Hey, I found this draft on my blog.

I wonder why I didn't finish it! Oh, well. Something must have made me stop. But I DO remember the rest of the weekend! Somehow I must have sucked it up and finished the drive. It was the end of July. '09 and I was headed for a big weekend in the Plymouth, MA area. Friday we were celebrating my sister's 50th birthday. She knew we were celebrating it, but not what the big activity was. A chartered boat around Plymouth Harbor out to Provincetown! Maybe see a whale or two on the way! I knew a couple of people would be seeing pink elephants! Anyway, the weather asea was too rough for the charter to motor from Boston to Plymouth. Fortunately my younger sister (who herself will be the recipient of a wild and wacky fiftieth birthday celebration this July in Vegas!) was able to arrange a party bus to drive us to Boston where we would board the party boat. Awesome ride, awesome sail, awesome ride back. To the party hotel. The one that doesn't like parties and wouldn't let us use, well, the party room. Not after ten on a Friday night! No problem, we just turned my corner room into a party room. We're flexible like that! A couple of hours later, after many rounds of Mafia and an unsuccessful attempt to turn the cornhole board into a beer pong table, we all crawled into our beds to catch a few ZZZs before heading, on Saturday, to the extended family reunion at a party area in the nearby state forest. It's technically a picnic area but we don't picnic so much as party. I do remember a good time was had by all. There's plenty of photographic evidence. I've seen the photos. Online, anyway. Because nowadays nobody ever prints out their photos. And nobody ever edits them. There's, like, a thousand and two photos from that weekend floating in cyberspace, on google and picasa and shutterfish or snap fish or some kind of fish photo place. So I know we had a great time. And for the record, I was NEVER in the Mafia. So there.


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Here's the draft I found.
Well, I survived my harrowing drive to MA. Well, harrowing may not be the right word but...it was certainly miserable. Tried to leave on Tuesday. Couldn't make it. Went to Dr.s office, now I have a problem with my "good" foot. Yes, a painful problem. Get referral to podiatrist. Go home to get ready to leave on trip, and while going through old photos of previous reunions, I fell on my ass when my rolling office chair rolled right out from under me. Now my back hurts. Now I can't drive tonight, so I cancel Wednesday's plans. Try to leave early Wednesday. Spend an hour looking for my camera. Spend a half hour packing car, after unloading three bags of cement, two of which had holes in them. Clean up (most of) the mess. Get the stuff I forgot to pack. Finish packing the car. Check my list, everything's a-okay. Stop at Credit Union ATM, can't get any cash. Withdrawal from savings, transaction declined. Withdrawal from checking, transaction denied. Geeze. Gotta get outta the car and go inside. No problem, just have a $200 daily withdrawal limit and I requested $300. Get back in car and head towards PA. Stop for gas in Erie and realize I don't have my license. Unpack my bag to check pockets of shorts I wore last time I had my license. Not there. Nowhere. Check other bags. No license.

Of course, most of you would just continue on your way, realizing you aren't likely to need your license anyway and knowing if you get stopped without it you likely won't have a problem. I, on the other hand, know better. In my lifetime I have thrice been stopped for a traffic violation and not had my license on me. Two out of those three times I got a free tour of the local police station. The third time I was moving a car full of crap from MA to OH and the cop decided he didn't want to stand by the side of the road on a hot summer night while I unpacked my car to find my wallet. So yeah, knowing my luck and not wanting to spend the weekend in beautiful downtown Buffalo while my entire family partied the night away on Friday in Plymnouth, I drove back to OH and got my license. Drive back to PA and stop for gas. Now my "good" knee is cramping up. The one on the right. The driving leg. Cramping. So my left ankle is at about a seven on the pain scale, my right foot is at about a six, and now that tendon or muscle or whatever behind the right knee is all tied up on knots. While I'm driving on the New York Thruway. Gotta keep stopping to uncramp it. Call and cancel Thursday's plans because now I'm not going to complete the drive.

Yeah, I'm hurtin'. And stressed. And can't take any meds cuz I gotta drive another four hundred miles.Right about now I hate my life. So I keep on pushhin'. Gotta see how far I can get tonight. Turns out, not far. End up staying in Rochester. Thought I'd check out the Microtel Inn. I've never stayed there and there was a $20 coupon in the hotel mag at the turnpike plaza. How bad could it be?

Let's just say I have an active imagination and was able to pretend I was travelling through a third world country and was staying at a five star hotel. I figured that was the easiest way to make it through the night. At the Microtel. In Ny. In the USA. Here's a piece of advice for you. If the name of the place starts with the word Micro? Trust me, it's gonna be small. That's what micro means. Small. I know the prison in Attica's not that far from Rochester but who would have thought the same guys that built Attica would have built a nearby hotel? Seriously. A bathroom, a bed, a phone, a 15" TV up on the wall. This place was smaller than the hospital rooms I've stayed in. No lamps on the night stands. Well, not nightstands, exactly. A shelf mounted between the bed and the wall on each side. Yes, the room was that small.

It was secure though. Not the motel itself, but my room. Standard motel security with double door locks. But lucky me. The elderly couple staying in the room next door, the adjoining room, had their dog with them. I think it was a German Shepherd. It sounded like a German Shepherd when it barked. And it barked a lot. Oh lordy, between the dog and the conversation I could hear through the single door there wasn't a whole lotta sleep to be had.

The Aftermath

Earlier today my "little" sister posted on her Facebook page how she's feeling after yesterday's bombing in Boston. Fortunately she was not in the vicinity of the bombing but at work many blocks away. She and her coworkers experienced the tragedy by watching helicopters hovering over the bomb sites, listening to screaming ambulances speeding to rescue the injured. Helpless. Worried. Curious. They spent half the afternoon on the phones reassuring family and friends of their safety. As one of those family members, let me tell you, there were a lot of sighs of relief, a lot of "thank God" utterances throughout the country. Boston is a small city. It's no New York in size or global reach. But it's clear from the nationwide response that everybody LOVES Boston. There was an immediate and continuing outpouring of support. Americans once again coming together in the face of tragedy.

Today those feelings are turning into anger. As my sister said, she's mad. Spitting mad. In the street vernacular of Bostonians that translates into "I'm pissed. Wicked pissed." I don't blame them. I'm wicked pissed myself.

I'm 600 miles away from my hometown but thanks to my cellphone and Facebook I was able to connect to my family in Boston. And thanks to CNN I was able to keep up with what was happening. But still, there were feelings of helplessness and anguish. You know this is a huge event, you know the impact on the city, you can imagine the physical pain and fear the victims are experiencing, more fear and uncertainy from bystanders. And yet you can do nothing.

But you also feel pride. The first responders immediately ran towards the bombing site. Into the smoke and debris and the blood. Always the blood. Literally the lifeblood of a small city that is more family than citizenry. And it wasn't just the well-trained police and fighter fighters that ran towards the site. There were medically trained volunteers who were there to help runners. The nurse who lives across the street who expected to spend the day wrapping people in foil blankets, offering words of encouragement and sips of oxygen to replenish depleted lungs. The doctor who treats your kid's earaches who runs to stay healthy and loves volunteering at the finish line, knowing he will be treating exhausted runners, some with blisters, one or two who may have cardiac issues. Suddenly, unexpectedly, they found themselves in what many have described as "a war zone." They were prepared. They were joined by civilians with no special traing who just wanted to do something, anything, to help. Pro footballer Joe Andruzzi, who has previously been honored for his courage and community service, was photographed in the midst of the commotion, carrying a stranger to safety. Joe used to play professional football for the New England Patriots. He doesn't play football anymore, but he's still a patriot. There were other patriots there as well. Soldiers, some of whom had just returned from deployment, rushing in wearing camouflage uniforms, clearing debris, making way for the medics to get to the wounded.

The volunteers at the finish line were prepared for runners limping into the aid station for low to medium level first aid problems. What they didn't expect to be doing was running towards a bombing site. What they didn't expect to be treating were the effects of a concussive blast, people who lost limbs, victims in shock full of shrapnel and shards of glass. But respond they did. Their selfless acts likely saved a few lives today. Lives that will be forever changed but lives that will recover. People who will one day tell their grandchildren that their scars came from That Day. The day war came back to Boston, the town-cum-city where war gave birth to a nation.

What comes from this act, we don't yet know. Who caused it, we don't know. But one thing is sure. A country will avenge but a city will heal. It will be hard. Damn hard. There will be a lot of hurt, pain, frustration. But the healing will come. It will come.

First, though, there's anger. People are mad. Spitting mad. You could say that's one of the steps of grief, but right now it is what it is. People...are...pissed.

 The people responsible for this heinous act will regret messing with the people of Boston because when we're driven to the point of "spitting mad" the bad guys better beware. We are Bostonians. We are New Englanders. We are AMERICANS and we don't put up with this shit.

Bombings at the Boston Marathon!

It's Patriots' Day which is huge in Massachusetts, especially in the Boston and Concord/Lexington areas. You know, because of the American Revolution. Always a tradition for the greater Boston area. Nearly half a million marathon spectators, always a Sox game at Fenway and either the Bruins or the Celtics at The Gahden. So there's a huge influx of people into Boston. Fortunately that's coupled with many workers having the day off, so the numbers of people in town probably don't fluctuate that much, but there's a greater concentration in the Fenway and Copley Square areas.

These people who WERE in town for special events were gathered in predictable areas. One of the toughest places to get to is the Finish Line for the Boston Marathon. And I don't mean for runners, but for spectators. Today, though, that was not the lucky ticket.

Terror struck Boston today as there was an explosion near the finish line, with a smaller, second explosion within seconds, about a block away, also along the course.

It's too soon to know how many people were victims. Reports at this time are three deaths and more than a hundred injured. 

I watched the events of 9/11 on tv. In fact I was on the phone with my nephew when the second plane hit and I remember saying "This is not an accident." I watched the developments on CNN and MSNBC, flipping between channels, but I was a little detached. I was a spectator. I didn't have family working in or near The World Trade Center.  Everybody knows somebody who was affected, but I wasn't personally. I was a student at UMass at the time and some of my classmates were from the New York metropolitan area, so I saw what they were dealing with. It was tough. As it is whenever you watch a tragedy unfold live on tv. Or even watching replays on the news. But today it really hit home.

Today my hometown was hit. It's not just the place where I was born. It's the city I returned to again and again as I moved from one part of the country to another. It's a beautiful city. A city full of sports nuts and crazy drivers. And my family members. But it's also not just a city full of proud Americans; it's where America was born (despite what Philadelphians might claim. ) A big part of that birth was an event known as "The Battle of Lexington and Concord." The start of the Revolution. A huge day in American history. For some reason it's only truly celebrated in Massachusetts and Maine. But celebrated it is, especially in Boston. 

On the green in Lexington, they reenact the battle. With realistic-looking but pretend weapons. British soldiers in uniform, Massachusetts farmers in rags, charging each other, the mini-explosions of simulated musket fire and smoke fill the air. People falling to the ground in mock injury and death. I haven't experienced it first hand, I've only seen it on the small screen. But I hear it's an incredibly realistic experience. A lot of spectators attend.

But there was also a huge number of spectators at the marathon finish line in Boston. It's the end of the historic run from the small New England town of Hopkinton to one of Boston's busy office, shopping, and tourist areas on Boylston Street near Copley Square, not far from The Boston Common.  It's where the runners celebrate the end of a grueling run, fighting through hordes of other runners and conquering the infamous Heartbreak Hill. It's where they collapse in first aid tents, sucking in oxygen, downing sports drinks and water while wrapped in foil blankets.

 A lot of those runners never reached the finish line. They were stopped in their tracks, literally, as two bombs exploded nearby. The first aid workers, waiting to assist the runners, instead BECAME the runners, rushing to the site of the explosion. So while the Revolutionary reenactment actors were busy pretending to shoot it out, the marathon spectators experienced the real drama. They were victims of and witnesses to what appears to be a horrific act. First one bomb exploded. Runners fell or were blown off course from the concussion. There was a huge flash and a loud noise, glass and shrapnel flying all around. Seconds later and about a block down the street, there was a smaller explosion, assumed to be related to the first. The police have turned up other packages that may or may not have been bombs but were, in any case, destroyed by the bomb squad.

The injuries being reported are those one would associate with a bombing. I won't go in to the gory details. Many lives were changed in an instant. A few lives ended. And many more will be touched by the experiences of loved ones and friends.

But for the first few minutes after tragedy struck, as news stations were scrambling to get reports and images on the air, for minutes that seemed like hours, millions of us grabbed our cell phones and took to social media to check on family and friends. Fortunately, for most of us, family and friends responded. All were, ARE, safe. Physically, at least. As grateful as I am for that news, I know it's going to be hard for many folks to return to work tomorrow. 

Going into Boston, there will probably be a lot of security, traffic will probably be heavy. That seems like a small price to pay for safety, but it also means time sitting in your car waiting, with plenty of time to think about WHY you're waiting. To help prevent another attack. To keep you safe from people who don't know you but want to harm you anyway. I can't imagine what the next few days will feel like to people entering Beantown from all directions, walking from parking garages to office buildings, pouring out of the train and subway stations, stepping off buses and hoping they'll make it safely to their destinations. My hometown will never be the same. But the people are tough, hardened New Englanders. They were strong enough to defeat the British, they'll overcome this. Things will soon return to normal. But they'll never forget this Patriots' Day. Another April day that will help define America's history. I couldn't be prouder to be from Boston. 

And. I am so grateful my family is safe. 

My Wonderful Family. An Insider's Look

The other day I was involved in a discussion on voting and the tendencies of certain groups to vote in blocs. Specifically someone was making repeated references to a statistic claiming that 90% of blacks voted Democratic, in his words "blindly," "devotedly," and "lovingly." I know, right? Just a tad racist. He's otherwise a reasonably intelligent guy from what I know from our posting history.

So we started talking about kinds of blocs and why you can't assume all or most members of that bloc act in tandem, especially at the voting booth.

I decided to challenge his theory. I offered to provide information about my family to see if he could determine how, or if, we would vote "as a bloc." He declined the challenge, which kind of  showed his inability to believably defend his statistics and assumptions.

But, anyway, I have an incredible family! With vast and varied experiences, which we share with each other! We try our best to stay connected -thank you Facebook- and get together regularly, in celebrations with now four generations of family! Amazing, right?

So though he declined the challenge, I realized I wanted to share the incredibleness of my family! So I'm doing it here. The info is not all encompassing, just the usual stuff considered by political organizations when determining their campaign strategies targeted toward certain voters. We were, after all, talking politics when this little project came to mind. Here's the info I came up with, just from memory. I'm sure there are inaccuracies, but I suck at math and with so many people, especially young adults whose lives are in flux, I hope I've gotten it right. My apologies if I didn't. If anybody has corrections, feel free to let me know. And dammit! Get those changes in for the directory! Yes, for those of you readers who aren't familiar with us, the family is close enough and large enough to justify publishing an actual directory of contact information!

I come from a large extended family on my mother's side. Her mother's ancestry was full Irish and her father's was full English.  My father's side was mixed from the UK and Ireland, so I'll focus on just the maternal side.

My mom's family had seven kids. They married and produced our generation of thirty-five kids. We have multiplied and brought forth another sixty-nine, say fifty of whom are old enough to vote. They in turn have added two old enough to vote and twelve more who are toddlers. So, if my math is correct, that is a total of 125 people.  Subtracting the deceased because, even though we are predominantly Boston area based Irish Catholic, our dead don't vote, and given that we really do only vote once each, and subtracting minors, that means that we have a voting bloc of eighty-eight people. There are a few that might not vote but I think nearly all do. So let's be conservative and say it's an eighty person bloc, all of whom are white with an English/Irish Roman Catholic background passed on from the couple who started this incredible group!

So, the make-up of this voting bloc is thus, according to my maybe-not-so-accurate but well intended attempt to describe it:

Religious- 

My Episcopalian grandfather converted to Catholicism to marry my grandmother. My generation is predominantly Catholic with a few Episcopalians and agnostics. The next generation is fairly mixed and adds a couple of atheists and a Jew, also a marriage-related conversion. So let's take out religion, except to leave in Christian-like values.

Education-

 All but seven are college educated, a few with two-year degrees, eleven with at least one advanced degree. So, well educated. 

Economic- with such a varied range of ages and careers, predominantly somewhere in what is considered a broad range of working middle class, with exceptions.

Military-

One has spent his entire career in the military, another served during Vietnam, one served in Iraq and two returned home from deployments within the last year and intend to continue their military careers, both in Army Special Forces. 

Employment-

There are firefighters and police officers, teachers, artists,  doctors, lawyers, construction workers, a cook, and for some reason a humanities major like I am can't fathom, a goodly number of MBAs in finance and insurance. I don't do the numbers game. Correction, I CAN'T do the numbers game. So, heavy on the sciences and maths, and white collars,  light on the arts and blue collars. 

Ethnicity-

All white Americans except two adopted from different countries, so not American by birth, but at 12 (Vietnam) and 14 (Russia), they don't vote anyway. 

Recent posts I've made, moving me to "Bring Back the Blog!"

On "Tiger Taints the Masters"

Tiger's game. Tiger's rules. Tiger has pwoned the PGA for years. The PGA will not even sniff at the hand that feeds them. They're trading a level of integrity self-imposed by players for years for advertising money and exposure. I used to applaud their attempts to reach out to a greater audience and expand the numbers of young amateur golfers who would eventually feed the pro system. Now they just suck. I can see my dad, my uncle Jim C., and their fellow BHCC players all collectively turning in their graves at this obvious dismissal of integrity by the world's greatest professional representative of the game. My dad always stressed the importance of fair play, usually on the football field but especially on the golf course, where the player is responsible for being his own judge, referee, official. Today, no Masters for me. I'll watch some highlights, unless somebody actually attempts to restore integrity to the Green Jacket. Instead I'm gonna watch some honest-toGod hockey, where rules are rules and nobody gives a shit but everybody knows it. They play in the light even when there's no "spotlight." and they make no excuses for it.

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I think the conversation about whether Woods should have been disqualified and/or should withdraw on his own turns on how the rule is applied. The question is whether this part of the rules applies to Tiger's situation: "Facts that he or she didn't know and cannot reasonably have discovered prior to returning his scorecard." Whether or not the rules in general apply to Tiger Woods is a discussion for another day!

In this situation, Tiger himself triggered the controversy. He said in an interview that he changed the position of his drop because it would provide him a better opportunity to stay on the green with his next shot. That makes it an intentional and strategic violation of the rule to gain an advantage. YOU JUST CAN'T DO THAT!!!

It makes his score on that hole questionable because, by his own admission, Tiger knowingly broke the rule and was not at the mercy of a fact he didn't know or couldn't reasonably have known. Few of us can be convinced that the world's greatest golfer, after having played thousands of rounds of golf, wouldn't know his drop was illegal, making his recorded score incorrect, making his signing and presenting his scorecard a direct violation.

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Tiger ADMITTED to putting his ball away from the spot it should have been, and that his action gave him an advantage. In golf, where players pride themselves on fair play and integrity, this is called cheating. Then he lied about it on Twitter.

Tiger, after his match:..

"So I went back to where I had played it from but I went two yards further back and I took, tried to take two yards off the shot of where I felt I hit. And that should land me short of the flag and not have it either hit the flag or skip over the back."

Anybody who plays a sport where ball placement is key KNOWS there are rules regarding that placement at the start of the next shot. That's why all major sports have specific rules about ball placement in specific situations.

Tiger, on Twitter AFTER being busted by a viewer, who reported his move and being assigned a penalty, is lying, saying he didn't realize what he did was a violation.  Really? The "world's greatest golfer" doesn't know an illegal drop when he makes one?

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On Gun Control

In response to the following post, it also needs to be considered that we are now well protected by a real regulated milita in the development of the armed forces as well as official reserve forces. Civilians who depend on the Second Amendment aren't arming themselves against tyranny and foreign invaders, as much as they want to delude themselves or us into believing they are. They are arming themselves against each other and the rest of us. You can own as many guns as you want. I don't have a problem with responsible gun ownership! Just don't hide behind the second amendment because, as written, it doesn't truly apply today and imparting it at every turn lessens the impact of your arguments.  We don't want to take your guns away, we just want responsibility and an end to reckless and negligent owners. And to stop hearing about rights being based on a situation that is centuries in the past. I think the Second Amendment needs to be , itself, amended. I would retain the phrase " the right to bear arms" but I would update the rest to apply to the current atmosphere and weapons technology.

 On Facebook:  "Hans Guth:

 Knite Wolf - what kind of "arms" do you think they were referring to 200+ years ago? Musket rifles? By all means - have as many of those as you want. The definition of what the 2nd amendment refers to MUST be reevaluated based on the development of technology."