Highway System part 1: the first 5 Tens

 In celebration of next year's 100th birthday of our highway system, I would first like to take a look at what I call the 10s, meaning all of the main east to west highways that we have. 

First of all, Bryan, WHAT IN HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? WHAT HIGHWAY SYSTEM?

Oh! Yeah, maybe I should provide some background on this.

Before 1926, we had no real national system of highways. Sure, we had a few highways in varying conditions depending on where you were. 

A perfect example of this is the Lincoln Highway, a generally ragtag connection of roads that was never completed as originally designed. If you look at some modern road maps, you will see an L designating a rough sketch of what the Lincoln Highway was, but the original New York to San Francisco route has long since been paved over, probably 3 or 4 times.

By the mid 1920s, there were enough automobiles on the road that a national and uniform system made sense. The general rule was that for east to west roads, the assigned numbers would be even, with the lowest number (2)being furthest north and the highest number (98)being furthest south. North to south highways were numbered odd, with the lowest number route (1) in the east while the highest number (101) was in the west.

This was an absolutely perfect system, right? Au contraire! Depending on where you were in the country, these highways could have tight and blind curves, as well as very steep mountain grades. Also, many of these roads served as the Main Street of many communities big or small, so the highways also later came to be riddled with stop signs and traffic signals.

Still, this new system was the standard pretty much into the mid 1960s, when the new interstate system of divided highways was showing some legs.

The U.S. highway system utilized a shield that held the route number. The shield design evolved over the years with some variation depending on the state. 

All right, are we straight? How about just a slight warp? Ok, back to where I was, the multiples of 10 in the U.S. Highway System.

Highway 10 had two unique qualities about it. First of all, it did not go from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it actually began in downtown Detroit. It ran up in a north-north-western direction until around Bay City, then cut west to Lake Michigan. From there, a ferry would take people acruss the lake and continue on U.S. 10 in Wisconsin, continuing to Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washingon, terminating in Seattle. 

Much of 10 was easy travel as far as Montana before it crossed the Rockies in western Montana and Idaho. It alos had to cross the Cascade range in western Washington.

As of now, U.S. 10 exists only between West Fargo and Bay City, having been replaced with Interstates 90 and 94.

This road also has a unique quality or two about it. Not only was it extended from its original terminus in Yellowstone National Park to Newport, Oregon, but within Yellowstone itself, it does not exist officially. Therefore, 20 with the exception of its Yellowstone break, goes from Boston to the Oregon coast, traveling across Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, a tiny corner of Montana, then Idaho and finally Oregon. U.S. 20 sees quite a variety of landscape, from the rolling hills of the northeast through the northern Appalachians, farmland, urban areas of Boston, Cleveland, and Boise, and a good amount of desert in Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon. It is also the main streen of several smaller towns in many states.

A coast to coast highway like U.S. 20, U.S. 30 does NOT get broken up by a national park. Much of 30 between Pennsylvania and Wyoming is labeled on maps as the Lincoln Highway, though with its many freeway bypasses around towns, particularly in Pennsylvania and Ohio,  30 has long strayed from the Lincoln Highway as it was originally routed.

U.S. 30 begins in Atlantic City, New Jersey (Monopoly, anyone?), and goes across Jersey, the long length of Pennsylvania, 3 miles of West Virginia at its most northern tip, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, the long length of Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, ending in Astoria. In fact, it takes some extra length between POrtland and Astoria by following the westernmost portion of the Columbia River.

Unlike U.S. 20, 30 has undergone many freeway bypass realignments in order to avoid smaller towns, particularly in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, thereby taking away the rural and small town charm it once had, particularly going through Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Before the arrival of the PA Turnpike, U.S. 30 was considered the safer of two routes (the other being U.S. 22) crossing the Appalachian Mountains. In fact between the western Pittsburgh area and the Philadelphia area, the turnpike and 30 are never more than a half hour apart.

U.S. 30 sees the downtown areas of Boise, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. Like 20, it sees many types of terrain on its course.

U.S. 40 actually shares an origin with U.S. 30, in that it begins in Atlantic City. From there it is a bit more southerly, crossing southern Jersey into skinny Delaware, then Maryland, Pennsylvania, a tiny bit of West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and ending in Park City, Utah, just 30 miles short of Salt Lake City. U.S. 40 shares a good amount of pavement with Interstate 70 between Baltimore and the Rockies, though it maintains its own identity in that distance in many places. Near Idaho Springs, Colorado, 40 "breaks up" with 70 permanently to cut up into northern Colorado and northeastern Utah.

U.S. 40 has an asset (or disadvantage depending on your point of view) of going through many downtowns, such as Denver, Kansas CIty, St. Louis, Columbus, and Baltimore. It sees a good amount of mountainous terrain in the east and west along with desert, coastal plain, and farmlands of the midwest.

Like U.S. 10, 40 fell victim to the Interstate Highway System, but unlike 10, it lost less than a thousand miles. Interstate 80's completion made 40 obsolete through western Utah, Nevada, and California, where it ended in San Francisco.

And finally, we will tackle the ever so famous...

U.S. 50 is about as classy a highway as they come, quite frankly because it's often the road less traveled...but I'll get to that in a bit!

Like 40 and 10, 50 suffered some truncation, but only about 100 miles or so. Parts of it originally were part of the Lincoln Highway in the west, particularly between San Francisco and Ely, Nevada.

Its truncation happened in Sacramento, so 50 does not see the Pacific Ocean. 

Starting in Ocean City, Maryland, 50 crosses coastal plain to the Chesapeake Bay where it serves Annapolis via freeway and soon after, goes right through Washington,D.C. Actually, D.C. is about as downtown as 50 gets in terms of big cities. From there, it heads through the expensive burbs of Virginia before it gets into rural Virginia, then West Virginia, with a tiny slice of western Maryland, Crossing the Ohio, we get INTO Ohio, cutting through that state's southern rural parts, then into Indiana and Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California.

Aside from D.C. downtown-wise, 50 sees Cincinnati and St. Louis. Apart from that, it sees a LOT of country, but maintains its own identity most of the way, key word is MOST!

Currently, between Grand Junction, Colorado and Salina, Utah, it shares a little over 200 miles of Interstate 70, going through some spectacular desert landscape. Before Interstate 70 was completed in Utah, 50 followed U.S. 6 from Green River to Spanish Fork, headed up to Salt Lake City, cut across with U.S. 40 to Wendover, then cut south to Ely, Nevada. Now, it goes from Salina to Scipio, follws Interstate 15 south to Holden ( a ghost town), then heads west to Delta to share road with U.S. 6 to Ely.

From Ely, Nevada to Fallon, Nevada, U.S. 50 is known as the Loneliest Road because there is not much for almost 300 miles. Most truck travel prefers Interstate 80 to the north, and the towns of Austin and Eureka are not known as travel destinations. It is a fascinating and often scenic combo of desert and mountain...as is most of Nevada in fact. 

West of Carson City, 50 does some climbing and dropping before it enters the Lake Tahoe area, offering many stunning views of the beautiful blue deep lake, then does some more mountain climbing in the Sierra Nevadas before it becomes a freeway to serve the greater Sacramento area and end at Interstate 80 in West Sacramento. In its pre-Interstate days, 50 cut south to Stockton, then went west again through the golden hills of Altamont before entering the vast east bay collection of cities before crossing the San Francisco Bay itself to end in the city.

Cliff Nelson

 And exit Cliff Nelson...a good 5 year run! He started as an aggressive assistant DA,heavily pushing for Winter Austen's guilty verdict. He mellowed out a bit after, liking Deborah Saxon but ended up just amking himself a pest. He was later forced by Logan to prosecute Draper and won, which was a bitter victory. Tiring of the thankless job of prosecuting, he sought a position with Mike Karr to practice civil law.

A golden opportunity came when Logan needed strong counsel to win custody of Jamey from Raven, unknowingly getting the key evidence to win from a nudie mag in Elliot Dorn's office. Ever the loudmouth still, he bragged that he knew who killed Elliot and was soon the victim of a stabbing (Henry Slesar considerd killing him off but changed his mind). After recovering, he was invited to join Draper as a partner in the law firm when Mike became the new D.A., often handling things himself as Draper was helping April piece together who the real father of Emily's baby was.

After Draper left for Europe, he was the lone lawyer in the firm for a short bit before agreeing to share office space with new and idealistic attorney Didi Bannister. . They proved to be a good team, Didi pumping fresh energy into Cliff while Cliff helped her to rein in her idealism when common sense was required. Wanting a date for the opening of the Whitney Theater's dance revue, Cliff impulsively asked ditzy waitress and aspiring actress Mitzi Martin to accompany him. After a rough start, they became quite a cute if silly couple. Mitzi soon found a brand new acting school led by Jim Dedrickson. Cliff joined and got some good acting strategies to hopefully use in court when he defended Gavin Wylie. When real killer Sky Whitney (really Jeff Brown) was proven to be the killer.

Cliff and Mitzi were excited to be part of Jim's theater group when Raven let the group use the Whitney Theater...that is until Raven found out that Gavin was part of it and she kicked them all out. She also had Cliff fired from one of his biggest clients because he wouldn't fake a will to make sure she got all of her husband's millions. Therefore it was not hard for Smiley Wilson to convince him to be part of a practical joke framing Raven for murder. It was all fun until Cliff saw that Smiley wanted to take things too far, and Smiley removed Cliff from the proceedings. Not long after, Jim panicked that some real harm could come to Raven so he spilled all to Mike Karr, putting Cliff as well as Calvin Stoner in legal trouble for their participation. Even after Jim rescued Raven from a crazed and murderous Smiley, things were still up in the air until the real Sky Whitney's identity was proven and Raven was too distracted to proceed with suing her tormentors.

Cliff soon assisted Didi in defending her brother Troy for murdering crooked cop Ted Loomis, though it was in self defense. Troy was acquitted when mobster Eddie Lorimer confessed to the police that Ted Loomis had conspired with mob henchman Joe Bulmer to kill Troy. Cliff was also consoling Mitzi after she was hit by a car driven by crazy and jealous Nora Fulton. Speaking of which, after Nora was killed in the WMON studio, Cliff and Didi represented Nicole Cavanaugh, who would not budge from her confession of murder despite growing evidence she was lying. Cliff also had to contend with Gunther Wagner, who had romantic designs on Mitzi. Cliff thought Gunther might have killed Nora and also in a moment of desperation accused Sky Whitney...but once again Cliff provided a key to solve the case and Sky Whitney had all the key players reenact Nora's murder to show that CEA double agent David Cameron had done it. A drunken Cliff in a celebratory moment proposed to Mitzi but took it back the next day. Mitzi ran away for time and Cliff decided to run her restaurant the Rock Garden, to disastrous results. Mitzi returned and, moved by Cliff's intentions and efforts, reconciled with him.

Bored with their old office, Cliff and Didi found new offices in the newly opened ISIS building. It was a dream at first until Didi started acting paranoid and irrational and violent. Seeing Alf Mayhew's body falling and then witnessing security chief Donald Hext switching suicide notes put Cliff in a dangerous position. After surviving a murder attempt via gas poisoning, Cliff went into hiding and then dared to invade the ISIS building at night, dodging Hext and Louis Van Dine's manhunt until he got himself locked in Van Dine's multimedia torture room. After weeks of losing his mind, a severely mentally wounded Cliff was rescued by Gunther when Gunther, Sky, Miles, and Derek raided the ISIS building and stopped Van Dine.

It took some intense therapy from Dr. Beth Correll, but Cliff finally began to show emotions again, having a breakthrough after laughing uncontrollably at Shellley Franklyn's selfish histrionics. After that, Cliff and Didi took on their paralegal Marty's grandfather's case of stolen burial grounds. It was a tough case as grandfather Standing Elk held many secrets that stymied Cliff and Didi. Sky and Raven pursued the case even after being fired by Standing Elk and found out the secrets on their own, and helping Cliff and Didi to win the case. Cliff had been offered a prestigious position in Capitol City and had been allowed to finish the Standing Elk case. He wanted Mitzi to join him, but she had grown a lot on her own and knew the two had no solid future together.

Cliff began as more or less a bulldog attorney, but soon evolved into a merely pushy and occasional goofball character who provided some comic relief to balance the drama.

Live From New York, It's A Dateless Saturday Night!

    Sometimes when I find a huge (over 500 pages) book, it looks daunting unless it's a dictionary. A few years ago, I read all 1400+ pages of The Count of Monte Cristo, and that was quite the task. 

   In this case, the book at my favorite thrift store was of a topic quite dear to me: Saturday Night Live. It was put together via a wide array of interviews of almost everyone creatively and corporately involved up to 2002.

   Just to lay down a little history, Saturday Night Live was not some all of a sudden brainstorm by creator Lorne Michaels. On the contrary...for those of you who never knew life in the 1900s, there was a late night talk show host named Johnny Carson, and he hosted the Tonight Show from 1962-92. The NBC network was running reruns of his show on the weekends and when Johnny found out in late 1974, he told them to knock it off by the summer of 1975. So NBC had the option of either returning that block of time (11:30pm to 1am) to local channels and lose that commercial profit OR come up with something to replace it.

   Incidentally, Johnny wanted reruns to play on weeknights so he could take more time off...he was getting famous for that already.

   After some creative talks and some really (in my mind) dumb ideas, Canadian Lorne Michaels along with future sports exec Dick Ebersol were put in charge of creating a 90 minute show. Lorne put together some talent from comedy and improvisation clubs, created a basic structure for his idea, and on October 11, 1975, NBC's Saturday Night debuted...and it lived happily ever after!

YEAH SURE!

Its first host was George Carlin, who was apparently quite high that night. He would appear 9 years later with shorter hair and minus the drug use. The show's original cast was Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. While they were featured all through the first several episodes, they were not really highlighted and shown individually in the opening until early 1976.

The breakout star of the show was Chevy Chase with his Weekend Update features where he was playing himself, along with portraying President Gerald Ford and other sketch characters. With his rising publicity, he decided to leave the show in the fall of 1976. Pretty quickly, the new focus was on Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi along with Gilda Radner. Jane Curtin took over Weekend Update, with Dan as co-anchor for a while. In the winter of 1977, Bill Murray joined the cast and after an unremarkable start, began to shine on his own.

This cast stayed pretty stable up to 1979, when Dan and John left to further their movie careers. Bill, Garrett, Jane, Gilda, and Laraine took it on their own the next season, with some help from Harry Shearer.

And then Lorne was ready for a break! So was the rest of the cast. Former producer Don Ebersol after the next disastrous season would rescue the show for 4 fairly good seasons...though some episodes lacked finesse.

I own the first season and have seen other episodes from those first 5 seasons via old-style video rentals, plus Nick at Nite used to air Best of Saturday Night in the late 80s, minus the music acts. 

Comedy Cental aired the 1980-91 years of the show in the early to mid 90s, so I caught most if not all of those years a couple of times. I'll break it down pretty simply...according to my well renowned (?) opinion.

1980-81- These shows are practically unwatchable. They hold almost no humor (a few chuckles at best). Eddie Murphy appears in a few pieces, and he is the definite highlight.

1981-82- More consistent laughs, but still a bit uneven, though I liked the Wild Wild West parody the best. Eddie Murphy is the big star here. I know Joe Piscopo got a lot of publicity, but he was also pretty dependent on Eddie's fame.

1982-84- Eddie and Joe are still the highlight while the other players (including Julia Louis Dreyfus). Pretty watchable 2 seasons.

1984-85-  This was a star-studded season with Martin Short, Billy Crystal, and Christopher Guest. A few holdouts from the previous 2 years were there but not highly featured. Eddie was gone and therefore Piscopo was as well. In my view, Short and Crystal ran away with this one.

And then lo and behold, Lorne Michaels rose out of the burial ground of lesser known works to make SNL magic again...it would not happen right away. Some of his assembled new cast would help make the show glorious again in time: Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, and Nora Dunn. Then there was his selected celeb group of Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr. and Joan Cusack, along with unknowns Danitra Vance, Damon Wayans, and Terry Sweeney. It was a pretty large group and much did not gel. I do remember this season having a few gems, though it was almost canceled.

1986-89: Dunn, Lovitz, and Miller return and are joined by Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and Kevin Nealon. This was the season we were introduced to the wild impersonations that Cavey and Hartman could do. The show was magic once again, and consistently!

1989-90- The cast is joined by Mike Myers...excellent! Sadly...or not so sadly, Nora Dunn left in protest over Andrew Dice Clay hosting. From what I read, she was not missed. Jon Lovitz also left at the end of the season.

1990-91-The final season for Jan Hooks and Dennis Miller. Six glorious of years of Weekend Update were done.

1991-92- The final season for Victoria Jackson...and in my view, the last truly great year for some time. Adam Sandler, Tim Meadows, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Chris Farley also came aboard. This season was when I was at college at West Virginia University.

I caught a few episodes of the 1992-93 season, and there were a couple that were good, my favorite being when Harvey Keitel hosted. Other than that, it was mostly stupid...and I was about 20 during this season, still in my dumb comedy phase of life.

In fact, I do not remember watching the show at all until the early 2000s when Will Ferrell was imitating George W Bush so well! During most of the 90s, I was watching a lot of Beavis & Butthead. 

According to the book, the 1994-95 season was pretty abominable, but rose from the ashes pretty fast the following year.

Sadly I did not see much of the Jimmy Fallon-Tina Fey era, or the Amy Poehler era. Sad because I heard a lot of good things. I've caught some of Kenan Thompson, just a naturally funny guy.

Sadly we have lost some of our cast members: John Belushi in 1982, Gilda Radner in 1989, Chris Farley in 1997, Phil Hartman in 1998, Jan Hooks in 2014, Norm MacDonald in 2021, and announcer Don Pardo in 2014.

I truly believe that as long as Lorne Michaels is alive and able, Saturday Night Live will breathe. The book says much about him, both in praise and criticism, but both are what genius brings, sometimes one more than the other, part of doing something and doing it well. I salute him. 

One Scoop WIth All the Networks

    As I sit in front of the television seeing if anything interesting is on (which most days there is not), I am browsing through all these streaming services I subscribe to, a seemingly endless minefield of shows and movies that either I don't find promising or I once liked them and my mind moved on. 

   Does anyone else get this way? Well, let's put it this way: do you find Police Academy just as nonstop laughs as you did in 1984? Wait, I'm sorry, I totally forgot this is intended for people born in the second half of that ancient era called the 20th century...yes those years that begin with a 19! Sorry for the confusion!

   Wait, maybe I'm not so sorry! For what am I here to do besides educate and write complete sentences?

   Yes, young ones, you can always learn.

   Anyhow, back to those former classics...they were made for their time, be it comedy or action or drama. My DVD/BluRay bins are full of movies and TV show box sets that I love or once loved. Yes, I do have some of those Police Academy movies because sometimes I just need a cheap and easy laugh.

   Going back to those two little words in paragragh one...streaming services! Yes, I have gone from surfing TV channels to surfing streaming services. The only difference is that when you surfed TV channels, you were going from playing show to playing show. The streaming services just give you titles and maybe a picture...kind of like going into...check this out...VIDEO STORES! 

   There is so much choice now that you can almost get sick in the glut.

   If you are one of the few that tune in to the networks anymore, what is there? There's some drama for sure, some comedies that are less likely to contain a laugh track anymore (an improvement I admit), some elimination shows, talent shows, and revamps of classic game shows.

   There was actually a time when there was something known as the BIG 3: CBS, NBC, and ABC. These were the major commercial network providers of daily and nightly programming. If you're thinking WHAT ABOUT FOX?, that was a part time network when it started in late 1986 and wasn't a full nightly competitor until the 1990s. Even then, it stuck mainly to nighttime and offered no daytime soaps or game shows.

   You also had what were known as independent stations. These channels were actually favorites of kids as they played cartoons and older off-network series. For example: The Brady Bunch ran on ABC from 1969-74, then was syndicated to the independent stations in 1975, from where it enjoyed a few decades of endless reruns. The same went for many other color and black and white programs. However, those stations were not what people were generally watching at night.

   No, the BIG 3 held the majority of viewers during the "prime time" hours, which were mostly 8pm-11pm, although in the early days it began at 7:30pm.

   Here is a huge question: which network was the best? 

   There might have been network loyalists, but they were few and far between. Our family would certainly watch something on one network, then change channels to another one when a favorite was coming on. I think most of America was like this.

   And what does best mean when it comes to a network? Is it ratings? Quality? Maybe both?

   When it comes to overall quality, my opinion is that CBS held it together more consistently. I say this because not only was it a ratings powerhouse more than once, but the shows that held those ratings were of good quality. Plus, CBS knew something was in the air change-wise in 1971. This was when All in the Family arrived and the idea of social issues in sitcoms was a novelty. By the end of the 1970-71 season, all of CBS's rural-appeal and 60s stay-overs were terminated...and when you think about it, a lot of those shows were old BEFORE 1971. Some examples are Mayberry RFD, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, The Beverly Hillbillies, Hee Haw (but that continued in syndication to great Saturday night success), Lassie, and Family Affair. Was CBS perfect? No, they juggled a few good shows too many times around the schedule...WKRP in Cincinnati comes to mind. CBS also was the home to many a hit daytime and nighttime soap opera, and its crown game show jewel The Price is Right has been with us since 1972. They DID cancel The Edge of Night, but luckily another network picked that right up in 1975.

   Let's come to ABC. What I always remember about ABC was that it was trying to be cool in the minds of its viewers, and it catered to lots of whims. Batman was really what put ABC on the map in early 1966...the only problem was that it was its only prime time powerhouse that year and that show burnt out in 3 seasons. Skip forward to 1978 and ABC was a maniac! Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Charlie's Angels, Mork and Mindy, The Love Boat, and Fantasy Island were the talk of the town. The 1980s leveled that field a bit when many of those shows ended...actually many of those shows overstayed the public welcome. That said, ABC knew how to overdo the glitz that was the 80s with Dynasty and Moonlighting.

   And then we come to NBC. Now, I have to be honest, I've come to be a bit jaded with NBC over time, based on what I've read. NBC will always have the famous peacock, even though they dropped their mascot from 1975-79. Some of their programming from the late 70s to early 80s were complete flops, others held on a season or two, and others, like Diff'rent Strokes, overstayed their welcome. They did manage to hold onto The Hollywood Squares for 14 years, a record for any celebrity game show. Plus, their super Thursday nights in the mid to late 1980s made them a draw, and those shows were good quality from 1984-88. Of course we have Days of our Lives, which has lasted since 1965. And then there is the 50 year old Saturday Night Live, which has been through many ups and downs. As long as Lorne Michaels is alive, so will that show. The reason I am a bit jaded toward NBC is in how they treat some of their talent. For example, sometime in the 90s, there was a clause in an SNL performer's contract that they could be pulled out to do a sitcom. Also, some of their owners canceled shows depsite high ratings just because they didn't like the show...Fred Silverman killing Hollywood Squares is a prime example.

   All that said, those 3 networks, no matter the shows' quality and ratings from season to season, were the main game in town from the 1950s to the early 2000s. The only alternatives were leaving the house, listening to music, or playing a family game. To me it is amazing those 3 are still around, and they might just outlast me, who knows?

Age Old Issues

 What amazes me is that whenever I post something on social media that almost certainly critical of Donald Trump (and yes he does give all of us ammunition in any given press conference or Truth Social post or interview)...the first thing some people say in response (to me personally) is something like "Oh, would you rather have Biden in there?" or "It would be worse under Biden!"

I've heard a LOT of that...and the respective answers to both those retorts is "No" and "I agree".

There is a fallacy in thinking on both of those questions, that I was a Biden fan and that I voted for him.

I am proud to say I did not. 

I also did not vote for Trump in 2020, and at that point I was again a registered Republican...not a TRUMP-o-phile, but a simple Republican with some basically conservative views.

I have seen and heard Donald Trump for decades...I did not want him sitting in the White House 9 years ago. So for reasons still unknown to me, I registered as Democrat in late 2015 as opposed to staying independent as I had for most of my voting life. 

I went to a local caucus in early 2016 where the 2 camps were Sanders and Clinton. Wow, were my eyes opened to the Democrats at that point. I was in the Sanders camp, I liked his direct way of speaking. As the year progressed, Hillary was in and the Sanders camp who ate crow but were willing to cast support to Clinton were pretty much shut out in the cold. 

I hated that treatment of a decent group of people who believed in a specific candidate, and the leader of the DNC at that time was not someone I'd have coffee with or say hello to.

As a result, I voted for neither Clinton or Trump in 2016.

Cut to 2019: the Democratic Presidential candidate debates. By this time I had already switched to GOP because of my own principles, not the Trump bandwagon (I know I said this earlier, but it bears repeating). I watched this spectacle that displayed a wide array of talent, lots of YOUNGER talent, who could possibly lead in a positive way. Then it whittled down and down and down...until we were left with Sanders and Biden. I wanted neither, not because they weren't good people, but THEY WERE TOO DAMN OLD!!

If you go back and look at Abraham Lincoln in 1860, he looked pretty damn young and strong at 51. Cut to his last year and he had aged quite a bit due to dealing with the Civil War.

The point is, the Presidency, no matter how prestigious, ages you, even in peacetime, because there are so many issues to contend with regarding the nation.

In early 2020, Joe Biden was 77 and Bernie Sanders was 78...Reagan was considered to be too old in 1981 when he began his regime at 70. Therefore these 2 old farts had no business being in the Oval Office.

It came down to Biden and at that point I began to wonder how the Democratic party operates...to be fair, the GOP is just as corrupt. But I understood later what the likely game plan was, and a buddy of mine and I discussed this back then: Biden was probably seen as to not last even a year, paving the way for his VP Kamala Harris to take over as President, making up for that "travesty" election in 2016.

Biden surprised everyone. I was not a fan, but up until the debate last year, I did hold a respect for him. Liking and respecting can be two separate things. I even respected him after the debate because I saw what 3 1/2 years had done to an already old guy.

From the day Biden got into office, Donald Trump was fully running the GOP and the attacks on Biden by the GOP and Fox News were relentless, all eyes were on Biden's next verbal blunder or trip on a stairway.

Yes, that is the media of today, millions of eyes on you and just waiting for an excuse to pounce, and if there's no excuse, then one will be MANUFACTURED via edited video to create one. The guy had no chance, and I am one who prefers a fair fight.

And then we come to Trump. 

I hear what he says and I have read some of what he has typed on Truth Social. The man makes a ton of verbal gaffes, is often low energy in speeches, has tripped on stairs himself, and goes after others, often reporters,  in quite an uncivilized manner, in my mind making him a poor role model for today's children. 

Yet the mainstream media is afraid of him, particularly due to his attack on "60 Minutes" and CBS...nobody wants to be in his crosshairs except for CNN. The mainstream media have apparently decided that regarding 47, they will stay "nice". That means they compromised themselves in terms of being journalists just to stay in safe harbor...I no longer respect them. They might as well be frying fresh McNuggets for all their impact on the world.

Trump's people just let him roll, and I am familiar with the pattern. It happened with W, it happened with Reagan, and it happened with Nixon (read "All the President's Men" to get an idea). The people standing behind the man go after anyone the man sics them on with a vengeance, and remain loyal until the man is out; then, like weasels, they write books or do interviews to "finally tell the real story".

I now watch independent podcasters with their takes. No, they are not particularly nonpartisan either, but they are not afraid.

The fact is that Donald Trump is also too old to be in there and is showing signs here and there almsot daily the reason why.  The difference between his people and Biden's people is that Trump has the Fox News and MAGA folk working for him to ignore the signs of age and mental deterioration, and help attack those who point the issues out. Biden's people were not as ferocious and did not instill that fear of revenge upon his foes. Quite a disservice in fact.

 

I Need RE-IMAGING...and an Iced Coffee

 In fairly recent history (not the "dark ages" 1900s), I decided to put myself through a fairly grueling exercise and diet regimen that in the end (after 8 months), had me looking pretty goof. Well, apart from doing that shaved head thing, yeah, I looked good. In fact I won the school's biggest loser challenge! A whole $70 that went right into replacing my car's battery. Easy come easy go. 

I managed to keep myself under 200 pounds for about a year. Then some little things began creeping up on me that not only increased my stress but also increased the weight again. In fact, before long I was almost right where I had begun before the weight loss journey.

So the question is, what happened?

Part of the problem, as I see it now, is that I wasn't doing it entirely for myself, I was trying to impress someone. Notice I said entirely, because in late 2019, I looked pretty damn horrible. My cheeks went in a straight line to what was a long time ago a fairly well defined neck, and my gut wasn't looking so hot, either.

However, at some point in my work career, a career worked among many women, I fell into a tortuous trap: I developed feelings for a colleague. How the hell did this happen? I was married, I thought HAPPILY married, and so was she. And despite being an attractive blonde, she was always griping over something. 

A recent conversation with an old friend from that workplace informed me that my feelings were not exactly secret. They probably weren't, for I visited this woman on my prep period often for no educational purpose at all. As my friend relayed, someone had mused aloud if I really thought she would leave her husband, luxury house, and kids for little old me? The answer is a definite NO, I had no expectations. A fantasy or two maybe in the sex department, but fantasies are fantasies.

The fact is, though, that I was doing all that walking in 2020 not only to look better, but also to tell her all that I was doing and how much weight I was losing. A lot of my Facebook posts were posted to get her attention...and wow was I grounded when I got no response. Of course I would text her with an iWatch reading or scale reading and she would just say, "That's awesome!". I was thrilled then, but now I know it was like an automatic response.

This friendship as it was went on as was until mid 2023, when I began to really feel the resentment over what I felt was a one-sided friendship. And to a large extent it was. I did not get what I call unfed attention from her, meaning her checking on me out of the blue just to check on me. And why would I expect that? I expected that out of some blind hope for...what...cheap ego-feeding? Yeah, that's what it was.

I was a mess in the last half of 2023, emotionally and financially. I had been led onto a fragile cliff by a company scamming me for 2 years, plus I was so filled with self loathing that it was hurting my marriage. I was lashing out at my wife in subtle and not so subtle ways. Not only that, my obsession with this person, we'll call her Rose, and the resulting nonreciprocation, had (I now understand) led me to seek attention, however fake it was, from online vehicles like Twitter since mid 2021. And sure I made friends with lots of bots, and it became kind of a game. However, I was hiding my phone even when sitting on the couch with my wife. I wasn't good at it and eventually everything came crashing in late 2023. I had to file bankruptcy for the second time in my life, I was sending messages about Vickie to people and she was seeing them, and I just felt like shit regarding myself..

I went to Starbucks on my 51st birthday and sat at the table drinking my coffee and doing the crossword of the day...and I felt not one ounce of happiness. A fight with my wife later over messages she had seen brought it all to a fork: divorce and sell the house, or try to make things work?

I chose to try. I'm still trying a year and a half later.

The crap online still had not gone away and by April of 2024, it was worse than ever. It was time to get some professional help. Twitter and any social media platform other than Facebook was gone totally by last Christmas. 

As for Rose, I had some kind of dark angel in the new principal that wanted me out of that school. At first I felt low and insulted after 13 years there to be so unceremoniously tossed...definitely angry. Of course I had not started therapy at that point either. However, a start at a new school with new colleagues really brightened up my life. It wasn't perfect, and I had some work to do to make myself a better teacher again, but I was definitely in a better place. 

Rose texted me early that year to gripe that I had not retained or WORKED to retain a student she had gotten from me. After that, not much. A quick Halloween pic exchange, a Christmas wish from me, a birthday wish from me, and a happy Mother's Day wish from me. From her were no birthday or Christmas wish, no Father's Day wish, either. 

The writing was all there...and boy am I happy! One thing therapy has been teaching me is to love me for myself and be happy in my own skin and enjoy my own presence. Another side benefit form this is when my wife and I are having a spat, I am no longer automatically apologizing to maintain some neutral status quo that substitute for happiness.

It's all been a process of re-imaging myself, like updating a computer...damn what people see, it's the image I see that is important. I've been judging myself on how others see me for so long, it's a long process to reverse that. Not a self-dig, just a happy observation. With that, I am trying to learn to eat better so that my insides are happier as well...that and exercise.

All that said...do NOT deny me my iced coffee!

DOGE Ball

 OK OK, I am trying really hard to stay out of the Trump complaint department (so many branches now, no need for me to open another one), but I wanted to talk about DOGE.

No, not the historical term for leaders of Italian city-states, but the recently formed Department of Government Efficiency.

Like many of us, I actually had some high hopes for this, because we all know the Fed is fattier than a bone-in ribeye. That said, the process was fast, furious...and in the end it was a scam to get people to pledge their eternal loyalty to Zod-I mean Trump to keep or regain their jobs.

One of the cuts I've seen is to public television, which at times I agree to a point...meaning I don't know what the viewership numbers are like anymore, and PBS is no longer the home of Sesame Street or any other childhood memories. Back in 1969 when there were maybe 4 or 5 channels on the dial and PBS was one of them, Mr. Fred Rogers himself testified before Congress to urge them to keep funding public television. PBS stations have been known to air educational shows for kids AND adults, expose us to British melodrama and comedy, and offer some locally-themed fare. Funding cuts just might be needed if viewership has significantly waned in the last decade or 2.

Another idea for "putting things to the states" (if you want a smaller central government, yeah, you give more rights and responsibility to the states): cede the national parks to the states and create departments that see to them. California, Utah, and Arizona could drum up some good revenue from that endeavor and as we see more and more people interested in preservation and protection of the land, what an idea!

And finally a huge bone of contention for many is the dissolution of the Department of Education. The contention comes with some of the programs like Title 1 and special education that address the needs of many of our students in a lower socio-economic status or special needs. Go with me on this one, I have been a teacher for quite some time and I think a properly run and funded education department in each state can handle this. Also, if you go back 23 years, that's when the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND bullshit began, which was a FEDERAL effort that sounded good in title, but fell flat and put education even further in the ground. No, education has for most of its U.S. history been a state matter, let it stay that way. If states find they are low in funding, it might be time to look at their bloat like overexpensive leanring materials and expensive standardized tests.

I am sure there are other ways that Washington D.C.'s bureaucratic tumor should be shrunk., but it should be done logically and EFFICIENTLY! Just throwing people out of their asses out of nowhere is not a positive move, and it does not cast us as a nation in a good way.