Michelangelo’s mistake

I always thought there was something wrong with Michelangelo’s Pieta. 

You can see the statue in your mind’s eye: After watching her son tortured to death on a cross, a mother cradles his broken body.

I first saw it as a six-year-old in 1965 at the Vatican Pavilion of the New York World’s Fair. During the fair, millions patiently waited on long lines to view the Pieta, but all I can remember is looking down at the cool mobile walkway as it moved me along.

It wasn’t until I was a twenty-year-old student in the University of Dallas’s Rome program that I noticed the flaw: The expression on the woman’s face is all wrong. 

She’d just been forced to helplessly stand by and watch as her son endured the most horrific death imaginable. And yet, look at her face. Any Hollywood actress playing the role would throw her head back and scream in anguish. But Michelangelo chose to give her an almost peaceful expression of sorrowful acceptance. Why? The question haunted me for years.

I came across the phenomenon again decades later while watching a documentary about the Kennedys. Shortly after Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president, he called President Kennedy’s mother, Rose, from Air Force One as it flew from Dallas to Washington D.C. with her son’s body aboard. An audio recording of the conversation plays during the documentary, and Rose Kennedy’s composure is stunning. She essentially consoled LBJ and had the presence of mind to call him “Mr. President” mere hours after the murder of her son.

Later in the documentary, the Kennedys are shown gathered together for a group interview shortly after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. Rose spoke for her stricken family, and once again exhibited otherworldly, Pieta-like composure.  

I had kids of my own by then, so I had some idea of the hellish grief she must have suffered. How did she maintain such composure? I couldn’t for the life of me understand the source of that kind of strength.

I did a little research and found that her son, Senator Ted Kennedy, stated at Rose’s eulogy, “She sustained us in the saddest times – by her faith in God, which was the greatest gift she gave us – and by the strength of her character, which was a combination of the sweetest gentleness and the most tempered steel.”

She wrote in her autobiography, “The most important element in human life is faith. If God were to take away all His blessings, health, physical fitness, wealth, intelligence and leave me with but one gift, I would ask for faith – for with faith in Him and His goodness, mercy and love for me, and belief in everlasting life, I believe I could suffer the loss of my other gifts and still be happy.” 

My mother also had the gift of faith. It sustained her through a difficult life including the almost unbearable sudden death of my infant brother, Johnny. 

When mom was in her eighties, her neighbor, a retired psychiatrist and vocal atheist, would visit and try to talk her out of her faith. For the sake of friendship, mom put up with it for a while. But one day, she’d had enough and threw the woman out of her apartment shouting, “I’m happy, and you’re miserable. Leave me alone!”

I’ve experienced moments of faith twice. The first – while I was just looking out my office window – lasted about fifteen minutes. The second came during a work crisis and lasted about two days. Both times, all my anxieties vanished, and I was suffused with faith-filled, peaceful feelings I’d never experienced before and wanted desperately to continue. I pray daily for a return to that beautiful place.  

I saw the Pieta for the third time last summer while participating in another UD Rome program. I stared at it for a long while and wept because this time I believed I understood the expression on Mary’s face, and I knew it was no mistake. Michelangelo was simply portraying the transcendent peace that comes from dwelling in the kingdom of the faithful.  

Here’s wishing you and yours a peaceful New Year. 

A brief American odyssey

I have a severe case of fluorescent light poisoning. I contracted it by sitting under their pitiless glare eight hours a day for forty years. My one symptom is a wanderlust that can only be satisfied by watching 400 miles of countryside roll past my windshield every day. 

Having just returned from a 4677-mile cross-country trip that included swings through the Poconos and the Ozarks, I can tell you that seeing America decked out in its fall foliage glory belongs on everyone’s bucket list. Mile after mile of nature’s pointillist perfection was almost more beauty than I could apprehend.

But, as with any journey, it had its ups and downs.

On Long Island, I overheard a conversation between a shop owner and a Jewish couple who were considering purchasing a lighted menorah. They asked the owner if he thought it would be safe to display it in their front window. He advised that they might be safe in their neighborhood, but it really wasn’t worth the risk. They agreed and said that while they felt relatively safe at home, they worked in NYC and were afraid of being attacked. The next day, the NYPD reported a 214 percent spike in “anti-Jewish incidents” in the weeks following Hamas’ genocidal massacre compared to the same period last year. 

Such sectarian violence is the inevitable, tragic result of America’s recent descent into tribalism. A descent caused by pernicious ideas that have emanated from our elite academic institutions. Proving yet again that the prestige of one’s alma mater is inversely proportional to the likelihood that one’s opinions are sound. 

Abe Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has been called America’s second founding. A strong argument can be made that Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is our third founding. Its last paragraph sounds a desperately needed note of sanity that just might help us find our way back to the sacred, unifying mission of Lincoln’s last best hope of earth:

“And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

In Fort Worth, I worked the food line at a homeless shelter. I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. You owe it to yourself to do this at least once. It’s one thing to drive past people sleeping on the sidewalk. It’s quite another to interact with them as individuals.

It’s the 60^th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. I was four years old on the day of his funeral, but I remember it well because my mother wept all day.

While visiting Oyster Bay, Long Island I dined with my family at the historic Rothmann’s Inn where my sainted Uncle Jim O’Rourke (R.I.P.) was the maître d’ for many years. My Aunt Gloria O’Rourke (R.I.P.), then editor of the Oyster Bay Guardian, wrote this account of Jackie Kennedy’s visit to Rothmann’s shortly after her husband’s murder:

“When Mrs. Kennedy came to dine the second time, the children were with her. There was an old custom at the Inn to take children into the kitchen and let them take a peek at the lobsters, crawling around in the huge watery bin. My sentimental Jim asked one of the Secret Servicemen if he could take John-John on this customary jaunt to see the lobsters. The agent checked with Mrs. Kennedy, and to my Jim’s great surprise, the answer was, “Yes!” Taking John-John by the hand, he carefully walked him through the kitchen and held him high in the air. Jim told me later, “I was so proud to hold that brave little boy in my arms. He never knew it, but I was crying behind him as he gazed at the lobsters.”

Is this why most Americans believe in angels?

A recent AP shock poll revealed that 69 percent of Americans believe in angels. Maybe that’s because they’ve been helped by one, as I was fifty summers ago. 

Due to an economic downturn, my fifty-year-old father was unemployable in NYC. Fortunately, he’d somehow managed to land a straight-commission sales job in Houston. So, when I was thirteen, like tens of thousands of desperate 1970s New Yorkers, we left friends, family, and the familiar behind to light out for Texas.

It was all very strange. 

When my mother pushed open the airport door and first stepped into Houston’s midsummer heat, she hurried back inside, gasping, “They must be having a heatwave.” My ten-year-old brother and I followed her back out into the dripping humidity and scorching sunlight, and our clothes immediately shrink-wrapped themselves to us like ground beef packaging at the supermarket. 

My father had been in town a couple of weeks. As we walked toward his car, my brother stopped and with real wonder in his voice whispered, “Look.” Mom and I looked up and beheld Texas’ majestic big sky. Walking in small circles in the griddle-like parking lot, we gazed at it until my father shouted, “Hurry up!”

Driving to our apartment, we gaped at all the pickup trucks with racked rifles in their rear windows driven by men wearing cowboy hats. 

“Is it like the Wild West here?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” dad replied utterly without conviction. 

After a pregnant pause, he caught himself, mustered some enthusiasm, and asked, “Hey, how’d you kids like to try some Mexican food?”

Outside of the occasional Frito, we’d never seen Mexican food. So, as we moved down the cafeteria line, I bit into a jalapeno, and my mouth burst into flames. Teary eyed and runny nosed, I managed to choke out, “What kind of pickle is that?”

“It’s a jalapeno pepper,” dad explained handing me a napkin.

“Why would anyone eat something that hurts?” 

Walking into our crummy, one-bedroom, furnished apartment, unspoken comparisons with our nice house on Long Island weighed on us. Dad announced that I’d be sleeping on the living room couch and my brother would have to sleep on the floor. My parents began quarrelling and disappeared into the bedroom. 

The strain caused by the enormity and suddenness of our move built over the next two weeks. Disconnected from everyone and everything we knew, we began to snipe at each other. So, to relieve the tension and despite the insane hours he was working, my father drove us eighty miles for a daytrip to Lake Livingston. 

At the lake, we rented a tiny boat. My brother and I sat on either side of the motor as dad yanked harder and harder on the hard-to-pull starter rope. Steely-eyed, he straddled the motor, grabbed the rope with both hands, and gave it a mighty heave. My brother and I watched dad pinwheel overhead as our boat shot out from under him; he’d started the motor in gear.

The three of us pulled him back aboard, and, mad as a wet captain, he solemnly declared we were leaving.

Soon after we’d arrived, dad had sent me to retrieve something, so I was the last to have his keys. When we got back to our car, I couldn’t find them. All their fear, failure, loss, and loneliness – all of it – came spewing out as my parents yelled at me. 

Suddenly, a stranger approached. I assumed he was just moving closer to the fun, as New Yorkers would.

“Can I loan y’all my truck to go fetch another key?” he asked.

In stunned disbelief, we looked up at a tall, elderly man wearing jeans, a western shirt, and a straw cowboy hat, his worn face framed by its glowing brim.

“But we live all the way in Houston,” dad protested. “Why would you do this?”

“Because I’m a Christian,” he answered handing dad his keys.

Driving home in his pickup, all the tension was gone. Instead, we were filled with Christmas-like feelings of peace and hope. No one spoke for a long time, and then dad said quietly, “These are good people.”

Retired grandparents should provide daycare for grandkids

After thirty-seven years, I thought I was out of the childcare business. Thirty-seven frenetic years changing diapers; coaching; being a scout leader; helping with homework; doing volunteer work; maniacally racing all over town in my beater to soccer, basketball, choir, and baseball practices; enduring the daily grind and minor traumas of parenting teenagers; and paying college loans had left me stupefied with exhaustion.

I was grateful for the opportunity to have done it all, but was certain I was played out. So, I retired, pulled up the drawbridge, and resolved to fritter away the rest of my days living my dream: taking long road trips, writing The Great American Unpublishable Novel, and eating cereal out of the box while watching The Beverly Hillbillies.

Things went according to plan for nearly five months (a personal best) until March of last year when my first grandchild was born. At first, I kept my distance; he was so tiny and fragile that I was afraid to pick him up. And besides, he was far more interested in his parents and grandmother than he was in me.

But then one day, when he was about three months old, he was lying on his side. I put my head down next to his, and he gazed unblinkingly into my eyes for about thirty seconds; it absolutely felt like an ancient sage was searching my soul. The experience was so strange that I began to doubt it was really happening, until my wife whispered, “Look how he looks at you.” Then he gave me a little smile, and I fell for him like a safe out of a fifth-story window. 

Not long after, his mother had to return to work, and it was decided to enroll him in a daycare center. But, after first discussing radically altering our retirement plans, my wife and I offered to provide full-time daycare. So, I put away my car keys, computer, and Cap’n Crunch and reinserted myself into the childcare maelstrom. 

It was clear from the get-go that keeping up with a baby’s nonstop energy was going to be a problem; he simply never stops. He’s curious about and investigates everything in the house, which necessitates our constant, close supervision. And when he runs out of new things to see and do, he gets fussy, so we have to come up with still more ways to entertain him.

We’ve found the more he exercises, the happier he is. On sunny days, we chase him around the backyard or watch him splash in an inflatable pool. We also take him to the beach where he traverses astonishing distances while burning massive amounts of energy.  On rainy mornings, we take him to the mall where senior citizens smile at the tiny tot teetering alongside them. 

Completely exhausted every evening, I feign sorrow while waving goodbye, when in truth I can’t wait to get home for a few hours peace and quiet before crashing at 9. Not exactly my retirement dreams come true.

But there are tons of fun and laughter in helping a child learn and develop. And much to my surprise, finally getting to live my dream fell flat. For whatever reason, the more we focus on ourselves the more miserable we are. And the sovereign cure for focusing too much on yourself is caring for a child.

Finally, to my fellow retired grandparents out there, about 3.66 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, a decline of 15% since 2007, even though there are 9% more women in their prime childbearing years. That’s understandable when you consider daycare costs averaged $10,853 last year, or roughly 10% of a married couple’s median income. Combine that with a culture urging us to live only for ourselves and having a baby becomes an act of countercultural heroism. So, if your kid chooses a life of personal and financial sacrifice over partying in Cabo, you should seriously consider providing daycare. 

It’s probably not the retirement of your dreams, but there’s joy in it. And, anyway, how many times can you watch Jethro and Elly May cavorting in the cee-ment pond? 

MIA families bear wounds that won’t heal

History too easily tallies the price of war. It blithely numbers the dead, allowing us to close the book, walk away, and fight the next war.

But the families of those missing in action can’t close the book. We can’t walk away. We’re bound by cruel uncertainty to keep churning through a tragic past which grows hazier and more unreachable with each passing year.

My Uncle John was an aspiring boxer whose career was sidetracked by a knockout in the NYC Golden Gloves Tournament. He coasted for a few years, working odd jobs, and falling for Alice. Until in March 1941, realizing a great war was imminent, he asked Alice to marry him and enlisted in the Navy, at 22. 

In May 1941, he came aboard the USS Pollux, a 459-foot supply ship, as a Storekeeper Third Class. That year his dreams of boxing glory revived, and he began training for a return to the ring, this time as a professional. 

In the early morning hours of February 18, 1942, the Pollux was off the coast of Newfoundland plowing through 40-foot seas and blinding sleet driven by a hundred mile an hour gale. She was running a zigzag course to avoid Nazi U-boats known to be in the area. Because her captain was relying on an unfamiliar radar system, the Pollux was, incredibly for a Navy ship, thirty miles off course when at 4:17 a.m. it slammed into and impaled itself upon a huge boulder a hundred yards offshore from a small beach backed by 70-foot ice covered cliffs. 

After several unsuccessful attempts to launch lifeboats, and just after the Pollux’s bow was torn off by the mountainous waves, their stricken captain gave permission to abandon ship, shouting above the tempest, “May God go with you!”

You can almost see John standing on the frozen, windswept deck looking out at the beach, so tantalizingly close, as his ship was being ripped apart beneath him. He measured his youthful vigor and boxer’s strength against the distance and was sure he could make it to shore and back to Alice. So, he leapt into the paralyzingly cold sea and vanished forever. 

Or so I thought. 

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) was created in 2015 to make good on the American warriors’ ethos: Never leave a fallen comrade. Its mission is to provide the fullest possible accounting for the 81,477 U.S. personnel missing from World War II to the present. 

Each year, DPAA conducts investigation-and-recovery team missions throughout the world to pinpoint last known locations of missing Americans and attempt to excavate their remains. Recovered remains are sent to the largest forensic anthropological skeletal lab in the world for analysis and identification. 

DPAA advised me about a year ago that they’d located remains which may be associated with John. They requested a DNA reference sample, which I provided. I’m still awaiting those DNA test results.

Last month, I was invited to attend my first DPAA Family Member Update Meeting. More than 200 families from Texas and nearby states met in Dallas to receive the latest information on the searches for their missing service members.

For the first 90 minutes, attendees were offered the opportunity to take the microphone and share memories of their loved one, what was known about their final mission, and to describe the effects of the loss on their family. 

The rawness of their emotional wounds, in some cases 80 years after the fact, was simply devastating. It was clear from each story that the impact of the loss had been greatly exacerbated by the torments of hope, which are the particular cross of MIA families. I quietly wept for the entire hour and a half.

Rendered an emotional dishrag by the opening session, I skipped the rest of the day’s events and headed back to Corpus Christi.  

On the long drive home, I kept thinking that, as our world again sleepwalks toward­­ – this time probably nuclear ­­­­­­– war, the gut-wrenching witness of our MIA families demands careful consideration by us all.

(Uncle John is second from left in photo.)

Give your heart a little rest in 2023

What sense can any of us make of life’s crazy twists and turns?

In the winter of 1977, I was very, very surprisingly, accepted by a prestigious college. In the summer of 1977, I was very, very unsurprisingly unaccepted by that college. Very, very angry, I tore up the rejection letter, threw it behind the back seat of my VW Bug, and, without telling my parents what happened, resolved to continue working in Houston and forego college. 

As fall approached, my parents often asked if I’d heard what date classes would start, but I’d quickly change the subject. This worked until one early September day when my red-faced mom came crashing into my room waving the rejection letter she’d carefully taped back together.

“What’s this?” she screamed as my stunned father walked in the room behind her. 

“Oh, yeah,” I stammered backing away from a charging mom, “I forgot to tell you I’m not going to college.”

“Oh, yes you are!” my mother – who bitterly regretted her own foreshortened college career – declared as she spun on her heels and gestured for dad to follow.

Dad was a traveling salesman who enjoyed visiting college libraries on his trips around Texas. The week before, he’d visited a tiny school, the University of Dallas in Irving (I know, I know), and thought they just might be desperate enough to accept a nonapplicant the day before classes started. 

The next morning, with only the shirts on our backs, dad and I flew to Dallas. The plan was that, if by some miracle they accepted me, I’d return to Houston, quit my job, pack my things, and fly back to Dallas to start school.

At first, the admissions officer laughed at our loony proposal, but my supersalesman father persisted until she reluctantly agreed.  She did, however, insist that I not return to Houston because I needed to start classes the next day. So, my father drove me to a nearby store to buy underwear, socks, and a toothbrush. 

Back at UD, my father shook my hand and wished me luck. I got out of the car and stood there alone in the gathering dusk holding two shopping bags. As he rushed to the airport, I shouted after him, “What’s the name of this school again?” But he drove on. Forlorn, I turned to walk into my dorm with my head hung low absolutely convinced that no good could ever come from this screwy deal.

Naturally, my four years at UD were among the best of my life. I, also, met and married my beautiful wife of forty years while a student there.

I remembered all this recently as I gazed upon my perfect nine-month-old grandson. I also recalled a million other unplanned, unforeseen, and unwanted events in the lives of his parents and grandparents that miraculously stitched together the circumstances that resulted in the birth of this baby without whose luminous presence the universe would be infinitely diminished.

I always think I know exactly what my family and I need, and I get angry when things don’t go my way. But what if St. Theresa was right when she said, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones”? 

Maybe this new year instead of getting angry when we don’t get what we want, we should look at the people we love and their incalculable worth and appreciate the fact that there’s a plan far beyond our reckoning that somehow resulted in the miracles of their existence. And, after acknowledging the undeniable miracles that plan has wrought, perhaps we should consider a peaceful surrendering of ourselves to its wisdom going forward? 

Because the events of our lives often seem so random – and sometimes even cruel – in real time, trusting that plan is about the most difficult thing you can do. Frankly, it’s something I’ve only been able to do in the last few years and sporadically at best. But after fifty years of searching, it’s the only way I’ve found to achieve true peace in this fallen world. 

 Have a Happy New Year.

Family Life Is Not For The Fainthearted

Holiday TV commercials are filled with images of happy families reveling in scenes of peaceful contentment: joyfully opening perfectly wrapped presents under perfectly decorated trees; rushing out in fresh snowfalls to beam at new, non-snow covered, perfect cars; et cetera ad nauseam. The holidays joyously serve as the yearly crescendo to their perfectly peaceful family lives.   

All this peacefulness seems odd to those of us who are members of actual families. That’s because we know family life is far from a peaceful idyll. In fact, having a family is life’s wildest ride. If you’re looking for hair-raising adventure, forget lion hunting in Africa or running with the bulls in Pamplona and try paying off a thirty-year mortgage with one hand while raising kids with the other.

Soon after your first baby arrives, you realize you’ve permanently strapped yourself to a runaway rollercoaster. It quickly becomes clear that you’ve lost all control because your focus has permanently shifted from your own life to your child’s, over which you have frighteningly little control. So, your goal becomes to keep driving forward despite being unable to steer, which often lands you in a ditch. Here’s one vivid example from a personal catalogue of hundreds.

Due to the higher IQs of all the other parents, I became a Cub Scout Den Leader in 1999. I scrupulously avoided any further leadership positions for the rest of my life.

After having to be airlifted from our first meeting, I realized these seven, ten-year-old boys were far too rambunctious for any ordinary meeting format. So, I decided to bust out of our meeting room and take them to an Astros-Cubs game at the Astrodome.

It was the year after the great home run derby between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, and Sammy was on another homer hot streak. My plan was to have the kids witness baseball history and, also, catch the attention of national TV cameras by having us wear eight, single letter t-shirts which together spelled out, VIVA SOSA. I borrowed a new Suburban from one of the parents and headed for Houston from Corpus Christi with all seven kids onboard.

I knew that cooping the boys up in one vehicle for the seven-hour roundtrip was sheer madness, so I’d picked the Suburban mainly because it had a video player. I’d carefully selected several movies guaranteed to hold the attention of ten-year-old boys, leaning heavily on the Star Wars trilogy.

Thanks to George Lucas, the drive to Houston was largely uneventful. However, on the long walk from the parking lot to our cheap seats, I looked like a man trying to herd soap bubbles in a high wind. 

The game itself was completely lost on the boys who spent the whole-time eating cotton candy and wrestling with each other over preferred seats. And, despite my frantic efforts, the closest we got to spelling out our tribute was VISA VOSA.

After the game, I somehow managed to herd them through the sellout crowd back to the car. Jerry had proven to be the rowdiest boy, so I put him in the passenger seat next to me for the long drive home. As we passed two teenage girls in the parking lot, Jerry suddenly rolled down his window and yelled at them, “I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch.”

The girls were shocked that a ten-year-old boy wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a large “V” had yelled at them. I was shocked that a ten-year-old boy wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a large “V” had already developed a fashion sense.

“It’s from a song,” Jerry explained as I rolled up his window.

We stopped for fast food on the way home, and – nightmare of nightmares – the video player broke. The last thing I remember was Jerry yelling, “Food fight!” as the air filled with ketchup covered french fries.

It’s undeniably true that raising kids is the most exasperating, excruciating, and exhausting thing you can do. So, someone please explain to me why, while taking my oldest child to her freshman orientation at a faraway college, I suddenly started crying uncontrollably while speeding along the freeway in a driving rainstorm. Trying to hide my emotional collapse from my family, I stupidly opened my window so the raindrops would mask my tears. No one, not even my teenage son who was getting drenched in the seat behind me, said a word. 

Another Way to End the Ukraine War

Here we go again. Another European madman murdering his way toward another world war for the sake of lebensraum (living space). Countries around the world arming up in response. Violent rhetoric – including nuclear threats and President Biden’s warning about the “prospect of Armageddon” – elbowing out diplomacy. The people of the world grimly awaiting the casus belli triggering NATO’s “an attack on one is an attack on all” doctrine and hurling us all into a hellish World War III.

The inevitable end result: Millions of us dead. Millions of us refugees. Millions of families broken. Millions of lives destroyed.

Are we as a species really willing to do this again? Are we willing to wage world war, particularly when we know that this time there are hypersonic nuclear missiles? Missiles that can travel at about one mile per second and change direction enroute, rendering them invincible to antimissile systems. All of which means that if a country detected an incoming hypersonic missile, it would have no time to do anything other than consider it a first strike and immediately unload its nuclear arsenal on the attacker: A real-life Doomsday Machine. Somewhere, Dr. Strangelove is sneering.

Is humankind really willing to play species-wide Russian roulette again, only this time knowing there’s a bullet in every chamber?

I don’t think we are. Ordinary people throughout the world learned the loathsome lessons of the twentieth century and know perfectly well what’s coming. We see that governments are responding as they always do in these circumstances, and that this will lead where it always does: wholesale slaughter and destruction on a global scale.

But maybe this time there’s an alternative. Maybe ordinary people can short-circuit the insane game of thrones their leaders have always found so irresistible. What if millions of Russians united against the war and refused to go to work until Russia withdraws from Ukraine? Such a national work stoppage would be an act of civil disobedience beyond any government’s ability to control.

Polls show that most Russians favor the war. But the government’s brutal treatment of Russians who oppose the war should make us skeptical that they’re an accurate reflection of Russians’ sentiments. 

This is particularly true in light of the fact that the situation on the ground has changed. The Russian Army has suffered serious setbacks which, Mr. Putin has acknowledged, will prolong the war. In response, 300,000 underequipped reservists have been conscripted to fight in Ukraine. Are Russians willing to continue their blood sacrifice indefinitely for Mr. Putin’s misbegotten war of aggression against the freedom fighters of Ukraine? 

Are the Russian people willing to stand by as Mr. Putin’s merciless attacks on civilian targets and the discoveries of more mass graves turn Russia into a pariah state?

Are Russians willing to risk further isolation from the international community by denying Europeans the fuel needed to heat their homes through the coming winter? 

Russian citizens will be putting themselves at risk by declaring a general work stoppage. But they need to understand that at this pivotal moment, they’re in a unique historical position. They can potentially end the barbaric war in Ukraine and announce to the governments of the world that an attack on a peaceful neighbor will no longer be tolerated by the aggressor nation’s citizens.  Let’s pray the Russian people do what’s necessary to save untold millions of us from ever again being crushed under history’s horrific wheel.

Corpus Christi Beach to Bay Relay Marathon: A Crucible For Runners

If Aging Racefully, my 2022 Beach to Bay Relay Marathon team, were a horse, it would have been scratched from the race. If it were a building, it would have been condemned. An airliner, it would have been grounded. And yet, inspired by our perpetually sunny, 84-year-old, triple bypass and cancer survivor team captain, Herman Vacca, we somehow hobbled to the finish line.

My five teammates and I are all over sixty, so our replacement parts outnumber our original equipment. And while our rate of decay is accelerating, so is our determination to face down aging’s deleterious effects: Two of us delayed lower body surgeries until shortly after the race, and I was having great difficulty breathing after running three miles. Not exactly the makings of a dream team. 

So, what’s behind our mad compulsion to finish our four-to-five-mile legs against all medical advice? What gets our creaky joints out of bed to train through South Texas’ pea soup summers and gazpacho winters? Why do we care so much about a meaningless race?

The answer is our ten-year captain, Herman Vacca. How can we bow to the ravages of age and quit training knowing that Herman, who is at least fourteen years older than any of us, runs five miles every other day to prepare for the race? How can we not finish our legs knowing he always finishes his? And how can we ever thank Herman enough for inspiring us to keep running when it would make so much more sense to stop?

All that’s true, but it’s still up to each of us to finish our leg despite an underappreciated phenomenon about Beach to Bay that needs to be more, er, appreciated: While four or five miles might not sound like much, the grinding heat and humidity of mid-May Corpus Christi make it a bucket list test for any runner.

Several years ago, after completing the five-mile last leg, I was sitting on a curb, semi-conscious, struggling to catch my breath when I was joined by a much younger, Austinite runner in a similar state. For several minutes, we were incapable of speaking to each other, but after we regained our faculties, he looked at me and asked between gulps of air, “What’s the deal? I can run a marathon in Austin and not be this beat. I don’t know if I can make it to my car.” 

I squinted up at our white giant sun in our blowtorch blue sky and answered, “It’s always like this.”  

“Do you ever get used to it?”

“No,” I replied and pointed him toward the beer tent. 

This year, because our team was slowed by medical issues, I ran the last leg from about 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. After three miles, there was a physical sensation of pushing against a wall of heat and humidity. There was also a menacing pinprick sensation along the top of my head as my feet burned on the asphalt. Unable to breathe the soupy air, I stopped for a minute to retch and then began walking while struggling to catch my breath. 

I was forced to intermittently run and walk the last two miles. The saintly volunteers at the water stations provided me much needed kind words and desperately needed hydration. A few of the many people who drove by shouted encouragement, and a few die-hard Ocean Drive homeowners endured the sauna-like conditions to douse me with water. I thanked each of them profusely; I’m not sure I’d have made it without their support. While I understand the impulse to cheer on the winners, if you’re looking to help people who are really suffering, stick around to root for us in-over-our-heads nonathletes struggling to finish our legs in the midday sun. 

Slowed by our medical issues, my team completed the race in 6 hours and 25 minutes, a mere 4 hours behind the winners. Overtaken by several glaciers along the way, we finished 974^th.  I couldn’t help but think how proud my father would have been; he always told me whatever I do in life, strive to finish 974^th.

As lousy as our time was, we were okay with it. We knew we’d done our best under difficult circumstances. And the satisfaction that comes from that is what all those postrace Beach to Bay revelers are celebrating. 

It’s a well organized race with a fun atmosphere that every runner should experience at least once. 

But be prepared. 

Retirement Diary: The First Seven Seconds

 I accomplished my main retirement goal within the first seven seconds of the first day. At precisely 5:30 AM, as it had for forty years, my despised alarm clock blared Monday morning mayhem into my sleepy skull. Eyes still closed, I reflexively reached over to spank the snooze button when I realized with a start that this day was different. Today, this work dog had slipped the leash: I was free! Free to do whatever I wanted for the whole day. Free in a way I’d never been in my entire life. No parents, no boss telling me where I had to be and what I had to do. Free as an eagle sailing an updraft over a high mountain lake. Free as a lion slinking through the tall grass on a broad African savannah. Free as a dolphin leaping along big surf off a black Hawaiian beach. Free! Living for the pure joy of it. No longer waking every weekday and having my first thought be, “Is there any excuse I can use to get out of going to work today?” Not tethered by mid-year reviews, yearly evaluations, customer ratings, puny raises, or my boss’ scowl. Never again driving to work ruminating about all my long overdue projects while praying that I wouldn’t get sidetracked by the crisis du jour, only to get hit as I stepped into the office by two hellish crises du jour. Not looking over my shoulder at computer savvy younger employees or an ambitious subordinate. No longer one email away from disaster. Free of the weight of my boss’ expectations and my own petty ambitions. No longer having to make good impressions each time I interacted with every single person up my supervisory chain. Free of the burden of having to always say the politically correct thing and of constantly editing my speech to avoid giving any, even dimly perceived, offense because that was absolutely verboten. No more awkward small talk with my fellow nobodies as we waited for the important people to show up late for meetings. Not having to make everyone laugh at some halfwitticism during and, most critically, at the end of meetings. No more pretending that something of great consequence had been accomplished during a meeting and solemnly discussing it with another employee as we exited the conference room. No more spreadsheets.  No more PowerPoints. Never again having to sit through any presentations of any kind. No more charts. No more fiscal years. Never again having to live under the tyranny of a supervisor’s moods. Never again counting to ten before responding to a provocative email. No more heart palpitations as I frantically search my crashing computer for the CYA email that will exonerate me from responsibility for some misbegotten project that has finally exploded into the flaming fiasco it was always destined to be. No more weekends and holidays ruined by a work crisis. Never again staring forlornly out my office window at sultry summer, crisp autumn, snowy winter, and balmy spring days. No more Microsoft Office updates. No more searching for lost files and documents. Never again fearing that the last thing I’ll see in this beautiful world are life-sucking fluorescent lights as I’m gurneyed feet first out of my office. No more thermostat wars. Never again feeling your heart thud against your chest when you’re suddenly ripped from the deepest REM sleep by the horrifying realization that you screwed up something crucial at work in some unfixable way. No more Human Resources, Accounting, IT, or Legal. No more impatiently waiting for vacation requests to be approved. Being free to drink a beer with lunch – or breakfast. Not having to answer calls I don’t want to take. Never again filling with dread while watching the lengthening shadows of another mournful Sunday sundown as I pondered whether this will be the week that my ineptitude will finally do me in at work.

As I lay in bed with my hand poised over the snooze button, all these memories and more swept over me in a tsunami of regret – and pride –because, even when weighed in the scales of the Old Testament, forty years is a long time to persevere through suffering.

And so, on the seventh second of my retirement, I fumbled in the dark for the alarm clock’s power cord and gave it a yank. Then I slowly rolled over and dreamed my way into the Promised Land.