What is it about Patsy Cline that push my buttons? A line from the movie about her life called “Sweet Dreams” says it for me. “When she sings, the hair on the back of my neck stands up”. Her voice was sweet and piercing. The songs her handlers selected for her are timeless. Her vocal stylings didn’t match the then accepted Country type, but she made it work and was better for it. Cline could make the listener feel the pain of the lyrics. Her songs made it clear, even to men, how much pain losing love can cause women.

During Patsy Cline’s brief career she was able to cross over from Country to Pop and back again. She was the pioneer for many future female Country singers. Her Rock counterpart was Janis Joplin because they kicked down doors while the others waited timidly outside.

Patsy Cline’s days of music ended when she became another victim of the “road”. Flying home from a gig, her small plane slammed into a hill killing her and all other passengers. Along with Buddy Holley before her, this was another day the music died.

We are lucky to have a treasury of her work to sustain us especially when our love has done us wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patsy_Cline

Back in the 1950s, my idols list was topped by Richie Ashburn mostly because he was a small man who played against larger men  and often came out on top.

Musial was my favorite non-Phillie. While my friends differed on their favorites, I learned most of them listed him as I did. When the Phillies played the Cardinals, we’d want the Phillies to win and Musial to do well.

There was something about “the man” that evoked the qualities of national pastime during its golden era. No pitcher wanted to face him with the game in dispute. He was always listed among the leaders in the hitting categories. Above it all, there was never a sharp word or an embarrassing story written about him. He seemed almost to live in a higher state than the other mere mortals who played a boy’s game for a living.

Stan the Man Musial was the guest speaker at a business convention I attended.  At the end of his seminar, the MC said Musial had autographed a baseball and a bat for two lucky attendees. The ball was given to the oldest woman there. Round of applause as the ball changed hands with a thank you kiss causing Musial to mug playfully to the audience.

Then it was announced the bat would go to the person in the room whose birthday came closest to Stan’s. Those of us who celebrated November birthdays were asked to stand. The MC announced Musial’s birthday in a slow, deliberate manner, “Stan was born on . . . .  November . . . . . .twenty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . one”.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Musial

My hopes soared with the possibility I could win this trophy and meet a genuine larger than life idol. I even knew where I’d put the bat in my home.

As I looked around at the others standing, the MC played out the suspense by asking one of us for his birthday. His shout of “14th” started yelps of other dates from the others. It turned out my 29th lost to someone born on the 26th. So close. It wasn’t my day for a meeting my younger self could only dream about.

Read the following article, and I believe you’ll agree we would all welcome someone writing such an article about us.

It would be a much better world if we all deserved such tributes.

 http://redbirdrants.com/2010/07/23/cooperstown-connection-for-stan-musial-character-is-far-more-important-than-the-game-of-baseball/

First up: some Americans believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. Why would this matter? We have the US Constitution, Article II, Section 1 detailing exactly who can be our President. The movement afoot back then was to prevent Englishmen from rising to national leadership. Could it have been their intention to prevent someone born outside of our boundaries with only one American parent from being our President over 235 years later? How could they have imagined such a situation? http://www.presidentsusa.net/qualifications.html 

So I suggest an update to the US Constitution, Article II, Section 1. to set aside birth location limitations. To wit: anyone can ascend to the Presidency as long as they are natural born citizens. In this way, a future Barack Obama can be born in Kenya to American moms and be elected President. Do we still need to ace out the Brits?

The second issue is our 14th amendment and its provision to allow all babies born in America to be American citizens. What floated that boat? The 1868 amendment wanted to secure a place in America for former slaves and prevent them from forced deportation because of legal chicanery. It worked but again it had far reaching affects centuries later. Could the lawmakers of the day imagine the flood of illegal immigrants giving birth so they and their children have the legal right to stay here? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

What to do about this “anchor baby” issue? The 14th amendment is the law of the land; no one born in the USA can be forcibly deported just because we would want to do so. I have no clear way out of this situation. We could write a convoluted amendment to identify the intent of aliens wishing to birth their children here for the bennies. I would imagine an amendment that would be as unable to avoid future problems any more than its first effort.

My unifying point is that in at least two situations our lawmakers made proper laws that had unimagined affects long after their enactment. We should have a monitoring method to adjust when intent go awry.

The event was an Irish wake for a man I’ve met but didn’t know. He was my co-worker/boss’ father, and he’d recently lost his battle with cancer. I felt honored to be included in the celebration of his life.

I knew a small number of people at the wake and counted on my salesman’s skills to survive. Maybe the only person who knew fewer people there was my always supportive wife, Lyn.

Great food and drink was a given since the location was Molly McGuire’s Pub. It was the other, smaller details of the celebration that made for a memorial time.

They had an Irish string trio playing unfamiliar but pleasing ethnic music. A much better than average video of the recently departed and his family flashed on a large screen. There was a spirited buzz all around us. All good stuff, but it was the people who made the day. Folks we didn’t know engaged us. We found them interesting and hope they found us the same. Lyn and I entered a room filled with strangers, but we quickly felt at ease.

If our lives are measured by the people who loved us, then Thomas Tegler lived a good one. I’m grateful I know the people who remember the man he was.

Inside us, we have paradigms sitting, waiting and craving the proof they are dead-on. They usually are not distracted by conflicting evidence.

One of my paradigms is difficult to deal with. I believe we have inner racists lying in wait to become our default position. It makes that ugly thought we get in a racially charged situation. If what you think cause bile to rise in your mouth, you’re fighting your inner racist. Good for you.

Recently, the news was full of story about a brief second in time when Shirley Sherrod of the Georgia USDA had one of these moments. Sitting across from a white farmer, she recalled all the black farmers who didn’t get the help they needed. In that critical moment, she thought she would not give this white farmer her full support. She even said so in a taped video speech to the NAACP this March.

It was just 30 seconds of a 45 minute speech. The USDA did shabby damage control and compelled her to resign before it went viral with the conservative news yakkers. There is not much I can add to this storyline.

Let me do otherwise. I watched Sherrod’s complete speech. She continued her story with a narrative that left me impressed with the high level of service and humane care she gave to this farmer. She saved his farm when others stood by. Today, this farmer praises her for her help.

Shirley Sherrod had her racist thought and did not allow it to cause her to act improperly. That’s the way out of this race mess we find ourselves in.

Sherrod’s speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NcCa_KjXk

How I listen to music has changed though. When I was young and full of spirit, it made my body move and took me to places my adventurous mind liked.

It’s over 40 years later, and I listen now for the memories and to return my spirit to those earlier days. As for moving to the music, I can still get down, but I have trouble getting back up. Beside that, no one wants to see an aging boomer do the boogaloo.

Smokey Robinson sings “Tracks of My Tears”, and I remember slow dancing at Bishop Shanahan’s teen dances. As a bonus, Joni Mitchell sharply describes the event in “Come In From the Cold.”

I listen to “Loving Her Is Easier Then Anything I’ll Ever Do Again” and marvel at how Kris Kristofferson was able to capture the depths a man can love a woman.

When Janis Joplin belts out “Piece of My Heart”, I mourn the loss of this giant talent and remember wishing I could have been there to save her from herself.

I hope the sound track of  your life treats you this well.

This brings me to iTunes.

My journey started when I was gifted with an iPod by my wife, Lyn. To use this then cutting edge technology, I would download songs from iTunes at the fire sale price of $0.99 each. This meant I could program this small device with 1,600 favorite tunes and have nearly instant access to any of these tunes within seconds. It would be the sound track of my life.

This activity became a study in overkill.  The iPod’s capacity far exceeded my actual favorite songs’ total of about 400. It was here where I decided to slow down the process. Every now and then, I’ll add a song, but I’m done. Remaining old songs don’t mean that much to me and nothing new is meeting the standard. I do find some gems in non-rock genres but not in large numbers.

Lesson learned: I accepted my life’s experiences palls compared to technology’s ability to catalog it. To get more results, I would need to lower my standards. I learned to accept things as they are presented to me and not push beyond some limits if to do so would dilute the original goal.

What are the chances that anyone remains to be repatriated from the Vietnam War? Probably as slim as can be imagined but of course, one is too many.

Today, John McCain is in a dog fight for a Arizona Senate seat with a “more Conservative than thou” candidate. McCain is being haunted by a ghost from his past. What has happened to the POWs the North Vietnamese supposedly were holding as ransom for war repatriations we never paid?

The core article is written by a major player, Pulitzer Prize winning author of the Killing Fields,  Sydney Schanberg.  http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/jul/01/00010/

The article reads that McCain and John Kerry used their positions on the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs to bottleneck information about non-returning POW/MIAs. This article tries to  expose a side of these two men they would rather hide if true.

I did find what I read to be distrubing since it shot clean to the core of my opinion of John McCain. I always believe him to be the leader for all things POW/MIA who worked diligently to bring light and closure to these issues. The article would have the reader believe the opposite.

As is my way, I went looking for supporting information – a second source as it were. My problem was that all other articles led back to Schanberg as its sole source. I gave up my search without conclusive results. Is McCain the POW/MIA advocate I had believed him to be or an evil force for blocking the light?

One fault I found with Schanberg’s article is he relied heavily on quotes by North Vietnamese officials. This group was particularly crafty at sending up false trail balloons in order to get what they wanted for little in return. The reader is left trying to prove negatives which is always troublesome.

My final shot: Schanberg also reports how prisioner McCain did break under torture and confess to war crimes allowing the enemy to use it for propaganda. McCain has admitted this happened and how much he regrets it. I don’t understand why Schanberg included these facts unless he just wants to dump on McCain.

I invite you to read more on this subject. I know I will. If I can dig up more acceptable information, I’ll blog about it later.

At the funeral, I watched as people positioned themselves in the Church. I saw my 91 year old Aunt be escorted to a front pew by one daughter and one grand-daughter. Two of her other children were in the church and did not sit with her. I believe this is because they have been feuding for years.* Her estranged daughter walked passed her Mother twice to do a scripture reading with no acknowledgements either way.  

As sad as this is, it is amplified by the fact this family has suffered the previous loss of two sons and another daughter. They are all they have, and they choose to withhold their love to each other. I don’t know the reasons and do not know if I’d understand any better if I did.

The thought running in my mind was we were all there in one of life’s most pivotal moments. Where else are the fragility of life and the need for bonding more relevant than at a loved one’s funeral? And yet some of us still hold on to the hurt and push others away.

Here were the hypocritical notes come in. I am the same person I scold here. I am estranged from my one sister and choose to stay this way. Maybe I can take my own advice and find a way to get back with her.

Like most people, I always think others should make the first effort, and I can leave my existing position intact. I can be magnanimous and forgiving if the offenders learn the errors of their ways; find contrition and ask for my forgiveness.

Being a little bit hypocritical is like being a little pregnant.

* Note: I hope I’m wrong about this.