Trump Medal of Honor

Awarded to brave Americans, like Russell Pearce, who have served in defense of America.

(Mexican Border Service Medal)


NEVER TO BE CONFUSED WITH
THE
VIETNAM SERVICE MEDAL



or

COMBAT RIBBON

Uncle Ned's Purse

Uncle Ned knitted purses for his sisters
ornate and uniquely Celtic in design.
careful work that took some time...
he had the time...
three years to be exact
the time he served in Kilmainham Gaol
for following de Valera one Easter Sunday,
1916.

He was on the run awhile
before they could hunt him down.

The priest refused Grandpa Michael absolution
unless he gave him up.
I'll see you in Hell padre if that's the case.

The Black and Tans took away the seed and tools...
a crop that went unplanted.
Pa wouldn't give him up.
They locked him in the village jail
Pa wouldn't give him up.
I'll see you Brits in Hell as well.

The Dragon Meets Einstein... and Tensor Calculus

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/science/a-century-ago-einsteins-theory-of-relativity-changed-everything.html

What a shame that Dennis Overbye's story about the General Theory of Relativity didn't mention the mathematical foundation for Einstein's work. The General Theory could not have been developed without Tensor Calculus, which makes possible modeling of complex motion in uneven space. Tenor calculus is so difficult even Einstein needed a tutor, his friend mathematician Marcel Grossman, and "Between the years of 1915 to 1919, Einstein held a correspondence with the Italian mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita – who in 1900 published perhaps the most important work on tensor calculus to this very day - who desired to help him [Einstein] fix some mathematical errors he had found in Einstein’s work."

* * * * *

A few years back I was cleaning out some old things my father-in-law had left behind at our house. These included some old engineering workbooks that he worked with out on our back porch to pass the time in his retired years. Hey Julie! Says I, look at this. All that time you thought your dad was doing crossword puzzles in the backyard, he was working on tensor calculus problems for fun. What's tensor calculus, says my loving wife. Says I, math so hard to understand that even Einstein needed a tutor to figure it out so he could invent the Theory of Relativity. Smart guy your dad.

Quack, Quack

Quack, quack. We were on the way to Civil War night at Madison No. 1 Middle School, and my daughter who is dressed up like a transgender Abe Lincoln to do a skit on the North's strategy asks: "How do you do the duck, daddy." This was a tough one. My Uncle Tom used to do the duck to distract and amuse his anxious pediatric patients. So I somehow learned to quack like a duck, too, and have been able to do so for years. I really have a good quack. So we had a quacking lesson all the way to school. It's a lot easier to do than explain. Mary's still got a long way to go before she can quack. Maybe it's a guy thing.  Think Donald Duck.

Uncle Sam Wants You!

Why I Might Vote for Bernie

For want of a better choice, I might end up voting for Bernie, even if he is a gun rights guy. We met Janet Napolitano lots at the Arizona Opera. Her "date" was Monsignor Ed Ryle, who baptized our little Jimmy. One day in the airport in Boston there she is sitting right next to us, waiting for a flight back to Phoenix.  Doesn't even say hi, even to Julie. You think Bernie would "forget" people he's met at least a half dozen times? No. Like any old time New York politician he'd be working the room and remembering people he's never met. Janet had an entire captive room of constituents and ignored them all.  We could use some old time politicians.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/bernie-sanders-mayor/407413/

Do you get the story about Janet Napolitano?   I knew you would.  It isn't just about her.

*  *  *  *  *

Nah.

Manhattan: How to Build an Atomic Bomb

I can neither confirm nor deny my involvement with America's nuclear weapons.  When I left my last Navy job they told me to forget everything.   I wish it were that easy.   I can tell you this story, though.

Thanks to the infinite wisdom of the United States Navy I found myself studying physics at Holy Cross College.   The professor was a very nice Vietnamese man who illustrated most of the topics with bullets and bombs examples.  He had allegedly studied at Princeton with Einstein, an interesting claim since the faculty at Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study didn't teach any courses.   They did, however, lead seminars and work with students, so I may in fact have studied physics with one of Einstein's students.

One day in class someone asked a question about atomic bombs.   The professor lit up and said:  Oh, they're easy to make.  Here's how.   Then he drew illustrations of the mechanisms for the first two U.S. atom bombs and explained how they worked.   He said in the beginning the bomb builders had trouble with the triggering explosives, but that it would be easier today (1967) to find electronics to set off the bombs.  Then he smiled,  There you go now you know how to build the bomb.   Then he smiled again.  Good luck finding weapons grade uranium and plutonium for your bomb.  That's the hard part... and staying alive after you start playing with plutonium.

I did very well in that course.  Straight As going into the final.  Must have been all the bullets and bombs examples that kept me focused.  Unfortunately,  I lost focus the night before the final and had a terrible hangover in the morning.   I rolled the dice and went into the professor's office.   Professor T, I have straight As in your course.  Is it really necessary for me to take the final?   Professor T eyed me carefully, perhaps noting that I appeared under the weather,   Ok, Jim, enjoy your summer vacation (it appears you've already started).

Arizona: Like Living in a Foreign Country

I was with my son on the way back from a baseball game.   The tank was on empty so I stopped the car at the gas station not far from home.  After inserting my credit card in the gas pump, I let my son watch the tank fill, and went to the convenience store door hoping to buy a lottery ticket.   The door was locked:  Be back in 15 minutes.   I returned to the car, and after the tank had filled, put the hose on the pump, put the cap on the gas tank and got ready to leave.   Out of the corner of my eye I saw a middle-aged woman tugging at the store door.   Her accent and clothes suggested she was from India.   They're gone, I said.  Be back in 15 minutes.  She was distraught.   I need gas.  What will I do.  I'd have said: be patient.   But in Arizona 15 minutes might mean an hour.  (Or drive down the block to the next gas station)  Instead I said:  Let me buy you some gas.

I walked over and pulled out my credit card.  I have money, she said, and handed me a twenty.  I took the twenty and started pumping the gas.   Then she said:   I hate Arizona!   Everyone's too laid back.  No one wants to work.   I'm from back East.   ARIZONA IS LIKE LIVING IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY!  She said angrily.

I started to giggle, and she told me to stop laughing.   The pump stopped.  The tank was full and the meter read $27.   She offered me more money.   Da nada, said I, in Arizona we like to buy people free gas.  I'm so laid back.

Full Moon Hike

McDowell Mountain Park, Arizona

The Dragon Meets Madame Chiang Kai-shek

Long ago T. V. Soong proposed to Aunt Jo, who was quite an Irish beauty in her day.  The proposal was problematic.   Aunt Jo was a devout Catholic and Soong was a Methodist.

Later Soong's sister married Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Soong became an influential Kuomintang politician.   Soong negotiated somewhat successfully with Stalin for support in the early days of the Sino-Japanese war.   Apparently, Stalin wasn't as tough a nut to crack as my grandmother when it came to letting her  Catholic sister marry a Methodist.

The Endless Summer

Ripp, Fallon and I went to the Hamptons one weekend and slept on the beach to catch some early morning waves. Ripp was really nearsighted, but a handsome kid without his thick glasses. My life-long friend, Fallon went to BC.  For some reason in high school he'd started affecting Dobie Gillis and Dick Cavett.   He looked out of place with the surfers, not having a baggy pair of swim trunks.  I was driving a taxi cab for the summer, making pretty decent money and spent most of my time day- dreaming about pretty girls who got into my cab and clever ways to ask them out for a drink after work.

When we woke up on the beach we were fogged in, but the waves were beautiful so we went out anyway. After riding waves for awhile, I met up with Fallon back on the beach. Where's Ripp? I thought he was with you.  I thought he was with you.  Damn. I better go back out and find him. So after paddling around for awhile, I finally catch up with Ripp somewhere in the fog. Where are you going, Ripp?  Back to the beach says Ripp. Ok, says I, but you're headed for the beach on Bermuda if you keep going in that direction. Follow me.

http://easthamptonstar.com/Books/2015827/Surfing-Life

No Country for Old Men

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
 To the holy city of Byzantium.
 -- Yeats

There have been days and nights when I've looked and felt just like the guy in this picture.  Cormac McCarthy's spiritual battle takes place in the West Texas desert.

Driving Ms. Daisy

I did a lot of hitchhiking in college, thanks to Jack Kerouac convincing me that being On the Road was a romantic adventure.  Kerouac ended up a drunk and hanging out in Gunther's Tap Room,  Northport, Long Island, not far from where I grew up.  I never got around to buying him a beer.

 

A college buddy and I made it to Big Sur one year.  After a summer in California with the Navy near LA, we hitchhiked up Route 1 and got stuck in Santa Barbara where scores of other hitchhikers were trying to score a ride.  We drew ourselves a phony sign with [destination] Boston on it and a guy in a VW van stopped for us right away.  You guys going to Boston.  No, we're from Boston.  We're headed for Big Sur.  The guy replied, sorry, we're going to San Francisco.  We'll drop you off in Salinas.  Ok, thanks.  [Where's Salinas].

Salinas is forty miles from Big Sur, a little north of Monterey.  It's surrounded by miles and miles of vegetable fields.  It was dark and late when we got there so we found a motel to sleep for the night.  We were on the road, but not on the road enough to sleep with the lettuce or real hobos and migrant farm workers.  One of us even had a credit card.

In the morning, my friend, who could strike up a conversation with a refrigerator, comes back to the motel room and announces he has found someone from Holy Cross College, like us, and he's taking us to Big Sur.  Luck of the Irish!

In fact the man has a nephew who went to Holy Cross.  He works for the Diocese of Monterey and has friends who are camping at Big Sur for the weekend.  The Diocese had a Big Sur chapel and since his friends work for the diocese, too, they're using it for a campground.  You can stay with them.  They'll be delighted.


Our host had a lovely family.  They pitched us a tent and we stayed with them on the chapel grounds.  Big Sur was beautiful.  Big trees, big cliffs, big ocean.   Not a hippie girl a la Kerouac and Neal  Cassady in sight.  But we ate well and at the end of the weekend our hosts took us home to Monterey, fed us again, washed our clothes, took us to the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium and then put us on the bus for San Francisco and our ultimate destination in the Canadian west.

*    *    *    *    *

Most of the time, though, I travelled alone on shorter trips.   One night on a trip from Holy Cross back home to Long Island, I got picked up by the head basketball coach, Jack Donohue, a minor celebrity who'd coached Lou Alcindor (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) in high school.    He said he could take me as far as New Haven, where he was spending the night with a friend's family.  Then he launched into a fatherly diatribe about what a bad idea it was to be hitchhiking, especially at night.  I allowed that I was unafraid.  I was experiencing an adventure.  He was blunt: "You don't have to shoot yourself in the head with a .45 pistol to discover it's a bad idea."

He dropped me off on the New England Thruway outside New Haven.   I waited a while for a ride and then three black guys pulled over.   I hesitated, but then thought:  I'm not going to let them think I won't ride with them.  All the trouble is between the old people.  "What a Wonderful World."



We weren't back on the road two minutes when the guy next to me in the backseat says:  "I am Dr. Death and I am going to operate on you."   This was pretty disturbing, but I pegged them for some college guys on the way to NYC from Brown or Yale.  Dr. Death would not let up,  though.  Open up your bag.  Give me your money.  Says I, If I had any money would I be hitchhiking.   In fact I had some money, but if I gave it to Dr. Death, I wouldn't have train fare out of New York City, where hitchhiking was impossible.   Dr. Death is thinking he's having fun with a soft white suburban kid.  I'm thinking if the car gets off the thruway or if he shows a knife I'm going to break his neck before the guys in the front seat can do anything.  I wasn't as tough as I thought I was, but I'd been in street fights before and survived being on the wrong end of knife before.  I was determined to go down fighting.   After about 20 minutes of this, the driver, who's wearing a Joe College tweed jacket, tells Dr. Death to stop bothering me.   There's nothing but silence for the rest of the ride.  They drop me off at the Throgs Neck Bridge and drive off into the darkness without saying a word.