That time when Y2K turned into Y M I here?

Twenty years ago today I was sitting alone in an office at Monongahela Power Company's Fairmont headquarters, catching up on some not-so-important work, watching the power outage reporting system tick down toward zero and hoping that every computer in the world didn't crash at midnight when the dreaded Y2K finally arrived.

(I may also have been playing Solitaire on the company computer, but please don’t tell.)

I had a bad case of the flu but my boss insisted I drive over here from Hagerstown, Md., and be available to answer the flood of media calls that we were expecting as midnight arrived. A computer glitch that had something to do with the number of digits used to display the year in date formats had threatened to blow up every computer in the world when the calendar rolled over from the six-digit 12.31.99 to the eight-digit 01.01.2000.

So it was that on the last New Year’s Eve of the millennium, after hours of doing virtually nothing of value, I turned on a 13-inch TV/VCR combo that sat on a credenza in the office and watched the new year begin in places like Korea, Japan, Australia and other distant time zones where today was already tomorrow, waiting for the phone to ring and pleased to see that the computer catastrophe we all feared had failed to materialize.

As night fell, I think I called in to my supervisor to report the relevant statistics:

Number of computer crashes worldwide: 0.

Number of Mon Power customers without service: 0.

Number of media calls I received: 0.

The event had turned into such a waste of time that I was seriously considering dragging my flu-infected body out to my car and driving back to Maryland when, around 11 p.m. or so, I got a call from the local TV station requesting a live on-camera interview, which would air a minute or two before midnight. I agreed, of course, and a while later a young woman who couldn’t have been more than a week out of college showed up with a camera and a microphone to interview me.

She wanted me to go outside -- without a coat – on a hill overlooking the office so the name of the company would be visible in the background, so she dragged me up to the Giant Eagle parking lot next door. My nose was running, I was sneezing intermittently and I think I was shaking uncontrollably in 10-degree weather.

You always want to look your best for a live on-camera interview.

After we got up the hill, she informed me that we had to wait a few minutes for the station to break away from its national coverage for a “cut-in” segment during which she would ask me about Y2K. When the time came and she gave me the signal, I managed to tell her without sneezing that everything was fine, there were no power outages anywhere in our territory and all of the computers were working perfectly, thank you very much. I was ready to head back toward the office when, out of the blue, she asked me to predict what gas prices would be like in the year 2000.

It was such a stupid question I’m sure I must have hesitated before answering, all the while hoping my nose wouldn’t start to drip and trying to think of something intelligent to say. I didn’t know if she was asking about gasoline prices or natural gas prices, but it didn’t really matter because we were the power company. We sold electricity, not gasoline or natural gas, so I said something like, “I really couldn’t say. We don’t sell gas.”

And that was the end of the interview.

I had driven for two and a half hours with a bad case of flu on a freezing cold day to sit in an office, stare at a computer screen and watch TV from late morning until 11:58 p.m., so I could stand shivering in the cold and tell one reporter who didn’t know what she was taking about that everything was going to be fine. Everything except me, that is. I still had to drive home.

That was the night when Y2K became Y M I here? For all the hoopla, anxiety, fear, years of planning, terrifying stories in the media about the end of the world and millions of hours of work put in by engineers and computer specialists around the world, Y2K was without a doubt the biggest non-story of the millennium.

And I was there to witness it all...which turned out to be all of nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. It did provide me with a good story to write a blog about on the last day of the 2010s...and so I did. Tomorrow begins the 2020s, which I hope are a better decade for all of us. Only time will tell.

So Happy New Year, friends. See you around the corner in the two-ohs.

Christmas is over when it’s over

I love the holiday season.

I get into the Christmas spirit about an hour after trick-or-treat ends on October 31. The next warm, dry day after Halloween, I string my outdoor Christmas lights. (No sense waiting until it’s freezing cold to do it, right?) Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t turn them on for the first time until Thanksgiving Day. I mean, I’m not that guy…but I could if I wanted to.

I put up my Christmas tree in mid-November and start decorating the inside of the house. I do a fair amount of interior decorating, so it takes several days. I used to do it all at once but I’m much too old for that now. I don’t turn everything on right away, but everything is in place when the Thanksgiving turkey has been put away. I usually manage to buy one or two new things every year. I have enough Christmas decorations in my garage to open a store.

I do my shopping early, wrap the gifts and ship the ones that go out of town. This year, I even wrapped a dozen empty boxes so there would always be gifts under the tree. I hate it when everyone opens their presents and takes them home, leaving only a tree skirt and some stray needles where wrapped boxes used to be.

I play Christmas carols on a CD player in my office, on the TV cable music channel and on Sirius radio in my car. I search the hundreds of TV channels we get for Christmas movies and try to watch some of the ones I haven’t seen. I own DVDs of “A Christmas Story,” “Christmas Vacation” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which I alternate watching every three years or so.

When I was a kid, I loved when we’d drive around looking at Christmas lights, and I still do, except now I’m the driver. My apologies to everyone who has to wait behind me when I stop to look at a light display or peer into a picture window to see someone’s Christmas tree.

On a day prior to Christmas, usually a Sunday when everyone is off work, my daughter and her family come to visit. We eat pepperoni rolls from Country Club Bakery, they open their gifts from Julie and me and my daughter and I make egg nog. We’ve been doing it since she was a little girl, and I intend to keep doing it every year as long as I am able. She takes it home with her in a gallon milk jug saved for the occasion.  

My favorite night is Christmas Eve. Even as an adult, there’s something magical about the night when Santa Claus flies down from the North Pole to deliver gifts to children, and grown-ups eagerly await the morning to find out what’s in that big box with their name on it under the tree. It still gives me a thrill, knowing that NORAD is tracking Santa on radar as he flies around the world.

Christmas Eve is best when there’s snow on the ground, and it’s perfect if it’s actually snowing hard like the scenes in holiday movies, but even this year when it was 50 degrees and dry, I followed my customary routine. I listened to a solid day of Christmas music, then drove around looking at lights as soon as it was good and dark. This year, we took our dog with us and went to Morris Park to see the Celebration of Lights. Unfortunately, the park was closed on Christmas Eve, which seemed like a missed opportunity to me. I think the dog was terribly disappointed.

Instead, we came back home and I watched “A Christmas Carol” on TV. I own that movie, too – the one with George C. Scott as Scrooge – and it’s the only Christmas movie I watch every year. It’s dark and mysterious with the snow and the fog of London, great traditional music sung by carolers and the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future. A holiday movie with ghosts…what could be better on Christmas Eve?

Then Christmas day came, we opened gifts, tried on clothes, ate turkey and that was it. As much as I love the whole holiday season, I have one rule for Christmas itself. When midnight comes on December 26, Christmas is over. Period. We don’t celebrate Christmas on December 26 or the 28th or any day after the 25th. We just start planning for New Year’s Day.

That’s why I won’t be going back to Morris Park to see the light displays on December 28 or 29 and I won’t be listening to Christmas music on my car radio and I won’t be wearing my Santa hat around the house. Oh, I’ll leave my tree up and lit until a little after New Year’s because I like looking at it, and my outdoor lights still come on at dark and click off six hours later, and the other decorations will remain in place until some time in January when I’ll put them all away.

But from now on, they are all “holiday” decorations and not “Christmas” decorations. I’m very specific about that, because in my world, the Christmas spirit arrives early and stays for a pretty long time, but when it’s over, it’s over. It may have left a beautiful memory – it usually does – but now we’re moving on to other things.

‘You’re damn right we wanted him impeached’

One of the favorite talking points of Republicans defending Donald Trump against impeachment is that Democrats “have wanted to impeach this president since Day One.” They call it a “witch hunt” or a “coup” and think this is a point in their favor.

They’d be surprised to learn that I wholeheartedly agree with them, but not for the reason they might think. I do agree, which is why the next time Meadows or McCarthy or Jordan or Nunes throws that comment into the air, I wish someone would respond to them as follows:

“You’re damn right we wanted to impeach him from Day One. Just look at who he is. We knew from the first day of his campaign that he’s a racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic con man fraudster with a history of womanizing, social misconduct, tax evasion, financial failure and the absolute inability to tell the truth.

“On the day he was inaugurated, he launched his presidency by lying about the weather, his margin of victory and the size of the crowd, and it’s been all downhill from there as his lies have mounted well into the thousands.

“That, and the fact that he appears to be not only stupid and devoid of historical knowledge but also mentally ill make him—in all probability—the least qualified person to ever hold the office of president.

“So yes, Democrats have wanted to impeach Donald Trump since the day he took office, if not before. So have Independents and any Republicans who possess both a backbone and a brain, few of them as there might be. We wanted to impeach him then and we want to impeach him now. We freely admit that is true.

“The real question, Mr. and Ms. Congressional Republican, is why don’t you?”

Three stories that basically wrote themselves

I haven’t written a shieldWALL in a few weeks, but after reading today’s news, I just couldn’t help myself. It seems that some stories are so ridiculous they basically write themselves.

First, I read where Sarah Huckabee Sanders – who wants to be the next governor of Arkansas – doesn’t like being called a liar. Well, I’ve got news for you, Sarah…you lie. You lie a lot. As White House press secretary you sat in the Oval Office for months listening to Donald Trump spew a non-stop stream of lies and then you casually walked out to a podium and repeated them to the working press.

To be able to do that makes you one of the world’s greatest liars. We’re talking Greatest of All Time here, Sarah, or at least runner-up to your former boss. You’re either a world class liar or you’re too stupid to know you were lying. In either case, you were colossally unqualified for the job you previously held, and now you believe you’re qualified to be the governor of a state. Why? Because your father did it first?

That’s some resume, Sarah. “I want to be your next governor because my daddy did it once and because I’m a top notch liar. Please vote for me.” Good luck with that campaign. (Of course, it is Arkansas, so there’s that.)

Second, I see where Rick Perry thinks Donald Trump is the chosen one. This is the same Rick Perry who was governor of Texas, taking the place of another Republican thought to be the dumbest governor in history until Perry came along. This is the same Rick Perry who, as a candidate for president, wanted to abolish the Department of Energy, except that he couldn’t remember what it was called, and then became its secretary under the current administration.

So Perry now believes that Donald J. Trump – a shallow, childish, narcissistic, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist con man tax evading sexual predator who’s also a pathological liar with dangerous, Fascist-inspired ideas and a probable mental illness – is exactly the man that god would select to lead the greatest nation on earth.

Right, Rick. Now please go back on your meds.

I have to admit that in one way, I agree with Rick Perry. Donald Trump is a chosen one, alright. He was chosen by Vladimir Putin to help destroy America so that Putin and his Russian buddies can rebuild the old Soviet Union while tearing down NATO, the United Nations, the European Alliance, Western democracy and everything that is good about the world.

Is that what you meant, Rick? Or did you mean he was chosen by Satan to be the anti-christ? I could see it going either way.

And finally, I read where Devin Nunes, the fake farmer from California whose fake farm is actually located in Iowa and who is suing a fake cow that hurt his feelings on Twitter, is refusing to talk to CNN about reports that he’s knee-deep in this Ukraine bribery scandal while at the same time trying to protect Donald Trump from impeachment as a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

His exact words to CNN were, “I don't talk to you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. At any time. On any question.”

When I read that, my first thought was, “I wish Devin Nunes would just stop talking altogether.” The sound of his voice makes me want to hurt someone, or at least start drinking heavily.

My second thought was, “This should make it easy for CNN to cover this scandal. They can report anything they want about Nunes and just throw in his quote at the end.

And my third thought was, “Why are so many innocent people refusing to hand over documents, testify under oath and talk to inquiring reporters?” That seems counterintuitive to me. If I were being charged with something I didn’t do and I had documents to prove it, I’d hold a press conference on the courthouse steps before heading over to Kinkos to make a few thousand copies to hand out on the street.

(Does Kinkos even exist?)

As one former federal prosecutor said recently on TV, “No one prevents a witness who can exonerate them from testifying.” Just like no one who used to lie for a living should be surprised that people call her a liar, or someone too stupid to know the name of the department he’s in charge of should pretend to have a direct line to god, or someone with nothing to hide should go so far out of his way to hide it.

I used to be amazed every time I heard someone say this kind of nonsense out loud in public. I’m no longer amazed, but I still refuse to accept it as the new normal. So take that, Sarah Sanders. Go home and get your shine box, Rick Perry. And stuff that in your turkey, Devin Nunes. I hope the imaginary cow drives you literally insane.

Perfect gift for Christmas

For the man or woman who has (almost) everything.

Note to Facebook: Your ‘community standards’ read like hypocrisy on steroids

Dear Facebook,

You have got some set of balls, yes you do.

Yesterday, Facebook put my wife in detention for three days because she wrote a five-word comment calling Laura Ingraham (or some such person) “a female devil.”

Oh, the horror!

This is the same Facebook that recognizes Breitbart News as a legitimate journalistic organization, has refused to ban political advertising that it knows to be false, sat back throughout 2016 and let Russian bots manipulate voters in the presidential election and considers nude photos of Melania Trump (which she got paid for) to be out of bounds, even though it allows users to post memes that are 100 times worse.

(They punished my wife for posting a Melania photo, too. More on that later.)

At the same time, I don’t hear any outrage from Facebook when Donald Trump’s White House posts blatant lies that are easily fact-checked by people with a brain, or campaign videos that distort the facts and smear decent Americans, or faked photos that purport to show the president watching a raid by Special Forces in Syria that was set up two hours after the fact.

Just what kind of ‘community standards’ are those?

Want more? How about Trump calling the news media “the enemy of the people” and declaring that Republicans who oppose him are “scum?” Is that not hateful enough for you, Mr. Zuckerberg? How about his insulting nicknames for Democratic leaders and presidential contenders, and the way he trashes the reputations of upstanding Americans like James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, Robert Mueller…hell, I’m only halfway through the alphabet.  

What exactly IS hate speech, Facebook? Is it jokingly (and harmlessly) calling Laura Ingraham the devil, or is it inciting one’s followers to take violent action against working journalists by repeatedly calling them the enemy of the people? Do I have to explain to you which is worse?

Getting back to the two times my wife has been censured or suspended by Facebook, I want to point out two things:

(1) First, with regard to Melania Trump, our esteemed First Lady is only in this country because she came here as a model under an “Einstein Visa” that was based on a college degree she doesn’t have. After her arrival, she worked illegally as a nude model without a work permit, then married a rich guy to stay in the country, produced an anchor baby to solidify her citizenship and then brought her parents here under chain migration – all activity that the Trump Administration wants to deny to other migrants. If Facebook considers all of that to be kosher, then photos she posed for during that time should be fair game as well. After all, that’s why she was here.

(2) Second, calling someone a "female devil" is certainly not hate speech. It’s not like using the N-word or saying something anti-semitic or homophobic or using various other nicknames for brown people or calling their home countries “shitholes.” In fact, calling someone a devil might be considered a compliment if you’re a Satanist, and under the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause, Satanism would be a recognized religion. How does Facebook know my wife wasn’t issuing a compliment? The entire comment read, “She is a female devil,” so where does that define intent? Who decides what’s hate speech and what is a casual, joking rebuke?

It also raises one other question: Does Facebook have one employee assigned to monitor everything my wife posts or did somebody rat her out? If it’s the latter, maybe I’ll start reporting some people, too. I mean, what’s good for uptight conservatives ought to be good for freewheeling liberals as well...and I've got a lot of complaints to report. So buckle up, Facebook. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

P.S. If I get censured, suspended or banned for this blog, you can read it at https://shieldwall16.blogspot.com. I suggest you hurry up and write down that address before Facebook makes my whole blog disappear.

New ad for Time Capsule book

Click image to enlarge.

Buying a new car isn’t as much fun as it used to be

My wife and I bought a new car last week. At the time, we owned two cars. One of them is old enough to drink and the other one is old enough to vote. We could have kept them longer, but we wanted to buy a new car, so we did.

It wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.

When we were working, we used to buy a new car every 3-5 years. We’d pick a dealer, tell him what we wanted and how much we wanted to spend, negotiate for a while and drive away in the car of our choice…complete with a full tank of gas, that new car smell and a payment book with 36 handy tear-off pages inside. That was before we both retired and started keeping cars long after the warranties expired.

This time, we wanted to pay cash for a car rather than finance it at a rate of 1.9 or 2.9 or 5.9 or any-point-nine percent that would add hundreds or thousands of dollars to the price of the vehicle, so we selected a dealer, hooked up with a salesman and made this offer: “We want to buy a car and pay cash for it. We have (a certain amount of money) and a car to trade. What can we buy for that amount?”

The salesman started banging keys on his computer, clicking this link and that link and checking Kelley Blue Book, Carfax and what-have-you, and finally said, as I recall, “For that amount I can put you into a 2019 (name of vehicle).” Oddly enough, that’s exactly what we wanted to buy, so I said, “OK. That’s great. I’ll call you in a day or so when we have the money in hand.” Then we drove home thinking we had a deal.

The next day, when I called to make arrangements to pick up the car, I was told we really didn’t have a deal after all. It seemed the story had changed somewhat overnight. “I said I could get you close to the car you want,” the salesman said. “I’ll have to talk to my manager to get the exact amount you’ll need.” That “exact amount” turned out to be $5,000 more than we had agreed, so after a few choice words on the telephone, we said goodbye to the salesman and went shopping at other dealers.

I went four other places and met four other salesmen, including one who tried to sell me the same car as the first guy for an extra $2,000 and one who tried to manipulate me into an overpriced car with fewer options that we couldn’t afford anyway. Eventually we settled on another make of car with many more options for less money than the first car would have cost with comparable equipment. The salesman didn’t lie to me (as far as I know), we like the car and it's a 2020--one model year newer than the others--so everything turned out for the best.

- - - - -

The whole car-shopping experience brought back memories of new car deals my wife and I have made in the past:

* Once, my wife rode along with a friend who was having some repair work done on her car. While they were waiting, my wife started roaming around the showroom, saw a car she liked, buttonholed a salesman and traded our car for a new one just like that. She called me at work to break the news.   

* Another time, we bought a car on Halloween, which is traditionally the last day of the model year when dealers need to clear their lots of the old models to make room for new cars. They practically gave the car away, making such a ridiculous deal that when we traded it in a year later, we got back more than we had paid for it in the first place.

* My favorite story involves a red 1987 Honda Prelude.

The first time I saw one I had to have it, but a salesman told me he couldn’t get one. “We can’t keep the red ones on the lot,” he said. “How about gray?” So I told him no thanks and left. He called me at least three times, offering all kinds of deals on gray Preludes, which I politely declined each time. Finally, I lost my patience with the calls.

“I don’t want a gray Prelude,” I told him emphatically. “I don’t need a car, I just want one, but the one I want has to be red. If you can’t get a red one, so be it. I’ll just keep the car I have. Now don’t call me again unless you have a red Prelude ready for me to come pick up.”

I was driving one two weeks later.

When I was 14 years old, Ford came out with the original Mustang (bottom photo). I wanted one more than anything, but I was too young to drive and my parents couldn't afford one, so I never got my wish. In 1987, Honda came out with the new Prelude (top), which reminded me a lot of the original Mustang with the long hood and the short cropped tail. I bought one that year and it was easily one of my all-time favorite cars.    

Putting 'impeachment' in the headline to get clicks

We’re sorry (not sorry) but the president is lying…again

During Donald Trump's news conference on September 25, Nicolle Wallace—host of the MSNBC political talk show “Deadline White House”—cut away from the president’s audio saying: “We hate to do this, really. But the president isn't telling the truth.”

She neglected to add the word “again.”

This statement by Wallace—a former Republican operative who worked in the second Bush White House and helped run John McCain’s presidential campaign against Barack Obama—should become the normal response from all of the news media whenever Trump gets in front of a microphone and starts rattling off a succession of lies…which is to say, every time the president speaks in public.

Giving Trump free air time to lie to the American people is what got the racist con man elected in the first place, and it’s what he’s counting on to win him a second term in office. “You just say it,” he once told a confidant, “and they believe it.”

Or put another way, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” (For the record, the author of that statement was Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for Nazi Germany. The rest of Goebbels’s quote goes like this: “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Does any of that sound familiar? How about “repressing dissent” and that “enemy of the state” business? Where else have we heard those words?

So here’s the problem. Before running for office, Donald Trump was a popular TV reality show producer and host who is very comfortable in front of a camera, but was considered a joke as a presidential candidate. The American news media—desperate for readers and ratings—covered every word of his campaign for the sheer stupidity of it and, in doing so, unwittingly gave him the credibility he needed to be accepted by that 35% of the population who hates the government, opposes abortion, fears immigrants and wants to preserve white supremacy.

The media created Trump in the name of ratings (read that “revenue”), and three years later, other than Nicolle Wallace and a handful of others, it still hasn’t figured out what to do with him. But I have some ideas.

On January 14, 2017, I wrote this in the shieldWALL blog:

If you saw the news conference, you know that Trump opened up by calling out CNN for reporting “fake news,” and then refused to recognize (Jim) Acosta when he tried to ask a question. This is setting a dangerous precedent under which Trump will never have to answer a question he doesn’t like. He’ll just “suspend” reporters one at a time until there is no one left to make him accountable for the decisions he makes as president.

He’s not even in office yet and Trump is already taking the First Amendment and grinding it up under his heel, and the worst part is, the media is letting him get away with it. For my money, I don’t know why the rest of the reporters in the room didn’t get up and walk out the second that Trump shook his finger in Acosta’s face and said, “I’m not going to give you a question.”

Trump is nothing if not a creation of the news media. He’s the monster to their Dr. Frankenstein. They built him in the lab during the long campaign by giving him hours of free air time to ramble on at rallies unedited and uncut, and then appeared shocked when their monster got loose and started pillaging the countryside and killing sheep.

I’d suggest the reporters who cover Trump need to get organized, find a way to cover each other’s backs and stop trying to “normalize” the alt-president. He may love to discredit the media, but he’d be nothing without them. The reporters who cover the White House are going to have to stand together or they are all going to fall separately until there is nothing left but Twitter rants from Trump’s golden realm.

So here’s my idea:

Back in the day, before the 24-hour news cycle, the media used to show up for events such as a presidential rally, speech or press gaggle the way they do now, only the event wasn’t broadcast live or posted instantaneously on the internet. The press would photograph the event, take notes and return to the office to edit their coverage and write stories about the actual news—if there was any—that was generated by the event. If, say, a president would stand outside the White House for 20 minutes and spew lie after lie, the resulting story would say so. If he told the same lies day after day, that would be reported as well. The more lies he told, the shorter the stories would be. No news, no story. Period.

Get the picture?

There are a dozen or so Democrats running for president. How many of them get wall-to-wall coverage every day? How many of their rallies are covered live? Did I hear someone say “zero?” This is what the media should do with Trump. Take a cue from Nicolle Wallace and monitor the president’s statements but report them after the fact if there’s any actual news to report. If not, just ignore him and report on events that are real, honest-to-goodness news and not a fantastical narcissistic campaign stump speech repeated over and over again.

Lie. Rinse. Repeat.

If Trump wants to do something presidential, send a reporter. Otherwise, if he has a campaign message he wants to deliver, let him buy an ad like everybody else. He certainly has plenty of money to do that, since he apparently pays no taxes. No president of either party should be allowed to put the job aside and spend every minute of every day either watching TV or running for re-election, and especially not a president who’s bat-shit crazy.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Donald Trump is the president of the United States. He was elected to the job and you can’t just ignore him. That would not be normal.” Am I right?

Well, Trump is deep into his third year in office, so tell me one thing about this presidency that IS normal. Just one thing. Anything, large or small, significant or otherwise. I’ll wait right here.

Readers react to 'Time Capsule,' my first mystery novel

Early reviews have all been positive from readers of Time Capsule, the first in a series of mystery novels I have written. It’s the story of newspaper reporter Rob Covington who planted a tree in his own back yard and dug up something he wasn’t expecting to find—a time capsule buried by middle school students nearly 40 years before.

Opening the box unlocks a mystery that Rob and his reporter wife Jennie pursue to a stunning and unexpected conclusion.

Along the way, readers will encounter three individuals who share dark secrets from their childhood that haunt them even as adults, and whose lives become intertwined in a way that none of them could have ever seen coming. 

Time Capsule is a character-driven, easy reading, fast-moving mystery full of twists and surprises, secrets and lies, instincts and doubts, mystery and murder—all revolving around a cryptic clue unearthed by accident 62 years before its time.

The book is available at Amazon.com.  Click here to order a copy.

 Here’s what readers are saying:

Amazon reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars
Worthy read

“I just finished reading TIME CAPSULE by Marshall Scott Shields. This character-driven novel is a quick read with lots of real-life experience behind the writing. Scott was a news reporter for many years...so he has a lot of background to draw from. He brings his character of Rob Covington to life by his engaging descriptions and his crisp dialogue.

“Rob’s wife Jennie is also a news reporter and obviously in love with her husband….Scott introduces the reader to several interesting and memorable characters who all play a part in the mystery/unsolved crime that Rob and Jennie uncover while planting a tree. The mystery all unfolds near the end of the book as we connect the interrelationship of these vibrant characters.”

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great mystery that you won’t want to put down.

“I’m not normally one to read books just for pleasure. But this book I read in one day. I couldn’t put it down. It keeps you guessing up to the very end. The characters are everyday people that find themselves in the middle of a mystery. I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially those looking for a good mystery to read.”

5.0 out of 5 stars

A really good story!

“I love how this author brings his background as a journalist into this story. He's a good storyteller; and effectively wove different storyline threads together. I didn't see the ending coming and I can usually see it mid-book. The main characters are appealing, and I'll be looking for more in this series. Recommended!”

5.0 out of 5 stars

Great Summer Read (or anytime!)

“Twists and turns, great character development, and a perfect wrap up at the end. Shields has done it all in this captivating mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend!”

Other reader comments

“Just finished your book and I loved it! Wow, kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. Was especially intrigued by the way you wove all the side stories together and how they intersected at the end, with little clues along the way!! Prior to reading yours, I had read a mystery that James Patterson co-authored with some gal, but I have to say I found the storytelling far superior in yours!! Can’t wait for the next one!!”

“You had me hooked from the very beginning.”

“I certainly didn't see that coming.”

“Enjoyed your book - great read. Looking forward to the next - let me know when you publish.”

“Enjoyed it a lot. I like a lot of twists and you delivered.”

“Finished the book. Definitely enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next one.”

“Read it. Liked it. Want the next one!”

“Hi Scott. I finished your book about an hour ago. I so enjoyed it. Your descriptions of your characters made them very real to me. The plot and subplots were real life. I am looking forward, very much, to your next book. Feel like I need to thank you for an interesting and pleasurable read.”

“I read and enjoyed your novel. The story line unfolds nicely and the closing touch is an unexpected surprise. Well done and more to come as I understand. I'm handing it off to my wife and know she'll enjoy it as well. Congrats.”

“I could not put it down. Started at bedtime and finished at 3 a.m. What a twist in solving this one! Congrats.”

“I really liked your book. I plan on reading it again.”

And this is why it matters when half the country doesn’t vote

Many years ago (I’ve forgotten when) I told somebody (I’ve forgotten who) that there was more to electing a president than which man would do the best job of running the country. (Yes, it was always men back then.)

I said that the person who sat in the Oval Office was less important for his executive skills, leadership ability or policy positions than he was for the fact that he might get to appoint one or more Supreme Court justices for life. (I could have added “and other federal judges as well.”)

I suggested that even a weak president could fill his cabinet with qualified secretaries who would run the country while the president sat back and took the credit, but that appointing justices—should he get the opportunity—could affect the country in much more important ways and for much longer than the typical eight-year presidential term. A 50-year-old justice could easily serve for 30 years or more, outlasting the terms of three or more presidents while making decisions that forever change the lives of millions of American citizens.

I’m fairly certain that the person I was talking to thought I was completely bat-shit crazy.

Well fast forward to 2019, ladies and gentlemen, and I am ready to rest my case.

Watching Corey Lewandowski smart-ass his way through testimony before the House Judiciary Committee today while Donald Trump live-tweeted his approval brought home the fact that the worst president in the history of the country is having his way with the Constitution and the law and, because he also controls the Judiciary and the entire Justice Department, there’s not a damn thing any of us can do about it except vote him out of office, and hope that he actually leaves when his term eventually expires.

I never thought I’d see the day when a corrupt president could double down on his corruption by feeding information to a legislative committee witness in real time and for everyone to see—and get away with it because there is no one to hold him accountable. It was like watching a cheerleader rooting on his favorite team on live TV. I could almost see Trump wearing a letter sweater and a pleated skirt and waving some red MAGA pompoms.

I was reminded of the line from the movie “A Few Good Men” when Jack Nicholson asked who would man the wall at Gitmo if not for him. “Who's gonna do it?” he asked. “You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom.”

I was thinking that all of the witnesses who have been subpoenaed to testify before House committees and refused to appear—or did appear and put on a clown show like Lewandowski did today—should be held accountable by, oh, I don’t know, maybe being sent to jail for a few weeks to think about their refusal to cooperate with legitimate congressional oversight. But then I heard myself ask, “Who’s going to do that? You, Attorney General Barr? You, Justice Kavanaugh? You, Justice Gorsuch? You, FBI Director Wray? You, Trump-appointed federal judges? You, anybody else in Trump’s government?”

And then I heard myself say, “Of course not, you idiot. There is no one to make them obey the law. They’re all afraid of, or otherwise beholden to, Donald Trump.”

Until 2016, I don’t think anyone could have imagined that the president of the United States could so effectively consolidate his power that he could control both the Executive and Judicial branches of government while rendering the Legislative branch completely powerless to rein him in…but that’s exactly what has happened.

And all because Hillary Clinton was such an unpopular candidate that 46% of the voting public stayed home on Election Day, and a few thousand others in three key states voted for third-party candidates that had no chance of winning a race for county executive in Bumfugg, Idaho, let alone the presidency. That cleared the way for a shallow, narcissistic, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist con man tax evading pathological liar and sexual predator with dangerous, Fascist-inspired ideas and a probable mental illness to occupy the nation’s highest office while committing at least one crime almost every day of his presidency.

Thinking about it drove me outside to sit on my deck and drink.

On the bright side, I guess, we didn’t elect a woman whose husband once got a hummer in the Oval Office and had a bunch of personal emails she didn’t want anyone to see, because having her as president would certainly be much worse than the mentally deficient and morally bankrupt criminal we’re stuck with now.

Don’t you think?

That time when following the Constitution was ‘unconstitutional’

After declaring that impeaching the president would be “unconstitutional,” the White House is now considering a number of other significant changes to many of our federal and state laws. At least that’s what I’m hearing, so it must be true. Am I right?

According to rumor, the administration is preparing to issue executive orders stating the following:

* That rapists can no longer be arrested for rape if the female victim has, at any time in her life, consumed alcohol, taken any drug or allowed herself to be dosed with any type of date-rape potion. Those actions by her make all sex consensual and therefore the crime of rape is not possible.

Special consideration will be given to the alleged rapist if he is a prominent judge, sports celebrity, oil and gas producer, Republican politician, campaign donor or promising student at one of our finer private prep schools and military academies with good grades and outstanding athletic ability.

And if he’s white.

* That child traffickers will be considered nothing more than volunteer babysitters and therefore not subject to the law.

* That fraud is a legitimate business practice and is to be encouraged whenever possible. This includes such activities as setting up fake colleges to scam people out of money and inflating or deflating the value of one’s property as appropriate to either puff up one’s reported wealth or to manipulate downward his or her property tax liability.    

* That failing to pay contractors for work they perform not only isn’t a crime, but it’s also a recognized business activity designed to help people who are granted a million dollars by their father become multi-millionaires and eventually billionaires—at least on paper—at the expense of individuals and small businesses that provide services in good faith.

* That lying under oath is no worse than lying to your spouse about infidelity, which as everyone knows is okay as long as you can get away with it.

* That discrimination against any non-white people is supported by the law, because those people “are coming to replace us” and threaten the Conservative Fundamentalist Judeo-Christian White Supremacist Western European principles upon which this nation was founded.

* That any individual or group that opposes our God-given right to possess and acquire military-style assault rifles and 100-round magazines under the Second Amendment to the Constitution—and attempts to legislate stricter gun laws in any city or state—may be arrested for treason and either executed by firing squad, jailed indeterminately in a cage on the southern border or deported to their “country of origin,” which will be decided by White House Policy Advisor Stephen Miller in those instances where the deportee was actually born in the U.S.

* That news reporting by any organization not friendly to the administration shall be considered unlawful fake news, and any “enemy of the people” who attempts such reporting shall be arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay forever.

* And finally, that any attempt by that annoying gaggle of Democratic lawmakers who call themselves "Congress" to interfere with the actions of the newly empowered Executive Branch shall be considered an illegal “over-reach” and discarded as “incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial,” just like Hamilton Burger was cast aside in all of those episodes of Perry Mason.    

In case you missed it, White House Alternative Facts Meister Kellyanne Conway said over the weekend that attempting to impeach President Donald J. Trump would violate the U.S. Constitution. “They need to read the Constitution in the Democratic Party,” she said. “Tell them to stop the nonsense of harassing and embarrassing this president and the people around him when you have no constitutional or legal basis to do so.”

Never mind that the U.S. Constitution clearly sets forth the process for impeaching the president if he commits crimes while in office, and that the list of said crimes committed by Trump is much too long to mention here. Of course, that’s what the Constitution said before Trump became president and started rewriting all of our guiding principles and laws.

It’s rumored that Trump once told his advisors (who were mostly his daughter and her husband) that, "The Constitution is decades out of date, and these old laws are far too restrictive to allow me to make America great again as I alone can do it. Besides, if we need any laws in this country, I’ll be the one who decides what those laws are going to be.”

Now in the interest of full disclosure, I wasn’t in the room when Trump supposedly said those things, but it’s what I’m hearing from some pretty reliable sources, and if that kind of credibility is good enough for Trump, it’s good enough for me. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. After all, I could be one of those stable geniuses I keep hearing about, who knows? I guess you can decide that for yourself.

And the Brass Balls Award is presented to…

Today’s Brass Balls Award is presented to Texas Governor Greg Abbott who just held a televised news conference to decry the recent rash of mass shootings in his state…on the same day that a batch of news laws went into effect loosening restrictions on the ownership and possession of guns.

Who signed those bills? Well, he did, I believe.

The new laws open up more opportunities for Texans to own and carry firearms and store ammunition in public places. From churches to public schools to foster homes, the laws also loosen restrictions on where a firearm is permitted to be carried.

Today, Abbott bemoaned the tragedy of mass shootings in Sutherland Springs (27 dead), Santa Fe High School (10 dead), El Paso (22 dead) and now Odessa-Midland (7 dead), despite the presence of god knows how many “good guys with guns” wandering the Texas streets—including several cops who were wounded by yesterday’s shooter before authorities finally caught and killed him in a stolen mail truck.

Total dead in these four shootings: 66.

“We must keep guns out of the hands of these killers while protecting our Second Amendment rights,” Abbott said.

Right.

This is the same governor who, in 2018, told the National Rifle Association convention, “The answer to gun violence is not to take guns away, the answer is to strengthen the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The problem is not guns, it’s hearts without God.”

So the answer, clearly, is to allow more and more guns in more and more places. After all, this is Texas, and this is America. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

We have been warned…

If a doctor diagnosed you with high blood pressure and told you it would probably kill you fairly soon, but you could easily control the problem and postpone your death for years by taking a prescription drug, what would you do?

After all, you were warned.

If an exterminator came to your house and told you he detected the beginning of a termite infestation that would make the whole building collapse in a few years, but he could easily fix the problem for a nominal fee by spraying the woodwork in your basement, what would you do?

Again, you were warned.

If a mechanic told you the airbag in your car was defective and could someday explode, sending shards of metal into your head and chest and killing you, but he could replace it in a few minutes at no cost to you, what would you do?

You were warned.

If a teacher told you your child would flunk out of school and have to repeat a grade unless he or she read a book and took a test, what would you do?

You were warned.

If you found out that some food you normally buy in the supermarket was making people get sick or die, what would you do?

You were warned.

And if the world’s most eminent climate scientists told you that by the year 2040, if we burn more than 30% of our known fossil fuel reserves around the globe, we will cross an environmental red line, resulting in more extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heat waves, rising sea levels and so on, what would you do, knowing that food will become scarce, parts of the world’s coastlines may find themselves under water and millions of people are likely to die?

Further, if we were to burn ALL of our available fossil fuels, the scientists said, humans would find large parts of the planet uninhabitable out of doors.

The year 2040 is only 21 years from now. People who are in their 30s now will be 50-something then, and children who are, say, 12 years old will be 33. Does this relate to anyone you know?

The solution to this environmental crisis is not to pull out of global climate agreements or to open up national parks for more oil exploration or to legislate tax incentives to rescue coal-burning power plants or to sit back and watch as the Amazon rain forest burns to the ground. The answer is to reduce or eliminate the combustion of fossil fuel and increase our reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind, water, solar, biomass and others.

The question is, what will you do?

You’ve been warned.

That time before there were violent video games…

I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed this week and happened upon a photo of the Three Stooges. I didn’t stop to read the story, but it did make me stop and think about all the hours I spent as a kid watching those guys on Paul Shannon’s Adventure Time, which came on TV every weekday after I got home from school.

I was just an impressionable young boy back then, sitting alone on the living room floor watching Moe Howard poke out Curly’s eyes, smack Larry Fine silly and hit both of them on the head a thousand times with his fist or objects such as hammers, shovels, bottles, pipes, mallets, plates…and basically anything else he could get his hands on. I watched Moe slap Larry and Larry turn and slap Curly. These violent acts were what passed for slapstick comedy in the middle- to late-1950s, and kids like me ate it up with a spoon.

In between episodes of the Stooges, I watched the Road Runner abuse Wile E. Coyote, blowing him up with dynamite, dropping an anvil on his head, forcing him off the edge of a cliff or tricking him into slamming head-first into a fake tunnel he had painted on the side of a rock.

Other times I watched Bluto pound the bejeezers out of Popeye before the hero chewed a wad of spinach and then knocked his arch enemy into the middle of next week. So many of the other cartoons were violent, too…Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Mighty Mouse, even Bugs Bunny and a lot of the Looney Tunes gang, including Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd and the Tazmanian Devil.

When I wasn’t watching cartoons, I was watching cowboy shows where the “good” white guys rode through the West killing “bad” red Indians and “bad” brown Mexicans and a whole lot of other bad people with…wait for it…pistols, rifles, shotguns, cannons and anything else that could be ignited to plant a projectile into another human being.

I watched these shows all through my formative years and yet, remarkably, after I grew up, I never walked into a school, a theater, a night club or a Walmart with a military-style assault weapon and murdered a dozen or more innocent people. Nor did anybody else I know, even though that’s what we all watched in the 1950s before anyone had invented video games or the devices needed to play them on.

Now before I go any further, I have to admit that I have never played any of the violent video games that get blamed every time there is a mass shooting in America, games such as Call of Duty, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Death Race or — god forbid — something called Super Columbine Massacre, which Wikipedia describes this way:

Super Columbine Massacre…recreates the 1999 Columbine High School shootings near Littleton, Colorado. Players assume the roles of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and act out the massacre, with flashbacks relating parts of Harris and Klebold's past experiences. The game begins on the day of the shootings and follows Harris and Klebold after their suicides to fictional adventures in perdition.

Seriously, I’m not sure who thought it would be a good idea to recreate the tragedy of the country’s first major school shooting by designing a video game that could, in practice, be played by children of all ages and mental capacity, and I probably don’t really want to know. And as I said, I have never played any of these games or any of the dozens of others that I found on Google (but have never heard of), so I can’t say definitively what impact, if any, they have on the people who commit mass shootings in this country.

But I do want to make one point:

Just like people my age were able to grow up from childhood to adult while watching violence on television without murdering anybody, I’m reasonably certain that millions of people all around the world are playing violent video games like the ones I mentioned above without killing anyone or committing any crimes whatsoever.

Why do you think that is?

I think it’s because it’s not the games alone that create mass killers but a combination of factors including the mind of these shooters, their home environment, outside influences that plant and cultivate the seeds of hatred and the need for attention and, certainly, the ability of these individuals to legally acquire the weapons needed to carry out the slaughter of innocent men, women and children.

It doesn’t help that our nation’s leaders are encouraging violent behavior and giving a platform for white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Confederate-flag-waving cotton belt rednecks who still think the South is going to rise again; or that right-wing conservative Christian organizations are claiming discrimination against the god-fearing white man; or that anti-immigration xenophobes are adopting rallying cries like “the great replacement” theory which argues that menacing forces are trying to destroy white, Christian “homelands” by flooding them with other racial and religious groups.

(Someone please tell me how the “great replacement” differs from the “final solution,” if you know what I mean.)

And it certainly doesn’t help that the National Rifle Association and other well-funded gun rights organizations are pouring millions of dollars into the coffers of prominent politicians to ensure that no sensible gun legislation is ever passed in this country.

So while I’m conceding that a white guy who walks into a Walmart in a predominantly brown city like El Paso, Texas, and shoots a bunch of Hispanics is a product of his environment, and that our collective environment does include such things as violent video games, mental health issues, drug addiction, poor parenting, bad movies and TV shows, rap music and all of the other excuses we use (other than guns) for why someone commits mass murder in America, I’m still going to argue that all of those environmental factors exist in virtually every other country in the world, but that only in America where guns outnumber people are those factors secondary to a culture that makes mass murder so easy to accomplish.

Simply being exposed to violent video games is no more the cause of mass shootings than standing outside a school building is the cause of measles, colds and flu. 

I never watched Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto but I did watch Moe, Larry and Curly. In that regard, I’m still waiting for the day when a 69-year-old man walks into a Walmart store, slaps several people in the face, hits a few more on the head with a mallet and tries to poke out someone’s eyes. Then, and only then, will I believe that simply being exposed to violent behavior in our society is the reason why so many good people have to die. 

Gun violence statistics require a closer look

Several memes and other written posts have been floating around on social media in the past few days suggesting that there have been “more mass shootings than days of the year” in the United States during 2019.

On some level, that appears to be somewhat true, but I believe we have to look closely at these statistics to see what they really say before we start tossing them around like pure fact.

Here’s what I mean:

One source for these numbers, which I found quoted in a CBS News article, is the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which describes itself as “a not for profit corporation formed in 2013 to provide free online public access to accurate information about gun-related violence in the United States.” Note the words “gun-related violence.”

In the wake of actual mass murders in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, in which lone shooters with military-style weaponry went into crowds of innocent civilians and shot dozens of people seemingly at random, there arises a need to differentiate between “mass murder” and “gun-related violence.”

For example, I recently wrote a Facebook post that quoted statistics from Mother Jones, an admittedly liberal magazine and online publication generally known for accurate reporting. Mother Jones categorizes “mass shooting” as any incident in which three or more people were killed. I had gone to the Mother Jones database to determine the rate of carnage that has occurred since the Sandy Hook murders in December 2012, in which young children were slaughtered at an elementary school.

Here is what I wrote:

It has been 2,425 days since 20 children, aged 6-7, were slaughtered along with six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Since that time, according to Mother Jones, America has suffered 52 more mass shootings that left 424 people dead and 900 people wounded, including two in less than 24 hours this week.

Let me say that again. There have been 52 mass shootings since the murder of 6- and 7-year-old children that was finally supposed to bring about some sensible gun laws in this country...except that it didn't. I don't know what else to say about that except these numbers speak for themselves

Now compare that number—52 mass shootings since 2012—with the 250-plus reported by CBS News in 2019 alone and you have a serious disconnect. Here’s why:

I took a look at the Gun Violence Archive quoted by CBS and discovered that it counts virtually every time someone shoots off a gun at someone other than his girlfriend, his wife or himself. A quick scan of GVA’s spreadsheet told me that in the vast majority of the shootings it reported, the number of dead victims was either 1 or 0. 

What were included—in addition to shootings like El Paso, Dayton and the garlic festival in California—were shots fired during fights in church parking lots, family feuds, drug deals gone haywire, gang violence, drive-by shootings and even a shooting during a funeral procession for a dead rap musician.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that any of the above examples of people being killed by guns is any less tragic than any other, and I’m not suggesting that America’s gun problem only kicks into play when three or more people are killed. What I am saying is that social media is notorious for throwing around rumors, speculation, political opinion, distortion, deflection, trolling, misconceptions and outright lies which are masqueraded as facts, when facts they certainly are not.

In addition, we have a tendency to look at scare headlines on Facebook, Twitter and other places and absorb them through osmosis into our daily dialogue without giving them a complete read or even thinking about what they mean. This is a dangerous way to get our news and an even more dangerous way to form our opinions.

I’d point out that Mother Jones could easily have blasted out a liberal talking point that greatly inflated the seriousness of gun violence in America but chose instead to take the more conservative, more consistent approach to the issue of “mass shooting.” I’d also suggest that GVA is probably honest in its reporting, too, but the numbers it reports and the way it records them are vastly different than the way they are being portrayed on social media.

We have known for some time that critical thinking is all but dead in this country and that many of our citizens only see, read and hear what they want to believe, and that it is only getting worse under the current administration. What I believe is that this variation in the way gun deaths are reported is one more example that proves that theory to be true.

*     *     *

Don’t take my word for these statistics. Below are two links to the databases described above. You can click the links and read the numbers for yourself.

Mother Jones

Gun Violence Archive 

Two scenarios, one net result

Scenario 1:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifies before two House committees, where he says Donald Trump broke the law on multiple occasions and could have been indicted if he wasn’t president. He says his investigation DID NOT exonerate the president and he cannot say that no crimes were committed. Still, Democrats are reluctant to open an impeachment inquiry for political reasons, so they complain a lot, promise to “keep investigating” and otherwise do nothing.

Afterward, Vice President Mike Pence and Trump lie about the hearings, claiming that Trump WAS totally exonerated and there was “no obstruction” and “no collusion.”

Trump struts around like the cock of the walk and does an end zone dance while proclaiming, “I won! I won! I won!”

Polls show he is supported by 38% of the population.

Scenario 2:

Democrats grow a set of balls and fulfill their Constitutional obligation to open an impeachment inquiry in the House, bringing to light the actions of a president who has repeatedly broken the law and lied about it for more than two years. They bring in witnesses to say—live on national TV—that Trump is operating a criminal enterprise out of the White House for his personal enrichment, was only elected because he had help from an adversarial foreign government and made multiple attempts to obstruct the investigation into his illegal behavior.

The Democrat-led House votes in favor of articles of impeachment, but the Republican-controlled Senate refuses to uphold the charges.

Trump struts around like the cock of the walk and does an end zone dance while proclaiming, “I won! I won! I won!”

He continues to be supported by 38% of the population.

Now I ask you…what’s the difference?  

Remembering (or mis-remembering) the moon walk

I’ve reached that stage of my life where I can’t remember things I should remember, and I do remember things that never happened. My friend calls it “all things mis-remembered.”

Or you could just call it getting old.

Here’s an example: I’ve been telling a story for years about a former newspaper editor getting into an argument with an advertising manager about what constituted “news” and what didn’t. I even wrote about the incident in my book, Time Capsule. But back in April, when I attended a reunion of former employees of said newspaper, the editor said he didn’t recall ever having such an argument. Now I don’t know if it actually happened or not.

(To be fair, however, that same editor mis-remembered the time I met Art Garfunkel walking down a road in Western Maryland as part of his famous “walk across America,” so I had to set him straight about that event. Turnabout is fair play in the mis-remembering game, I guess.)

Which brings me to the moon walk on July 20, 1969.

First off, let me explain that in the year 1969, I was working at the Sears store in Fairmont’s new Middletown Mall. (At least I think I was. Hell, who even knows?) I was there because I had managed to make a total mess of my first two years of college at Fairmont State University, where I had enrolled in the first summer session of 1967. Someone had suggested that summer school was a good place to get acclimated to college life, and like an idiot I believed him. Silly me. I was only two or three weeks out of high school and absolutely not ready for college, and I went out of my way to prove it in every conceivable way.

I’ll spare you the gory details of my early college experience, except to tell you that over the next two years I managed to meet a girl, join a fraternity, skip classes, play cards in the student center, go to parties, drink a lot, hang out at the neighborhood bar watching “Jeopardy” and see my grade point average decline every semester from 3.0 to 2.3 to 1.5 to 0.8 and eventually to 0.0.

(Yes, there is such a thing as a 0.0 GPA. I have the papers to prove it.)

At that point, the college politely asked me to leave and not come back for one full year, so I was placed on academic probation. I also managed to get drafted into the military, fail my physical (not because of bone spurs) and go to work at Sears, a brand new store which wasn’t even open yet. I worked in the warehouse, checking and labeling products to be stocked on store shelves prior to grand opening.

So it was that, according to my best memory, I was working on the night of July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans from planet earth to walk on the surface of the moon. Except that I wasn’t. I remember coming out from the warehouse to watch the moon landing that was showing on every TV set in Sears’ television department. Except that I didn’t. And I remember standing in an aisle and watching Neil Armstrong take one giant leap for mankind. Except that I didn’t do that, either.

You see, contrary to what I thought I remembered, July 20, 1969, was a Sunday, and I don’t believe I ever worked at Sears on Sunday nights. In addition, the moon landing occurred at 4:17 p.m. and 40 seconds on the afternoon of July 20, and not at night as I remember it, so even if I had been working, it didn’t happen when I thought it did. Further, Armstrong didn’t step off the ladder of the lunar module and touch the moon’s surface until six and a half hours after the Eagle had landed, so his moon walk began at 10:56 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. Regardless of the day of the week, I can assure you I was not working in the Sears warehouse as late as 11 p.m.

So why do I remember all of that happening? Why does it seem so clear? Why have I been telling people what I obviously mis-remembered for the past 50 years? Did I just watch a replay of the event? It sure seemed like I was watching it in real time. I have these questions and more. I just don’t have any answers. I don’t know why the mind conjures up images of things that didn’t happen and we convince ourselves they are true. If anybody does know the answer, I’d love to hear it. Meanwhile, it makes me wonder how many other events I have mis-remembered over the years, such as:

* Where I was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated (I think it was the freshman building at Fairmont Senior High School),

* Where I first heard the Sergeant Pepper’s album (seems like it was a parking lot in downtown Fairmont),

* The first girl I kissed (I see us under the porch on the White School playground) and

* Who she was (the name Mary is lodged in my brain).

And that’s just for starters.

For the record, I do remember getting married, my children being born, my first newspaper job and the three that came after that, retiring from the power company and writing four books. I remember all of my dogs and our four cats, every house we bought and every place we lived. I remember playing softball and being the drummer in a rock and roll band. I remember vacations at the beach and Christmases with the family. I remember my grandchildren, my parents and all of my closest friends. I guess that means I remember the things that are truly important in my life.

But the Apollo 11 moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s historic jump off the lunar module’s ladder? I could have sworn I remembered that, too. Now, about the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the 1979 World Series and that whole Watergate thing…           

Why don’t they just ask somebody a question?

Two issues found their way into my consciousness this morning. They are issues that seem very simple on the surface but become complicated and controversial whenever partisan politicians get involved. In my mind, both of these issues could easily be reconciled if someone would just pick up a telephone and make a call.

Please allow me to explain.   

First is the issue of medical marijuana in West Virginia. In 2017, the West Virginia Legislature—that bastion of progressive thinking—passed a law that made cannabis legal for medical use on July 1 of this year. But wait! According to my calendar, it’s July 14 already and I don’t see any medical marijuana businesses opening up in the state. Furthermore, just today, I read in my local newspaper that the first sale of medical marijuana is still several years away.

Seriously? Years away? All we’re talking about is allowing the sale of something that already exists, not researching, designing and creating a whole new product from scratch. This isn’t inventing the telephone or sending a man to Mars, it’s opening a few stores. It’s already been two years since the bill was passed, so what could possibly be taking so long?

Well, according to state officials, they have been unable to identify a bank or banks that will handle tax revenue from such sales because, while West Virginia has authorized the sale of medical cannabis, marijuana is still illegal under federal law, so banks are reluctant to get in trouble with the feds by handling the funds. In addition, state health officials claim it will take at least two years “to implement permitting and licensing for patients and those who want to start businesses within the industry.”

And, of course, the initial crops will have to be grown, because I’m certain that no one is growing marijuana in West Virginia right now. (Wink wink, nod nod.)

Meanwhile, in Colorado and 32 other states plus the District of Columbia, the use of marijuana has been legalized in some form, and in 11 states and D.C., pot is legal for recreational use. In Colorado, anyone age 21 or older can now legally possess one ounce of marijuana, including the flower or bud, many types of concentrates, edibles, topicals and so on. Cannabis seeds are also available for sale in Colorado.

Only residents who apply for medical marijuana cards need to even register with the state.

According to the Colorado Department of Revenue, since 2014, the state has netted $1,043,961,209 in taxes, licenses and fees resulting from the legalization of marijuana. That’s one billion dollars plus, for those keeping score at home. Last year alone the state took in $266.5 million, and Colorado has already collected $136.5 million in the first half of 2019.

Does it sound like they have any banking problem out there?

So it begs the question: If West Virginia can’t figure out how to implement a law that was passed two years ago and only applies to medical marijuana, why doesn’t somebody pick up a telephone and call Colorado? They seem to have figured it out quite nicely, thank you very much. Perhaps they could offer some suggestions on how to get around that pesky federal law thing—like they apparently did. Better yet, why not hire someone from Colorado as a consultant to come to West Virginia and administer the program so we can get this show on the road. (The number to call at the Department of Revenue is 303-205-8411.)

I mean, hey man, like, we could have, like, cannabis in the medicine cabinet before you could say “Cheech and Chong.” It would be, like, far out, man.

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Second is the matter of universal health care coverage.

Universal coverage refers to a health care system in which every individual has health coverage. Presently, at least 32 countries offer some form of universal health coverage, including some of our best friends on the planet. Many have had it for decades. For example, Norway—the first country to offer it (and Trump’s favorite nation of white people)—has had it since way back in 1912.

According to the internet, “Universal health coverage is a broad concept that has been implemented in several ways. The common denominator for all such programs is some form of government action aimed at extending access to health care as widely as possible and setting minimum standards. Most implement universal health care through legislation, regulation and taxation. Legislation and regulation direct what care must be provided, to whom, and on what basis.”

Universal health care is financed and administered in different ways around the globe. In some countries, universal health care is funded entirely out of tax revenue. In others, tax revenue is used to fund insurance only for the very poor or for people who need long term chronic care. In the United Kingdom, the government manages the health care system through the National Health Service, but many other countries use a mix of public and private systems to deliver universal health care.

In most European countries, universal health care is provided by a network of private insurance companies that are regulated by the government, which sounds a little like a better, broader version of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. That European model would seem to contradict the argument by opponents of universal health care that it would bring about the end of private insurance companies nationwide.

At any rate, there are clearly any number of ways that universal health care could be administered in the United States, especially when you consider that it’s been working in Norway for 107 years. So here’s an idea: Instead of holding White House summit meetings to complain about Facebook and Twitter, or dredging the bottom of the swamp to find a way to harass undocumented immigrants, maybe the White House could invite representatives of countries where universal health care is a success and let them advise us on how to get it done.

Then our faux-president could send Congress a health care plan that would actually be a plan and not a plan to have a plan once somebody comes up with a plan. I mean, c’mon, Don, they have universal health care in Cyprus, Slovenia and even Luxembourg. How hard can it really be? Use your phone for something other than a Twitter propaganda device. Pick a country; make a call. What could be easier than that?

*     *     *   

To assist you, here is a list* of the 32 countries that currently offer universal health care systems:         

1.   Australia

2.   Austria

3.   Bahrain

4.   Belgium

5.   Brunei

6.   Canada

7.   Cyprus

8.   Denmark

9.   Finland

10. France

11. Germany

12. Greece

13. Hong Kong

14. Iceland

15. Ireland

16. Israel

17. Italy

18. Japan

19. Kuwait

20. Luxembourg

21. Netherlands

22. New Zealand

23. Norway

24. Portugal

25. Singapore

26. Slovenia

27. South Korea

28. Spain

29. Sweden

30. Switzerland

31. United Arab Emirates

32. United Kingdom

* Source: New York State Department of Health.