Marcy Tierney

Marcy Tierney

Ma's friend Marcy

was the first Irish Catholic

hired to teach
in a small New Hampshire town

Jobs were hard to come by

during the Depression,
but so were good teachers
in small New Hampshire towns.

The principal told her:

"You're by far the best candidate
but these people don't know many Catholics,
particularly the Irish kind.
If hired you must be the best Catholic
that you possibly can be."

Marcy got a dispensation from her confessor,

a Jesuit most likely,
to join the Protestant Grange
and learn their secret signs.

She slept upstairs with a hot brick

to warm her feet in the winter
in a small New Hampshire town.

Bruce and Grandma C

"Goodwin Procter is an equal opportunity employer. We hire, train, and promote without regard to race, color, gender, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, military or veteran status or other legally protected status."

Grandma C grew up in the world of novenas, daily mass and regular graveside prayers for the dead.  Devotion not much different from that of her roots in Portugal and Italy, though she grew up in Boston and attended Girls' Latin School in Roxbury.  For her conservative parents high school with young WASP and African-American women was preferable to proximity to young men of any race or creed.

Grandma C was also devoted to work and became a crackerjack legal secretary at a wealthy Boston law firm.  Her sons and daughters attended Harvard, Yale and Boston College.  Born a generation later, Grandma might have been a lawyer at the firm instead of a secretary.  That didn't matter to her.  She was content with her faith and rituals, taking care of her children and family, and preparing for the festival of Christmas.  Puritan New England defined itself through work and material success.  Latin New England expressed itself with food and art.  Christmas in the Chicarello household was a two-day feast, including hand made ravioli, lobsters, spaghetti with lobster sauce and cannoli.  The artist was exhausted by the end of the feast, but what a show.

Her sons might have called him unpleasant names, but Bruce was Grandma's work buddy.  This didn't soften the blow when Bruce arrived one morning dressed as Caitlyn.  Grandma passed out when she learned this was a permanent arrangement and that she was going to have to share the ladies room with Caitlyn.  The law firm advised Grandma that they would provide her with professional counselling to help deal with her problems concerning Caitlyn and the ladies room.  They never made the logic quite clear on why Grandma, and not Caitlyn, was the one who had to deal with the problem of sharing a rest room with anatomically correct men.





 

Tugboat Annie and the Condom Factory

There really was a Tugboat Annie and more than one.  Ours was a friend of my father's Long Beach neighbor, Alice Murtha.  Annie was a big, rough cigar smoking woman who was a tugboat captain in New York harbor. 

One afternoon, while visiting Alice, my young father let out that he was looking for a job.  The mistake was doing this in the presence of Annie.  Maybe he wanted to work on Annie's tugboat.  Ever helpful Annie said she knew a man who'd give young Jim a job.  She gave him a name, an address, the Acme Rubber Co., and a note of introduction.

Innocently, young Jim showed up at Acme for a job interview.  The owner was very polite and said he'd love to hire my father... I can tell you're a very nice young man ... but are you really sure you want to work here?   This is what we make.  The owner pulled a condom out of his desk drawer.  Not long removed from Regis Catholic High School and being an alter boy, my father turned red with embarrassment.  He couldn't speak.  The man said, I understand, son.   Annie was having some cruel fun with you.  I'm sorry.

The Witch Child of Kansas City

Social media is the curse of the 21st century.  You're instantly introduced to all sorts of people you don't want to hear from.   As a rule I decline all attempts to "Friend" me on Facebook.  Not only have I never met most of these people, but too many of them are inclined to share their predictable and unwelcome political views.  I already get hate mail from AWAR (the Arizona White Aryan Resistance) for my opinions published in the Arizona Republic.  With enemies like that who needs "friends."

I reluctantly began accepting some requests for friendship after my sweet cousin Siobhan suggested I join Facebook to share family pictures.  Ok, I like pictures of cute babies, weddings, flowers and puppy dogs. 

I joined up and before long I had a legion of long-lost cousins inviting me to share with them.  Who wants to be rude to long-lost cousins, their wives, families, puppy dogs and cute babies. 

Silly me.  Before long the barrage of political messages started.  The university affiliated were the worst.  Who knew I belonged to a family of outraged progressives.  I made the mistake of responding to some of the messages, which earned me all sorts of pleasantries from the nasty friends of my long-lost cousins and the cousins' foul-mouthed, rude children.   I have my own children to deal with.  Who needs to hear from someone else's snippy kids.  At least mine aren't foul-mouthed.

I have a lot less friends now and hopefully more pictures of puppy dogs.

The Spanish Prisoner: You Dirty Diseased Whore

For years my wife made me miserable and guilty whenever I left a waitress a generous tip.  Not just for years.  For my entire married life.  Have you no sympathy for the working class, the Hoi Poloi, Dear, says I.  None whatsoever.  Not one iota, came back the retort.   She stalked our restaurant bills like an angry tigress  after I filled in the tip and signed my name.  NOBODY TIPS THE NURSES!

Okay, I got it, Dear.

She knew the mass in Latin better than any alter boy, and was pissed off that she couldn't be one.  She was the smartest, hardest working girl in every class.  When her brother got an assignment to write an essay for the City of Boston Columbus Day contest, she wrote it for him and won the contest.  He got the credit and sat next to Senator Kennedy at the awards lunch.  She got to watch.

Since idle hands are the devil's workshop, in her spare time between being the smartest student and reciting the mass in Latin every Sunday, she went to work at 16 as a candy striper in the nursing home a few blocks from her house.  From one thankless task to another.

In the early 70s the Veterans Administration started farming out the old demented veterans.   A bunch of them went to my wife's nursing home.  The sweet devout candy striper who wrote uplifting Columbus Day essays was about have her education take a new path.

The demented veterans were pretty much completely out of control.  The candy stripers were prey.  A nursing home staffed with 16-year-old candy stripers was the Serengeti.  Hungry hyenas versus baby gazelles.   The nursing home's young gazelles learned fast to stay out of the grab and grope of the hyenas.  But being out of reach wasn't protection against being hit by a bed pan and its contents when the hyenas were in a foul mood.  Or being called a "dirty diseased whore" for some obscure reason possibly having to do with magazines or cigarettes.

The ordeal of the Serengeti ended after a year for the candy stripers when the veterans were moved to a facility better able to handle or ignore them.  A new group was moved in from a mental hospital.

My wife had never met her father's mother, who had been severely disturbed for many years.   The grandmother was a very bright woman who had came to America from the north of Spain, married and had two children.  Her disease became severely dysfunctional when my wife's father was a little boy.  She began to see insects everywhere and stuffed rags into the spaces around the doors to seal the bugs out of her son's bedroom at night.  By the time my wife met her, the grandmother had been locked away in an institution for over thirty years.  She recognized her granddaughter right away, though, was quite lucid most of the time, and very talkative.  What do you talk about with your granddaughter when you've done nothing for thirty years except look at the walls and try to brush off invisible bugs.  The two of them managed to find some common ground, maybe they even prayed together in Latin or Spanish.    I'll have to ask my wife about that some time.

Privilege: A Man's World

The Deloitte Houston office had over 200 professionals thirty years ago.   Prosperous from the oil boom, its offices were richly appointed.  The partners' offices had Louis XVI furniture.  The main lobby floor was covered with a large antique Persian rug, a little frayed at one remote corner, but that was okay.  It was an antique. 

At Christmas in addition to a special bonus, every staff member was given a new personal leather briefcase embossed in gold leaf with his or her initials.  Deloitte took great pleasure in reminding all that they were the Auditors' Auditor.  The office's premier clients were the Hughes Tool Company and the U.S. subsidiary of ARAMCO, the Arabian American Oil Company.   Deloitte hired only the very top accounting graduates.  In Houston they mostly came from Rice, the University of Texas and Texas A&M.  They worked endless hours and after their first year on the job the ones who couldn't keep up, about half, were gone.

His or her initials.  Deloitte, along with the rest of the accounting profession, was transforming itself.  It was no longer a man's world.  There were plenty of smart female accounting graduates and about half of the junior accountants and many of the managers were women.  Still the young women complained that it was a man's world:  "As long as Gene Harris is head of Audit, there will never be a woman partner."  I had to bite my tongue.  For some reason I had insider information above my pay grade and knew who the two women were who were slated for promotion to partner that year.  One, Caroline V was Gene Harris's protégé.   Caroline was a gorgeous blonde who could get away with wearing a business suit and, for Texas, short hair.   The other, Sally M, was all Texas with long black big hair and wore big, light colored, flowery dresses.  Gorgeous, too.  Ladybird Johnson with softer edges.

Today, Cathy Engelbert is CEO of Deloitte LLP, the largest professional services firm in the US with over 70,000 professionals.  She is married and has two children.

Martin X was the only black professional in the Deloitte offices thirty years ago.  There were no Mexicans.  The closest the office came on that score was one of my colleagues in the consulting group having a Mexican-American wife.  Hiring him was considered very enlightened.   The head of consulting was from Cornell, not Texas. 

Martin had one and only one assignment.  He was the manager for the audit of the Aramco Services Company.   It was a nice assignment, but it was also pretty much the only client he could be given back in the day in Texas.  The Arabs who owned the oil company were more accepting of a black professional than most Texans.  This was a nice opening for Deloitte Houston.  They could be enlightened, hire Martin, and give him a nice assignment.  Nobody, but nobody in Houston was going to do or say anything about it, since nobody, but nobody wanted to risk upsetting the Arabs, who considered themselves the leaders of a diverse Muslim world.

I've often wondered what Martin thought about this.  Practically overnight Deloitte had addressed its gender diversity issues, while he remained the Lone Ranger.  He soldiered on pleasantly.  He had a beautiful wife and the pay was great.   He probably ended up teaching at an MBA program for a couple of thou a year. 

Today, Deloitte doesn't look much different from Houston in the 1980s.  While minority youth languish unemployed in America's inner cities, Deloitte takes the lead in outsourcing America's technology jobs to India.

The Dragon Meets the Tongans

My son's Phoenix high school sits close to the demilitarized zone where the affluent rub shoulders (but mostly try not to) with the middle class and the children of migrants from Latin America, Africa and other far away lands.   My son sometimes gets caught up in this and remonstrates about his dislike for the aloof demeanor of the "rich" kids.  I try to explain to him that rich is a matter of perspective and very few, if any, of his schoolmates' families are in the category of playing poker with Andy Carnegie and JP Morgan rich like his great-great grandfather was.

Senior year fun at my son's high school includes assemblies where seniors perform all sorts of silliness for the merriment of the entire student body.   Understand that among the students from far away lands are the Tongans.   Tongans are immense and very hearty Pacific Islanders.  Think of them as Irishmen on steroids, who love a senior year prank as much as anyone.   They're the stalwart linemen of the high school football team and played basketball with my son.

A senior my son knows from baseball was featured at one of the assemblies.  He was asked what kind of animal he'd like to be.  Response:  a TONGAN.  This brought down the house, but got him suspended from school for a day.  Didn't matter that his Tongan friends had put him up to it.

The enlightened among the white affluent students were appalled by the racist outburst.   My son was appalled by the white students who were offended.  "They don't have any Tongan friends.  They don't even talk to them.  If they did, they'd know it was the Tongans' idea in the first place."

Then my son went with the story about how his friend from Sudan showed him a video titled "How to get Africans to go back to Africa."  It showed a boat full of watermelon and fried chicken.   When my son chuckled, one of the white enlightened who was looking on denounced him as a racist.  His response: "Hey, it's the guy from Sudan who you aren't even friends with who's showing the video."

A high school life lesson on hypocrisy.

Viagra

My mother-in-law is the devout child of Portuguese fishermen who settled in Massachusetts.   Devout:  mass and prayers every day, weekly visits to the graves of her mother and father with flowers and prayers.  So it was something of a surprise when, at 82, she announced one night at dinner that she was outraged that her husband's health plan had denied his Viagra prescription.   I didn't know how to react.  Secretly, I thought, Well good for the two of your.

A few years latter the subject of the Viagra came up again without grandma present and I allowed out loud that I was amazed by that revelation.  My wife laughed.  Sorry, Jim, my dad had very poor circulation in his feet and especially his toes.   Viagra is good for helping with that, too.

The Nutcracker: Christmas with the Dragons

Christmas was a wonderful time for the Dragons, before we spread out across the country and put down roots of our own.  These days when we go back East for Christmas the destination is grandma's house in Boston and a two day Italian feast of cannoli and handmade ravioli.

In the last days before we left Long Island for good,  the Christmas gathering only needed music and dancers to pass for the opening scenes of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.  My cousin Peter played the host, Dr. Stahlbaum.   His home was filled with golden laughing children. 

The Dragons had come a long way after arriving in New York City and settling on the waterfront near the notorious Five Points neighborhood.   They moved uptown to Carnegie Hill after accumulating a fortune trading iron and steel, then to Long Island.  The Dragon's had backed Wagner and labor during Roosevelt's campaign for social justice.  They did very well by doing good.  Peter's father started a law firm with railroad unions for clients.  The railroad business was very lucrative.  Their labor contracts pretty much specified that the railroad was always at fault if there was an accident, so all the lawyers had to do was negotiate how much the settlement would be.

Peter's Long Island home was on land sold by the Secatogue Indians (relatives of the Mohegans) to a local school teacher in 1708 for "several eel spears."  For a while the village was named Sodom.  The land passed through the hands of ever more prosperous owners until the United Fruit Company built mansions on it for its executives.  After the United Fruit Company was long gone, Peter acquired one of the decaying mansions and rehabilitated it.  He traded repairs for letting a guy live in one end of the big house.   The property had a dock with room for four big boats when you parked them stern in.

Peter's wife was the beautiful Jane, a smiling Irish selkie who'd attended an expensive small Catholic women's college near Boston run by the sisters of the Sacred Heart.   As soon as she escaped the convent, the selkie headed for Mexico and the artist colony at San Miguel de Allende where she married a Latin man and had two children.   Jane's mother was related to Burt Lancaster and her father's father had made a fortune finding oil in Venezuela and sent his sons to Holy Cross College and Fordham Law School.  Jane's father parlayed the oil money into Long Island real estate and banks.  He was a very wealthy man and not happy with the selkie's Latin adventures, a guy who'd invite you to lunch at his club and then ask you to split the bill.

Jane's cousin was just as wild and had had a son by a black man.  The boy was twelve by Christmastime of this story.   He was a handsome young man with milk chocolate skin.  He played ice hockey so Jane wanted me to meet him and give him a few pointers.  With all the boy and girl cousins running around the house,  I can't for the life of me understand why she thought the boy would want to talk hockey with a guy more than twice his age.  I think her real agenda was fixing me up with her cousin who was a real looker like Jane, but very geographically impractical since she lived in New Jersey and I lived in Houston.  

When Jane announced she'd invited her cousin for Christmas, her father went ballistic:
"If she brings that child [the black son she'd had out of wedlock], I'm not coming!" 
The selkie merrily replied: 
"That's so sad, father."
"Where will you be having Christmas dinner this year."

Jane's dad and mom showed up despite the blarney, bluster and threats, which possibly proved who wore the pants in that family.  Jane's mother was as tough as Uncle Burt.  And we all had a real good time.
 

The Dragon and Captain Bill

Captain Bill, the Merchant Marine sea captain, was my brother's lifelong friend.  Well, livelong since the junior year in high school.  Bill was lovely to little children and a genial host and guest.  He could be raw and ugly especially to his wife, even in front of company.   Over and over through the years my brother swore he'd never have anything to do with Bill again, but over and over friendship won out and the door was open for the kid who slept on our couch nights when he had nowhere else to go.

Maybe Bill never got over his childhood.  His father had issues and wasn't around much.  His older brother abused him.  School was a nightmare since he was the littlest guy on the bus in a world where little guys were easy prey.  Bill started fighting back.  He may have lost every fight, but he put up such fierce resistance that people started leaving him alone.  Then he got to middle school and discovered wrestling and weightlifting.  He worked out like a demon.  His schoolyard fights were legendary.  Pretty soon, nobody in Farmingdale or the surrounding towns messed with Billy H.  And pretty soon Billy H stopped messing with anyone.  He was on a Vision Quest for a college scholarship and the Olympic wrestling team.  That dream ended on a controversial call in the New York State wrestling championships, but all the hard work paid off with an offer of admission to the New York State Maritime Academy.

While the rest of America burned, Farmingdale quietly integrated its high school in the 1960s.  The school board led by old man Weathers just decided one night to turn the two small high schools into middle schools and open a big new high school on the south side of town.  When it opened up there were the black kids from North Amityville.  Not much fuss.  The football teams became powerhouses.

Farmingdale High School

150 Lincoln Avenue

Farmingdale, New York

Young Captain Bill was walking down the hall one day, senior year, contemplating the new life that awaited him.  He bumps into someone and apologizes.  It's a black kid, a new kid at the school who doesn't know the legends or landscape.  The black kid flies into a rage and shoves Bill.

Bill says,  "Don't do that."
"F... you, motherf..er!  Let's go [fight]!" 
The black kid is hopping around like Muhammad Ali.
"Look I'm sorry," says Bill  (God, I don't need this now I'm going to college).
"You a punk! Let's go!"
"What did you say?" 
The young black has opened the door to a dangerous place.  He's thinking he's having a little fun intimidating a soft, short, white suburban kid.
"You heard me.  You a punk."  You punkin' out!"
The young black stepped through the door into the very dangerous place.
"You punkin' out!"
"Nobody says Billy H punked out!  I'll see you at the Lake after school."

What and where's the Lake thinks the black kid.  The Lake was a pond in a wooded area behind the high school at the intersection of Southern State Parkway and Bethpage State Parkway.  It was where the high school kids went to settle their differences.

Pride and anger boxed Billy into a corner.   He's missed too many driver's ed classes already.  If he misses another, he flunks the course.  Who else does he turn to for help: my brother.  

"Tim, I got to fight this black kid after school.  I can't miss anymore driver's ed,  Go down to the Lake and tell him to wait for me and I'll be there if he still wants a piece of me."
"God, Billy, just let it go.  You don't need to fight.  You have nothing to prove."
"He called me a punk, Tim.  He's saying I punked out.  Nobody says Billy H punked out.
"Give it a rest Billy.  You're going to college.  Nobody will believe him anyway and next year you'll be at a school with people who don't know or care...unless you do this stupid thing and get thrown in jail for massacring some black kid."
"Nobody says Billy H punked out.   Do this for me, Tim."
"Ok, but it's a very bad idea."

So my brother treks on down to the Lake.  By the time he gets there, there's a big crowd.  The white kids have gotten word that Billy H, the legend, is about to reenter the ring.   The black kid, still in the dark about what he's gotten into, is there with a bunch of the brothers to back him up.  My brother walks up to him.

"The guy you want to fight is going to be late.   It's a bad idea, but if you still want to fight him he'll be here in a little while after he finishes driver's ed."

The brothers backing up the new kid know my brother from the football team.  They look at each other.  One of them walks over to my brother.

"Mac, who's the brother fighting."
My brother sighs and announces:  "He's picked a fight with Billy H."
"Thanks, Mac."
The football brother goes back to the black kid and drags the now very bewildered brother off.
"Let's go.  You ain't fightin' no Billy H."

The Dragon Sponors a Baseball Team

Arizona Yaquis Baseball

Help this child!

My beautiful and smart wife has degrees from Simmons, Yale and the University of California at Berkeley.  However, she is of a generation of women who refused to learn to type.  When she went off to college, her mother told her to learn to type.  "You can always get a job as a secretary."  That sealed the deal and my wife never touched a keyboard thereafter.

Not knowing how to type became a handicap when technology started taking over the workplace.  But not for my wife.  By then she was the chief operating officer of the state's largest Medicaid health plan.   She had a crackerjack assistant.  My wife need only scratch down a few notes or dictate a few words and her commands shot off into the ether. 

Then little Jimmy and Little Mary came into our lives.

"Jim! Jim! Come quickly!"
I raced into the room to find a little girl and a woman hovering over a computer.
My daughter was crying.  My wife was looking on, helpless and distraught.
"Jim!  Do something!  Can't you see this little girl needs help!"
The computer was frozen.
After pondering the situation for a moment,  I put my index finger on the computer keyboard's escape key and pushed down.  The computer sprang back to life.

I exited the room, wisely not saying a word.

The Dragon and the Snuggy

One day you're promoted to one of the most esteemed and sought after jobs on campus.  The next you're introduced to reality.

"Gentlemen, you are responsible for maintaining order on your dormitory floor.  If there's problem, you need to figure out how to deal with it.  Don't call me [the Assistant Dean of Men} or security unless the building is burning down."

"Mr. M and Mr. M please meet with me.   Gentlemen, Mr. X and Mr. Y will be on your floor.  Deal with it."   Mr. X was an the All-East starting guard on the football team.  His roommate, Mr. Y, was no longer on the football team due to an unfortunate incident with a reluctant young woman during parietal hours.  He was being allowed to finish his education at Holy Cross, but his athletic career was over.  The worst fears of Mr. M and Mr. M were completely unfounded.   M. X was a no-nonsense student.  If any mischief lurked in his heart, he was too smart to let it interfere with his goals.   How he hooked up with Mr. Y is a mystery.   Sober, Mr. Y was smarter than most thought and spent the year on his best behavior.

It was the 160-pound hockey player who was a headache.  He lived across the hall from the football players.  We made it through the entire fall without a mishap.  Then late one December night the football players came knocking at my door.

"Mac, we can't get Frank out of our room.  Come and help."
Two gigantic football players couldn't get Frank, the 160-pound hockey player, to leave?
"Ok, I'll come down and evict him."
When I go into their room I have to duck when a hockey stick sails past my head.
Safely prone on the floor.
"FRANK!  What the Hell are you doing."
"We're trying to kill me, Mac."
Frank is talking to me from the safety of a cabinet over the one of the dorm room clothes closet.  The cabinet is just big enough to hold a 160-pound hockey player.
"Come down, Frank.  Damn it!"
"They'll kill me." 
Frank is a very long way from sober.   From my vantage point on the floor, Frank appears to be naked, except possibly for some undershorts.
"Come down, Frank!  I won't let them touch you."
"No way I'm coming down, Mac!   I don't trust you, either."
I crawl out of the room to avoid the flailing hockey stick.
"Stay out of the room, you two.  I'm going to get Lou [the other Mr. M].
"Lou, get up!  Get up, Lou!  I need help with a problem."
Lou is sound asleep and just mumbles.   He is either a really a sound sleeper, or is taking the coward's way out.  I go back to the football players.
"Isn't there someway you can get Frank out without hurting him."
Mr. Y ponders this for a second and looks at Mr. X.
"We can get him out any way we can think of, as long as we don't hurt him?"
"Yes [Sweet Jesus, forgive me]"
"We'll be back"
Ten minutes later they appear with what appears to be a large cylinder of CO2 they've liberated from a Coke machine.
"What are you going to do with that."
"You'll see."
By now half the people on the dormitory floor are awake and out of their rooms watching the spectacle.
One holding the cylinder and the other the hose, the football players enter the room, opening the valve on the CO2 gas.   Frank is blinded.   He is quickly overcome by the gas, drops the hockey stick and jumps out of the storage cabinet gasping for air.  The football players drop the gas cylinder and grab Frank.
Before I can say a word Frank is being carried down the hall by the football players, out into the snow, followed by a large crowd.  The football players tear Frank's underpants off over his head, giving him a snuggy.  The crowd cheers (Frank was far from universally popular).  Then the football players throw Frank into a snow bank.

Frank and I are left there alone in the cold and dark.
"You ok, Frank?"
"@#$%^&*! you, Mac!  
Frank is on his feet now, standing naked in the snow.
"Why'd you "@#$%^&*!  let them do that to me."
"Calm down, Frank.   Let's go inside and get you warm."
So I took Frank to his room, put some clothes on him and put him to bed.  Then I went across the hall and banged on the football players' door.
"You two lock the door and don't come out until the morning.  Worry about putting the Coke machine back together then.  If there's any more trouble, I'll have to call Harrington [the Assistant Dean of Men] and then the shit will really hit the fan."
I spent the rest of night in peace.  In the morning, the Coke machine was back together, no one said a word about what happened, including my roommate who missed the whole show.

My Babysitter's Dad

One of the sadder moments in life was showing up at our elementary school Harvest Festival (why can't we just call it Halloween) and seeing the cops on the security detail, including my babysitter's dad, wearing body armor.   Has the world come to that.  Cops have to worry about getting shot during a grammar school holiday party?

I don't want to pry, but I'd love to know how grace touched this man, my babysitter's dad.  He's white.  His wife is white.  He has four children.  His oldest daughter is black, our babysitter.

A CPA Flashes the Dragon

Head down.  Work hard.   Dazzle the clients.  Blow your supervising partner away by telling his client, the Aramco General Audit, who had an office the size of an airplane hanger, why the world's largest oil producing company could not produce its financial statements.   That's what it takes to be a rising star.

And when you're a rising star all sorts of amazing opportunities present themselves, including women who throw themselves at your feet.

I couldn't possibility have invented this.  Never in my life did it occur to me that this could happen... not in the offices of one of the most prestigious accounting and auditing firms in the world.  In a girly bar in the Philippines maybe, between rounds of fighting in Vietnam.   But not in the palatial offices, the sanctum sanctorum, of the Auditor's Auditor.

"What do I have to do to get your attention?"
It was well past the time when even the stalwart worker bees from Texas A&M, well on the way to their 60 hour weeks, had gone home.
There in the doorway to my office was the latest addition to our staff, an extremely attractive, but married young woman.
Her dress was hiked up around her shoulders and I can assure you, thank God, that she was wearing underwear.  She was shaking her booty.

I got myself transferred to Arizona at the first opportunity.   She ditched her husband and married one of the firm's partners.  He was a decent man, but apparently more dimwitted than I'd realized.

The Lonesome Train

Long ago in Levittown, New York, my Uncle Pete Reilly was the voice of civility and reason. He called on "Progressives" for restraint, but they wouldn't have anything to do with it and ended up with a big fight over the public schools and the ballad of the Lonesome Train.

The Lonesome Train was composed by members of Pete Seeger's group the Almanac Singers, which was closely affiliated with Camp Unity, which in turn was connected to the American Communist Party. The ballad was a harmless enough ditty about Lincoln, unity and the war on slavery, but included rather unfortunate references to New York, New Yorkers and New York politicians. My uncle pleaded with the school administrators and school board to be reasonable and avoid starting a fight by featuring the ballad in the schools. My father objected, too. In addition to the unfortunate references to New Yorkers, the Almanac Singers had an unfortunate and, back then, well known history. Being affiliated with the Camp Unity crowd, Seeger and his singers opposed America's entry into World War II and denounced Franklin Roosevelt for trying to help England when England stood alone in the world against fascism. This was while the Soviet Union was still an ally of Adolf Hitler. The Almanac Singers and Pete Seeger were "conscientious objectors." In that vein, Seeger wrote the anti-war ballad Plow Under (every fourth American boy) in 1941 prior to Hitler turning on his ally the Soviet Union. After Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, Seeger and the Almanac Singers changed their tune and volunteered to perform for the U.S. Office of War Information.  That relationship and the Almanac Singers didn't last long after someone pointed out that they'd authored Plow Under. The Almanac Singers became the Weavers.  To what should be no one's surprise, when the Vietnam War came along, Seeger and the Camp Unity kids were once again "conscientious objectors," aligned with the Soviet Union and writing anti-war ballads: "And the big fool says to push on."   The Soviet aligned version of America First was the American Peace Mobilization, which among other pro-Hitler actions called Franklin Roosevelt a "warmonger" and agitated for ending Lend-Lease aid to Britain during the Blitz.

That my friends, on this Veterans Day (11/11/2014), is why I have a great deal of skepticism when I hear someone say they're a conscientious objector. Few of them can say they've been consistent, except to their political allegiances.

*    *    *    *    *    *

"At any rate, today I'll apologize for a number of things, such as thinking that Stalin was merely a 'hard driver' and not a 'supremely cruel misleader.' I guess anyone who calls himself a Christian should be prepared to apologize for the  Inquisition, the burning of heretics by Protestants, the slaughter of Jews and Muslims by Crusaders. White people in the U.S.A. ought to apologize for stealing land from Native Americans and enslaving blacks."
-- Pete Seeger

What differentiates Seeger from the Christians and Americans is straightforward.   No Christians or Americans alive today endorsed or participated in the alleged sins of the Inquisition, Crusaders and slaveholders.  It's dubious claiming that most of Seeger's accused even had an ancestor who was an Inquisitor, Crusader or slaveholder.   On the other hand,  Seeger was not simple an admirer of the living Stalin but a propagandist on Stalin's behalf who did his part to stop America from intervening when America's support might have kept Hitler and Stalin from plundering Catholic Poland, clearing the way for the Holocaust to come.  Stalin killed millions on his own.  Stalin's alliance with Hitler to divide Poland cleared the way for the Holocaust.   Seeger might not have realized that the Hitler-Stalin alliance would result in the Holocaust, but at the time it was pretty clear that Hitler had evil plans for the Jews.

Seeger was joined in his opposition to support for England and American intervention in World War II by other left wing organizations including the Morgen Freiheit, the Daily Worker and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Veterans.

*    *    *    *    *    *

Plow Under
(an America first, anti-draft song) 
-- Pete Seeger, May 1941

Now the politicians rant
A boy's no better than a cotton plant
But we are here to say you can't
Plow the fourth one under.

[Final Chorus:]
Plow under,
Don't you...plow under
Don't you...plow under
Every fourth American boy.
Now, don't you...plow under,
Don't you...plow under
Don't you...plow under
Every fourth American boy

The Dragon Drives a Caprice

My dad drove a junker.  Forever.  It was an old blue Chevy Caprice, one headlight dangling from its wires where the front bumper was still smashed in from an accident.  One visit home I borrowed it to go to a restaurant and upon leaving the restaurant discovered the car no longer went in reverse.  I had to put the car in neutral, get out, get in front and push the thing out of its parking space.  Got home:  Dad, you need a new car.  If money's a problem, I'll buy you one.  No, no, Son.  I love that car.  It's got another 100,000 miles on it.  How do you park the thing, Father?   Oh, I just pull into parking spots where it rolls out downhill or where you can drive straight ahead out the other side.

After Dad died, I sold it to the guy down the street for a dollar.  He was a cop and happy to have it since the cops had a garage that would fix up the junkers to run little better for cheap.  The cops in his precinct liked to drive junkers to work.   Work was a bad neighborhood where the denizens vandalized the cops' personal cars parked near the police station.

Aramco: Women Drivers

Women don't drive in Saudi Arabia.  They don't ride in cars with anyone other than a relative.  Only their eyes are exposed in public.  Shortly before the Aramco shuttle (an all first class seat Boeing 747 that travelled between Houston and Dammam) landed in Dammam, all the woman disappeared.  One minute a bunch of gals in jeans are scurrying for the bathrooms and the next the plane is filled with black robed bodies bobbing up the aisles, women peeking through the eye slits in their outfits trying to locate their seats before landing.

The exception to the rule was the Aramco compound.  By the grace of God and Bill Keller's dad,  wives of American workers were allowed to drive.  Alone, no less.  This led to awkward moments with Aramco security since the Saudi security guards could not talk to the American women drivers when they were apprehended for speeding.  They'd send the wife on her way, then the husband would have to come down to the police station and apologize to the police for the wife's bad behavior and promise it would never happen again.

The Dragon Gets a Free Drink

Airplane rage is all the rage.  It's not a new problem.

I have long legs and don't like being elbowed by the person sitting next to me, so to stretch my legs and move out of the way of flying elbows, I always reserve an aisle seat weeks in advance of my airplane rides ( and these days avoid airplanes as much as possible altogether).

One flight during my consulting days at the end of a long itinerary, I settled into my precious aisle seat, closed my eyes and started to doze, even before the plane took off.  A commotion started at the front of the plane.   A man who hadn't planned things the way he wanted was nastily abusing the flight attendants, demanding he be given a seat alongside his wife.  The flight attendants said that they'd see what they could do, but it didn't look good since the plane was very full.  Then the guy spots me and the empty seat next to me.

Will you move so my wife and I can sit there.  
Find me an aisle seat, says I.  I reserved this one weeks ago.
Then he got nasty and abusive with me.
Shut up sucker or I'll stuff you in the overhead bin, says I.
He was dumbstruck.
The guy in the aisle seat behind me gets up and moves into the seat next to me.
I don't mind, says he.
Gutless, says I.  You shouldn't reward an abusive bullying person.
He shrugged his shoulders and I went back to dozing.
After the plane took off and we were safely aloft, someone gently nudged me.
It was a flight attendant.  She whispered in my ear, can we buy you a drink.
Thanks, says I.

The Dragon Hires a Temp: No Country for Old Men

Back in the bad old days after I got a sit-on-your-butt job and before I got too old to be hirable, I ran big tech projects for a big consulting firm.  I kept my eye out for talent who could help my projects, because a few good hires could really make a software development project.  I know. You're thinking I was an old guy who just liked talking to young women, but I wasn't interested in romance.  I wanted to find people who could program and weren't on someone else's radar in the days when tech people in the US were a hot commodity.  People who weren't going to go to a strip club at lunch time and have a couple of beers  (on one project in Pittsburgh I always needed to be sure to hold all my meetings with the client programmers before lunch hour).   At vendor software training sessions I looked for unappreciated young women programmers and recruited them for my projects.  My greatest coup was discovering a temp who a client had hired to type documentation.  She was a Carnegie Mellon CS major who'd gotten into a fight with her father and didn't have enough money to finish school.  We gave her a big raise and with very little additional training she wrote all the system reports.  After the project she finished her degree work, moved to Seattle and (I hope) lived happily ever after.

*  *  *  *  *
An added advantage to hiring young women -- besides them not going to strip clubs at lunchtime for beers -- was that they weren't likely to be a difficult manic-depressive ex-marine contractor who was prone to skipping his lithium and liked shooting his pet machine gun in the desert after work.

*  *  *  *  *
Another drawback to hiring women in the days before Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill.  The women always seemed to be riled up about something.  I couldn't figure out what until our biggest project was nearly over and the senior partner had packed his bags and gone home, leaving me to straighten out the broken pieces.

"Everybody Loves" Grace checked in with me.
(Grace was so sweet that she never figured out until after he retired that, when she lived in Vientiane during her junior high years, her dad worked for the CIA and was head of Air America security)
Sorry if Jacq and I were grumpy sometimes.
No problem. You should work with fisherman who've been pulling nets for a week straight... or sailors who've just spent a month firing 10,000 5" rounds during all night raids on Haiphong Harbor and other scenic tropical places.
Oh... it was just that X [senior partner] kept bugging us.
I knew that.
No you didn't.  He used to walk up behind us and snap our bras and other dirt bag stuff like that.
You should have told me.  I'd have stopped it.
We were afraid you'd get mad and punch him out.
You're a good judge of character, my dear.
[Too bad, though, that Deloitte job was one I'd have loved to have left in a legendary blaze of glory.  I was disappointed I'd missed the excuse to do what I wanted to do anyway.]

*  *  *  *  *
The women weren't without sin.   Sweet Grace and her pals had their "mean girls" counterparts.  They liked to gossip about everyone's sex lives and Partner X loved to personally indulge them (no wonder we were behind schedule and losing money).  In particular the ladies, even the sweet ones, liked to speculate and confirm which men were gay.  STOP.  I don't care that you saw Bob kissing his boy friend goodbye this morning.  I need Bob to lead you people, develop the specifications for the claims system and make sure you people program it according to spec.   Short of personally sleeping with the guy myself, I will do anything to keep him happy. 

RIP Captain Robert Regan -- the Right Stuff

Third Eli Baseball Game Cancelled

"Because several players will have to leave for compulsory Naval Science cruises on June 18, the third Harvard-Yale baseball game, originally schedule for June 20 (1941), has been called off. The Crimson players involved include: third baseman Gilbert F. Whittemore '42, catcher Robert F. Regan '41, and Sophomore outfielders Fred S. Troy, Jr. and Robert S. Potter."

My uncle Rob was the starting catcher for the Harvard baseball team in 1941.  Not bad for the son of a Gaelic speaking farm girl from Lisdoonvarna (Honoragh Lafferty) and a trolley car conductor from Cork (Tim Regan).  Jack and Joe Kennedy sat behind my grandmother at baseball games and shouted encouragement for "Shanty" Regan.   No one seemed to mind nicknames back then.   Joe Kennedy was Uncle Rob's inspiration for going Naval Aviation:  "If that bum Joe Kennedy can be a pilot, so can I."

Uncle Rob was assigned to VC-38 a squadron of TBF torpedo planes that fought in the Solomons Campaign.   My mother called the torpedo planes "Ensign Eliminators", a well-earned nickname due to their heavy losses during the Pacific war.  At Midway in June of 1942, VT-8's entire complement of TBDs and TBFs was wiped out during their repeated desperate attacks on the Japanese fleet.

For valor during many World War II battles, including the raids on the heavily defended Japanese naval bases at Rabaul and Kure, the son of Irish Catholic immigrants was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross (three times).

After the war, Rob became one of the Navy's first jet test pilots and finished his career as the commander of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.

*   *   *   *   *

REGAN, ROBERT F.

INJ Tone under attack at Kure

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross [America's second highest award for combat valor ] to Lieutenant Robert F. Regan (NSN: 0-106999), United States Naval Reserve, for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Torpedo Plane in Carrier Air Group THIRTY (CAG-30), while leading a flight of torpedo bombers in a bombing attack on major combatant units of the Japanese Fleet in Kure Harbor, on 19 March 1945. Lieutenant Regan skillfully and courageously selected the best point of attack and pressed home his own bombing run to a very low altitude despite intense anti-aircraft fire scoring two direct hits on a heavy cruiser [sinking IJN Tone, whose aircraft had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor]. His courageous and skilled tactics set the pace for the remaining attacking planes resulting in heavy losses to the enemy vessels. His outstanding courage and determined skill were at all times inspiring and in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
[It was during the Kure raid that Holy Cross College professor Joseph O'Callaghan, SJ., displayed valor meriting the Congressional Medal of Honor when USS Franklin was struck by a devastating attack from Japanese bombers and nearly sunk]

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Lieutenant Robert F. Regan (NSN: 0-106999), United States Naval Reserve, for gallantry and intrepidity in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Torpedo Plane in Carrier Air Group THIRTY (CAG-30), while participating in an aerial flight as leader of a squadron of torpedo bombers in an attack upon an enemy convoy in the East China Sea, on 24 March 1945. As a result of careful planning of the attack of his squadron, the planes in his flight scored several torpedo and bomb hits on enemy ships. He personally scored a direct hit with his torpedo on a large enemy cargo vessel which exploded and sank. As a result of his and other attacks the entire convoy was destroyed. His courage, determination and devotion to duty in the execution of this mission were at all times in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Throwing Acetone on Holy Cross ROTC students

As if it weren't bad enough to suffer the distain of my fellow students and harassment by some like the Holy Cross black student provocateur, it is amazing to discover that a Holy Cross professor claims it's all a myth.  It is certainly no myth that Holy Cross students threw acetone on my fellow Holy Cross NROTC students in 1969.

Holy Cross: Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers

Brother Rat


 
 
It is also no myth that I had to endure an abusive graduate school interview at Stony Brook University where the program director concluded that I should go elsewhere because my veteran's benefit made it possible for me to afford a more expensive graduate school.  Since then I've interviewed many and went out of my way to conduct the interview in a professional and polite manner, not as a prelude to Glengarry Glen Ross.






Disrespect for Vietnam vets is fact, not fiction 
Bob Feist,  Star Tribune

The Dragon Meets Felix Frankfurter

I met Felix Frankfurter many years ago when I was in kindergarten.  It was during the big airline fight when my father got himself admitted to the Supreme Court bar.

Anyway I got sick in the court's waiting room.  All over a beautiful rug.   The guards took over and said don't worry Mr. Mac, we'll take care of the boy.  They whisked me to the court's infirmary and started pumping me full of milk of magnesia or something else awful.   Then Justice Frankfurter walks in and asks for some aspirin cause he has a terrible headache.  The guard thinking he's doing a wonderful thing presents me to the great justice.  The great justice extends his hand and says nice to meet you young man.   I duck and cover.  No way I was shaking hands with a big scary guy in a black dress.

*    *    *    *    *

Years before, when my grandfather led the Boston Carmen's Union during the big strike, the union was on the ropes and management wasn't much better off.   The exhausted parties agreed to arbitration.  Management picked their arbitrator.   Grandpa Tim paused and slyly said... I pick Professor Frankfurter from Harvard.

The Exorcist

Fred Phelps was a local character who terrorized Topeka, Kansas, for years.  He'd been an Eagle Scout when he was a boy, and began preaching against sin in college.  Conservative Bob Jones University allegedly gave him an ultimatum to seek psychiatric care or leave.  He left and earned a two year degree from John Muir College.  He was hired to preach at Topeka's East Side Baptist, but left in a year to found his own Westboro Baptist Church.  The church was his house in Topeka's Westboro neighborhood, and his large family was the congregation.  They did baptisms in the swimming pool and claimed status as a non-profit religious organization.

Fred earned a law degree from nearby Washburn University and got off on a good foot taking up civil rights cases for African Americans.  He got disbarred when he sued a court clerk for not getting him a transcript on time, put her on the witness stand for two weeks, and allegedly during the examination accused her of perverted sexual acts.  Why the judge let this go on is a mystery to this day, but Fred had a way of intimidating people.

When the AIDS epidemic hit,  Fred and his "congregation" started picketing the funerals.  His message was loud and clear, and the chanting and shouts were accompanied by graphic placards just to be sure you got the message:  "God Hates Fags" and stick figures posed suggestively to depict homosexual sex acts.  When there wasn't a funeral to picket, Fred and company picketed churches where the funerals had been held.

Fred inevitably got around to picketing my brother's church and, never mind the children, the adjoining Catholic school my nephew attended.  This infuriated the parish priest.  But what to do.   Fred wanted confrontation.   He hoped he'd be physically attacked, then he'd sue the attacker and use the money to keep Westboro Baptist going.   The priest donned his full regalia of vestments, grabbed his aspergillum, a ewer of holy water and headed for Fred.   Fred was furious when he got hit by the holy water, but what can you do?  Sue someone for sprinkling you with holy water.  Fred complained to the bishop.  The bishop sent him more holy water as a token of peace, secretly hoping that if enough touched him, Fred might burn up in smoke and blow away.

The Best of Arizona: AZ Shockers Championship Baseball

A Wing and a Prayer


 

Poverty in America: The Dragon Meets the Hawk

Some people like NY Times columnist Nick Kristof think America can't be saved unless all the teachers have a degree from Harvard.  He's never met the Hawk.  Of course not, the elites who think  it's their privilege to tell us how to live our lives don't send their children to inner-city Title 1 public schools.  Most wouldn't know what a Title 1 school is even if they'd been near one... other than thinking as they drove by when the students were arriving that it would be best to check if the car doors are locked.

The Hawk comes to mind this morning because he was directing traffic when I dropped my daughter off for school.  His traffic theatrics make you wonder if he's related to the famous Pittsburgh cop, Vic Cianca.

The Hawk went to work as a janitor at the Rose Lane School because he needed job.  When you spend high school perfecting your skateboard maneuvers, your career options are limited.

The school principal took a shine to the Hawk and encouraged him go to college and get a job teaching.  "You do very well with the children.  They love you."

And so it came to pass, that my little Jimmy, the bane of elementary school teachers, walked into the Hawk's fourth grade class and went from being an average student to having one of the very highest math test scores in the school district.  Maybe the key to success was that little Jimmy loves fishing and the kid who did the best that day got to feed live minnows to the bass the Hawk kept in a big tank in the room. 

Sit in on his class and you'd discover that the Hawk was the frickin' original Pied Piper.  He'd say the magic word and 30 kids would clap three times in unison and then there'd be complete silence and rapt attention.

*    *    *    *    *

 

The basic principles of Title 1 [federal assistance] state that schools with large concentrations of low-income students will receive supplemental funds to assist in meeting students' educational goals. Low-income students are determined by the number of students enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program. For an entire school to qualify for Title 1 funds, at least 40% of students must enroll in the free and reduced lunch program.

 

The Dragon meets Dirty Marie

I'd been the light-heavy weight fisticuffs champ of New York's Metropolitan Junior Hockey League, which sent Joe Mullen to Boston College and the NHL, but hitting a woman never occurred to me.  On the other hand,  I was on the receiving end once.

I'd been dating a young woman while doing graduate school at NYU.   Things seemed to be going very well.  Before Christmas break we travelled to Washington, DC, and spent a weekend with her sister's family.  Afterwards, I went home to New York and spent Christmas with my family.

When she returned from break, I went to see her at her apartment.   Shortly after I entered she said she had some bad news (for me).   She was moving to California to get married.   After I'd left her sister's house, she'd hopped on a jet plane and spent Christmas with another boy friend.  Little did I know.  I spent a whole weekend with at least two, probably three people, who treated me like the latest family addition without coming close to letting on that I was the latest family sucker.  Which hurt more the loss of the woman or the humiliation discovering I'd spent a weekend as the family fool.

Since staying any longer seemed to be pointless, I politely excused myself without saying much at all and headed home.  The apartments at NYU had no elevators.   I wasn't far down the first flight of stairs when someone runs up behind me and kicks me real hard in the butt.   I turned to defend myself, which I'd done ferociously on more than one occasion, and there was my "friend" Dirty Marie.  "IF YOU LEAVE NOW, I WILL NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN"  she screamed.  I turned around and just kept going.

*  *  *  *  *
I should have immediately bailed out on this when she waited until breakfast to announce that...  technically ... she was still married.

The New Holy Cross

The epistles I receive from my alma mater are intriguing to say the least. 

First and foremost they celebrate the new, diverse and co-ed Holy Cross where students are decidedly brighter than those who attended in the past.

Then there are the inveterate pleas for donations to support the alma mater.  These are not simply intriguing.  They are downright puzzling.  If the graduates of the New Holy Cross are so darn smart why do they need my money.  After all, if all the graduates of the New Holy are smarter than me, then they're all multi-millionaires many times over and a school that's left its past behind can certainly do without the past's money.

I'm not exactly sure what smart means -- sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart.  But I definitely know what dumb is.

The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club

 

Top Gun North SAR

Butch Meets the Dragon

I grew up in a union family so it was very interesting, to say the least, when I got assigned to a team negotiating a labor contract with the City of Independence, Missouri, firemen.   I was about the same age as the firemen on the union team so we had a lot in common.  As the negotiations dragged on and on (the firemen were waiting to see if their candidates won the city council election), the union team started laying it on pretty thick with outrageous demands.  One day the union president, Butch, demanded that the city put into the firemen's contract  a guarantee that the city would only buy products made in the United States.   I immediately shot back, sure Butch, we'll put that in the contract... when you sell your Volkswagen. 

Rashomon

Commoner: Well, men are only men. That's why they lie. They can't tell the truth, even to themselves.

Priest: That may be true. Because men are weak, they lie to deceive themselves.

Commoner: Not another sermon! I don't mind a lie if it's interesting.

 



The Dragon Calls the Principal

The word Maryvale scares most of my Phoenix neighbors.  Hell.  A lot of them won't even send their children to the neighborhood public schools where my kids go.  Maybe being in the Navy me made less touchy about that.  When black and Mexican guys are part of the crew watching your butt when the bullets are flying around, you're a little less touchy about whose kid sits next to your little Mary in class. 

The world is full of a lot of basically good kids.  A few are self-starters, like my Mary.  Most, like my Jimmy (little guy in the middle), need some direction.  Some of the kids need a lot of direction. 







A few of them need a smack upside the head from the principal.  Towards the end of my son's middle school basketball season, we made the trip to Maryvale.  The game went well and the Maryvale players were good sports even though they lost the game.   The young ladies were another matter.  The Maryvale girls took exception to the Madison No. 1 girls cheering vigorously for the Madison boys.   The Maryvale girls, shouting profanities, followed the Madison boys and girls out to the bus.  There was no security anywhere in sight to stop this.   They kept up the profanities led by a tall black girl.  When the bus drove by them pulling out of the lot, the girls starting throwing rocks. 

I had promised my wife not to get involved with this stuff anymore, so I just stood and watched.   Finally I shouted at the girls and told them I'd be calling their principal in the morning.  At least I made it out of the parking lot without them throwing rocks at me.

In the morning I sent a strongly worded email to the principal, the president of the governing board, and their superintendent and our superintendent.   The leader of the pack was suspended from school.  The other girls were dropped from the cheer squad.   In the spring when we visited for baseball and softball, there was plenty of school security around.   The girls were still yapping at one another.  The boys played with respect.

The Dragon dials 911

Why didn't I send my kid to Camelback, the public high school down the street from us.  It would be so convenient.  Let's start with high school night at Madison No. 1 (my son's middle school),  the curriculum that CHS was offering left a lot to be desired for those who are college bound.   Then there's the wonderful neighborhood experience, eg, the gunfight out in front of the high school.   Old news?  Ok, how about the little league game last year where the game had to be stopped because two guys got into a fight over a girl.   It was a darn impressive fight.   One guy, a CHS student, he looks like superman.  The other one a wiry terrier guy who won't stop yapping at superman.   Not even when superman rips off his own shirt and starts pounding his own mighty chest with his fists.  Terrier-guy didn't stop yapping at all even while superman was shaking him like a rag doll and banging terrier guy against the walls and concrete deck.  Terrier-guy even managed to land a few punches while he was bouncing off the wall.

I'm done with breaking up fights.  I dialed 911 and yelled at superman and terrier-guy that the police were on the way.   Some other brave souls finally separated them.  Superman finally came to his senses and ran off.  He's had the crap nurtured out of him  and realized he didn't need to be there when the cops arrived.   Lucky for him it took the cops 30 minutes to show up.

I've lived in the Madison neighborhood for 20 years I love the kids -- I've been a soccer or baseball coach for a lot of them -- but a few of them scare the crap out of me.  And if they scare me, my kid isn't going to CHS.

The FBI meets the Dragon

The FBI showed up at our door one day years ago. 
Jim, Jim! wailed my poor old mother-in-law, a little old Italian lady.  The FBI are here! 
I walked over to the door. 
We'd like to speak with your wife. 
What about, says I. 
We need to speak with your wife. 
You can tell me. 
No, we can't.  We need to speak with her. 
At this point my little boy butted in: what do the ladies want, Daddy. 
I smiled and said, they're from the FBI, son, and they're here to arrest your mother. 
My mother-in-law nearly fainted. 
The FBI agents squealed NO, NO, it's nothing like that. 
Ok, what is it then.  
We can't tell you. 

I finally relented and told them my wife was at work and where that was.  It turns out she'd been taking a shortcut through the back parking lot behind the FBI building on the days she had to pick up our son at the babysitter. 

Do you have a camera, they asked?  
Were you taking pictures. 
We can't be too careful after Oklahoma City, sorry. 

Across town at about the same time a terrorist was training on an aircraft simulator for 9/11.

*   *   *   *   *

 

Since the FBI agents didn't tell me what they wanted.  I didn't bother to tell the FBI who my wife worked for.  I was sending them to Arizona's second largest Medicaid health plan run by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy and Carondelet.   My wife was the COO and a specialist in maternal child health care and had recently gone to Washington to accept an award from the Medicaid people for caring for AIDS patients.  

 

Receptionist:  Welcome to Mercy Care Plan.  How may I help you.

FBI:  we're here to see Julie...

Receptionist:  Do you have an appointment?

 

I'd guessed that the FBI wanted to ask some questions about the Native American tribes the health plan served.  That they took my wife for a potential terrorist never entered my mind.  But I've never let her forget it.