Author Archives: Dan Wolfe

We Have a New President

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This is a repost of an entry from four years ago.

As an additional thought this morning after. Even though he was not my choice, I will do eveything in my power to help our new President succeed. To wish for or work towards this or any U.S. President’s failure because he wasn’t your candidate is to work towards the failure of our Nation. No one wants that.  I WANT this President to succeed because when our President succeeds, so do we all. 

To all my politically inclined Facebook friends:

election2016Good morning!  Either congratulations are in order or condolences. Either way, our Nation has chosen its leader without war, without bloodshed and without a change in the fundamental way our Nation is governed.  Our system — the American system of government defined in the Constitution of the United States did its job and a peaceful selection of a leader by the masses has occurred.

Do not take this for granted.

There are many nations around the world in which a transition of any kind results in death, destruction and the suppression of rights. As I write this at 9:25 AM on the day after election day, my cable TV is still working, my Internet access is still blazingly fast (according to Comcast) and I can still search for and find opposing views on any issue my meager brain can conjure.

Do not take this for granted.

Yes, there ought to be election reform. Yes, there ought to be less pissing and moaning between candidates for any office.  Yes, it would be lovely if the candidates focused on ideas for the Nation instead of on how to get elected.  And yes, the governed need to feel as though their vote actually impacts the election; that they’re closer to their government than they are now.  But I would not trade this system of government for any other system of government in the world.

I will not take this for granted.

I’ve listened to the sniping among my friends and colleagues.  I’ve seen the anger over whose candidate is better, more qualified, more personable and more competent, and most of that has really turned me off to the political process.  But I voted.  I’ve had my say. And now it’s time for all of us who are far more alike than we are different to recognize that we are Americans FIRST.  Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Yellow, Purple, Chartreuse — frankly I’m not interested in your partisan rants.  We are Americans, dammit, and we can and should come together and stay together regardless of who won last night.  We are stronger, better, more productive and more compassionate when we concentrate on our similarities than our differences.

So today, instead of gloating or drinking heavily, look at that person on my Facebook page whose posts you hate to read ’cause it really gets on your nerves and think to yourself “We’re both Americans.  I’ll bet that person likes ice cream just like I do.”  Find the commonalities.  Find the things that make us alike rather than the things that make us different.  You’re all my friends for a reason: I’ve found something in each of you that is similar to something I find in myself.  You all, my Facebook friends, have me in common. (And there’s no one more common than me!)

See if you can find what else you have in common with one another. You might just be surprised that you’re far more alike than you think.

And never take that for granted.

Dan

Things I’m Keeping in Mind Today

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1. In spite of the political flame throwing, Facebook is still fun.

2. Regardless of who wins, we’ll all be OK.

3. “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” notwithstanding, the Three Laws of Thermodynamics still apply.

4. Exercise still sucks.

5. News hasn’t been news for years.

benedict-cumberbatch-filming-doctor-strange-set-pictures6. Benedict Cumberbatch is a tremendous actor.

7. So is Tilda Swinton.

8. I’m the worst political pundit ever. I’m not making any political predictions because I’ve been surprised at every turn.

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9. Life cereal is a gift from whatever gods there may be.

10. Emmett, the family Dachshund, is still a jackass.

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Yes, he’s wearing a bow tie.

We’re Down to the Wire Now

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new-election-day-2016It’s nearly Election Day and hopefully, blessed relief from all the noise, anger and bitterness that has characterized this presidential election season.  To my knowledge, no party and no one can be held harmless in directing invective at their opponent.  Every side has engaged in election tactics and behaviors that are genuinely disheartening to any rational person.  I, for one, will be relieved to see this election in the history books no matter who winds up with the Presidency.  I just want it to be over with at this point.

And shame on us as a nation for buying into this.  Voting is supposed to be largely an intellectual exercise not a visceral one.  We should be deciding the Presidency based on fact and logic not innuendo and hype.  Yet this is what 2016 has come to.  Hell, even rabid Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians fans in the midst of the 2016 World Series, one of the closest and most exciting in history, sounded almost Spockishly rational compared to the candidates and their surrogates. Since when are Americans more rational about the outcome of sporting events than the outcome of presidential politics?  That’s bass ackwards.

Yet here we are.

I keep reminding myself that it’ll all be over soon but that’s not very comforting considering the slate of candidates with which we have been presented.  Yes, as a nation, we screwed up by buying into the hype and the leaks and the sound bites, but the political parties also screwed up by giving us less than their best.  If this is the best that they can offer up, I really do fear for the future of the United States and its Constitution.

signingconstitutionMy high school history instructor at Valley Forge Military Academy, one Air Force Colonel George Rickert, drilled into us that the collection of minds that created the Constitution of the United States was the single greatest collection of minds ever assembled and that even in the midst of the compromises that were necessary to create it, the product of their work would stand the test of time because of those great minds.

I agree.  So much so that I and millions of other veterans have sworn to support and defend it.  It’s the one thing that gives me hope not just for the outcome of this election but for its aftermath as well.  Yes, we’ve been pissing in each others’ lunch boxes for nearly two years’ worth of run-up to this election, but in the end, the checks and balances created by that greatest collection of minds will keep things from imploding.  The Constitution and its authors created a system of government which is highly resilient — resilient enough to handle whatever comes of this Nation and no matter who winds up in the White House in January.

On Tuesday, the Nation makes its choice.  Perhaps reluctantly, but we will choose.  And while we have failed as a Nation to uphold our responsibility to be a well informed electorate, while our political parties have failed to provide us with the best, brightest and truly inspirational leaders, and while our Fourth Estate has failed to act as an objective check on American politics, we will survive this. The United States of America will be just fine, thank you very much.

The road to excellence in politics is bumpy right now but the GPS was set in 1789 by people who really knew what they were doing. They had faith in the future of the Nation and I have faith in what they created.

I hope that their faith is us is warranted.

It Was 30 Years Ago Today

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andy-grimace

We told Andy to smile at a family photo and this is what we got. That’ll give you an idea of what Andy’s all about.

This is undoubtedly a day for great celebration.

Today is my son, Andy’s 30th birthday.

Well, technically it’s a celebration of the anniversary of the day of his birth, which was October 26th, 1986.  But you know what I mean.

30 years old.  Damn, you’re old.  You’re over the hill now.

Andy was born at 9:03pm at the long since demolished old U.S. Air Force Regional Hospital at Elmendorf Air Force Base, so the party doesn’t start until 9:03 tonight when it’s officially official.  As you may know, Andy still lives in Alaska and really loves it up there.  Like anyone’s hometown, it’s home to him and that’s as it should be.

While October 26th is the recorded date of arrival, it was very nearly a week earlier.

About two weeks before Andy made his grand entrance, the whole family got sick with the flu.  I mean REALLY sick.  Violently so.  At two years old, Andy’s older brother Jonathon probably got the worst of it, constantly throwing up, ingesting replacement fluids so that he didn’t get dehydrated, and then barfing it up all over again before he could blink.  I remember him crying and crying and crying because he was so ill.

I was equally stricken, and for a week or so, I was in the same boat as poor little Jon was, but I swore a lot more.

Their Mom, Deborah, was also horribly sick.  Same symptoms, same threat of dehydration, and even more swearing, except that she was probably the sickest of the three of us because she was puking for two.

Taking care of Jon was hard enough when he alone was sick, but when Deb, Jon and I all got sick at the same time, there was hardly any energy to do much beyond the basics for any of us.  We were expending all our energy just being sick.  It was a miserable ten days or so for the three of us.

The Sunday before the Sunday Andy was born, I came downstairs after finally getting Jon to sleep.  I discovered Deborah sitting motionless on the couch in the living room of our quarters on 520-B 7th Street at Fort Richardson, dazed with what the Army calls “the thousand yard stare.” Actually it was closer to two thousand.  Just looking at her, you could tell that the lights were on, but nobody was home.

“Deb?” I asked tentatively.  “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” She replied weakly, speech slurred, “but I think I’m starting to have contractions.”

“Are you sure?” I asked stupidly full well knowing that she knew what contractions were better than I did.

She rolled her eyes and looked at me with an unusually weak look of disdain.  “Let’s just sit here for a couple of minutes and see,” she added weakly and went back to being really out of it.  Her demeanor was so weak that it genuinely scared me but she was the boss so we waited a little while.  When her condition didn’t improve and the contractions increased, she said that we’d better go to the hospital.  So we packed her up and got her off to the emergency room at Elmendorf.

She was immediately brought in and given IV fluids to counter the dehydration from which she had been suffering.  Once she got sufficient fluids in her, the contractions weakened and eventually stopped and after a time, she was released to go home with strict orders to hydrate.

During the next week, the three of us finally got well enough that we were getting back to normal.  The next Sunday, on the 26th, Andy arrived.  No problems, no complications.  Just a happy, healthy small redheaded human.

After all the commotion at the hospital, two-year-old Jon, sufficiently recovered, came over to meet his brother.  Deb and I thought ahead and pre-positioned a toy car in the hospital room that Jon could ride around on as a gift from his new brother, hopefully mitigating the attention that Andy was about to get.  It worked and they’ve been virtually inseparable ever since.

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Jon and Andy, circa 1988.

Some weeks later, Robin Baizel, one of our friends who had appeared in a stage play that Deborah and I worked out in Eagle River, Alaska, came over to meet the new human.  When Deb brought Andy downstairs, she started laughing, pointed at him and then at me and said “Oh my god, it’s a clone!”  I just remember her laughing so hard that she could barely choke out the words.*

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Charlie on C-SPAN.

In 2004, he and his brother came to promote me to colonel at the Pentagon.  Attending the ceremony were the two general officers from Army Public Affairs, many of my colleagues and friends, and one Charles Krohn.  Charlie was a very accomplished member of the Senior Executive Service and the senior civilian in Army Public Affairs.

After the ceremony, Charlie came up to me and said “I was really impressed with your younger son.”

“Andy?” I said.

“Yeah, the redheaded one” he confirmed.  “He’s a pretty heads up kid.  He and I talked for quite a while and he was able to hold his own with me. Very impressive!”

That’s Andy.  From the time he was little, he was always able to mix it up in whichever group he found himself.

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Me, Andy’s Step-mom, Janice, brother Jonathon and the birthday boy at the Pentagon in 2003.

I was proud of him then and I’m proud of him now.  He handled himself adeptly during his Mom’s recent illness in South Carolina, spending every day for weeks at the hospital with her, while in his spare time, assisting Deb’s family in the aftermath of Andy’s grandfather’s death just days before.

So that’s the story of how Andy almost arrived a week early.  It’s also the story of why I always get my flu shot.  (You should, too.)

But the real reason for this post is that Andy, you’re 30 today.  It’s one of those milestones that make you think you’re old.  And you are.  Very, very old now.  Ancient.  Almost decrepit.  Make no mistake about it.  On the upside, you’re never REALLY old until you’re as old as me.  Or Methuselah. And if you get to be as old as he was, think how much interest will be in your 401k!

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Happy birthday, sir!  Enjoy this great day!

Love you, dude!

* Quick sidebar — Deborah Ginsburg, Andy’s mom, remembered Robin’s exclamation more accurately than I did and the verbiage contained herein was corrected to so reflect.  Thanks, Deb!

Guest Post: “My Mom and the Cleveland Indians”

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jefferson-01

Jefferson Wolfe

My brother, Jefferson, penned this on Facebook and it doesn’t get any better than this. Thanks for permitting me the honor of posting this here.

My mom, Mary Jo, died in July at age 86. She was a faithful Indians fan until about a year ago when Alzheimer’s disease started to take hold.

For many years, she worked the 3 p.m.-11 p.m. shift as an emergency room nurse at hospitals in Fostoria and Bowling Green, which meant she always got home late and stayed up into the early hours of the morning.

Many nights, I would give up on the Indians and either go to bed early or go do something else. Even after she retired, she was so used to staying awake, she would regularly watch until the bitter end. Some years, there were a lot of bitter ends.

When they lost, she would always say something like, “Well, they screwed up again.”

If they won, the next day she was always happy to tell me she stayed up to watch, long after I bailed out.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” she would say.

Mom was in college at Ohio State in 1948 when the Indians last won the World Series. She remembered how every radio on campus seemed to be tuned to the Indians and classes were cancelled during the games.

It was largely because of her I started watching baseball many years later.

I got interested when I was in fifth grade and our family got cable TV. We could watch the Indians regularly on channel 43.

My mom insisted on watching the games, so I had to watch too. We only had one TV.

In those days, her favorite players were Rick Manning, Von Hayes, and Brook Jacoby.

Mary Jo holding Tess, one of our sister's many dogs.

Mary Jo holding Tess, one of our sister’s many dogs.

My mom never went to a major league game but she always followed on TV or radio. When I was younger, my dad took me to Cleveland Stadium a few times.

My dad enjoyed watching baseball, too, but he typically fell asleep in his chair when the game was on and/or went to bed even before I did.

Especially after my dad died, my mom passed a lot of time watching the Indians during baseball season and the Browns (and also probably every Monday Night Football game ever) during football season.

Early last summer, I called her and she said she hadn’t been paying attention to the Indians that year. I knew something was wrong.

I stayed at her house for a couple of weeks in October to help out as her mind got foggier. I was there during baseball’s divisional series and league championships, so I watched a lot of baseball.

Even though I had games on the TV, she never really noticed, which was very unusual. She always watched the baseball playoffs, usually rooting for players who weren’t famous but who played hard.

She would be enjoying this Indians team, with what seems like a new hero every night.

I’m certain she would love Roberto Perez’s hustle after the first game with Boston, especially the way he tagged up at first to advance to second on a fly ball. I’m also sure she would have loved watching Jose Ramirez all year long.

And, last night, there was Ryan Merritt.

The game didn’t start until 10 p.m. here in Germany, where I live now. I went to bed kind of early and didn’t wake up until 11:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m. back in Ohio.

I came out to the couch and turned on the TV quietly so I didn’t wake up my wife or my three daughters, and started watching the game just as Terry Francona shook Merritt’s hand as he left the mound.

I’m pretty sure my mom would have rooted for Merritt, who was the kind of player she always liked.

For that matter, I’m pretty sure my mom watched the whole game, whether I did or not.

Win or lose, she’ll be watching the World Series, too.

Jefferson Wolfe is currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army stationed in Germany.