Sam comes for a visit

Sam (left) & her driver, Lee Murrer, stopped by for a visit on their way to Pennsylvania -- and ultimately Alabama.

Sam's antics got me smiling on this cold winter's day. And she even got Stella Bella (right) moving around a bit. I kept Truman, not pictured, on a lead as he is 14 & still horny & I didn't want to chance that he might strain himself.

Anyway, the three Bouvs enjoyed themselves for a while before we went in for a sit down in front of a warming fire & some appetizers: green olives, thinly sliced, toasted French bread with humus. As the fire burned down & the Bouvs calmed down, lunch was announced & we moved into the dining room.

Soup, sandwich (mozzarella, red peppers, basil w special sauce) on flat bread w a nice red Chiraz (sp?), sparking water.

A non-confrontational conversation ensued about President Obama's first State of the Union speech & other matters like Lee's work & our very old commercial Garland gas range which Lee admired & Carol loves to cook on but hates to clean. Can't say that I blame her but, really, the maid does it.

After a rest, dessert arrived: fresh strawberries dipped in dark chocolate along w some amaretto cookies (also dipped) w coffee. Poor Truman was sent to sleep behind some French doors where he could see what was going on but couldn't join in, Stella sneaked off to her position near the fireplace & Sam learned to lie quietly by our chairs as we finished up.

To ward off pending fullness & possible nap time, Lee & I, plus the Bouvs, went outside for a walk around the property & while I was explaining our next construction project, the Bouvs romped in the snow . This time Truman joined in -- sort of -- but he seems to know & respect his own limits which some older adult humans could learn from.

As Sam scampered around full speed, I tried to convince Lee that sometime around the age of 2-2.5yrs, a light bulb would probably go off in her head & she would become a more 'responsible' Bouvier (they don't mature until 3-5 yrs). She's got such wonderful exuberance, she runs with such abandon, it's exhilarating to watch. This is not to say she's a wild child. No. Lee is terrific with her & she pays strict attention to him, looking him right in the eye for instruction. She reminded me a bit of Ruben.

Finally both Sam's & Stella Bella's feet were decorated by so many frozen balls of ice that we got a bowl of warm water to melt them off.  Stella went into the house, Sam went into the car & about 4:00 pm Lee set off for his next stop with Carol, John & Zoe in Philadelphia.

It was a very nice afternoon which we look forward to doing again when the pool is open, the gardens are blooming & we can sit on the terrace, eat, drink & reminisce about this day.

The first 25% of Mr. Obama's reign

Like any other activity, there's a learning curve when someone becomes President of the United States of America. And I think we've just experienced the product of Mr. Obama's learning curve during his first year,  basically not much.

While health care reform may be an admirable idea, along with bank regulation, fuel independence, digitizing medical records and cleaning up the environment, it's axiomatic that when you are scratching around to stay alive, or worse yet, losing your job, house and possessions, that you care less about ideas and more about results.

So the mantra "It's the economy, stupid" should probably have been refined to "It's the jobs, stupid".

One would like to think that a president -- especially one who sincerely seems to care about the vast middle class -- would not need to go to school on that. But here we are.

Oh, yes, after Massachusetts, things will definitely change despite Axelrod & Gibb's denials. They have to.

There is so much irony here. If nothing else, one can say that Mr. Obama is a wonderful communicator --  especially with a prompter -- but the fact that he hasn't been able to explain much of his first year is troubling. For the moment, I have to chalk it up to that learning curve. But that won't suffice for the second year.

As a community organizer and as a campaigner, Mr. Obama used a simple and necessary formula: organize from the bottom up.

But governing is different.

In government, you have to organize from the top down. The minions in government await the president's instructions. If those instructions are "Please go figure this out and come back to me with a bill", it doesn't work. A president has to give orders even if it runs against his (her) grain because all bureaucrats & politicians don't think beyond their own little boxes. We saw that with the construction (and destruction) of the health care bill. And it stunk to high heaven.

We deserve better.

Have a laugh on me.... and Jon Stewart

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-january-20-2010/indecision-2010---the-re-changening

Speech Delivered On My Father's 95th Birthday

May 23rd, 2007, San Juan Puerto

We are here this evening to celebrate the longevity of a life, my father's.

Thinking about this evening, what fascinated me was considering the times Nathan has lived through. If I broke it down into years, we'd be here all night so I thought about the broad strokes of the decades.

My father, as most of you have probably figured out, was born in 1912 & that same year the Titanic sunk. OK... let's jump to the 20's.

In the 20's penicillin was discovered & we had both flappers & the depression.

In the 30's Nathan graduated from medical school got married got a little boat, picnicked on the beaches of some romantic islands in the virgins and practiced medicine by horseback with my mother by his side.

Meanwhile wall street had crashed, the great depression was a reality & migrant workers were mostly white Americans.

In the 40's another war ended the depression, Jackie Robinson crossed the color line, Puerto Rico elected it's first governor. I was born & my father became a Neurosurgeon.

In the 50's Rosa Parks sat down, Sir Edmund Hillary climbed up Mt Everest, Castro became a dictator as Puerto Rico's first constitution was approved. The Independistas revolted, another war broke out & Stephanie was born.

In the 60's we landed on the moon, assassinations & demonstrations abounded, all hell broke loose and the internee's predecessor was born.

In the 70's the first Puerto Rican cardinal was ordained & Roberto Clemente was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, an exhausted peace settled across the land, the Watergate pimple popped & I began work on a new television program. The logo for the show was a pair of glasses & it was called 20/20. In the early days of 20/20 the best thing about it was the title.

We all know we have perfect vision in hindsight. It's the future that can be a slightly out of focus. It is my observation that most of us have very little vision in our early years . As we grow into maturity & beyond, our vision improves, sometimes with the help of glasses.

Sometimes that clarity brings on the mid-life crisis. We see things we are doing in a larger context, the things we passed up along the way & we wonder about changing course. I don't think my father ever had a mid-life crisis as he was always busy doing the work that he loved so much.

In the 80's some revolutionary acronyms became part of our vocabularies: AIDS, PC, CNN & WWW. The Titanic was located & Tienanmen Square happened.

The 90's introduced us to the Ebola Virus, Viagra & a Puerto Rican Doctor/Governor.

For the Millennium, a terrorist -- bent on blowing up Seattle's Space Needle -- was stopped at the Canadian border, Nathan turned 88 & the entire world celebrated.

And here we are in 2007 just a few years after the iPod became a common denominator, gathering around for Nathan's 95th birthday. This is his ninth decade, still fruitful, philosophical and opinionated. And I can tell you with great assurance that the despite the problem he is having with one of his eyes, his vision is definitely 20/20.

He's had a long time to reflect on the world around him & his place in it. I think he's proud of his accomplishments and comfortable in his skin. That's the way it should be @ this stage of life.

And being the competitive man that he is, I'm sure there are more decades left in him.

This evening is a wonderful celebration & I'm going to take the liberty of speaking for my sister -- although maybe I should think twice about that now that she's a lawyer -- to say how much we appreciate all of you who are here sharing this moment in my father's history and a very special thank you to the Bixlers who organized it.

This is, indeed, a joyous occasion. My only sorrow is that my mother is not here to enjoy it with us.

So here's to you, Nathan & dad. Happy 95th Birthday.

When Reality Was News

The Ridgefield Press, July 23, 2009

Carol and I shed a few tears this weekend. As we shed our tears, we considered how lucky, inspired and privileged we were to have known and worked with Walter Cronkite.

During those years, news had a special ring to it. It had a deep, classical timbre. It had a plain Midwestern enunciation.

When you worked on the Evening News with Walter Cronkite, you wore it like a badge. It was a matter of pride and envy.

Getting the news out to the public was everything. Getting it right was paramount. And to learn how to do that, there was an extensive apprenticeship. We learned about original sources and confirmations from other sources. We learned about standards and practices. We learned how to spell correctly. We learned syntax and how to tell a story. Money was no object in getting to the truth. We took our responsibilities seriously, very seriously.

And if you were selected to work on the Evening News, it meant you had been anointed with a special grace, accepted into a very small club. You were able to spend every day planning, gathering, ordering, and finally producing a hard news program (never to be referred to as a show) of record.

Around four in the afternoon Walter would emerge from his glass office (just off the newsroom studio) in his shirt sleeves to write, re-write, debate the lead stories, to make the final decisions on how the program would unfold that day. He worked under pressure, ignoring the frantic movements around him: cameras, graphics, lighting, stage hands, makeup; the business of television. The only sound that counted was the clacking of that typewriter that he banged on until the very last minute.  And with seconds to spare he would stand up, don his jacket, sit back down in his anchor chair and intone: "Good evening".

Working on the Cronkite News meant you could go across the street to "The Slate" bar and re-live your particular war story with your colleagues. Working on the Cronkite Evening News meant that every Christmas you would be invited to Walter's home for a party, to eat the usual beef stroganoff and have a chance to discuss world events in his living room. It meant you might witness Walter telling a funny story, doing a sort-of strip tease to the amusement of his wife and all of us. On that night he was one of us. He was a gracious and generous host and we left with our heads in the clouds.

Well, as you all know, Walter Cronkite died over the weekend. His passing was broadcast on all the television stations, frequently reported by people who weren't even born when he was in his prime. We have become accustomed to over-the-top memorials. Recently we've had a quite few of them. But in this case, ladies and gentlemen, it was all true.

Walter Cronkite was a remarkable man and we had a chance to known him. And that's the way it was -- for us.

Tara made me do it

What a good book can do for you.

I just finished reading an excellent little book called "Losing Mum & Pup" by Christopher Buckley on the subject of becoming an orphan.

I enjoyed the book tremendously as it was honest, funny, profane but when I finished it I think I became a bit depressed.

I started thinking about how claustrophobic a coffin might be & wondered if you could really be sure that the ashes you got back (assuming you went that route) were those of your loved one. I mean, how could you tell? And if I wondered about that, I wondered how I might ever be comforted by having a pot of doubtful ashes on my mantel or side table.

I guess I starting thinking about these things because my father is 97 and is dying very slowly of renal failure. He's not in pain & won't go on dialysis (I salute his decision) so it's just a matter of a short while, maybe months.

Whenever he dies he will be buried in a plain pine box next to his wife, my mother. One way or another, they'll be together again. So much for my thoughts about coffins.

But then I started thinking about Carol's wishes. She says she wants to be cremated & scattered in the Mediterranean. I promised I would do that.  Putting the questions of legitimate Carol ash aside, I then wondered what I would want. Once I scatter Carol, I'll never find her again. If I get scattered, where would I want to be -- the Mediterranean too? Is it comforting to think I'd be in the same sea?

And if I went the Jewish burial-in-a-pine-box route, where would I want to be planted? Ridgefield? Puerto Rico, next to my parents? Hmmmm. Not very romantic & besides, I'm 66 & all grown up now.