Art is 80

On October 15, I went on the Arena Stage website, logged in to buy two tickets to see their highly praised production of Damn Yankees. Because we were about to leave town for two weeks, I ordered tickets for the Saturday November 8 matinee. The final performance was scheduled for November 9.

I selected two seats (there were limited choices) and pushed the button to pay my money.

I thought no more about it until yesterday, the morning of the performance. My first thought was whether I had them leave the tickets at the box office, or whether they had sent them to me. My second thought was that I didn’t remember getting anything from them, including a confirmation of my purchase.

I looked at my Quicken account and saw I had recorded the purchase the day I bought the tickets, but there was no evidence of purchase on my Arena Theatre account, and there was no record on my Master Card account. I spoke to a very nice young lady at the box office who looked everywhere she could and found me nowhere. She could get us standing room tickets only, and I declined.

My fault.

So instead, we took a walk around the neighborhood.

We had a nice dinner with friends last night, and the conversation at one point turned to the Supreme Court’s decision to let the Trump administration require passports to state the gender assigned to the holder at birth.

Now there are many topics I am not expert in, and gender identification is one of them. I knew a few trans people of my generation and a few of the generation of my daughters. But it seems that so many of our friends’ grandchildren have gender issues. Assuming that there have not been any significant changes in human structure over the past decade, I can only assume that this represents some new found freedom. And who can argue against a new found freedom?

I understand there are issues. Although findings seem to feel that most people who change gender identity are happy with their new gender, clearly there are some who find life more difficult. This can be with family relationships, sexual relationships, psychological problems in general, practical problems, athletic endeavors. But none of this relates to passports.

To the extent that a passport serves as a piece of identification, you would think you would want the listed gender, like the displayed picture, to show the holder’s present status. What possible utility, on the other hand, does the gender at birth show? All it does is enable someone looking at the passport to recognize the holder as trans, for whatever mischief that could lead to. Just think: someone is identified as male at birth, becomes female after undergoing surgery and hormone treatment, definitely looks female, has a female name, and has to carry a passport that says male. What can possibly be a good reason?

The good reason is that a major goal of the administration is to sow chaos, to keep us off balance, and yes, to destroy our individual identities.

Finally, we’ll over a year ago, I said that Elon Musk’s major aim was to be the world’s first trillionaire. And look at him now!

We had a wide ranging discussion at my Thursday morning breakfast group meeting this week. The overall subject was how the Democrats should face the 2026 mid-term elections. Three of us were in charge of pulling together material to form the basis of the conversation. We did this by assembling material from various polls and studies, the most complete one being the Pew study of the 2024 presidential election, which analyzed various trends over set periods of time. We then listed a large number of platform issues, and asked which should be included, which should be emphasized, and which should be ignored by the party in its march to take over Congress next year.

There were about 30 of us present at our in person meeting at Congregation Beth El in Bethesda. Our group is composed of older males, mostly retired, all Jewish, ranging in age from about 65 to 101. Lawyers, doctors, government officials for the most part. Some academics and, because this is Washington, relatively few businessmen. And, oh yes, also because this is Washington, no Republicans. Actually, we did have one Republican, and a fairly prominent one, but he passed away at about 90 several years ago, ending our claim to be bipartisan.

How do people join our group? We have a cap on membership, and only add someone when a vacancy occurs. We have informally appointed one individual as the entire membership committee. He has a list of people recommended by other members and, every now and then, a new face appears. This undemocratic and very efficient system works well.

The discussion at the meeting quickly veered away from detailed analyses of issues, although the issues certainly loomed in the background, and went to more strategic considerations. The conclusion was that Democrats had to target those groups who had wandered away from them and now were often voting for candidates whose positions were harmful, not helpful, to their interests. These groups included younger white males without college educations often living in rural areas. This is, in fact, the largest group.

And to get to this group, the Democrats need to have emissaries with whom single, white less educated males can identify. Yes, it is true that there are some issues that should be back peddled. Gun restrictions, DEI related issues, emphsis on trans’ rights cannot be the Democrats’ focus if these voters are to be attracted. It was assumed that over concentration on matters like that would drive away this group, and that the emphasis should be on the economy, on opportunity and on hope. It seems like this may be what the Democrats are in fact doing if the words of DNC chairman can be believed.

Our presentation, so carefully prepared, was of course affected by the Democratic victories in the elections of last Tuesday. Many of the trends emphasized by Pew seemed to have been reversed. Especially, it appeared that some of the groups that seem to be abandoning the Democrats might be coming back to the Party. Certainly, there was a change in the Hispanic vote.

The large Democratic victories were in states that supported Harris, but there were smaller victories in places like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and even Mississippi, and there were zero Republican victories anywhere.

As it seems like everything Trump is doing is hurting him politically, the Democrats now have the momentum, but a year is a long time and all sorts of things can happen.

And yes, there was talk and concern about Mamdani in New York, with regard to the Jewish population, the potential flight of wealth from the city, and the inevitable identification of Mamdani as the face of the Democrats by the Republicans. But that is for another day.

At the end of the session, we passed around a ballot with a large number of presidential possibilities listed, asking each member to pick three candidates

We have collected 20 (we hope to get the others) and the individual with the most votes was Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.

Surprising?  He fits the overall tenor of the discussion. He is white, from a red state, male, from middle America, non-threatening.

Our plan is to reprise this session in late winter or early spring to track any changes in our thinking. I will keep you informed.

Yes, truth is stranger than fiction. And Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was one of the strangest books of fiction I read my kids when they were young. And then it became a movie.

Well, I assume that another movie is about to be made. And that it will be called Cloudy with a Chance of Submarines. Maybe this one won’t be for children……but maybe it will.

When Donald Trump first put federal officers of various types in the streets of Washington a few months ago, a federal employee, Sean Dunn, was outraged. He yelled at some border patrol officials, went into a Subway Sandwich Shop, bought a salami sub, came out of the shop, and threw the sandwich at Agent Gregory Lairmore, hitting him smack in the bulletproof vest.

The U.S. Attorney, Jeanine Pirro, had instructed her office to throw the book (metaphorically speaking, I believe) at apprehended alleged criminals, charging them with the strongest crime that they could be accused of, so her office wanted to bring felony assault charges against Mr. Dunn. The matter was brought before a sitting grand jury in the District of Columbia, and the grand jury refused to process an indictment.

So the U.S. Attorney started again, this time bringing the case as a misdemeanor. And now there has been a jury trial, a two day trial. And Sean Dunn was found not-guilty.

Now, there is no question but that Sean Dunn threw a salami submarine sandwich at Lairmore, or that it hit him. It may be that Lairmore exaggerated the effect of the incident when he said that the sandwich exploded, spewing onions and mustard all over him. But the sandwich, which was photographed on the sidewalk, apparently was still in its wrapper.

The jury apparently decided that throwing a sandwich at someone cannot cause harm and therefore is not an assault, that it was like a teddy bear being thrown at a parent by an angry child. Frankly, I don’t know. It seems to me you don’t want people willy nilly throwing sandwiches at federal officials all over town. You know, you start with a sandwich, and pretty soon, it’s a baked potato, and then maybe a baked Alaska.

I can’t give any advice to the federal officials strolling our streets, other than to have some paper towels handy. In fact, all of us need to be prepared, because food fights might be starting out all over. And you will have no recourse to the courts, to be sure.

On the other hand, there may be a silver lining. I for one will take my IRA and invest it in Subway stock.

Clearly, I have misgivings about this verdict. If you throw something at a federal officials, what is the boundary between something that is an assault, and something that isn’t? And if throwing a sandwich does not constitute an assault, does it at least constitute littering? Or is that only if you don’t pick it up? And when does throwing a sandwich become interfering with official duty? Only if the official is doing something? Or do I and the U.S. attorney both have this wrong? Perhaps throwing a sandwich is not an assault because, like so many others things, it constitutes free speech.

But I think this phenomenon goes beyond a submarine sandwich. Look at it this way.

Washington DC hates Donald Trump. Over 90% of Washington voted for Kamala Harris. And Donald Trump has no love lost for dirty, crime ridden, embarrassing DC. After all, he has “occupied” the town with the National Guard and extra law enforcement personnel.

He has occupied the city from whose citizens DC juries are selected.

Moreover, over the last four years DC grand jurors and DC jurors have worked very hard indicting and convicting 1000 or so individuals who rioted to various extent on the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021. Donald Trump showed absolutely no respect to DC juries or grand juries when he pardoned each and every one of these convicted criminals.

Conscious or subconscious, I don’t know. But don’t you think it may be a little time for payback?

I read yesterday that the average age of an MSNBC viewer is 72. Only a little over 20% of American voters are about that age. So it got me thinking…..where do younger people, and I guess I mean people under, say, 40, get their news? They don’t watch any TV or cable station in place of MSNBC; I assume the average ages are similar (although I don’t know). They don’t subscribe to newspapers. Or magazines. Most of their news they get somewhere on line, I assume, or from family or friends. From all of this, I conclude that they get their news in snippets. A Tik Tok reel, a headline from an on-line source, a comment from a friend. Snippets. And, if you get your news in snippets (“So what do you think about bombing those Venezuelen fishing vessels?” “Yeah, I heard about that. Sounds bad.”), how do you really understand anything, or – if “understand” – is too conclusionary – how do you even know enough to piece things together?

Now, I am not talking about the under 30 person who works in a field that requires them to keep up in the world, but the ordinary folk, who have no such professional need. How do they learn what is going on in the greater world and how does the lack of that skill affect their ability to define context in their lives?

Across my screen today, I got one of those posts that said something like “Five Things You Think About Upon Reaching 80”. Like most of those posts, it wasn’t worth much, but I appreciated No. 3: You find that the rest of the world has passed you by. To a great extent, that is true. But it isn’t that I regret not being a part of the world-to-come, but rather I regret that those in that world are not part of the world that I have been living in all this time.

For example, I spent a lot of time examining the results of Tuesday’s election. Did anyone under 40, who didn’t have to, do that? Okay, of course some did, but how many? Few, I bet.

But I learned a lot. I learned that, at least in the states that had something on the ballot this week, the voters didn’t think much of Donald Trump. I saw that, as to all the minority groups that began to swing towards the right over the past few years, they all pretty much swung back this week. That was especially true of the Hispanics, who I assume are tired of assuming, although they are all voting citizens (obviously), that they could be picked up and thrown in a detention facility half way across the country because they look like they might not be a citizen.

In fact, the only minority group that seemed to have moved against that tide were the Jews, who at least in New York, drifted to the right (if not away from the Democrats, because the top two mayoral candidates were both Democrats, although only one ran under the name of the party). Over 60 percent of the Jewish voters in New York City voted for Andrew Cuomo, only somewhat over 30% for Mamdani.

As an aside, let me say this: I am glad that Mamdani won the race for mayor, because otherwise I would have worked so hard on spelling his name correctly for no good reason.

As another aside, let me say this: Several paragraphs above, I used the word “screen”. That reminded me of my five year old grandson who was over here the other day and listening to his mother tell him how much screen time he could have while he was here. He was obviously not happy with her restrictions and decided to play on her sympathies, looking at her almost with tears in his eyes, saying “But I love screens!” He then paused a bit and said, to himself in a much lower tone as he looked at the floor, “But I hate people.”

I hope you saw how broad the Democratic victories were on Tuesday. Sure, you know about the governors of Virginia and New Jersey. But do you know that, in the Virginia General Assembly, the Democrats increased their one delegate advantage to an advantage of 14. And that some of those seats had not been won by a Democrat for 40 years, according to DNC Chairman Ken Martin. And then, in New Jersey, as I was watching Ali Velshi on the “Big Board” showing how Sherrill was doing county by county compared with Harris in 2024, it seemed that in every county where I looked, she was doing remarkably better, while the Republican candidate was trailing well beyond Trump.

Another example was in Pennsylvania, which had obviously gone for³ Trump in both 2016 and 2024. The only statewide elections were for either extending the terms of, or terminating, three judges. They were all selected by Democrats, and the Pennsylvania Republicans, plus the President, had campaigned to have the voters kick them out of office. All three were retained by at least, I think, two to one margins. Similarly in Georgia, there were only two statewide races being determined, both for somewhat minor positions on a state agency panel. In each of the two cases, there was a Democratic and a Republican candidate, and the Democrat won. What is so interesting about that is that these are the only two Democrats to win statewide offices in Georgia in decades.

There were also a number of mayoral races in major cities, including Cincinnati (where the losing Republican was J.D. Vance’s half-brother), Minneapolis (where the loser was an outspoken Arab-American), Pittsburgh, and Detroit. In none of those cases was a Republican elected.

But the only reason I know this (and in fact know more), is that I read the Post and Times this morning, I read the full Times set of election results, I read a number of news articles on my phone, and I had MSNBC on for close to two hours. How many people under 40 did that?

As to the mayoral election in New York, I thought there were three poor candidates. Cuomo I have disliked strongly since he was the Secretary of HUD, Sliwa had no chance, and Mamdani is, I think, too young and has said some troubling things. But Mamdani has been elected and needs everyone’s support. A number of very wealthy New Yorkers, who for understandable reasons were not supporting Mamdani and might have been supporting Cuomo, have contacted Mamdani today, congratulated him, wished him well, and asked what they could do to help. Obviously not everyone did this, and not yet, but that was both very encouraging and the right thing to do. Even Donald Trump said he wanted to help New York even thought it now had a “communist” mayor. But the Anti-Defamation League, which I think has gone off the deep end in recent years by automatically treating any anti-Israel sentiment as being antisemitic, has done the opposite. It has announced a “Mamdani Watch”, where it is going to keep it eyes on everything the mayor-elect does, and call it out when they don’t like it. What a pall on a formerly respectable and important institution.

Trump now has a dilemma. That is, he has a dilemma if he is in control of his own thought processes. Voters in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, California, and elsewhere have defeated him at every turn. What does he do now?

Does he say “I better change my ways to give my party a better result in the 2026 midterms?”, or does he say “Screw the bastards. Full speed ahead”?

With Prop 50 passing in California, and with the possibility of similar legislation passing in New York State, the redistricting already accomplished in Texas may have started as series of changes that will hurt, not help, the Republicans. It may make a Democratic House majority more likely for Trump’s last two years. Can Trump do anything to change that?

Of course, Trump does still have the Supreme Court behind him and, unless something changes, the Court will continue to exert more power than any other president has attempted to wield. And Trump still has a lot of control over US foreign policy. We will see if the Court will allow him to continue to exert dictatorial policy over tariffs, as the next test.

And then there’s the shutdown and, related to it, whether some Republican members of Congress will decide that unbroken fealty may not be in their interests.

On the other side, how will the Democrats capitalize on their victories? This may be a harder question to answer. And what will New York City under Mamdani look like?

There will be tremendous Republican focus on Mamdani. He will be attacked in all ways, and the Trump team has talked about punishing the city, although this may be politically unadvisable.

I did a quick look at voting patterns in the city. White New Yorkers voted strongly for Cuomo. Black, Hispanic, Asian and other minority groups for Mamdani. This will put a lot of pressure on the new mayor, and we will see how he handles it.

In conclusion? There really is no conclusion yet. And much of what happens will be up to the Democrats, not Trump. If the Democrats can prove themselves to be a big tent party and keep themselves from being targeted as crazy, far left Communists, they should do just fine next year. If Trump and the Republicans continue to act as they have been, they should do terribly. But we have a long way to go, and it’s not going to be fun.

I woke up with some anxiety this morning. There could be many reasons for it, but I will ascribe it to today’s elections. I am very impatient waiting for the results, even though I know they won’t come for the next 12 hours or so.

Politics make strange bedfellows, they say. Take our president, Donald Trump. Yesterday, he came out in support of Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City. Let’s get some things straight. Cuomo is a Democrat running as an Independent (should this word be capitalized?), and Trump is an Independent masquerading as a Republican (much like Hitler was an Austrian masquerading as a German – ok, enough with the Hitler analogies). But Trump as a Republican, and as the unabashed and unchallenged leader of the Republican Party, does have, you would think, an obligation to support Republicans, right?

Well, there is a Republican in the New York mayoral race, a long time Republican named Curtis Sliwa. But Trump had previously advised this Republican, a life long Republican, to drop out of the race, and as of yesterday has endorsed Democrat/Independent Cuomo (a man no one really likes – for good reason) as mayor in the hope of peeling off sufficient votes from Zohran Mamdani to keep Momdani out of that job. It was, to be sure, a ringing endorsement: New Yorkers should vote for Cuomo he said, because better a “bad Democrat” than a “Communist”.

Now, there is no way that anyone with a half rational mind could conclude that Mamdani is a Communist. He isn’t even a pure socialist, just a Democratic Socialist, which is (agree with their principles or not) a thing unto itself. But Trump’s hope, of course, is to convince New Yorkers that a vote for the Democratic candidate is a vote for Communism. And I am sure that he will succeed to some extend.

There are others who don’t support Mamdani, including a sizeable portion (maybe the majority) of New York’s Jewish population. They are wary of Mamdani not only because he is a Muslim, but because he has been relatively outspoken about the plight of the Palestinians living under Israeli operation, has pretty much refused to renounce the slogan “Globalize the Intifada”, has said that if elected mayor, he would have Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu arrested if he entered the city, and has recently said that he wants to examine the partnership between Cornell University and Israel’s Technion, which relates to space occupied by Cornell on Roosevelt Island and which I assume is on city owned land.

All this may be worrisome, to be sure, but there are a lot of New York Jews of a progressive persuasion and many whose age is similar to Mamdani’s (he is 34) who agree with Mamdani on many of his positions regarding Israel. This, of course, does bring up the continuing question as to whether you can condemn Israel’s government (and it is the government Mamdani criticizes; he has never, to my knowledge, suggested that Israel should not exist as a state) without being antisemitic. Mamdani insists he is not antisemitic, his many Jewish supporters take him at his word on this, but the Jews who are holding their nose and voting for Cuomo, or those of a largely orthodox persuasion who will vote for Sliwa without holding their noses, do not believe him.

And, to make matters worse, Trump, in pure Trumpian fashion, has said that if Mamdani wins the election, the federal government will simply cut off all funding to New York City. Of course, we all know that he can’t really do this, but then again, he is Donald Trump and, as he sort of says, “only he can screw this up”. There is a lot of mischief he will be capable of doing.

Then there is Virginia, where I am confident Abigail Spanberger will be the next governor and that the Democrats will be successful in all positions with the possible exception of Attorney General, I think that candidate Jay Jones (that is his name?) disqualified himself when he wrote that the VA Speaker of the House and his children should die. Period. Full stop.

But I also don’t want to see a Republican in that position. Polls this morning show Jones ahead but within the margin of error. No matter who wins, I will be unhappy.

Other races? I don’t understand why the New Jersey governor’s race is so close. If Democrat Sherrill loses, it will be quite a wake up call, to be sure. And in California, it appears clear that redistricting will be approved.

The other wild card, of course, involves Trump sending “election monitors” at least to California and New Jersey. They can create quite a mess and tie things up in the courts for years.

As I said, I woke up anxious. Now you see why.

So much comes through various sources on my computer that I don’t even try to keep their origins straight. This morning I saw a post from some organization that has come up with a list of the twenty most livable cities in the world. All were in western Europe, Canada and Australia. None were in the United States.

A few days ago, I saw another post, this one written by an American who had moved to Europe (I think Germany) as a young adult. It was a fascinating post (most things like this are not). He described his childhood in America, where he had learned that he lived in, by far, the best country in the world, and that there was nothing that remotely was as exceptional as American exceptionalism. He then described some of the differences living in Germany: free health care, free education, safety on the streets at night, no fear of everyone carrying guns, better public infrastructure, reliable public transportation, life seeming more affordable even when you had less money, and on and on. I think there were twenty things in all – something like that – where he concluded that life in Europe was better, but that hardly any Americans realized that.

And finally, just this morning, there was a fascinating segment on Morning Joe on MSNBC with Scott Galloway, whom I know as an intelligent podcaster, but who also teaches at NYU, and has been successful as a E-marketer. He has a new book coming out tomorrow, Notes on Being a Man, about the plight of young men today in America, and basically how they are being shaped through isolation and on-line algorithms, and losing their most important roles, to be protectors of their families and of others who are vulnerable, and to view themselves as members of an interconnected society. I know Galloway is talking about America – whether he would reach the same conclusions regarding young men in other countries is unclear to me. But one thing he said was interesting: he said that, with all of their dangers and problems, the country whose young men are the strongest and most resilient today is Israel, where everyone has to join the military or otherwise participate in the common defense (he did not mention that Haredi Jews who avoid this service for now). Galloway is a strong supporter of mandatory National Service, among other things, and an even stronger critic of internet technocrats.

It is clear that, in many respects, America has lost its way. Galloway terms it starkly: he says that we have become very intelligent and capable, and are using that intelligence and capacity to make our species extinct.

I turned off the program after this segment, but saw that the next segment was going to be with Tim Barnacle (veteran journalist Mike Barnacle’s son), who has apparently written a book on Newt Gingrich, and how Gingrich still influences America. I don’t know what Barnacle’s book says, but I agree that Gingrich and his invention of the Tea Party (did he invent it?) did and still does play a big role in our long downward slide. I find this true on at least two levels. First, that we are still living with the concept of trickle down economics, the idea that if you make the rich richer, they will somehow use their wealth to shore up those with fewer resources. Hasn’t worked yet; ain’t gonna work in the future. Second, that there can be bottoms up political organizing that can somehow convince the masses that they are organizing for their own benefit, when in fact, they are organizing for the benefit of the wealthy classes. Of course, these two things are connected. Members of Tea Party-type movements (and that includes MAGA) are convinced, evidence to the contrary be damned, that their movements will result in their lives being improved through (although they wouldn’t put it this way) trickle down economics.

It seems apparent to everyone who can shake themselves from these cult-like movements that we are in a downward spiral, and that nothing that our current president will do, or even wants to do, will reverse course. But it is also fascinating that those who oppose our current president are no more popular than he is. Maybe even less popular. We have a number of elections coming up tomorrow – in particular in Virginia and New Jersey and New York City. It will be interesting to see what happens. I would expect the Democrats to do well, the question only being how well. But, I also thought that the Commanders would have a winning season, and the only question would be how many victories they would achieve.

One last thing: the concept of American Exceptionalism was always nonsense to me, and a way of hiding our deficits. Now that our deficits are out in the open, I would hope we can, as a country, stop hiding behind our exaggerated opinions of ourselves, and look to all of those other countries around the world, in Europe and in Asia as well, to develop a sense of international best practices, and to convince the majority of Americans that best practices are in fact best.

Clint Courtney was the St. Louis Browns’ catcher in 1953, their last season before they moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. He had an up and down big league career, became a minor league manager, and died of a heart attack while playing ping pong at the age of only 48.

On our last road trip day, we spent several hours in Cumberland MD (never before), including a visit to a true collector’s shop, called appropriately Awesome Gifts and Collections. If you collect sports cards, they probably have what you want. Rocks and geodes? Yes. Coins? Fossils? Cameos? Russian nesting dolls? They have it all.

Including a 1953 Clint Courtney baseball card. Not cheap and not needed, but it brought back memories. (They had a number of Browns’ cards, but this is the one I focused on.

I looked up Courtney on Wikipedia. He grew up in Louisiana and then Arkansas very poor. Edie found his best quote, something like: I grew up so poor that my shoes were bad enough that if I stepped on a coin, I could tell you if it was heads or tails.

It turns out that Cumberland, a town of 20,000 in western Maryland (once a town of 40,000 in Wwestern Maryland) is worth visiting, if only for its impressive architecture and unusual street layout. It’s one of those places, like Paducah has shown to be, where all you need is a bunch of creative people to make it sparkle.

It is well worth a visit.

On the way home, our last stop (of course) was Wonder Books in Frederick MD, where I found a signed copy of George H.W. Bush’s All My Best, and a copy of a book of poetry signed by Nikki Giovanni. That makes four books I bought this trip.

Last night, we watched the 7th tremendous World Series game of 2025. Wrong team, but that’s the way it goes.

Back to real life. And to a president who wants to give China sensitive technology, kill seamen in the Caribbean and Pacific, attack Venezuela, attack Nigeria and start up the nuclear testing arms race. And that’s only the half of it.

As I sit down to write this post about the tenth day of our road trip, I find the days blending together. Where were we last night, anyway?

I know. We were in Elizabethtown, where we had Indian food, did a quick turn around its downtown, and got on the road. Our goal was Weston WV and it was going to be one long ride.

We had entered Kentucky the day before, by crossing the Ohio River at Cairo IL and left Kentucky just south of Ashland KY. That is a distance of over 400 miles, over 6 hours of straight driving.

Kentucky has always interested me. It is different from any other state, and although it has great diversity, each of its distinct parts is itself pretty unique to Kentucky. For one thing, it is the Blue Grass State. Where else is there blue grass?

I admit that I have never seen grass in Kentucky that I would describe as blue. But I have never been in Kentucky in the spring, when Kentucky blue grass takes on a blue tint.

And it is apparently the unique blue grass that gives rise to another Kentucky specialty, raising and racing thoroughbreds. Horses, they say, love and thrive on Kentucky bluegrass.

Western Kentucky, with its history, agriculture, and river life may not be completely unique, but you do notice a difference when you cross from a neighboring state. And towns like Paducah and Owensboro provide a liveable mixture of the old and the trendy.

And western Kentucky is very different from the central part of the state, which is the center of horse culture, and also the center of bourbon production. And then, as you move east, and the manicured hills become higher and more forested, you are in Appalachian coal country, poor and extremely remote.

And of course, this doesn’t include Kentucky’s mammoth Mammoth Cave. If I remember correctly, Kentucky has more caves than any other state

And there is the 250 square mile reservoir, Kentucky Lake, dammed from the Tennessee River, that provides enormous recreational opportunities.  And I haven’t even mentioned Louisville, a major city with major tourist attractions.

My maternal grandfather had a brother in Louisville, who when I was young would come to St. Louis every year to see a few Cardinals games. He had a neighborhood grocery and a couple of kids, but his children have never been and part of my life. On my maternal grandmother’s side, a niece of hers married someone from Louisville and moved there. They had two daughters, just a few years younger than me. For a while, Edie and I saw one of them (and her husband) on a regular basis when their son was at American University. But that was 25 years ago.

And even more years ago (more than a half century ago), I dated someone who had gone to college in Kentucky and who worked for Legal Services in Kentucky during her two summers while in law school, and that gave me opportunities to spend time in Louisville, Danville, and Prestonsburg (in the heart of Appalachia), all interesting.

Well, you ask, what about today?  We did not have any long stops, basically keeping to the Interstate, enjoying the beautiful fall colors. We did get off the road (but not out of our car) at Bardstown, to look at this attractive, upscale town, the location of My Old Kentucky Home, and we passed a few of Bardstown’s 9 bourbon distilleries. The distilleries each look like a major factory, certainly not a mom and pop operation. You can tour some of them. Next time. When we drove through Lexington, we stopped at Keeneland just to see it. Again, no time for a tour. Actually, I am not sure what happens at Keeneland. I just know it is a center of the thoroughbred world. Next time, ee will find out more.

We stopped in one more town, Morehead, a small almost Appalachian college town that looks like no other place we saw in the state. It has the ambiance of the old west. Can’t quite explain it.

We crossed into West Virginia and drove another 100 miles or so. West Virginia may be wild and wonderful, but it’s not nearly as interesting as Kentucky.

Most importantly, I should add that yesterdsy was our 49th anniversary. My part of this has been easy. But can you imagine what Edie has had to put up with for so long?

Two photos only today. The entrance to Keeneland, and the Mexican restaurant in Morehead prepared for the Day of the Dead. Yes, that is today.

We started in Sikeston MO, about 160 miles south of St. Louis, a town with a very small central business

district, a lot of businesses on the Rockville Pike-like outer roads, and a surprising number of fine old houses.

From Sikeston, we went 30 minutes south to New Madrid, a planned town that never took off, but which sits on a major fault line and was the site, in 1812, of the strongest earthquake ever to hit North America. There is a very good museum with very complete (it seems) information about earthquakes in general, about the Indians who lived in the area before Europeans arrived, and about the Civil War in and around New Madrid, all of which is very interesting.

Much of the agriculture south of Sikeston is cotton, and we were surprised, on October 30, to see so much cotton still waiting to be picked. A lot, however, was already baled, waiting to be carted to the cotton gin.

The Mississippi at New Madrid, hidden behind a high berm, is beautiful and was surprisingly busy with barge traffic.

From New Madrid MO, we drove to Paducah KY. A part of our route was remarkably fascinating. We were on an older U.S. highway, and crossed the Mississippi on an old two lane bridge into Illinois, just outside of Cairo, and then a virtually immediate right turn onto a similar bridge into Kentucky over the Ohio River, just before it spilled into the Mississippi.

Paducah is a surprisingly interesting town, filled with artist studios, trendy eateries, and the National Quilt Museum. Our goal was the Quilt Museum, but we never got there, deciding to peep into galleries and craft stores, instead. The ice cream was tempting.

Historically, Paducah had an active Jewish community, evidenced in part by the Cohen sign at Stella’s Restaurant (Stella Cohen had at one time been an owner of the property), and in part by the reference to Finkel’s on its former building. You may also recall that after General Grant issued Order #11 expelling Jews from the geographic area under his control, that it was a group of Jewish businessmen from Paducah who successfully asked President Lincoln to reverse the order.

After lunch in Paducah, we got back on the road, wanting to make Elizabethtown before dark. We got here, had a nice dinner at a popular Indian restaurant and I watched on the restaurant screen a kabaddi match. You know what that is? I didn’t.

Oh, yes, we did stop on the way at Center City KY, to pay homage to the Everly Brothers. Older brother Don was born there.

Today, the goal is Weston WV. Tomorrow, the goal is home.

Rain, rain, go away

Come again another day.

It has been raining all day and promises to go away tonight, and come again another day. Tomorrow.

We didn’t leave St. Louis until after 11 this morning driving down I-55 for a little more than an hour, until we reached Ste. Genevieve, the oldest European settlement west of the Mississippi. Founded by French Canadian settlers in 1735, Ste. Genevieve in 1800 was bigger than St. Louis. Today, it’s population is only about 5,000. The city has several houses from the 1700s, and many from the early 1800s.

Several houses are normally open to the public, but the government shutdown has closed those operated by the National Park Service, including this one

This house was built by the Janus family in 1791. In 1803, a tavern was opened in the house, and shortly after that, the state’s first Masonic lodge was founded in it. Today, it is known as the Green Tree Tavern, or the Janis-Ziegler House.

We did get to visit the Louis Bolduc House, built in 1788, and now owned by the Society of Colonial Dames in the State of Missouri. In fact, we had a private tour by a very informative guide from the adjoining Museum of French Colonial Life. Here are some photos:

We enjoyed driving through the historic district, which still looks historic because so much is labeled, and so little has been overly upgraded.

We also visited a pewter studio and shop, meeting the owner and her two large cats, and had a a good lunch at the crowded Stella and Me Cafe (rated 4.8) in its building dating from the 1850s.

It’s less than an hour drive from Ste. Genevieve to Cape Girardeau, a significantly larger, but less interesting town. It’s on the Mississippi, but dangerous flooding required shutting off the town from the river by building a flood wall, decorated with famous people closely connected to Missouri.

These include Cape Girardeau native Rush Limbaugh

and odd neighbors Joe Garagiola, Stan Musial, and Dred Scott.

From Cape Girardeau, a 30+ minute drive to Sikeston where we stopped for the night and had a filling Japanese meal.

Tomorrow? New Madrid MO and points east.

Day 7 was a quiet day, late start, visit to a bookstore, coffee house lunch, visit with cousins, visit with friend Michael, dinner with Edie, host Judy and long-time-no-see friend Patti. Great to see Patti, but the surprise of the evening was when I thought I ordered a scoop of gelato and got this:

Today, after a Zoom Haberman Institute leadership meeting we hit the road in what can truly be described as a driving rain

Because I always buy books, none of which I really need, you will be pleased to know that I only bought two this trip (so far).

The first is Robert F. Kennedy’s book The Real Anthony Fauci, which has been described by Kennedy supporters as the book that shows the corruption between big government and big pharma, and by experts as misleading nonsense. I bought it because…….there it was.

The other book I bought (and will read) is the memoir of Prince Felix Youssoupoff, published in 1953. Felix (if I may be so bold to call him that) was the leader of the group that murdered Gregor Rasputin in 1916. The Youssoupoff family lived in an enormous “palace” in St. Petersburg and Rasputin was shot in a basement level room and then transported to a frozen river where he was dropped through the ice. We visited the palace some years ago. In the room where Rasputin was shot, they have Madame Toussaud-like characters portraying the final scene.

The palace itself is beyond luxurious and contains a private theater still used today for chamber music concerts and so forth.

The memoir talks to both the history and life of the family in Russia, and Felix’ later life in exile in Paris. At home, I have another book written earlier by Felix covering the death of Rasputin. Published in the 1930s in Paris, the text is in Russian.

Although I never find time to do a lot reading on road trips, I have read through about half of a book from the late 1930s called Searchlight on Spain, about the Spanish Civil War. It is very interesting, especially so far about the political turmoil in Spain leading to the outbreak of actual fighting, when most of the army deserted the Republic and joined the church and major industrialists in revolutionary activity. What did I learn? The right wing never changes in their political beliefs or their utter lack of a moral code as they go about achieving their goals.

Gotta hit the road. No time to proofread.

When I was 5 years old, and probably had never been west of University City MO, on Lindbergh Blvd, just north of Clayton Road, a family opened a restaurant called Kreis’ Steakhouse (not to be confused with Ruth’s Chris). It is still going strong (to put it mildly) and we had dinner there with two friends last night.

Edie had salmon, our friends both had prime rib, and I decided to order something I probably haven’t had in well over 50 years – Weiner Schnitzel Holstein (that is, a breaded veal cutlet with a mild tomato sauce, topped by a fried egg and anchovies!).

I basically stopped eating red meat in the late 1960s. At that time, I had two exceptions – Chinese restaurants, and Roy Roger’s roast beef sandwiches. The exceptions gradually faded away, and I became strictly a fish and fowl guy.

When we opened our new law firm at 1 Thomas Circle in 1991, there was a small carryout lunch spot off the lobby which had fresh roasted turkey every day which they would carve off  the bird when you ordered your sandwich. That became my lunch maybe three times a week, and it was delicious.

But one day, as I was walking towards the elevator, God spoke to me (for the first and last time), telling me that I had had more chicken and turkey that I was ethically entitled to, and I should eat them to more. I had no choice. I stopped “cold turkey”.

I then told myself that if God had ordered me to stop eating chicken and turkey, he probably wouldn’t want me to eat fish either, but that he probably just hadn’t considered it yet. So I decided to become a strict vegetarian.

I stayed a vegetarian about ten years, gaining a reputation that I still have in some quarters. But in spite of everything you read in books, being a vegetarian didn’t seem to offer me health benefits. Weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and more all were going in the wrong destination.  So, a little after the turn of the millennium, I decided that it was okay to start eating meat again.

God had nothing to do with that decision as far as I know. Instead, it was the result of the menu at the Bluefin Bay resort on Lake Superior north of Duluth, which featured venison. I had always thought that venison would be the way to end my meatless decade, and I could not resist. It was delicious.

Basically, though, I decided to go back to my fish and fowl diet, avoiding red meat. Today, and I don’t know exactly when it started, I have an informal rule of not more than two red meat dishes a month. Yesterday was the 27th of October and I had no recollection of recent meat meals, so the schnitzel seemed okay.

Well….

The schnitzel was excellent. The warm soft bread with the very hard crust was excellent. The green beans almondine were cooked to perfection. The hot apple strudel with vanilla ice cream was just right. Even the coffee was top notch.

What more could one want?

By the way, Robert Reich’s blog this morning about Elon Musk is very worth reading. Reich concludes that Musk outside of government may be even more dangerous than he was inside government, discussing Tesla, Space X, the Boring Company and more. He reminds us that Musk’s demand for a trillion dollar compensation package from Tesla (to keep him in focus on the company) is the equivalent of a thousand billion dollars, or a million million dollars. Worth it?

This is a model of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair that is at the center of a very nice exhibit at the Missouri Historical Society Museum at what was formerly called the Jefferson Memorial in Forest Park. The fair, which was open for several months coveted about half of Forest Park and extended north for several blocks and west where its administrative building, now called Brookings Hall, serves as an administrative center on the Washington University campus. And, yes, if you have ever wondered, the Brookings of Brookings Hall is the same Brookings as the Brookings of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. And, yes, if you are now wondering, this may be the first-time that the word Brookings has been used five times in the same sentence.

I have always been interested in the St. Louis World’s Fair, and I have a collection of over 125 souvenir and other items from the Fair. But that is not for today’s post.  I am also not going to describe the Fair. Google it if you want.

But there are a few very interesting things I learned at the Museum, and one thing I didn’t learn. What I didn’t learn is how many people went to the Fair on its opening day, April 30 (a sunny 70 degree day, by the way). If you read a narrative description of the opening day at the exhibit, you will learn that it was 237,000. But if you look up on the wall about 4 feet higher, you see that there were 197,000 in attendance. I asked Chat GPT to resolve the difference. It told me the correct(ish) number was 187,000. Then I asked Perplexity, and was told incase about 200,000. We’ll, so much for government work.

Some things I learned were shocking.

Can you read this? There was an exhibit displaying scientific progress through the new invention of baby incubators, to help premature babies survive. The premature babies, of course, needed proper nutrition and care, something they did not get at the Fair. The exhibit kept operating and turned a profit, but 39 babies (out of 43) died. Say, what?

On the other hand, the Ferris Wheel was a big success. 80 couples married on this Wheel. Each compartment could hold the entire wedding party.

This is Otto Benga. He was apparently “purchased” in the Congo, and brought to be displayed at the Fair. After the Fair ended, Benga was sent to the Bronx Zoo where he was displayed in a monkey cage. Several years after that, Benga committed suicide.

So everything was not peaches and cream. And why can you learn of these unfortunate events in this exhibit? The answer is simple

Because Donald Trump and his MAGA minions, who are purging federal museums, are not in charge.

After the museum, we drove around with friends looking at big houses and tornado damage, had a very nice dinner at Westwood Country Club, and visited with some more classmates.

Today? Drove two friends to the airport and wrote a blog post. Later? Visiting cousins, dinner with two classmates. And more? Maybe. We shall see.

I published the shots from the extraordinary Anselm Kiefer exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum yesterday as a Lucky Strike extra because I knew I would have a lot to say after last night’s 65th high school reunion dinner. In fact, I really don’t. It was a fine dinner, with over 30 classmates and maybe 50 in all attending. But I don’t know that it was very noteworthy.

The class is politically diverse, if in other ways not so much, but politics seemed to play no role last night. One of the class rightwingers did shake my hand and told me it was nice to see me. I told him the same and he then said, “I guess that’s the only thing we agree on.” He was probably right. He is a very bright guy (truth is, he was number 2 and I was number 3 in the class), and lived up the street from me, but we were never really buddies

He was at MIT the four years I was at Harvard, and I don’t think we ever saw each other in Cambridge. He lives in Atlanta, and our only contacts the last decade or so have been on Facebook, and not particularly pleasant.

There was another rightwinger there, whose high school record was not MIT quality, who gave me the coldest “hi” I have ever received, and turned her face from me.

On the other hand, I sat next to an old and very good friend, whom I had not seen for 15 years. He is a podiatrist, still working full time. Just him and a staff of 13. Hearing about his practice, his sculpturing, his river house and his kids made the reunion worthwhile.

Other than that, a lot of pleasantries and nice, brief conversations with people I used to have nice, brief conversations with, and nods and smiles with others. But remember, I had seen 7 of these people the day before and spent yesterday afternoon with a few of them at the Art Museum.

Another highlight. One of my classmates became a United Airlines pilot and then leader of the United pilot’s union and then a board member of the airline’s parent company. He was on the emergency response team after the United plane crashed in Shanksville PA. He is of the firm belief that the plane did not crash because of a passenger revolt, but because the US military shot it down, purposely killing all on board, rather than let it fly into the Capitol. Anything else, he believes is a cover up.

After the museum visit and lunch yesterday, we and three others went to Crown Candy (famous St. Louis culinary landmark for ice cream) and one of them, friend and classmate, tripped on an uneven sidewalk while holding two cups of ice cream, lacerating his forehead, nose and one hand. We drove to St. Luke’s Urgent Care in Creve Coeur, where they promptly treated him. He missed the reunion dinner, but is planning on coming to the brunch today. He will be fine. But it did put a damper on the afternoon. BTW, I had black cherry ice cream. A+++++.

One more thing. I woke up this morning to a Washington Post editorial supporting the White House  ballroom.  The Post editorial board has been totally out of control recently, filled I believe with new people, as the Post has lost so many of their veteran reporters, but this might have been the dumbest of their many dumb and unnecessary editorials.

After I read the editorial on line, I decided to look at the comments. I read through the first 30 or so. Not one was supportive of the editorial, many focused on Jeff Bezos’ Amazon’s need to keep government contracts flowing, and about a third said they were canceling their subscription.

What a world we have created.

We just returned from a visit to the Anselm Kiefer exhibit, which opened this week at the St. Louis Art Museum. 40 paintings, virtually all of massive size, many painted for this exhibit. Kiefer, a contemporary German artist, is a favorite of mine, and seeing so much of his work in one place is a real treat.

Kiefer did not want any explanatory information given to viewers. The subject is rivers. The title of the exhibit is Becoming the Sea. A few examples:

In 1839, the capital of Illinois was moved to Springfield. Before that, Vandalia was its capital, and for several years, the legislature met in this building, still a county courthouse. I usually want you to visit the places we stop at, but I think you can skip Vandalia if you want. It was, to be fair, the western terminus of the National Road, and that is of historic interest, but you can read about that in a book. Or a blog post.

I was certain that there was more to Vandalia than those two facts, and went to Wikipedia to learn more. What did I discover? I found out that in 1915, the Liberty Bell was sent to San Francisco for the Panama Pacific International Exposition and, on the way back, passed through Vandalia!

The ride yesterday was very nice, with sun replacing the clouds and the six or so trees we saw as we drove through the farmland of Indiana and Illinois looked beautiful with their changing colors.

When we got to St. Louis, we first visited our cousins Donna and Ed. Donna’s mother and my mother were sisters. Donna had been cleaning out some boxes of stuff that she hadn’t looked at since she cleaned out her parents’ house, and found some family memorabilia. I know you aren’t all interested, but here a a little of what she found.

The resolution is not the best, but here is my mother and Donna’s mother at the Kentucky Derby in 1937. They would have been 20 and 24. Maybe staying with my grandfather’s brother Sam in Louisville.

Twenty horses ran in the Derby that year. The winner was War Admiral. Billionaire came in last. Hard to imagine Billionaire coming in last in anything today, except for maybe a popularity contest.

And then there is this picture of the Margulis family. My grandfather standing on the far right. Where was this take? Looks like Ukraine or Poland or Galicia, right. The answer is: St. Louis. Things were different then. I would guess “then” to be about 1895.

The Margulis clan was originally from Ukraine. My grandmother’s Wrobel family was from somewhere in Austria-Hungary’s Galicia, but settled in Vienna some time in the mid or late 1800s. Somehow, my great grandfather Joe Wrobel found himself in London, where he married Gitel Nadel (who became Kate in America). I know little about her family. No idea when she came to London. Was she also from Galicia? Did they know each other in Vienna?

I have no answer to those questions. All I know is:

that they were married in London at the Hambro Synagogue in 1884. The Hambro Synagogue was a breakaway congregation from London’s Great Synagogue. Its building was demolished in 1892, as part of a London slum clearance project, and eventually merged back into the Great Synagogue. I picked up this info from a quick visit to JewishGen. There is obviously more to this story.

Okay, one more.

A picture when I was cute. Along with Donna, my late sister Joan, and my grandfather. Oh, yes, I am there one in front.

Last night, we were with nine classmates and their plus-ones at a catered dinner at friend Wendy’s house.  Three of us were the three Arthur’s in the class. Here we are, the Three Not-so-Lively Arts.

When we checked into our hotel this evening in Richmond IN, I was asked a question I had never been asked before. When the young clerk saw that I was from Washington, she asked me: “Are you a politician?”

It was in fact the second strange conversation today. We filled the gas tank just outside of Springfield OH (you know Springfield, the home of dog-eating Haitians) and the receipt didn’t print out on the machine. So I went inside to get it from the cashier. I had put about 9 gallons at just over $3 per gallon at Station #4. The cashier handed me a receipt for 9 gallons for $41, and stated it was 9 gallons of super duper premium. That worried me because I knew I had bought regular

After I told him that this was not mine, he printed another, also for 9 gallons at about $29 and handed it to me. He then asked me why I waited an hour and a half to ask for a receipt. An hour and a half? I had just bought the gas

Then, he told me I bought my gas at Station #2, not #4. I told him I was at #4. He then said, “No, I saw your car at #2. It’s black, right?” My car is white.

He then realized he could trace the receipt by my credit card number, and asked me the last four numbers

I told him, and he could print out my receipt. He treated the entire sequence as if it was absolutely normal.

And, no, he was not Haitian.

We started in Washington Pa and ended up, about 270 miles later in Richmond IN

But the most interesting part of the day was spent in Zanesville OH. It was the third time we have made a lunch stop in Zanesville. The first time, it was lunch downtown, near their fascinating county government building.

We looked at the street sculpture of Alan Cottrill, ate at a food court and moved on.

The second time, we ate at Muddy Miner’s, and learned that this restaurant’s deck overlooks the Muskingham River, where young Zane Grey learned to fish under the tutorship of Muddy Miner, an elderly man who lived to fish. Today, the chilly weather forced us inside and we were able to see all of the items they have regarding Zane Grey’s fishing career.

Zane Grey (Zanesville was named after his great grandfather) was a remarkable fellow. A dentist who attended the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship, Grey moved west and wrote about Ohio history, baseball, fishing, and of course the American West.

On our second trip to Zanesville, we saw there was a Zane Grey Museum, but opted instead to visit the extremely nice Zanesville Museum of Art, where we learned (among other things) about Zanesville as a historic center of both practical and artistic pottery.

Yesterday,  we skipped the art museum and went to the Zane Grey Museum, and highly recommend it. It has three sections. Only one focuses on Grey. The others are focused on Zaneville’s pottery, and on the National Road. The National Road was the first federally supported road (unpaved at that) heading west, running from Cumberland MD to Vandalia IL.

The top picture is Zane Grey’s office in Altadena CA. The middle picture shows a handwritten draft of a part of a book by Grey, the same pages typed by his wife Dolly, the galleys back from the printer, and then the book.

The bottom photo is one of the many pottery examples in the museum.

The National Road section of the museums includes bicycles, carriages and cars. One interesting old car is a model T chassis, with a different passenger area, designed to pick up people from the railroad station. Originally called a station hack, it was later changed to a station wagon.

We also went to see the house Grey grew up in, still a private residence.

Finally, we went back to see the Alan Cottrill sculptures, and saw a new one.

We completed the first leg of our trip to St. Louis when we reached another Washington, this one near Pittsburgh, about 250 miles from home. This is our third time stopping here in the last 18 months, and each time we had dinner at the Union Grill, which never ceases to amaze me.

The Union Grill is entered by descending 5 uninviting steps on the side of an old brick building that looks like it has been abandoned. But when you open the door, you find yourself in what must be the busiest restaurant in the known galaxy. A Wednesday night and its several rooms are filled to the gills and for most of the evening there is an overflow crowd waiting for their tables. How they do this kind of business is beyond me.

The downside? The downside is that it is about 45 windy degrees in Washington PA, and we are not fully prepared.

When we left Big Washington at about 10 yesterday morning, the temperature scheduled to climb into the sixties and it was beautiful. We had picked the very best day possible to drive up I-270 and across I-70. The sky was blue with occasional dramatic cloud formations, and the colors along the sides of the road and up in the hills were spectacular.

But wouldn’t you know it. You get to Breezewood and it all changes. It becomes overcast, chillier and the leaves lose their sheen. By the time we reached Bedford, everything was gray and the temperature was 54. We went to The Pub for lunch, where we had eaten before, but the waiter disappeared after giving us water and we lost patience and he lost customers. We went across the street to a very casual Mexican restaurant, Don Patron’s and had a satisfying meal for half the price.

Bedford is a upscale town which has been around so long that it played a role in the French and Indian War in the mid 1700s. This is the only building from that period that remains. It now houses an upscale food shop.

But later George Washington actually did sleep here.

And Bedford has a large number of well maintained 19th century houses. Like these.

We spent almost an hour at Founders Crossing, a very very very very large two level store, filled with crafts on the upper level and antiques below. As Union Grill might be the world’s busiest restaurant, Founders Crossing is undoubtedly the galaxy’s biggest store of it kind. The antiques level has an inexhaustible supply of almost everything. The crafts level has an extraordinary amount of items, not one of which I would like or need in my house. For example, you need a hand painted saw?

But there is more to get in Bedford, such as

We skipped this. The idea of sauerkraut in a plastic box in our car for ten days wasn’t very appealing.

The drive from Bedford to Washington PA on old Route 30, the Lincoln Highway is interesting for many reasons. It is just too bad that the weather dimmed the changing leaves and extraordinary visas, and that at about 3 p.m., our dashboard said it was 42 outside.

Of course the best thing about today is that we avoided hearing or following the news. Did anything happen? Did we sink a ship in the Pacific? Did we sanction Russia? Are we building a ballroom bigger than the White House? Ha ha. Hypothetical questions, all.

So, who is going to come out ahead in the shut down, the Democrats or the Republicans? My guess is that the Republicans will wind up appearing better than they should, simply because they are better at appearing better than they should. The Democrats have a dilemma. If they continue to hold out, they will get more blame, but if they give in to the current bill, they will become complicit in the catastrophic rise in health insurance premiums that will hit so many the first of the year. I don’t think the Democrats can afford to do this, so I think they should hold the line, even though many federal employees and federal contractors are suffering. Those suffering have to think of it as if they were union members participating in a general strike. Of course, that’s easy for me to say.

In the meantime, I have reached a decision that Donald Trump may be the worst person in the country. Most other criminals have better excuses than he has for his actions. They are desperately poor. They are alcoholics or drug addicts. They were sexually abused as a kid. The only possible excuse Trump could have is mental illness, but as he has not been diagnosed, we can for now assume that he is not clinically mentally ill, and therefore we don’t have to excuse his behavior on that account. So he wins my vote. Day in, day out.

I am upset about so many things he does, as we all are, aren’t we? Okay, I know he still has his fans, but they all have their own problem, a strong case of gullibility. That may be a basic characteristic that is impossible to cure.

At any rate, I am thinking about the actions taken in the Caribbean that have knocked Venezuelan and now Columbian boats out of the water and killed their crew members (except for the two who were captured and then were extradited to Columbia and Ecuador). Those who still favor Donald Trump may say, “but he’s keeping us safe, keeping drugs out of the country”. I say that he is violating international law and committing murder and, Commander-in-Chief or not, he is giving illegal orders that should not be obeyed. Why is this? First, we have no proof, apparently, that these ships are carrying dangerous amounts of drugs. Second, we have no proof that these ships are heading for the United States. Third, we have no proof that these ships are sponsored by particular governments or by drug cartels. Fourth, the ships are in international, not American, waters. Fifth, the ships are given no chance to surrender, giving no warnings before they are shot. Six, even if the ships are running drugs to the United States, we have apparently no clue who the crew members are, or what their involvement might be. Seventh, by sinking, rather than capturing, the ships, we lose evidence. Eighth, because there is certainly no finding of guilt or due process given to someone believed to be guilty, if there is no trial. Ninth, because no one on the ship is committing a capital crime, no matter what laws they may be breaking (in fact, the people committing the capital crimes are Trump and the people under him following his illegal orders).

I am also wondering about Trump’s big, beautiful ball room. He has started this process by ordering the demolition of the East Wing of the White House. I don’t think that the East Wing has any particular historical significance or architectural significance. But it appears that the demolition, and the ballroom construction that will follow, is not being subjected to normal planning and approval processes for federal buildings. Of course, Trump says that he can do what he wants to the White House and no other approvals are necessary, but I don’t know why that should be the case. But it means that the design plans, and maybe the engineering details, are not being subject to the level of scrutiny other federal projects are subject to. Of course, this is in character with the probable worst man in the country, Donald Trump.

What else……

It looks like Portland OR is going to get some national guardsmen in their city. My suggestion is not to sweat it. They are normal folks, they won’t do anything bad, they will help the economy by buying lunch every day, and their activities are so limited that you won’t even know they are there. They aren’t going to be enforcing the law, or helping ICE, or anything like that. They will be standing around in clumps, talking to each other, looking at their phones, and wishing they were home with their spouses and children.

And I must say I am looking forward to the World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the L.A. Dodgers, but sad that I will miss the first two games while we are involved in my reunion festivities in St. Louis. I do hope that I will be able to see (probably will not) a game where former Nat Max Scherzer pitches for the Blue Jays and Shohei Ohtani for the Dodgers. Who do I favor in the series? Toronto. No question.

At any rate, today we go on the road. Last trip, our first stop was Washington, Pennsylvania. It’s about four and a half hours away if you drive straight without stopping. We had two scheduled sight-seeing stops, plus a lunch stop, last time. We will obviously stop for lunch, but have no other scheduled stops, so our timing is pretty unclear.

Oh, yes, one more thing. If Donald Trump is the worst person in the country, who comes in second? I think it is a tie between Stephen Miller and Mike Johnson. Or is it Russell Vought? Behind all of them, there is another tie. Every Republican member of the House or the Senate. I lump them together.

What comes next? Not sure, except I think that, in my writing, I will stop being Mr. Nice Guy.

1. First, let me complain about Wordle. I try to do Wordle every day. I am pretty good at it. In fact, over the past year or so, I have failed to come up with the correct 5 letter word in 6 tries only one time. It was early in the year, the word was “eager”, and I just missed it.

But then, as my consecutive day score built back up, I forgot to play one day. We were on one of our road trips, and I just didn’t play.

Well, if you miss a day of Wordle, they don’t send you a reminder, and they don’t let you  catch up the next day. It counts as a failure and they set you back to zero. That has happened to me three times this year.

Yesterday was different. Yesterday was the day of the Amazon server snafu where for 8 hours or so, the Amazon website and the websites of all other organizations who use Amazon for data storage went dark. Who even knew that the NYT (Wordle is an NYT game) was dependent on data centers owned by Jeff Bezos’ company? After all, Bezos owns the Washington Post. Speaking of concentration of power…..

At any rate, the daily Wordle, which normally arrives at my mailbox at 6:01 a.m., never came. After the Times came back on line, I went to the Times’ general game site and played Wordle there, but I guess the Times Wordle-master didn’t know it was me, because today I, and I assume all the millions of world wide wordlers (yes, the real meaning of “www”) are all starting from scratch.

So, I will lodge my complaint, not only an individual complaint, but a class action complaint. The class meets all the judicial requirements for certification. The defendants will include the Times, Amazon and Jeff Bezos personally. I know that, with the entire world falling apart, you may not think this very important, but that is what they are counting on. We will show them. Stand up to power.

2. Last night was one of those rare nights when I remember what I dreamt. I don’t understand why dreams and memory seem to play a game with each other. But last night:

A. We bought a beach house. It was only an hour away and in the heart of a lower income area of Baltimore, but it was very cheap, and miraculously, it was on the beach. And it had a very special bed spread. When you looked at the bed, you saw a pattern of intricately designed rectangles, each of which represented a film. Two rows of normal movies, one of documentaries, one of X-rated films, one of “how-to” films, etc. You pushed on a rectangle and the entire wall in front of the bed became a screen. And, no, I did not watch an X rated film, even though it was an option.

B. I was in a kitchen  with my mother and a friend of hers. I opened a cabinet to get something, and saw that two boxes had been jammed in. One was filled with maybe 20 chocolate bars; the other with something else that no one was going to eat. I completely lost control and started yelling about why things can’t be kept in their right place in the kitchen. Now, I never in real life lose control. But last night….

C. My new law firm was starting up in our new offices. I had not been in charge of office space, but it seemed to me that we were being a little too frugal, as each room seemed to house about 30 lawyers, all working with their computers, sitting on the floor. Office upon office. I decided to go outside and on the lawn, too, there were groups of lawyers with laptops. One group looked like they were part of an ashram, dressed in hippie clothes. I sat near them and decided to ask a friend out to lunch. He was with another firm and I needed his advice. I did not know his phone number and asked one of the ashram members if she knew it. Of course, she didn’t, but she said she could get me a phone book. She placed a call and soon a DC Metro bus came driving over the lawn and stopped near us. The driver got out and handed me a phone book.

D. We were involved in some big fair or sonething which important people were attending. I was sitting with my assistant, some random people and a Congressman and his wife. We were talking about an event in his honor next Tuesday afternoon. I decided to tell everyone what happened when a heel dislodged from my shoe in Istanbul. I told them the entire true story. No one paid any attention.

And then I got up to play Wordle.

3. Nevermind.

We are scheduled to leave DC Wednesday morning for our second St. Louis trip of the year, this one to celebrate (I think that’s the correct term) my 65th high school reunion. For our summer St. Louis trip, I had carefully planned out our schedule. This time, things are much looser. A dinner Friday night at the home of a friend with about 15 (that’s a guess) in attendance. The reunion dinner Saturday night. A reunion brunch Sunday morning. Unspecified plans to meet two classmates Monday or Tuesday. They are both going to be out of town over the weekend.

I am told that 32 classmates have signed up. I guess that means a crowd of about 50, which is about what you would hope for. More than that, and you will not be able to talk to everyone.

The entire class was about 250. I would guess that about 175 (maybe fewer) are still alive at 82 or 83. And, like my two friends, some who still live in St. Louis have conflicts. Some are too sick or compromised to attend. Some don’t want to spend the price or energy to travel from faraway places with strange sounding names. And some never felt connected to the class as a whole, or had a bad experience. I think a 20 percent positive response from living class members for a 65th reunion is pretty good.

We did not attend my 60th reunion (we had a conflict), which appeared to have been a success, and which was organized by a committee of classmates. This year, that committee fell apart (this is what happens at age 83), and virtually everything was done by my friend since I was three, Mike Bobroff. Pretty amazing, I say.

As you might recall from my trip log over the summer, we spent our time in St. Louis seeing an almost infinite number of relatives and friends. Except for my first cousin Donna and Michael, we aren’t planning on seeing any of them this time. We are concentrating on the reunion. For the past 30 years or so, we have been Zooming with and traveling with five of my classmates (now one sadly deceased) and their plus ones. We and two other couples will be staying with another of the group.

The last time we got together was in September 2023 in Saratoga Springs NY. We are treating this as our next get-together, so I expect we will spend a fair amount of currently unscheduled time on joint activities. One more thing to look forward to. Of course, in 2023 half of us wound up with Covid. We plan on avoiding that this time.

I will be sorry to miss so many classmates, some who aren’t coming, and some who just aren’t.  But am looking forward to seeing those who show up, and seeing how theyvhave matured over the years.

Have you seen the series on Netflix that debuted several years ago, Lupin? It is a French series (fourth year now in production) starring actor Omar Sy, who was made for the part of an African-French gentleman thief, out to revenge his father, who had been falsely accused of theft by his aristocratic employer. It starts with an elaborately planned, meticulously carried out, brazen jewel theft from the Louvre. Sy’s character, Assane Diop, has since youth been intrigued by the novels of Maurice Leblanc, featuring the gentleman thief, Arsene Lupin.

Well, what do you know! Yesterday, there was an elaborately planned, meticulously carried out, brazen jewel heist at the Louvre. In tracking the perpetrators, I would suggest starting with the books of Maurice Leblanc.

Of course, there are other possibilities. It has been said that it was an outside job, the thieves coming through a window. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t planned by someone on the inside. Take, for example, Mona Lisa. She has a suspicious smirk, you know.

I understand that Mona Lisa is none too happy with the Louvre’s plans to move her from her current location, a room she shares with several close friends, and place her in solitary confinement, in a room where she will be all alone, even with a separate entrance. She might feel she needs to show the Louvre who’s boss. You know the old saying “Veni, vidi, vici.’  Well, maybe it should now be “Veni, vidi, da Vinchi”.

I am sure there have been a lot of movies about jewel thiefs. One I remember is Topkapi, about a robbery in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. I don’t remember much. Just some of the scenes of what later became one of my favorite cities. And Peter Ustinov, who won an Oscar. It came out in 1964, just as I came out with my undergraduate degree.

Another is A Fish Called Wanda. I don’t really remember the plot, but I remember laughing throughout the film. That’s rare for me as my sense of comedy seems to be different from most of the rest of the world, and most “comedies” leave me cold.

Wikipedia tells me The Sting, The Pink Panther, To Catch a Thief, and Rififi were all about jewel theft (maybe not all from museums), but I just don’t remember the plot lines. And maybe I never saw Rififi.

We did not take part in the No Kings rallies yesterday. We went to services at Adas Israel, but the one mile journey down Connecticut Avenue had us pass several large clumps of sign carrying people. Average age? I’d say 75 to 80.

I was surprised, because I heard nothing political at Adas Israel at all, which is surprising since so much is going on. But the rabbis mentioned nothing either about No Kings or about Israel-Gaza. And neither came up in any conversation I had.

The synagogue was very crowded. Two bar mitzvahs, an upcoming wedding, and the blessing of all children born within the past year. The children were allowed to bring their parents and grandparents with them. My guess is there were 25 to 30 babies.

The kiddush lunch was so crowded that our very large social hall (the Kay) and its expansion space (the Wasserman) were insufficient to hold everyone. Someone suggested that maybe Trump should build his new ballroom over the Adas Israel parking lot, instead of at the White House. That someone was, of course, me. No one paid any attention to that comment. For good reason.

The afternoon was spent at the very low key birthday party for grandson Izzy, who is turning 5 tomorrow.  Beautiful weather, plenty of room for the kids (new school, old school, religious school) to run around. I met a number of the children, including 5 year old Isadore’s friend, 5 year-old Irving from his old neighborhood, and one of his new friends, 5 year old Hero. An animal balloon maker was at the party. She is 10. Her name is Joan.

Stopping here. Gotta go buy some bagels.

We hosted Shabbat dinner last night for Jeff Kaye, Vice President of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, who spent a few days in Washington on his way to New York to attend the annual meeting of Americans for BGU. Kudos to Edie for preparing a delicious dinner of salmon, green beans, tomato-artichoke salad, mashed celery root, and poached pears and cake. Jason Pressburg, DC leader of A4BGU, brought four bottles of very nice Negev wines, and we had a variety of people, most of whom we did not know and most of whom are probably 40 years younger than we are. One couple even brought their two month old daughter with them.

It was really a nice evening, with a lot of pleasantries and laughter, and then the conversation became more serious as it turned to the effect of the Gaza War on American Jews. And what I heard surprised me.

Our younger guests, most of whom work for Jewish organizations and all of whom have connections with Israel. They all seem concerned, and not only in an academic way, about the future of Jews in America. They all seem to feel, to some extent, physically unsafe. They are worried about pro-Palestinian demonstrations turning violent. They are frightened by the “Free Palestine” signs they see everywhere and report that whenever “Free the hostages” signs were put up, they were immediately taken down. They all know people who have stopped wearing visible signs (jewelry or kippot, for example) of being Jewish, and talked of people taking down the mezzuzahs on their houses. They talked of being afraid that neighbors would shun them or turn against them.

We had a long talk about Israeli and diaspora Jews are affected by what happens here or there. How interconnected their fates seem to be, yet how their actions are not always sensitive to that interconnectivity. We didn’t really talk much about splits within the Jewish community, but that is obviously a factor, as well. It was all very interesting and, I must say, disturbing. I should add that our guests were not fans of Israel’s right wing government or current prime minister. They were not Jewish supremacists. Just normal folks, whose lives are oriented towards the Jewish world.

Okay, another matter. I recently bought a signed copy of a biography of New Yorker journalist, the late A. J. Liebling, written by my college classmate Ray Sokolov. Then I learned thatvtoday would have been Liebling’s 121st birthday. I saw a quote of his that perhaps I resemble. Something like: I can write better than anyone who writes faster than me, and I can write faster than anyone who writes better than me.

Happy Saturday.