In The Cigar Box

On a lonely stretch of US40 between Kansas City and Columbia, my 1965 Corvair Monza sputtered and the engine temperature gauge spun up to the red line.  Without a radiator to boil over (the Corvair had an air cooled, rear mounted engine that Ralph Nader had declared was unsafe at any speed), an overheating engine was a pretty good reason to stop quickly or the engine could be ruined.   Searching for a wide spot on the shoulder, I opted for a gravel covered stretch just after a short bridge over one of the creeks that fed into the Blackwater River.  The tail of the bridge guard rail lent some protection from big rigs edging over and clipping the Monza while I was off to get a tow. This was the autumn of 1967.  Around half of all telephones still had rotary dials and finding one to make a call required hitching a ride or making the walk to the next town down the road.  I tried both.  For the walk, I stayed on the wrong side (walking with the traffi...

Walk with me.  When you hear those words you might immediately picture a celebrity or mogul with his entourage of minions and groupies flowing like a wave over a path lined with security and nylon ropes to a waiting limousine. The celeb might use the phrase to bestow upon one follower a moment of private conversation illuminating him in the reflected glory of being close to the source of celebrated light.  Or you might conjure a vision of a nondescript secret agent clad in an aging grayish top coat.  The coat is appropriately rumpled with subtle stains that suggest the wearer is a permanent member of the workaday world populated by millions of people – people made invisible by their gray attire and gray demeanor.  His eyes are obscured behind the gray tint of his transition lenses and generic plastic frames.  The walk is meant to hide from eavesdroppers and counterspies.  Walking is his quiet cue that the words are urgent.  Perhaps the security o...

Twelve killed, fifty-eight injured.  Thirteen years three months after Columbine. With his red dyed spiky hair casting a low shadow on the screen, the odd looking fellow seated in the first row of Theater 9 slipped out.   He left through the emergency exit, propped the door open and returned as a lone gunman strutting into the darkened theater armed like a soldier clearing houses in urban Iraq.   With nothing but malice in his mind, he emptied one magazine after another firing each new bullet faster than he could blink his eye.   People fell.   Some fell for their final time.   Others didn’t know if help would come in time.   Some of the lucky ones crouched under the relentless strafing.   In the adjacent theater 8, some patrons thought the gunfire was a scene from the movie until bullets penetrated and killed or maimed while a shrill alarm pealed a warning.   Fear gripped many – sometimes for themselves and sometimes for pr...

Leave winners and losers to the NFL or the NBA.  Winners and losers have no place nor standing in a system of self-governance. When races are cast as races, we demand to know who won.  When polls are taken, our competitive spirits are engaged.  The American psyche is hard wired to be competitive and in a competition winning is the solitary goal.  Lombardi is credited for having said, “Winning is not the most important thing, winning is the only thing.”  Certainly the stories about competitors who put sportsmanship above victory  are celebrated but they are miniscule in number when compared to the stories about the victors, the winners, the undefeated. Last Saturday night, we Americans, including non-golfers, were already gloating about the American Ryder Cup team who held such a commanding lead that victory was ordained.  No shrift was given that the invading Europeans could go head to head with a truly remarkable team of Americans and domina...