposed to be near the house, but we were not sure just what Mrs. Hickey considered to be “near.” We decided that asking the county for help in finding the grave was the reasonable thing to do.

A very nice lady at the county sent me an aerial photo of the area we had hiked, showing the division of the land into numbered parcels, and locating the grave with a red dot. It was not on the parcel we had received permission to explore. Unfortunately, according to the photo, we had already strayed onto this parcel, and so it was time to contact another property owner for permission.

The owner of this second parcel gave us permission to explore his land, and said that he recalled seeing the grave, some 25 years earlier. He believed that Elizabeth Lumpkin was not buried on his land, but that is not what the county indicated. We decided to go with the county’s aerial photo, given that it was more recent. In the process I called the owner of an adjacent parcel, which contained a road of sorts that might run near the grave. I left messages, but didn’t hear from him before our second plunge into the woods.

The county was wrong. Ron and I spent more than two hours exploring nearly every square foot of that parcel of land, and we did not find the grave. The owner was probably correct: the actual location of the grave must be south-southwest of the spot marked by the county, on yet another parcel of land.

Sometime after this second adventure, land owner number three, the fellow who owns the road, returned my call. Yes, he knew the location of the grave. It was on his land, near the road, south-southwest of the spot marked by the county. He agreed to show it to us. We met him, drove up his dirt road, and within 50 yards from where we stopped our trucks we saw the grave of Elizabeth Lumpkin.

This owner does a very nice job of maintaining her grave. The county had an old photo, showing a tree growing out of the walled grave. The owner had cut the tree down, and he periodically cleans up the area.

Elizabeth Lumpkin rests in a quiet, beautiful spot, cared for by a land owner who shows respect for the departed. I almost felt guilty, disturbing the tranquility of these surroundings.

And so our visit to the grave of Elizabeth Lumpkin was far from a simple drive to the cemetery. It was a detective story followed by a treasure hunt, which kept us occupied for three or four weeks. And for that, I blame my friend, the one who loaned me Mrs. Hickey’s book.

I haven’t revealed the exact location of the grave for a couple of reasons. First, I never asked the owner of the land for permission to use his name. It doesn’t seem right to disturb his peace and quiet by putting a score or more of grave hunters on his trail. Second, it seems a shame to disturb the tranquility of Elizabeth’s resting place. When she was buried, her grave was near a major north-south stagecoach line, but the stagecoach hasn’t run in awhile, and our paved roads have passed her by. It is quiet there now. Let her slumber in peace.

But, if you decide that you really must visit her grave, then by all means, do so. I have provided enough hints in this article for you to find the grave, and just in case that doesn’t work, I’ve given approximate coordinates for the grave to the county. It will require some work on your part, and for that you, too, can blame my friend.

Here Endeth The Lesson

It still sticks in my craw, 16 or 17 years after the event. I can feel my cheeks turning red as I write this. But it happened, and I am here to tell you about it.

I had taken one of my daughters out for a birthday dinner, and was returning her home to her mother. I was probably no more than two miles from her house in DeKalb County, when I made the left turn that took me past the liquor store, a fairly busy place just off a road with a 45 miles per hour speed limit. The 1980s model car with Gwinnett County plates pulled out in front of me, from the parking lot of the liquor store, and proceeded to move at the amazing speed of about 15 miles per hour. I’ve seen that move before: I’ve used that move before. Drink a little too much, and you worry about getting pulled over, so your natural reaction is to drive slowly and carefully. But your perception is warped, so you find yourself pulled over because you are driving 30 miles per hour below the speed limit. “Oh, great,” I thought, “I’ve got to follow this drunk for the next couple of miles?”

I did what I normally did in that situation (which, by the way, I no longer do): I pulled up close to the car’s back end, hoping that having me on his tail would encourage him to pick up the pace a bit. It didn’t work. A short space up the road, I needed take a right hand turn. I thought that maybe, just maybe, he would go straight. He didn’t. He slowed down to make the right hand turn, then came to a complete stop in the middle of the road. I nearly ended up in his back seat. I’m not sure how I managed not to rear-end him.

His driver’s side door opened, and I began mentally kicking myself for having removed the baseball bat from the back seat floor of the car. Then I saw the gun on his hip.

The gun was like an eye-magnet. I was focused on that pistol like a radar beam focused on an airplane. It was only a second later that I saw the police uniform. The fellow in front of me, who had pulled out of the liquor store parking lot and was driving slowly, like a drunk, was an off-duty DeKalb County policeman, on his way home to Gwinnett County. He closed his door and moved slowly back to my car.

This was not my idea of a good end to a very nice evening. I kept trying to figure out what to do. It was apparent he had been drinking. Should I call 911 for another police officer? Would another police officer uphold the law, or protect his brother? And what about my daughter, sitting in the passenger seat? What lesson would I be teaching her? And did I really want her to see her father taken away in handcuffs?

In the end, I did nothing. As I recall, he did not ask for my license, a good move as he was off-duty and a bit under the weather. He gave me a very hard time about following him too closely. He berated me and generally made me feel about two inches tall. It was humiliating, especially occurring as it did in front of my daughter. I wanted to ask him if he had witnessed a car driven like his, suddenly hitting the brakes in an effort to cause an accident, would he have given that driver a ticket? But I didn’t. Discretion was the better part of valor.

Eventually he returned to his car and drove off slowly. I gave him plenty of room. I didn’t want him to see where my daughter lived, so I sat there for awhile before returning her to her home.

That man had issues.

Three or four months later, I heard a radio newscast that described a DeKalb County policeman who had been arrested in a mall parking lot. Apparently he lost his temper with someone in the parking lot, and proceeded to damage the other fellow’s car. I really would like to think that it was my off-duty, tipsy policeman from that night a few months earlier. I will never know, of course, but I think that if he lost his job and his pension, it would only be his just desserts.

But, as the title of this post suggests, there is a lesson here. I am writing this, still feeling somewhat humiliated, 16 or 17 years after the fact. I can write this because I did not die that evening. I wanted to castigate that officer, I wanted another policeman present to give him a field sobriety test, I wanted to do something. The fact that I didn’t do anything that I wanted to do means he did not have the excuse to pull out a baton, or a Taser, or, the worst in my book, his service pistol. And so I lived.

I don’t give advice, but I will share with you my rules, which have never failed. Never try to hit or otherwise attack a policeman. Never talk back to a policeman. Never try to run from a policeman. Never, never, never make a move in front of a policeman that even remotely resembles pulling a weapon. Just shut up and take it. You can always file a civil suit and try to get justice in a court of law.

You can then look forward to the rest of your life on earth, even if it is tinged with occasional bouts of remembered humiliation.

Shortages

Back in March, the shortages of toilet paper and paper towels made the news. These shortages have been alleviated, or so it appears, as the shelves in our local Ingles and Wal Mart are once again full of paper products. But I am surprised at the other shortages I have encountered.

A nice, new, white shirt suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune after a spaghetti dinner one night. The stain proved stubborn, and my usual bag of stain-removing tricks appeared not to be working, so I consulted that know-it-all, Mr. Internet. Mr. Internet suggested that I try Dawn Dish-Washing Liquid. Now, I was skeptical that any one brand of cleaner would be significantly better than any other brand, but I was also desperate, so I trudged off to Ingles to discover that, while there were several bottles of dish-washing detergent on the shelves, the Dawn was all gone. I finally found a bottle – one bottle – at Wal Mart. Why the run on Dawn? It didn’t remove the offending stain, so I am a bit surprised that it is in short supply.

Kathy and I spent some time at the shooting range recently, which is another story of shortages. I keep weapons for the purpose of self defense, so it makes sense that I keep several hundred rounds of self defense ammunition, i.e., hollow points, on hand at all times. Hollow points are more expensive than standard bullets, and are wasted on the range, so when we go to practice, I end up buying target rounds for our pistols.

Not this time.

I had enough target rounds in 45 caliber, 38 special, and 25 caliber to get a good workout, but I didn’t have a single target round of 380 caliber. This is a problem, as Kathy and I both own 380s, so we go through a fair number of rounds when we practice. The real problem occurred when we tried to buy some: the range was completely sold out. The recent turmoil has caused demand for ammunition to skyrocket. When the stores ran out of hollow points, they sold target ammo. And now, the target ammo is depleted.

We practiced with our other weapons, and at the end of the day, I made a run to another range in another town. I was able to purchase a box of 250 target rounds in 380 caliber. We went back to the range the next day, and brushed up on our 380s. But it is surprising when you can’t even buy target rounds.

And so it goes. I have a nice matching pen and pencil set, and the pen’s ink cartridge needed replacing. I went to the store to buy a cartridge, and came home empty handed. The store sold the pens still, but there was not a single ink replacement cartridge for my pen, indeed, for ANY new pen the store sold. I had to order it on Amazon.

It continues. I tried to order a set of DVDs for a British television comedy I used to watch in the 1970s. Everybody advertised it, but when I tried to put it in my shopping cart, the vile words “temporarily out of stock” came up, on every website. I finally found a second-hand set of DVDs, and probably paid too much for it.

We have enjoyed cooking during the past few months, but it became painfully obvious that a really nice, really sharp, set of kitchen knives would enhance our cooking experience. A student of mine was selling a very nice set, and we bought it. Apparently the month of June was a good month for this knife manufacturer, as it was two weeks before the knives could be shipped.

There isn’t an N-95 mask for sale in the entire county.

The King Of All Shortages story follows, and it involves a refrigerator. Our refrigerator came with the house that I bought 14 years ago. The ice maker stopped working last year, and it began leaking water periodically. Neither worried me: I don’t need ice very often, and a towel shoved under the front of the fridge took care of the leak. Kathy didn’t quite see it that way, and so I finally relented and said, “Okay, go get a new fridge.” She went everywhere: Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, a local appliance store, and even an appliance store up in Asheville. Just deciding on one model was a royal pain: why are there so bloody many options? Why do refrigerators need computers? Why on earth should I connect a refrigerator, of all things, to WiFi?

At every place, the same thing happened. She decided, finally, on a model, only to be told that it was not in stock. I can’t tell you how many times this happened, but it stopped being funny a long time ago.

At long last, Lowes had a model she wanted, and it was in stock. She paid for it, and it was scheduled to be delivered on Thursday. On Wednesday they called to say that, unfortunately, they sold the refrigerator to someone else, and that it had been delivered already. That didn’t sit very well, given that she had paid for the thing the week before. Kathy grabbed her bag, hopped in her car, and drove to Lowes. She was gone for a couple of hours of quality, bonding time with local Lowes management.

The next day, the refrigerator pictured above was delivered to the house.

I don’t know why everything seems to be in such short supply these days. In some cases, it is probably due to our trade disagreements with China. Even our “Made in America” refrigerators use parts manufactured in China. But in other cases, such as the ammunition shortage, China is not the problem. I am not accustomed to shortages, and do not want to get used to them.

Here I Come To Save The Day!

Last Saturday we had to make a quick, unscheduled trip to Asheville. The last time I made that trip I was by myself, and it was snowing. I saw a truck spin out in front of me just above Commerce, GA, and by the time I hit Rabun Gap, I was in four-wheel-drive. This time, Kathy was with me, which explains why, despite the fact that the weather was lovely and I never had to slow down to go into four-wheel-drive, it still took longer than my “Nanook of the North” trip.

We traveled up on Saturday afternoon, and were back home in Georgia by Sunday afternoon. I did all the driving, and the truth of the matter is that the trip was made tougher by the fact that we were not making good time. “Thou shalt make good time” is my 11th commandment. At any rate, we finally returned home, and I decided to reward myself with my favorite in-between-meals snack of a fresh, unopened box of Cheez-Its. Like a good addict, I always keep one in the pantry. When I grabbed the box, I saw the unevenly-edged hole in the top of the box.

We have a mouse, and the little varmint is eating my Cheez-Its! This means war!

We live within the city limits of Madison, but Madison is not a booming metropolis. You may recall seeing the photos of our late dog Ronnie with the cows that graze in the pasture behind our house, a pasture that is also within the city limits of Madison. Recently I read that the population density in either New York City, or in the borough of Manhattan (I can’t remember which it was, sorry), is something like 26,000 people per square mile. As of the 2019 census update, our entire county doesn’t have 26,000 people. In fact, we don’t yet have 20,000 people. So it is not surprising that we occasionally meet up with creatures a bit further down the evolutionary chain.

I am, as a general rule, pretty tolerant of wildlife. On the first day that I moved into this house, a fairly large black snake wandered through the backyard, and I had to restrain Ronnie from chasing the creature. One still lives under the steps to our back deck. Harry, the lizard on the television show Death In Paradise, would not be lonely at all were he to move to our house. I haven’t given them names, but there are several. Every now and again, one makes it into the house, and we have to jump through hoops to get it out of the house without injury. About three weeks ago, after mowing the weeds in my yard, I stripped down to enjoy a refreshing shower when I noticed a young snake stretched out along the baseboard next to the shower in the master bathroom. With some difficulty I moved it onto the blade of a round - point shovel, took it out the front door, and released it into the yard.

So you see, when it comes to wildlife, I’m a live-and-let-live guy. But this mouse is eating my Cheez-Its, and that crosses the line.

I bought six large glue boards from Lowes, placed a dollop of peanut butter in the center of the boards, and scattered them throughout the house, including my office. About 15 minutes later, when I returned to my office, I noticed that the peanut butter was gone. I reloaded the trap, and a bit later, the peanut butter was gone. It dawned on me that Lucy, the 90-pound puppy, who loves peanut butter, was making life difficult for me.

A bit later, I opened the pantry door, and there he was: a tiny little thing, probably not even two inches long. I couldn’t get to him (I’m not going to reach in and grab anything that has teeth), but I made lots of noise and watched him scurry off.

You know that little warming compartment under the oven, the drawer where you store all your cookie sheets and whatnot? I cleaned that out, and placed a glue board there. When I opened the drawer to check on it, I was astounded: the peanut butter was gone, and there were little bitty mouse footprints on the board. This little creature had traversed the glue, eaten the peanut butter, and gone back. It must have been a mighty struggle. From this point on, the mouse had a name: Mighty Mouse.

Finally – FINALLY – one of the glue boards worked. I opened the pantry, and there he was, struggling to get his two hind feet off the glue board. His front two feet were clear of the board, and his two back feet were close to being free of the sticky mess. It was time to act. I grabbed the board, and started to peel off a kitchen garbage bag. It was trash day, and the board and mouse were going into the bag, and subsequently into the trash can. You may think that cruel, but this is the mouse that ate my Cheez-Its.

I was out the kitchen door, out of the garage, and heading down the drive to the trash can when Kathy called out to me. She is a sensitive soul, and she was imploring me to release the mouse in the wild. Why, I asked, so that he can return and eat my Cheez-Its? While we were having this conversation, Mighty Mouse, finally pulled free of the glue board, and found himself sticking to the outside of the plastic trash bag. (Thanks to Kathy’s intervention, I hadn’t quite put the board in the bag.) But he didn’t stick there for very long. With a great heave-ho, he pulled free of the trash bag, dropped to the driveway, and promptly RAN BACK INTO THE GARAGE!

We were of two minds. Kathy figured he had his fill of our household, and would run away. I figured he would stick around. If I were a mouse, living in a house with Cheez-Its, I would stick around. We kept the garage door open for awhile, just so he could leave if he wished.

The next morning, we found mouse droppings – larger mouse droppings. Either Mighty Mouse is truly mighty, or he has a partner. I supplemented the glue boards with good, old-fashioned Victor Model M032 wooden mousetraps baited with cheese. And today, at 6:01 AM, Mighty Mouse’s partner met his maker.

I’ve always heard the quote “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” There is no better mousetrap than the good, old-fashioned wooden ones with kill bars.

And now, two recorded treats. The first is the original theme song from Mighty Mouse (1958), performed by the Mitch Miller Orchestra (remember “Sing Along With Mitch”?) with vocals by The Terrytooners; and the second is the comic genius, Andy Kaufman, doing the Mighty Mouse Theme Song on Saturday Night Live. This is one of the two funniest skits ever on SNL, the other being Bob and Ray singing “If you want my body and you think I’m sexy, come on, Sugar, tell me so.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJvM8eYcpL0

https://vimeo.com/groups/326115/videos/141371878

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JASON!

Social Distancing From The Kelvinator

I should begin by explaining the term “Kelvinator”, a term I know only because of my maternal grandmother, Launa Phillips Jones Allen. My grandmother called every refrigerator she owned a “Kelvinator”. The company that manufactured the Kelvinator began life in 1914 (when my grandmother was just a teenie-bopper) as the Electro-Automatic Refrigerating Company, but two years later became the Kelvinator Company. The name was a tribute to the Scottish physicist William Thomson (a.k.a., Lord Kelvin), who accurately determined the value of absolute zero, a temperature we cannot reach, and below which no temperature can exist. (For your information, that is -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit.) My guess is that her first refrigerator was a Kelvinator, which set the stage for the rest of her life.

I spent most of my life about 40 pounds underweight. According to the old height and weight charts from the 1960s, the days before “body mass index”, I should have weighed about 185 pounds when I graduated from high school. I weighed 147. My weight stayed pretty close to that figure until August of 2007, when I quit smoking. Almost overnight I found myself 10 to 20 pounds overweight, a swing of 50 to 60 pounds. Suddenly I couldn’t fit in my clothes (most of which were bought in the 70s and 80s – God, I miss those collars and lapels!).

I was able to drop my weight back to the 185 pound region fairly simply: I stopped buying Cheez Its, Starburst Fruit Chews and Skittles, and started buying Braeburn apples. Still, this required a new wardrobe, as 185 was considerably heavier than 147. I bought new clothes, and began to enjoy being a normal weight.

That changed sometime after May 21, 2013, the date I married Kathy. Later that year we found her bathroom scales in a mover’s box, and on October the 19th of that year, I began my routine of weighing first thing in the morning, and entering the data into a spreadsheet. Periodically I printed out a graph of my weight versus time. This is the figure at the top of this blog, which covers the dates of October 19, 2013 through May 21, 2020.

The first thing to notice is that, although there are fluctuations, the trend is upward. There are a couple of dips along the way, but in general, like a graph of the stock market versus time, the graph tends to go up, up, and up. The second thing to notice is that, very recently, there are no fluctuations. My weight is up, and it appears to be staying there.

Clearly I am not successful at social distancing from the Kelvinator.

Kathy tells me we are going on a diet, if she can just remember the name of the diet. We had lunch with a college roommate last November, and he was telling us about a wonderful diet that he and his wife used with great success. Perry, if you see this, send me a message and tell me yet again the name of that diet, so I can placate Kathy. I prefer the Braeburn apple diet, but Kathy isn’t buying it.

There is one positive thing to report. The bathroom scale that I have been using since October of 2013 finally died. Kathy bought it about 20 years ago, and apparently the batteries in it need changing. I cannot see any easy way to get into the thing to change the batteries, so I made the executive decision that it should go into the trash. With no scale to measure my weight, and no spreadsheet on the bathroom mirror to confront me with my failings, I will now lead a happier, if somewhat heavier, life.

Bon appetit!

Frankly, My Dear . . .

My obsession – and make no mistake, it is an obsession – had humble origins. It began with music.

I bought an iPod in 2006, and quickly became enamored of the ease with which I could carry around my music library. Of course, I immediately transferred all my CDs to my iTunes account, and subsequently to my iPod. That was the easy part. The hard part was digitizing every album, eight track tape, and cassette tape in my library. This task was made more difficult when my friend Charley gave me his jazz record collection, which included some fairly rare 78s. The process of digitizing all this music took a couple of years, and it isn’t finished yet. (I have run across some old albums and 78s that Charley gave me that were somehow misplaced for a few years.) Yes, I even bought a few hundred tunes from the iTunes store (the invention of which should be celebrated as a major historical event, even if the Apple folks are beginning to aggravate me with all the changes they keep foisting on me). But most of the 17,872 songs in my iTunes library are from my record collection, or from Charley’s record collection.

By the way, let me put in a good word for Carbonite. As I noted above, Apple keeps changing iTunes. I hate to download any new version. I believe they honestly think they are making it better. They aren’t. Recently I hit a button in iTunes that should have backed my record collection up to the cloud. It backed up all the music I had purchased from the iTunes store. Unfortunately, it DELETED all the music I hadn’t purchased from the iTunes store. After watching years of work just disappear, I was fit to be tied. Then Kathy reminded me that I subscribe to the Carbonite file back-up system, which operates quietly in the background, backing up files to a cloud somewhere. Within seconds, the 17,000 plus songs had been restored.

Then came video.

I moved to Madison, GA in 2005. After hooking up my television, I discovered that the only channel I could receive was a Spanish language UHF channel from Athens, some 25 miles away. The picture was snowy, and as I don’t speak Spanish, it was useless to me. So I contacted the local cable company, and signed up for the basic service at $60 per month. (You know THAT had to be a long, long time ago!) After a couple of months, it dawned on me that I had only watched one half-hour show. At that rate, I would watch an hour of television every four months, for a price of $240 per hour. I called the cable company and canceled my subscription.

Thus I entered into a very happy time: no television in the house. I spent my evening hours reading, watching movies, and listening to the radio. I discovered an absolutely outstanding radio program, The John Batchelor Show, out of WABC in New York. (If you don’t have an internet radio, you can either stream the show or download the podcast.) Twice a week he focused on book reviews, conversations with the authors that might last as long as two hours. I found myself jumping back and forth between the radio show and my computer, ordering books from Amazon as I listened to the reviews.

All this changed when my son introduced me to WDTV, a little box manufactured by Western Digital, that, one one side, hooked up to a television set, and on the other side, hooked up to a hard drive or flash drive. The Western Digital box allowed me to play video files (that formerly could only be played on a computer) on my television.

Thus began the obsession.

My son loaned me a hard drive that contained maybe 50 or so movies and television shows in either avi, mp4, or mkv format. (Although WDTV plays a wide variety of files, these are the three most popular.) I remember that the drive included the Addams Family television show from the 1960s, as well as the complete Get Smart and Hogan’s Heroes, also from the 60s. Hard drives, and the little WDTV box, take up such a small space in the entertainment center! I soon got rid of my DVD player, ripped all my DVDs to (mostly) mkv files, and settled down to enjoy a little television.

And so it began. I copied the videos from friends’ hard drives. My video collection grew. Every boxed set of DVDs I purchased, along with every bargain movie purchased from the reduced price bin at Wal Mart, and
every gift of a DVD, was added to the hard drive. And somehow, over the course of the years, I ended up with quite a video library. It stands, at the time of this writing, at 9,461 video files (either movies, documentaries, or television shows). They reside on an eight terabyte hard drive.

I have copied the video files I have not yet seen to a two terabyte hard drive. At the time of this writing, there are 3,046 of these files. (This doesn’t include the cartoons and children’s movies that I have for the grandchildren.) I have my work cut out for me.

If I use 365.25 days per year (which takes into account leap years), and if I watch one of these not-yet-viewed videos every day, it will take a bit over eight and one-third years for me to go through my current inventory of videos. This takes me through August of 2028. I should be caught up a bit before my 76th birthday.

Does this seem a silly obsession to you? If so, I have to tell you: frankly, my dear . . .

When in the Course of Human Events

Today, April 27, is a happy day. Farmview Market opened its restaurant today for customers to dine in, and Kathy and I had our first meal out since March 16. Coincidentally, we were the first diners they served.

The thing that I missed most during the quarantine was dining out. I did not realize just how accustomed we had become to visiting restaurants and enjoying a nice, relaxing meal. A typical week would see us eating out two or three times. It has been a long 41 days.

Yes, some of our restaurants served takeout meals, and we enjoyed several of those, but it just wasn’t the same as sitting down at a table, being served by friends, and facing absolutely no cleanup.

We live in Georgia, and our governor has received his share of criticism for reopening the state to business. I believe he is criticized unjustly. Let us recall just why we decided to shut down commerce in the country. The reason given for this drastic action was to prevent the health care delivery system from being overwhelmed.

We have achieved that objective.

Remember the early days of the pandemic. The usual talking heads predicted overflowing hospitals, triage at the hospital door, life and death decisions based on the presumed likelihood of a patient living a long and useful life afterwards, and all sorts of bio-ethical conundrums related to lack of ventilators, hospital beds, etc.

New York City, the epicenter of the pandemic, at least in this country, has bid farewell to the hospital ship the president dispatched to the city. It has released ventilators for distribution to other states. Some hospital wings are nearly empty, as elective surgeries have been postponed. The mission has been accomplished.

My fear, in fact, is that because of the quarantine, we will be hit hard in the fall with a second bout with the Wuhan Flu. We can avoid a devastating second bout, if we have herd immunity. Unfortunately, the quarantine prevents the development of herd immunity.

Herd immunity happens when a fairly substantial part of the population (I’ve heard 60%, but haven’t confirmed that number) develops antibodies to the infection. If enough people have antibodies, the further spread of the infection is inhibited. So, ideally, those with low risk of developing a serious (i.e., fatal) infection get exposed to the virus, recover, and develop antibodies that help prevent the second wave of infections. Those of us at high risk remain sheltered.

This is the approach that Sweden has taken. We should watch the outcome in Sweden, and see what we can learn from it.

By all accounts, the virus is extremely contagious. But the further we go into this wave of infections, the more apparent it is that the fatality rate estimates at the beginning of the quarantine were vastly overstated. For example, an antibody analysis at the University of Miami suggests that the rate of infection in the state is 16 times greater than the initial estimates. So, in calculating the fatality rate, the bigger the denominator, the lower the rate. As best I can tell, this infection has a fatality rate similar to that of the good old fashioned garden variety influenza. That, of course, is bad enough, but we don’t shut down the economy every fall when flu season comes around.

So congratulations to Governor Kemp, and to the governors of Tennessee, South Carolina, and the other states who have decided to re-open cautiously. And congratulations to Farmview Market: breakfast was simply outstanding!

Congratulations! You Are Now More Valuable!

On New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Facebook page there is a video (Job One Has To Be Save Lives) of the Governor addressing the current shortage of ventilators in the state. About 1:10 into the video, the Governor says: “No American is going to say ‘accelerate the economy at the cost of a human life’, because no American is going to say how much a life is worth.”

I beg to differ with the Governor. Our Federal Government has said “how much a life is worth.” In fact, this being the Federal Government, three different departments have come up with three different values for a single human life.

Let us begin with the Department of Transportation, which in February of 2011 valued a human life at about $6 million. (This figure, and the figures for the EPA and FDA that follow, were taken from a New York Times article “As US Agencies Put More Value on a Life, Businesses Fret”, written by Binyamin Appelbaum, and published February 6, 2011. The hyperlinks embedded in the NY Times online article, which used to take the reader to government websites, are, alas, no longer active. But these numbers seem to be supported by other sources. See, for example, Green Hell a 2009 book by Steven Milloy, p. 62.) According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator, $6 million in February of 2011 is worth $7 million in February of 2020. (The figures for March are not yet in.)

The Food and Drug Administration is much more generous. In the Times article mentioned above, the FDA valued a human life at $7.9 million, or $9.2 million as of February, 2020. But the leading government agency, in terms of the value of a human life, is the Environmental Protection Agency, which placed a 2011 value of $9.1 million on a human life, or $10.6 million today. So according to our Federal Government, a human life today is worth somewhere between $7 million and $10.6 million.

I have a different way of using government statistics to measure the value of a human life. The loss in Gross Domestic Product for 2020, due to the virus, is estimated to be $2.3 trillion. (Let’s write that out, as we seem to be tossing trillions of dollars here and there: $2,300,000,000,000. We can tick off one trillion seconds every 32,000 years. In order to spend the money in the recent “stimulus” package in one year, we would have to spend about $64,000 every second, 24/7, for the entire year. That is on top of our normal spending of about $128,000 every second of the fiscal year.) $2.3 trillion ain’t pocket change.

So we have the cost. The question is the denominator. How many people will die?

We can use the estimate I keep hearing, that we could have as many as 200,000 deaths. I think that figure is terribly high, but we can go with it. If so, each death is worth nearly $11.5 million! Congratulations! You really are worth more than you thought!

But what if the death rate is much lower? There was a paper published just a couple of weeks ago, not in some lunatic right wing journal, but in a peer-reviewed, rather prestigious journal, The New England Journal of Medicine. There were three authors, all M.D.s. You have probably heard of one of the authors, a fellow named Anthony S. Fauci. This paper, Covid-19 – Navigating the Uncharted, contained the following interesting tidbits:

“On the basis of a case definition requiring a diagnosis of pneumonia, the currently reported case fatality rate is approximately 2%. In another article in the Journal, Guan et al. report mortality of 1.4% among 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19; these patients had a wide spectrum of disease severity. If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”

That is great news! It may have a fatality rate no worse than the good old ordinary flu

So what are the numbers for the flu? According to the CDC website, the estimates for flu illnesses between October 1, 2019 and March 21, 2020, are as follows: 38,000,000 – 54,000,000 flu illnesses, 24,000 – 62,000 flu deaths.

Using the higher figures for both deaths and illnesses, we have a fatality rate of 0.115%. At the time this was written, there have been 351,890 confirmed cases in the United States, with 10,377 deaths, for a fatality rate of nearly 3%. These are confirmed cases only, and we really have no idea how many unconfirmed cases were mistaken for the flu. It is likely that there are more actual cases than confirmed cases. (Remember Dr. Fauci’s comment: “If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases . . .”) This allows us to put the fatality rate in a range from 0.12% to 2.95%. This makes the infection much less hazardous than either SARS or MERS.

And now, the last bit of math. We are shutting down the economy, and losing approximately $2.3 trillion, with the hope that we can keep the number of deaths down at the current level, about 10,377. We know there will be more deaths, so let us use the number of deaths from influenza (62,000), as a reasonable estimate of how this will end. That puts the value of a human life at nearly $37.1 million.

Again, CONGRATULATIONS! You really are quite valuable.

N is for Nick!

I see that my last blog post was on Christmas Eve of last year, a bit more than three months ago. A whole quarter of the year gone without your hearing from me!

The last posting was written after we buried my best friend, and I knew I would not be writing any time soon. It never occurred to me that “any time soon” meant three months. I had come to terms with my loss,
and was ready to write again, when life happened. Things got busy at work. Things got busy at my other work. Things got busy at home. And here we are, three months later, ready to go again.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m going to engage in some sort of discourse on the Wuhan Flu. Wrong! I’ve had enough of it. It is on the television 24/7, it is on the radio 24/7, it is in every issue of my newspaper, and it occupies a fair amount of space in the magazines I read. I’m fed up with this, and I’m quite properly pissed off about it. I am teaching from home using one of those meeting platforms, so it seems that I never leave my home office anymore. I can’t escape by going out to dinner, because the powers that be in the city and state have shut the restaurants down, except for takeout. I can’t go to the movies, because of ditto. But the main thing that I’m pissed about is toilet paper.

My modest little house in Madison has two bathrooms. We generally buy an eight-pack of toilet paper whenever our previous eight-pack gets down to two or three rolls. At the onset of the toilet-paper-hoarding
phase of the pandemic, we had seven rolls in the house. I was not worried, until two subsequent trips to the grocery store in two consecutive weeks indicated that there was no toilet paper in the county.

Amazon was no help. Most storefronts indicated that they were out of toilet paper. The storefronts that said they had toilet paper really didn’t: the delivery times were one to two months out. Ridiculous!

Apparently that part of the crisis is over. I was in Wal-Mart yesterday, and there was a good amount of toilet paper, sitting on two pallets, ready for purchase. We grabbed an eight-pack, breathed a sigh of relief, and headed home.

Seriously, I hope the people who hoarded toilet paper choke on it.

And that’s the extent of my discussion of the Wuhan Flu.

Back some time ago, the 1980s, I think, a fellow named Gurganus wrote a novel entitled Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. I remember the name Gurganus, because I had an acquaintance named Gurganus. At one time I thought it was a Greek surname, such as Galifianakis, Costa-Gavras, and Savalas. Turns out, it’s Welsh. Oh, well, live and learn.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the director Costa-Gavras, and who hasn’t heard of Telly Savalas? You may wonder about that other name, Galifianakis. Nick Galifianakis was a North Carolina Member of Congress, active in the 60s and 70s. I wasn’t in his district, but the television stations I watched in those days must have broadcast to his district, because every two years his political commercials were on the air. He was a reasonably successful politician, until 1972, when he won the Democratic primary for the United States Senate, and had the misfortune to have as an opponent a fellow named Jesse Helms. That year, for the first time in anyone’s memory, the state of North Carolina went Republican in a big way: Nixon, Holshouser, and Helms.

But I digress. Nick Galifianakis must have employed an outstanding PR firm. To this day, I remember his campaign ditty:

N is for Nick,  Nick Galifianakis,

I is for his integrity,

C is for Congress,

K is for Keep him there!

We need Nick in Washington, DC!

All of this, just because I thought Gurganus was a Greek name!

Sometime in the 1980s, the intellectualoids were all atwitter over this first novel from Gurganus, about the oldest living Confederate widow. Of course, I bought the book, and managed to finish it, how I do not know. It was a bit preachy, smug, and did a disservice, I thought, to the real oldest living Confederate widow, who was still alive at the time. (She died in 2008. The penultimate surviving widow of a Confederate soldier, who happened to be the last widow whose marriage to a Confederate soldier resulted in offspring, died in 2004.)

I gave my copy of that book away, so I cannot check the details, but if I recall correctly, towards the end of what seemed like a never-ending novel, the widow takes a plane flight to Atlanta, and is astonished to see, out the window of the airplane, streaks of dark, luscious green vegetation, much darker and greener than the vegetation she had been seeing. When she asked about it, she was told that the beautiful green vegetation was a result of Sherman’s march. The total destruction by burning of the forests resulted in a growth that was even more hardy, even more green, even more luscious.

I have no idea whether Gurganus made that up, or whether it is actually true. I am inclined to believe that it is actually true. Here is why.

I once lived in the middle of the largest hardwood forest in the eastern half of the United States. I was working for a paper company at the time, and the middle of a huge hardwood forest seemed an ideal
location for a paper mill. In fact, that paper company had three mills in this hardwood forest, stretching from Virginia, through Maryland, and into Pennsylvania. And all the time I lived in that hardwood forest, I never suffered from pollen. Never.

My pollen problems started when I moved to Georgia. Gee, thanks, Sherman!

I understand that a pollen count of around 150 or so is so high as to be considered dangerous. Yesterday’s pollen count: more than 6000. Six thousand!

I mowed the lawn today, and was forced to wear one of those masks you wear when sanding down joints in drywall. I hated it. When I hosed down my truck, a mighty yellow river of pollen rolled out the back
and down the driveway. (We have a Yellow River in Georgia. I wonder how it got its name?) I enjoy fresh air, but only a fool would leave a window open this time of year, even though the temperatures are pleasant. The entire interior of the house would be coated with pollen.

One day, the panic over the Wuhan Flu will be gone. But we’ll always have pollen. Now THAT is something to worry about!

Bookends

Many of my generation would call Bob Dylan the philosopher of the baby boomers. I disagree. Simon and Garfunkel are more to my taste. The duo did not put out many albums during their existence (I have only four), but most were classics. My favorite is Bookends, which I think was their fourth album. One tune from the album, Old Friends, has lyrics that begin:

Old friends, old friends sat on their park bench like bookends.

For the last two months that song has been tormenting my brain. A bit more than a month ago, I attended the funeral of my best friend, a gentleman I had known for 27 years. I kept thinking of the song, telling myself that I really wasn’t cut out to sit on a park bench with an old friend, anyway. But the loss of an old friend hurts.

I lost my father a bit more than 19 years ago. We were father and son, not the usual combination one thinks of as best friends. His loss was different. My definition of a happy childhood is a childhood without fear, a childhood of knowing that whatever may befall you, your parents can take care of the situation. My father gave me a happy childhood. He had all the answers to all my problems. Of course, eventually I grew up, and had to take responsibility for my own actions. My father no longer had all the answers. But he continued to serve as a sounding board, a source of advice, and let the record show, wisdom. I still feel his loss all these years later.

A bit more than four years ago, I lost another friend, Jim. Jim was a retired lawyer, but in spite of the fact that we practiced different professions, Jim was a mentor. I learned a fair bit about life from him, and even a little bit about the law. We had known each other for about 15 years when he died, quite suddenly. Kathy and I were getting ready to leave for a spring break visit to Taiwan, and I chatted with him on the phone just before we left. When I returned, a week later, I called him to tell him all about the trip. He never answered either his landline or his cell phone. After a few missed calls, I called a mutual friend, who told me that Jim had passed away while we were gone.

Charley, my friend who was died last month, was 55 years old when we met. He was able to retire from his employer in Connecticut with full benefits, but he was unwilling to be put out to pasture at that tender age. Thus, I hired him and moved him to Georgia, in 1992. We got along well, and soon became fast friends. He, too, was a mentor. He is the fellow who talked me into attending my very first jazz party, in Clearwater Beach, Florida. We attended many a jazz party together after that first event in 2000.

One day Charley told me that he had more music than he could ever listen to in the years he had remaining, and so he had decided to give me his entire record, tape, and CD collection of jazz music. I was overwhelmed, as he had some classics dating back several decades. Of course, I did the decent thing: I digitized all the records and tapes, and ripped all the CDs. I then presented Charley with a hard drive containing all the music he had given to me. It turns out that he had quite a few more years to enjoy that music. We also recorded all the music from the jazz parties we attended. I must admit that I am a bit behind on organizing and labeling the music from the last couple of jazz parties we attended. Charley will not be able to enjoy those tunes, but I will think of him when I play them.

I last saw Charley a couple of weeks before he died. He was complaining of various ailments, only one of which sounded remotely serious. As it happens, that is not the ailment that did him in. He suffered a heart attack, and passed quickly.

Given the timing of Charley’s death, I cannot help but feel a bit down this Christmas. Still, he had a good run, and more importantly, he made a difference. I cannot speak for others, but I can state with certainty that my life would have been very different, and much the poorer, if I hadn’t known him. That is, perhaps, the best that can be said for any of us.

Where Are My Balls?

“Alexa, what is the temperature in Madison, Georgia?”

“Right now, the temperature is 59 degrees. Today, expect a high of 82 degrees.”

“Damn, winter is here.”

Now that the cold weather has arrived, it is time to begin the indoor activities appropriate to winter. Yeah, right, you know I'm kidding. The summer's too hot to do outdoor activities anyway. I'm pretty much a creature of the indoors all year round.

I play the vibraphone. Perhaps I should rephrase. I attempt to play the vibraphone, and I quite enjoy the noise I make with my overgrown set of door chimes. And, as with every hobby I have ever undertaken, I tend to study it to death.

I know a few professional vibraphonists, and the conversations I have with them invariably gravitate toward the mallets they use. Vibraphones are fairly expensive. Once you buy one, you keep it until the frame rusts away. Any variation in the sound you get from the instrument thus boils down to technique and mallets. Technique is something I'm still working on. But mallets, well, that's easy. Just buy different mallets and you will get different sounds.

That seems so easy, and it would be if one were rich. But since we're talking the life of a musician here, we can rule out the prospect that one is wealthy. Mallets come in sets of two or four. I buy four, as I play with three and can always use a spare. They generally sell for around $20-$30 per mallet. That gets expensive after awhile.

There are three parts to a vibraphone mallet: the shaft, the core, and the winding. The best shafts are rattan. They have a little, but not too much, flex to them. Wooden dowel rods, on the other hand, have no flex to them, and are not preferred. And don't even mention plastic shafts. Vibraphonists are such snobs!

The core is key. The core is generally rated by its hardness. Hard mallets have a hard plastic ball as a core, and produce a louder, and “pingier”, sound, if “pingier” is indeed a word. Soft mallets use soft rubber balls as cores, and are generally lower in volume. Unfortunately, they also tend to muddy up the low notes. Then there are the composite mallets. My pair of composites has a core that is a hard plastic ball, which is covered with a bit of Tygon tubing. The tubing softens the sound, when compared with the hard plastic ball.

The winding is also critical. The core can be covered with yarn of various types (cotton, bamboo, wool, etc.) or cord. This generally attenuates the sound one gets from just the core. I've tried winding with cord. It isn't easy, and I can't make the mallet sound the way I want it to sound, so I stick with yarn. Of course, just settling on a yarn can be problematic. There are all sorts of different sizes. Do I use number 3, number 5, or number 10 (the three sizes I can find in a Wal Mart)? And let's not even talk about colors!

I once made a set of mallets using dowel rods (not ideal) and rubber stoppers (ground down from a trapezoid of revolution to a cylinder) from Lowes. I like the sound they produce, but I want a little more flex in the handles, and I would prefer a circular, as opposed to a cylindrical, core. So, I visited the Internet, and bought two pounds of rattan. I have no idea why they sell it by the pound, but they do. These two pounds comprise two different diameters: 7mm and 9mm. The 7mm has a good bit of flex to it. I will probably try the 7mm first.

In my imagination, I figured out that I could wind a soft rubber ball very tightly, compressing the ball, to produce a mallet that was not as hard as the hard core mallets (goodbye metallic ping), but harder than a soft core mallet (bringing clarity to the low notes). This should be the easiest thing in the world, yes? I just go down to Wal Mart and buy some rubber balls. How hard could that be?

As it turns out, it is practically impossible.

I suspect the problem is that we are all too stupid to realize that a child can choke on a small rubber ball, thus someone, perhaps the government (conspiracy theory, anyone?), has decided that the only way to save small children from choking on vibraphone mallet cores is to ban them from Wal Mart. Based on the size of the heads on my wound mallets, I am looking for rubber balls anywhere from ½ to 1 inch in diameter. These seem to be missing from Wal Mart. The larger ones they carry. The Lowes employee gave me a very funny look when I asked for rubber balls, and the Tractor Supply lady just said “Huh?”

Back to the Internet. Unfortunately, in order to get the size balls I wanted, I had to order a few hundred. So here I sit with two pounds of rattan (some of which needs to be straightened with a propane torch), waiting for a few hundred balls to appear on my doorstep. I've already bought all the yarn that Wal Mart carries.

I'm beginning to see why vibraphone mallets are so expensive!

61*

The month of September brings us the equinox, and the beginning of fall, at least, on this side of the equator. The month of October ends with the celebration of Halloween, a celebration of interest to me because it coincides with my birthday. In between these two dates we find a date of significance that is not often remembered. It is October 1, 1961. On that date, Roger Eugene Maris broke Babe Ruth’s record (from 1927) of 60 home runs in one season. In the fourth inning, during the last regular game of the season, and in front of a little more than 23,000 fans, Maris nailed a pitch from Boston Red Sox pitcher Tracy Stallard, sending it into the right field bleachers for home run number 61 of the season.

The home run was controversial at the time, primarily because Babe Ruth, who died in 1948, still had friends in Major League Baseball. The most significant friend was Ford Frick, the commissioner of baseball, and a friend to Ruth’s widow, Claire. Frick saw himself as the protector of the Ruth legacy, and he found a way to discredit Maris’ achievement even before it happened.

In Ruth’s day, the baseball season was 154 games long. In 1961, the league was expanded to ten teams with the addition of the Los Angeles Angels and the Washington Senators. In order to balance the schedule, the season was extended to 162 games. Frick announced at a mid-season press conference that, in his opinion, Ruth’s record would stand unless it was broken in 154 games. Any home run past 60, hit in any game after the 154th, should contain some “distinctive mark” in the record books, indicating that it was set in the “extended” season. While Frick himself did not suggest that the record be marked with an asterisk, Dick Young, a sportswriter for the New York Daily News, proposed the asterisk as the “distinctive mark”. Major League Baseball did not control “the record books” at that time, so Frick’s suggestion of a “distinctive mark” was just that, a suggestion that Maris’ record should occupy a different category than Ruth’s.

The controversy hides the remarkable nature of the achievement. The Ruth record stood for 34 years, and Ruth came close to that record only one other time in his career, in 1921, when he hit 59 home runs. He hit 54 home runs twice more in his career (1920, 1928). Aside from those four years, Ruth was never in the 50s with respect to home runs. (In Ruth’s day, what we now call an “automatic double,” a ball that hit the ground in the outfield then bounced over the fence, was considered a home run. I have been assured that none of Ruth’s 1927 home runs came that way, but I do not know whether any of his other three seasons of 50 plus home runs contains “automatic double” homers.) All major league players recognized how difficult it would be to tie the Ruth record, much less best it.

The 50 Home Run Club, made up of players who had hit 50 or more home runs in a season, contained, in 1961, only eight members: Ruth, Hack Wilson, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenburg, Johnny Mize, Ralph Kiner, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle. Foxx and Greenburg led the pack of runners up with 58 home runs each (in 1932 and 1938, respectively). Mantle hit 52 home runs in 1956, and he would end the 1961 season with 54 homers. It was an exclusive club, one difficult to break into. Sixty home runs seemed like a dream.

Yet both Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were in the running to break Ruth’s record in 1961. Late in the season, Mickey Mantle was sidelined with a hip infection. He had no regular season at bats after September 26, 1961. As noted above, he finished the regular season with 54 home runs. It would have been a fantastic season if Mantle had remained healthy.

The 1961 New York Yankees was blessed with its “Murderer’s Row” of heavy hitters. In addition to Mantle(CF) and Maris(RF), the heart of the lineup contained Moose Skowron(1B), Yogi Berra(LF), and Elston Howard(C). For the most part, Maris was third in the lineup, followed by Mantle, Berra, and Skowron. Opposing pitchers did not have the luxury to pitch around Maris, so he saw some pretty good pitches.

At any rate, the 154th game passed with Maris at 59 home runs (September 20). He hit number 60 on September 26 (game number 158), and the 61st on October 1 (game number 162).

In my opinion, Maris’ achievement should never have been marred with the suggestion that it wasn’t in the same category as Ruth’s. For one thing, Ruth didn’t have to travel all the way to Los Angeles to play a game. Travel does tend to wear on the body. The addition of eight games to the schedule seems to have had no effect on any other records. By the time Hank Aaron broke Ruth’s total home runs record (714) in April of 1974, there was no suggestion that an asterisk or other distinctive mark was necessary to denote that some of Aaron’s home runs had occurred during extended seasons. The same holds for single season hits, or walks, or stolen bases, etc. I believe that Maris was the target of an unfair discrimination that would not occur today.

Curiously enough, Maris is still not in the baseball Hall of Fame. I understand why: except for 1961, he really didn’t turn in hall of fame quality years. However, 61 home runs in a season is, in my opinion, enough to overcome the mediocrity of some of his baseball career. He should be in the Hall of Fame.

His achievement still stands, in my opinion. Oh, I know, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds have hit more home runs in a season, and the record books even note that Bonds has beaten Aaron’s record of most home runs (755). I put a great big asterisk next to each of those records, with the qualifier: “These so-called records were set with the aid of performance enhancing drugs.” They are not records in my record book.

The decade of the nineties was a terrible time for baseball. Were I the King of Baseball, there would be no players from that decade inducted into the Hall of Fame, and no records from that decade entered into the record book. It is my sincere hope that Major League Baseball has the performance enhancing drug epidemic under control. Unfortunately, it comes too late for me.

My interest in baseball began its death spiral after the revelations of steroid abuse. But my admiration for Maris, Mantle, and all the other true athletes of the pre-drug era, increased substantially.

So, on Tuesday, October 1, 2019, I will stop and remember with awe the accomplishment of Roger Maris back on that Autumn day some 58 years ago.

Get Back On That Horse!

My former father-in-law, the late Perry Smith, paid me two high compliments. The higher compliment came sometime after his daughter and I had split, and thus was entirely unexpected. He paid me the compliment not to massage my ego or to engender any good will with me, but simply because he was a decent human being. I miss him.

The other compliment came after a session in our kitchen. He was a very good cook, and when he visited us, he invariably ended up in the kitchen. We always looked forward to whatever surprise he decided to prepare for us. One day, he paid me this compliment: “George, the knives in your kitchen are always sharp.”

You may not think that high praise, but he and I were both technical types who appreciated the right tool for the right job, and who believed that any tool ought to be kept in good repair. The most useful kitchen tool is the kitchen knife, and he recognized that I tried to keep the tools in my kitchen in good repair. It was high praise, indeed, from a master in the kitchen.

I have just finished sharpening the kitchen knives that needed work. Sharpening day in the Batten household is a big production, primarily because, back in February, I began shaving with a straight razor. Sharpening a razor has changed my perspective on what constitutes an acceptable level of sharpness in a knife. It has also increased the number of sharpening appliances that I now employ on sharpening day.

In the past, when my ex-father-in-law was using my kitchen knives, I employed a hard Arkansas stone to sharpen my knives. The stone I use has to be at least 50 years old. It has a coarse side and a hard side. After applying mineral oil to the surface of the stone, I would sharpen first on the coarse side, then finish with the fine side. This produced an edge that impressed my father-in-law. However, when I tried to sharpen my straight razor with the Arkansas stone, the result was unsatisfactory. It did improve the edge somewhat, but not enough for a good, close shave.

A colleague at work suggested a Japanese water stone, and Yellowstone compound added to the backside of my leather strop. The water stone I purchased has two sides, one 5,000 grit, the other 10,000 grit. I start with the 5,000 side, then finish with the 10,000 side. I cannot compare these two stones by grit numbers, because Arkansas stones are rated by hardness, not grit. I can report, though, that the fine side of the Arkansas stone does not feel as smooth as the 5,000 side of the water stone.

The water stone does a nice job, but the secret to a really sharp razor’s edge is the Yellowstone compound. I scrape off bits of the compound, and rub it into the back of the strop, as if pushing butter into it. Stropping the razor on the back side of this treated strop results in an extraordinarily sharp edge. I then finish the process by stropping the razor on the smooth side of the strop.

And so it is with my favorite kitchen knife (an Old Hickory butcher knife) and with Kathy’s favorite kitchen knife (a Sabre Bowie knife). If I go too long between sharpenings, the knives see all four stones, beginning with the coarse side of the Arkansas stone and ending with the 10,000 grit water stone. All the knives are stropped with Yellowstone.

This does not mean that I have not used other sharpening gadgets. For many years I used the grindstone on the back of an electric can opener to put an edge on a ridiculously dull knife. I would still use that device, but I haven’t seen it since the divorce. My guess is that it is in the basement workshop of my ex-house.

Jason recently gave me a little device with the brand name Kitchen iQ (for some reason the “i” is upside down in the brand name: silly millennial marketing guru!) that uses ceramic to sharpen knives. There are two “V” shaped slots, one labeled “coarse” and the other “fine” that I use to replenish the edge on our knives while in media res.

There is one other knife sharpening device that I used 30 years ago. It is pictured at the top of this post. I had a bad experience with it, and it has taken me nearly 30 years to “get back on the horse that threw me”. When she divided up the kitchen utensils, my ex-wife made sure this device went with me. She wanted no part of it.

The device, sold by Sears, carries the name “Cedar Block Sharpening Rod Kit” and is just that: a block of cedar wood with two holes drilled in at an angle. The holes are occupied by removable pressed silica rods. Its operation is simple: hold your knife vertically on the inside of one rod, move it down to sharpen, then do the same with the other rod to the other side of the knife. You hold the cedar block still with your non-dominant hand. It does a very nice job, and reminds me a bit of the 10,000 grit side of the water stone.

But if you aren’t paying attention, or if you get a bit sloppy, you can hurt yourself, as I did one Sunday night in the 1980s. The London broil was out of the oven, and I was preparing to slice it with my Old Hickory butcher knife. All I needed to do first was to run the blade on the inside of both rods a time or two.

So, without paying very much attention, I raised the knife higher than the top of the left silica rod, and when the blade came down, it hit the top of the rod. After that, instead of veering right, the knife veered left. I had embedded the knife in the back of my left hand, severing a tendon. The only good thing I can say about that experience is that it was a good, clean incision produced by a knife that was already very sharp.

I visited the emergency room, and I later spent some quality time with an orthopedic surgeon. My recovery was complete. The Sears Cedar Block Sharpening Rod Kit was stored away, I thought for good.

Now I am glad that I did not throw it away. It is very useful. I don’t use it daily, but I do use it frequently.

It is just that I am a good bit more careful now when I use it.

Eighty-Nine Inches

Our Beaufort, SC, home was built in the 1940s. Originally, it was a one bedroom, one bathroom house. It was added to at some later date, probably between 1978 and 1995, and is now a three bedroom, two bathroom house.

The reason for that 17 year guess on when the house was enlarged has to do with polybutylene (PB) piping, which was used fairly extensively in housing water supply applications between 1978 and 1995. Cheap, flexible, and easy to install, PB was considered the “pipe of the future.” Housing experts believe that between 6 and 10 million homes in the country were built during that period with PB piping. It was a wonderful material. That is, it was wonderful until it was discovered that after 10 to 15 years of life it degraded, cracked, and failed, flooding the houses that used it as water lines.

No one is sure why PB piping fails. Some attribute its failure to exposure to the UV light found in sunlight (meaning that if it had been sitting out exposed to sunlight for a long time before being installed, it is more likely to fail). Others think it is due to local issues, primarily periodic over-chlorination of the water supply. While am no more certain than the experts, I tend to favor the latter explanation. The house two doors down from our Madison, GA, home has PB piping, which has not failed, even though the house is at least 25 years old. At any rate, this being America, there was a class action lawsuit sometime in the 1980s or 1990s which was settled for megabucks. Shell no longer produces the stuff, and presumably all homeowners are happy.

There are two things that cause me not to buy a house: aluminum wiring, and PB piping. Aluminum wiring is like an engraved invitation to have a house fire visit. I always look for it when buying a house. Fortunately, I’ve never found it. PB, on the other hand . . .

The reason why I know that the house two doors down from mine has PB piping is because, 13 years ago, I made an offer on that house, and later withdrew it when the home inspector found PB piping. (PB is gray in color; PVC is white. The piping that I could see in that house looked white. As it turns out, it had been painted white.)

So, a few years ago, when we bought the Beaufort home, I was concerned when the home inspector found some PB piping. The only reason we went through with the purchase of the house was because there was so very little of it: 89 inches, to be exact, with 12 inches of that piping on the hot water heater’s pressure relief valve, a position that caused me no concern. That left 77 inches, half of it running up to the laundry room to the hot water side of the washing machine, and half of it running up to the laundry room to the cold water side of the washing machine. These lines were under pressure, and they worried me so much that I finally resolved to replace them, which I did this week.

I spent some time in the crawl space taking photos, then headed off to the local hardware store, Grayco Hardware and Home, on Lady’s Island. Beaufort has a Lowes, which is nice, but when it comes to a job like this, I needed to talk to someone who knows what they are talking about. Grayco has an employee, Dick something or another, who is a plumber. He looked at my photos, sketched out what I needed to do, and sold me the supplies. I grabbed my goodies and headed back to the house to get dirty (it is a crawl space, after all) and wet (no matter that you shut off the water to the house, when you cut into a water line, you get wet).

There is a rule I follow for all household projects. I call it Batten’s Rule. It is simple: figure as realistically as possible the length of time it will take to finish a project, then multiply it by three. I estimated one hour. I finished it in three.

I am happy to report that all went according to Hoyle. My problems were not with the plumbing fixtures, but with the holes through which I tried to slide the PEX I bought to replace the PB. I hate threading needles, running electrical lines through existing walls, and fitting ½ inch lines in holes that just barely accommodate ½ inch lines. But, eventually, the deed was done, and I was able to take a nice shower before heading off to The Jazz Corner on Hilton Head Island.

Even though it caused me no concern, I even replaced the PB on the hot water heater’s pressure relief valve. The house if completely free of PB piping.

I do not understand why the 89 inches was there in the first place. With all the PVC and copper under the house, that little bit of PB seemed out of place. But no matter why it made an appearance, it is gone, and my quarterly work week at the house has ended.

And now I am back home in Madison, just in time to mow the lawn. It never ends.

The Four Color Theorem, or, I Am An Old Geezer

I was introduced to the Four Color Theorem when I was in college. The theorem dates back to 1852, when Francis Guthrie was coloring a map of the counties of England. He noticed that he needed only four colors to fill in the map, so that no two adjacent counties had the same color. Guthrie, who later became a mathematician and botanist (a curious combination) in South Africa, communicated this observation to his professor, the mathematician Augustus De Morgan, and asked whether this was true in general. In other words, given any map containing bounded regions (counties, states, etc.), can we color all these regions with only four colors, and avoid having any two adjacent regions with the same color?

This may seem a trivial, possibly silly, theorem, but its eventual “proof”, in 1976, has divided the math world into two groups: the Young Turks, and the Old Geezers. It turns out that, in 1976, at the tender age of 24, I was an Old Geezer.

The theorem was extremely difficult to prove. By 1890 we had proof that five colors would be sufficient, but the proof that four colors would be sufficient seemed elusive. One proof was published in 1879, and another in 1880, but both were eventually shown to be incorrect. Curiously, it took 11 years in each case to show that the proofs had defects.

In June of 1976, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken at the University of Illinois announced that they had proven the theorem. Their proof was controversial: for the first time, a computer had played a central role in proving a theorem.

I will not go into the details of the proof other than to say that they used the counter-example method. Let’s say that I want to prove that not all states in the United States are south of Canada. I start by assuming the opposite, that all states are south of Canada, then look for one example (a counter-example) where this is not true (Alaska). Once I have proven the opposite to be false, the original must be true.

The counter-example that Appel and Haken sought was a map where the minimum number of colors required was five. When they showed that this counter-example didn’t exist, the original theorem, that a minimum of four would suffice, was proven. This involved two mathematical properties of maps: reducibility, and unavoidability. In searching for the counter-example, the two mathematicians reduced the number of maps that had to be examined from an infinite number to just 1,476. (This is the reducibility part of the proof.) These maps were checked by computer. The computers of the day were not as fast as today’s versions, so it took more than a thousand hours of computer time to check the maps. The unavoidability part of the proof was performed by hand, actually by Haken’s daughter, and involved the examination of 400 pages of microfiche.

This is the part that rubbed mathematicians the wrong way. I can prove that vertical angles are congruent on a 3 x 5 index card. I can prove the theorem of Pythagoras on a half-sheet of notebook paper. There are other proofs that are far longer and more involved, but I can get through them with a reasonable amount of work. The Appel-Haken proof, on the other hand, is beyond my ability to follow. I can check the math that reduces the number of maps from infinity to 1,476, but the checking of the maps by the computer is something I can’t do. What if there is a flaw in the computer program? How do we know that there is no flaw? And the mind-numbing examination of 400 pages of microfiche requires a determination that few of my fellow amateur mathematicians possess.

There was, in fact, a flaw in the proof, discovered by a masters student in 1981. It was in the unavoidability portion of the proof, the 400 pages of microfiche. Appel and Haken corrected the error, and found that the proof still held. The final word on their work is their book, published in 1989, that corrects the error discovered in 1981, and includes the 400 pages of microfiche. It has the gripping title Every Planar Map Is Four Colorable, and can be purchased here for a mere $121.03, at the time of this writing. That is one expensive paperback.

But the use of a computer to do work that is unreasonable for a human to do still sticks in the craw. The year 1976 was a watershed year in mathematics, separating mathematicians into two groups: those of us, the Old Geezers, who object to the use of an algorithm that, in itself, can’t be proven to be accurate; and the Young Turks, who buy the proof based primarily on the fact that no flaw in the algorithm has yet come to light. It is an unsatisfactory situation.

Mathematicians have continued working on the proof of the four color theorem. The number of reducible configurations has been lowered from 1,476 to 633, but, as before, the checking must be done by computer. Another group of mathematicians has found a way to avoid having to trust the various algorithms that have been used to examine the reducible configurations. They did this by using Coq, a computerized theorem proving program. We are down to trusting one program only.

My view is that the four color theorem is very likely true. It is also my view that we do not yet have definitive proof that it is true. I remain an Old Geezer.

Black Mirror

I have been listening to the Night Call podcast since its inception more than a year ago. (There is one podcast per week, and the most recent one was podcast number 70.) Those of you familiar with the podcast will find it strange that I listen to it. To be honest, I succumbed to the advertising hype surrounding the launch of the podcast. I thought, given the name and some of the pre-launch advertising, that it would be in the same vein as the late Art Bell’s radio show Coast to Coast AM. I was wrong. This is how the website describes the show: “Every Monday, hosts Molly Lambert, Tess Lynch and Emily Yoshida, gather in dark rooms for a free jazz blend of pop culture theory, internet fascinations, and venture down a plethora of half-baked conspiracy theory rabbit holes. Drop us a line with your night call at 240-46-NIGHT or nightcallpodcast@gmail.com, and we'll offer our best advice on life, love, and the coming apocalypse.”

The three hostesses are, I believe, writers for web-based publications. At least one of the three is a movie reviewer. I listen to the podcast for a variety of reasons: I hear about movies or television shows that I would never discover from my friends that are my age; I get information on topics that engage the interest of that generation known as “millennial”; it kills time during my Monday morning commute to work. As to point two, I find myself looking up phrases and abbreviations they use on the air. It seems that “casting shade” has nothing to do with relief from sunshine. I had to look up an abbreviation when a female guest pronounced herself “DTF” with respect to some good looking male movie star. The baby boomers and the millennials are two generations separated by a common language.

But it is thanks to the Night Call podcast that I learned about the television series Black Mirror, a Twilight Zone-style creation of the screenwriter and producer Charlie Brooker. While The Twilight Zone dealt with a variety of sensitive topics, such as racism and nuclear annihilation, in the guise of futuristic or otherwise fictionalized settings, Brooker has focused Black Mirror on the relationship between man and technology.

Season five was just released on Netflix. The first two seasons, plus a Christmas special, were produced for Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. Each of these seasons contained three episodes. Seasons three through five, plus an interactive movie (Bandersnatch), were produced for Netflix. Seasons three and four had six episodes each. For the recently released Season five, Brooker returned to the three-episode season.

My opinion is free, and you will certainly get your money’s worth with my opinion. Given that caveat, I believe that the first two seasons, and the recently released fifth season, represent some of the best television that I have seen.

The very first episode of season one, The National Anthem, was disturbing, but not out of the realm of the possible. Its focus is the public’s appetite for humiliation. While it was undoubtedly critically acclaimed (“serves as a cautionary tale about the power of the collective 'hive mind' that is social media”), if the remaining episodes had been that intense, I would never have finished the series. Fortunately, the second episode returned to a more Twilight Zone-like pattern. Episode three (The Entire History of You), the second best of the first season, introduced me to Jodie Whittaker, who is the current incarnation of The Doctor in the long-running series Doctor Who.

I enjoyed the second season, although I did not think it lived up to the standards set by the first season. But in comparison with seasons three and four, and the ridiculous movie Bandersnatch, season two was high art. It seems that the move to Netflix and the extension to six episodes per season had compromised the originality of the show. I barely made it through Bandersnatch, and was not sure that I should commit the time to see season five. Now that I have seen the series, I’m very glad I did.

All three episodes of season five are good, but if you have time for only one episode, see the second one, Smithereens. It is a commentary on our social media addiction, and its consequences.

I am not a movie reviewer, and my tastes in plot twists may not be yours. Give the series a try. See season one, and if you like it, go straight to season five. You can pop back and try season two after that. As to seasons three and four, that’s up to you. If you are in doubt, try Nosedive, the first episode of season three.

After that, throw away your cell phones.

Que Será, Será

I admit to being saddened at the death, on May 13, of Doris Day. It is not that it was unexpected: back on April 3 of this year, my favorite radio station (Sirius Channel 73, the Forties Junction) celebrated her 97th birthday by playing her hits throughout the day. One is not surprised by death at age 97. Her death seems to be the final break with the Hollywood of a different era.

Even in my childhood I knew she could sing, because of her hit song Que Será, Será, which still played on the radio in the ‘60s (it was recorded in 1956). But for the most part, I thought of her as an actress. Pillow Talk, the light romantic comedy featuring Day and Rock Hudson, would be the first film title to come to mind when her name was mentioned. I was also aware that she had a television show in the late 60s and early 70s. (I was unaware at the time that she did the show to pay off debts accumulated by her third husband and the husband’s business partner.) Recently I saw the two movies she did with James Garner. I highly recommend Move Over, Darling, a 1963 re-make of the 1940 film My Favorite Wife. If you want to relax with an entertaining movie that doesn’t tax the brain, then a Doris Day romantic comedy is what you want.

I have yet to see the 1956 Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much, which features Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. It is this movie that gave us the tune Que Será, Será. It is on my “to see” list. What could be wrong with this movie? It features three winners: Hitchcock, Stewart, and Day.

It has been my great pleasure, though, in recent years, to listen to Doris Day, the singer. Her breakthrough as a singer occurred in 1945, when she recorded, with Les Brown and his Band of Renown, Sentimental Journey. For all I know, Les Brown my have recorded that tune a million times, but there are two versions that stand out, one with the Ames Brothers, and one with Doris Day. When I hear the opening measures of Sentimental Journey on the radio, I have my fingers crossed that I will hear the lovely voice of Doris Day, and not the mellow voices of the Ed Ames and his brothers. I could listen to her sing My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time, Day By Day, On Moonlight Bay, Till The End of Time, I Got The Sun In The Morning, and for that matter, the Manhattan telephone directory, all day. Her voice was as sweet and as smooth as any voice I’ve heard.

Her film image was that of a goody two-shoes. I once heard a comedian say that his stereo speakers stopped putting out after he played a Doris Day album. The ever-virginal image is hard to square with the fact that she was married four times and had a son by husband number one. The image, though, has a basis in reality. She was most likely not a prude, but she did turn down the role of Mrs. Robinson in the movie The Graduate because she found the script to be “vulgar and offensive”.

Every animal lover celebrates Doris Day for her commitment to animal welfare. She started at least two foundations devoted to the welfare of animals. Every year on her birthday, her hometown of Carmel, California, held a three-day celebration to raise funds for her animal foundation. She was such an animal lover that she was a vegetarian.

Her likes have been gone from Hollywood for many years, even decades. And now the original is also gone. Fortunately, we live in an age of technology: her music and her films will be with us forever.

I Never Order Waffles at Waffle House

Back in 2001, and again in early 2002, comedian Lewis Black visited The Punchline, in Atlanta, and used recordings of these sessions for an album, The End of the Universe. According to Black, the end of the universe is not “out there” somewhere. It is in Houston, Texas where, Black discovered, a Starbucks coffee shop on one street corner – directly across the street from a Starbucks coffee shop. The skit, which runs a bit under four minutes, is quite funny. You can find it on YouTube.

We do not have that problem here in Madison, Georgia. We had a Starbucks several years ago. I don’t recall ever visiting the place, but it seemed to be busy every time I drove past. It was closed during The Great Recession. It was busy up until the day they closed the joint down, so I do not know why the company made that particular decision. I guess some things are meant to be mysteries. Soon thereafter, a Chick-fil-A moved into the empty building, and it seems to be doing a booming trade.

Madison recently regained a Starbucks, inside the Ingles Supermarket, which brings back to mind the question, why did they shut the first one down? Who knows? Maybe the rain in the Pacific Northwest affected the thinking of the corporate executives. After a month without sunshine, one grumpy CEO may have just come up with the idea to deprive Madison, Georgia, of overpriced, slightly burnt-tasting coffee in a fit of rage against the weather out there.

We do, however, have two of the same restaurant out near the interstate. As you may have guessed from the title of this column, we have two Waffle House restaurants, one just north of the interstate (Waffle House number 773, at 1941 Eatonton Highway), and one just south of the interstate (Waffle House number 325, at 2050 Eatonton Highway). They are located about ½ mile apart. So if you ever find yourself at exit 114 on Interstate 20 in Georgia, you can get to a Waffle House without ever having to make a left-hand turn at an exit ramp.

For those of you unfamiliar with Waffle House, it is (I think) primarily a southern institution, which began in 1955. In fact, every morning that I drive to work, I pass the site of the very first Waffle House, in Avondale Estates. (It is now a Waffle House museum; before that, a Chinese restaurant. Waffle House number 1000 is just down the street from the museum.) The restaurants are generally on the small side: perhaps as many as a dozen booths, and probably fewer stools at the counter. It is a classic grill, where the food is cooked in front of you, and a jukebox stands ready to play the tune of your choice. The yellow sign is always lit, as the restaurant never closes. The clientele is varied: you can find nicely-dressed churchgoers returning home from a Christmas morning service, to drunks very late at night partaking of that old DUI preventative, coffee.

The menu is decent. You can get a T-bone steak, or a pork chop, or ham, or a steak sandwich, or a hamburger, etc. But I generally order breakfast there, regardless of the time of day. My standby is two or three eggs scrambled with cheese, and sausage. I always choose grits instead of hash browns because, well, just because. And if I am really peckish, I top the meal off with a slice of pie, usually pecan.

I have frequented a bunch of Waffle Houses over the years, yet I don’t recall ever running into a surly waiter or waitress, regardless of the time of day (or night). In my experience the food is uniformly good across all the restaurants. And the prices are quite reasonable.

Kathy was in Asheville last week, checking on her rental property and visiting with her granddaughter, Emma. She always leaves me with food to eat, but Thursday night’s dinner just wasn’t enough, so along about 10:30 I decided that hunger pangs did not befit a man of my advanced years. I hauled myself up on my hind legs, and drove over to Waffle House Number 773, the closer one.

The fellow who seemed to be the crew chief that night didn’t appear to be that old, but his official Waffle House name tag bore the appellation (no, I’m not kidding) “Grandpa”. Grandpa took my order, then relayed it to the short order cook using a slang that apparently only they can understand. The only item I could figure out was my order for sausage (two syllables), which came out as “hockey pucks” (three syllables, so what’s the point?). Someone else placed an order while I was there, and Grandpa shouted “chicken with feathers”. I have no idea what that might be.

The three eggs with cheese, order of grits, four slices of toast, sausage patties, and fresh coffee were all very nice, but not quite enough. I topped it off with a slice of pecan pie, then headed home for a little nap before bedtime.

Having two Waffle Houses on the same exit does not, in my opinion, constitute the End of the Universe. It represents, instead, A Mighty Convenience. I’d rather have two Waffle Houses than two Starbucks any day.

And just for the record, I’ve never ordered a waffle at a Waffle House, though I hear they are excellent!

Drug Court

I take the libertarian position on the war on drugs: we’ve lost. What we should do is admit defeat and legalize them all.

Part of what motivates those who commit property crimes and muggings is the high cost of drugs. These miscreants need a good bit of money to feed their habits. They get that money by breaking into homes and mugging innocent people. If we legalize drugs, the cost decreases, along with the need to commit property crimes and muggings. When was the last time you were mugged by a wino in need of a bottle of MD 20/20?

Legalization is difficult for one to accept if one knows a drug addict. The tendency is to look at legalization as enabling the drug addict in his habit, and this is a difficult thing for a friend or family member of a drug addict to endorse. I understand completely. A few years ago, a young friend of mine died as a result of a heroin overdose. He was a talented artist who had done some work for our company, Chile Today Hot Tamale. I do wish this young man had been able to get help with his addiction. But the fact remains that heroin was illegal when he acquired it and overdosed on it. Things could not have been worse if the drug had been legal. In fact, things may have turned out differently, if, for example, the FDA had established purity standards and specifications on active heroin content of the last packet he purchased.

I seriously doubt that I will live long enough to see drug legalization. But I do see a program that appears to be making a difference. This is a difficult thing for me to say, because I also take the libertarian position on government programs: a bloody waste of time and money, for the most part. The program is called Adult Treatment Court Collaborative, commonly known as Drug Court.

I live in the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit of the 8th Superior Court District in Georgia. This court decided to develop a drug court, to deal with addicts or alcoholics who seem, in the opinion of the judges, to be capable of turning their lives around. The court didn’t have to do this. Drug courts impose extra work on the judges of the circuit, and thus not every judicial circuit has a drug court. In fact, nationwide, there are a bit more than 3,000 drug courts targeting various demographic groups. The drug courts that target adults specifically are less numerous. The latest figure I can find is that there are 1,558 drug courts nationwide targeting adults.

Drug Court is an option available to judges as an alternative to incarceration, with some requirements attached. First, Drug Court is available only to those 18 years of age and older, who have committed a criminal offense and are facing at least two years of remaining or pending jail time. Second, Drug Court is not available to those who have committed the “Seven Deadly” sins of murder, rape, sexual battery, armed robbery, aggravated assault, sexual molestation, and aggravated sodomy. Third, the participant must be able to participate in the program both mentally and physically. Mental participation means that the candidate for Drug Court must not have a brain injury, and must have a minimum IQ of 70.

This is a program that lasts anywhere from 18 to 24 months, depending upon the decision of the judge, and contains a voluntary 6 months aftercare component. If the participant graduates from Drug Court and participates in the 6 months aftercare program, then the participant can petition the court to have any probation remaining on his or her sentence terminated. This is not a given: everyone – judge, prosecutor, sponsor, surveillance officers – must be in agreement. Given what I’ve read about the program, I suspect that some will find jail time a bit easier to do. So Drug Court isn’t for everyone. It is for those who really, truly, want to kick their habits and start life anew.

There are four phases to the program, with different requirements for each phase. There are, however, some features common to all four phases. Each participant is subject to random drug screening. If the participant fails, he or she is off to see the judge, who may decide that an overnight stay in the jail is sufficient. On the other hand, depending upon the judge’s experience with the participant, the judge may determine that the participant needs to serve the remaining two years of his or her sentence. It is also possible for the judge to order a residential treatment program. Drug Court has a counseling and treatment component, and all participants are expected to comply with these requirements, as well as probation requirements. The participant must meet weekly with a case manager, and must attend two or more court sessions per month. I suspect this serves as a reminder of what happens when one strays off the beaten path. The participant must adhere to a curfew (7 PM for phase one up to 11 PM for phase four), have a sponsor, attend community support meetings (AA, NA), and, if the participant does not already have a high school diploma, earn at least a GED.

There is also a work requirement. The participant must be engaged in what the court calls “sustainable employment”. The court’s definition of this term means employment of such a nature that income and payroll taxes are withheld from each paycheck. Our sheriff now spends a good bit of time trying to arrange sustainable employment for the participants. Additionally, there is a $1,000 fee due at graduation. The case managers encourage each participant to make installment payments over the 18-24 month period, so that the participant isn’t hit with this fee in its entirety upon graduation.

The court employs surveillance officers who make random visits to the participants, day or night, at work or at home. They catch curfew violations, and look for signs of drug or alcohol use.

Why do I say that this program is making a difference? Thanks to a series of articles in our local newspaper, I have discovered that I know quite a few participants and graduates. These are hardworking people who I would trust to look after my home or children. They seem to be living productive lives, and each one greets me with a smile. I am sure that, for them, every day is not all sweetness and light. News flash: the same holds true for most everyone. But they are honest and sincere, and they are building a new future for themselves, and their families.

I just wish that young friend of mine had been given the chance these folks have been given.

Who Murdered Aggie Albert?

Those of us who have spent the bulk of our lives in small towns are horrified when a murder occurs in our beloved community. Such was the case with the citizens of Covington, Virginia, in July of 1992.

My first wife and daughter (we had only one child at the time) moved to this small town in Alleghany County, Virginia, in 1982. The county itself is situated in the Allegheny Mountain range (no, the two different spellings are not typographical errors), and is roughly 50% national forest. Given that half the county is owned by the federal government, and half of the remainder is to be found on the sides of mountains, it isn't surprising to learn that the population is small. I suspect that the county's population then was somewhere in the ballpark of 13,000 to 14,000 people. The city of Covington is the only independent city in the county (and, by quirk of law, is thus not a part of the county, even though it is the county seat). My guess is its population was between 7,000 and 8,000 people: a nice, small town.

Esther Agnes “Aggie” Albert was youngest of the eight children of Francis J. and Nomnum Bertrus Albert. One brother, “Boodie” Albert, was a beloved football coach at the high school, and the high school stadium is named for him. At the time we lived in Covington, only three of the children were still alive: Lilly (born 1905), Rosalie (born 1918), and Aggie (born 1923). I believe the three sisters, who lived together, were of Lebanese ancestry. At any rate, they always brought absolutely delicious Lebanese food to the get-togethers at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, on Main Street.

The sisters were devout Catholics and devoted great time and energy to the church. On July 2, 1992, Aggie, retired from her position as a chemist at the local Mead-Westvaco paper mill, was working on a church fundraiser, “The Zany Follies.” Given her devotion to the church and the relative safety one feels in a small town, it was not surprising that she felt safe working at the church late into the evening. (The time that is most often given is around 10:30 PM, though I am not able to establish whether this was the time she left her home to go to the church, or the time she left the church to go home. Since there would be no witnesses to the latter, I assume the former.)

Her half-naked body was found in an alley next to the church on the morning of July 3. She was discovered by a man who had spent the night in jail, which was across the street from the crime scene, recovering from a bit too much booze. He was not a suspect in the murder. Aggie had been strangled and raped.

Her killer was never found.

That same night, a young man in town committed suicide (his body was discovered just a half-hour after Aggie's body was found), and there was some thought that perhaps he killed himself out of remorse for committing this heinous crime. The police ruled him out as a suspect, but did tie him to another, completely different, murder committed the month before.

Over the years, the local rumor mill has churned out a variety of suspects, but never with enough proof to result in an arrest, much less a conviction.

I had moved to Georgia in 1989, and my family (now including two children born while we were in Covington) moved in 1990, after finally selling the house. We learned of Aggie's death in what were, for us, the pre-internet days. This means that we didn't generally learn all the facts straightaway, and we picked up some confusing half-truths. One of the things we heard that caused considerable consternation was that the priest at Sacred Heart was a suspect.

I rejected that possibility outright. The priest that I knew was a good man, with a heart of gold. He had, after all, baptized two of my children. There was no way that I was that poor a judge of character.

But it turns out that the priest I knew had been transferred from the parish shortly after our family left Covington. The new priest was the suspect. The new priest, the Rev. Edward C. Moran, has faced allegations of sexual misconduct on at least two occasions, one of the occasions occurring at Sacred Heart Church in Covington, VA, the summer before Aggie's death. He was transferred from the Covington church in 1994, but once again, in 2005, was removed from a church in Virginia due to allegations of sexual misconduct.

The state did DNA testing in 2002, running the DNA found at the crime scene against known offenders, but did not turn up a match. It isn't clear whether this was due to the fact that there was no match to anyone in the system, or the DNA was too degraded to be of use.

This summer will mark the 27th anniversary of Aggie's death. Unless we have a deathbed confession from the perpetrator, it is very likely that this crime will never be solved.

All the Alberts of that generation are gone. Lilly died at the ripe old age of 92 in 1997, and Rosalie made it to the age of 86, passing away in 2004. The priest who, in my opinion, is the most likely suspect of those I've heard about, appears no longer to be the pastor of a church. There is a Rev. Edward Moran listed as a professor at St. Leo University in Langley, VA. I have no idea if this is the same fellow. All I can tell is that he is either an awesome or a terrible professor, depending upon which of the reviews you choose to believe on the website “rate my professors”.

There is very little good news to this story, but the closest I can find is that the parish priest who, without question, had absolutely nothing to do with this crime, the fellow who baptized two of my four children, did return to the Covington church. He retired from that position July 11, 2018, and apparently still helps out when needed. I knew folks who loved him, and folks who didn't, but he remains one bright point of light in a church that has had its share of darkness lately. So, Father Tom Collins, I salute you, and wish you a very happy retirement.