We'll always have Baghdad. . .

I suppose the passage of time will help diagnose more conclusively the causes of my helpless endearment to the President; but here's what I know: John Wayne wouldn't have done anything different at that press conference in Iraq and he would have had a script. Being a cowboy should never have become a bad thing.

I can't recall who sings them but these are some fine lines from the forbidden genre:
"I should have been a cowboy
I should have learned to rodeo ride
I'd be wearing my six-shooter
Riding my pony on a cattle drive

Stealing the young girl's hearts
Just like Gene and Roy
Singing those campfire songs
I shoulda been a cowboy"

Oh Kay. . .

I hate to break it to Jane Seymour but the world already has a universal symbol of hope and love.

Happy Birthday Job!

Top Ten Ways My Life Would Be Different If I Didn't Have Job For A Brother:

10) Less rock more talk
9) The coach handball highlight reel would be bereft of the "Lance Allworth"
8) I would never have been treated like royalty at Houghton College
7) My seventeenth viewing of "Tremors" would have been by myself
6) None of my mixtapes would have anything by Everclear
5) My face would have half the laugh lines
4) I would never have been able to pull off the "blue steel" pose
3) My prospects for a night's lodging in the Lincoln bedroom would be nil
2) My ping-pong self esteem would be much much lower

and the #1 way my life would differ sans Jobie Won Kenobie

1) My Bedford Falls would be a Pottersville

I love you Job - I pray God's richest blessing on you today!

Fun with Eponymy

Ok - I'll give you the city and you guess which person the local airport is named after.

1) Paris
2) Rome
3) Venice
4) Anchorage
5) New Orleans
6) Tel Aviv
7) Liverpool
8) Delhi

To see is to be in debt

This from A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. . .
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."

I love you Dad

I'm planning on getting my Christmas tree this evening - the whole thing went so swimmingly last year that I've had to consider whether I was just lucky or if the whole process isn't nearly as complicated and confounding as my upbringing led me to believe. My poor dad. One Christmas season in Castleton I recall riding shotgun as my father drove me, Josh, and Job out to Orwell in the Ford Tempo. Our mission - find our tannenbaum out "in the forest somewhere". The first offering we brought back home made it inside but didn't remain long enough to melt the snow on its boughs. "Barry, I believe what you've got there is a bush" was my grandma's greeting. While all agreed that our organism certainly had the general shape of a Christmas tree it was, sadly, not in fact a tree. Back to Orwell. With Sunlight fading we happened upon the loveliest balsam one might ever hope to see. It was almost Christmas itself and it was huge! Probably twelve feet tall with branches extended way out wide like a hoop skirt. My time for this tale is short as I write this at the library and I'll have to leave out much of the case-study material for another telling; but one moment of valor must be sketched out for you. Like I said, this tree was massive and it is more accurate to say that, in preparing to take the thing home, we put the Tempo under it. As we draped it over the car, the only window that we could see out of was the windshield and that view was certainly impaired as well. But we headed for home with our prize. All was well until we started across the windswept plains of 22A in Benson. I'm not sure where we lost the old tree but the "when" was not in doubt as the car stood up and the light shone in from all around. Now the snow banks had all but taken away any shoulder that the road afforded and dad got off the road only a bit. We all hopped out thankful that traffic was light. We hefted and hoisted the tree back on the Ford and hurriedly began tieing her back down. Maybe it was the bitter cold turning our hands to ice or the eighteen-wheelers beginning to come in either direction; but we lost our heads a bit. In our haste we had successfully tied the tree snug to the car as well as all the doors snug to their frame. Yes - with the windows down and the doors shut we had run the ropes through the inside of the car effectively locking ourselves out. Josh instinctively began to untie the ropes to reverse our error when my dad stayed his hand. "I think we can climb through the windows boys" were the words I remember. What came next one could never forget - in fact I'm sure there are probably a few truck drivers telling the same holiday tale somewhere right now. My dad was a gamer that day and even the russian judge, I'm sure, would have awarded him a high score as he shoehorned himself into the Ford and my everlasting admiration.