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“You DO understand that Trump is temporary…”

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Based on a draft-post from a year ago – February 5, 2020. (And yes, pretty much “avoidable.”)

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

This blog is modeled on the Carolina Israelite. That was an old-time newspaper – more like a personal newsletter – written and published by Harry Golden. Back in the 1950s, people called him a  “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.” (For his work on the Israelite.)

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

January 9, 2021 – I last edited the rough draft that became this new post  on February 5, 2020.

You know, a year ago when Donald Trump was riding high, and looked a shoe-in for re-election? But here’s the punchline, based on events this past week (illustrated at the top of the page):

And now he’s even more so!!! 

The Great Democracies, 1958 (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Book 4) by [Winston S. Churchill]More temporary that is… Which brings us back to nearly a year ago, February 5, 2020. I wrote back then that I often had trouble staying asleep. (Worrying a lot about the future of this country.) I wrote that lately, “at night – when I can’t get back to sleep around 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. – I’ve taken to reading Winston S. Churchill‘s The Great Democracies. (Volume 4 of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples.) And it’s given me great comfort, helping me focus on the long view of our present political divisiveness.” (See Take the long view – Idioms.)

Which I tried to do last Wednesday, after hearing of rioting at the U.S. Capitol. (Otherwise known as the “‘Banana Republic Crap’ Capitol Riots,” according to one Republican member of Congress.) And I largely succeeded – in taking the long view – mostly because I don’t have cable TV. And then, lo and behold, on Thursday and Friday things started looking up. Former Trump allies were saying “enough is enough,” 52 rioters had been arrested, and even some staunch Republican Senators were open to impeachment or use of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

Which brings up another point. Right now I wouldn’t want to be in Donald Trump’s shoes.

Why? Because the metaphoric “noose” is tightening around his neck ever so slowly, but surely, in an agonizing foretaste of what’s in store once he leaves the protection of his office. (See “The rope has to tighten SLOWlY,” vis-a-vis what “Deep Throat” told reporter Bob Woodward about the 1974 conspiracy investigation against then-president Richard Nixon – and his minions – as told in the book, later a movie, All the President’s Men.) But we digress…

Getting back to the long view (and being able to sleep better at night): Back in the February 2020 rough draft, I also noted reading “One nation after Trump,” then reviewing it. (That is, I reviewed the book back in August 2019.) That post talked about the prediction in 2016 – by Professor Allan Lichtman – that Trump would be “impeached within two years.” (Note: It actually took three years, but the issue is now being raised again. Does that count?)

One positive note? That the reaction to Trump’s presidency “can provide the foundation for an era of democratic renewal and vindicate our long experiment in self-rule.” I also noted that the number-crunching on the 2016 election showed “how fragile Trump’s hold on the public is.” To which I added, “I’ve been saying the best weapon against Trump is his own big mouth.” Not to mention his hubris. (“What? You mean I can’t tell supporters to storm the Capitol, and not be held responsible?”)

Third, I noted something I’d written in a previous post, Belated 4th of July meditation:

Whether by vote in 2020 or operation of law in 2024, Trump will end up leaving the White House. What happens then? Aside from the cheering, the dancing in  the streets, the fireworks and parades, a new nightmare will begin – for Donald Trump.

“And when it might be said – yet again – ‘Our long national nightmare is over.'”

And finally – getting back to that year-ago rough draft – I wrote that Trump wants – more than anything else – to be seen as a winner. Yet that when he leaves office there will almost certainly be an uproar of cheering, celebration, fireworks, and dancing in the streets, both in America and throughout the world. (And based on the past week, that seems even more likely, with the celebrations to come on January 20 even more raucous and heart-felt.)

Moreover – I wrote – that virtual certainty will gall Trump no end, in both the near future and to the end of his days. So in a sense Trump was doomed to be viewed as a “loser.” Unless! 

Unless – if he was elected to a second term, and so freed from a need to pander to his wacko base – Trump were to develop a conscience and start thinking seriously about his legacy.

[W]ho knows?  If:  1) Trump did get re-elected in 2020, and 2) no longer had to worry about throwing raw meat at his wacko base, and 3) started seriously thinking about his legacy (or developed a conscience, or started appreciating that he’s “closer to the end than to the beginning”), he might actually evolve – as [P.T.] Barnum did – into a “humane, effective and ethical politician.”

It now looks like that last thought turned out to be a pipe dream. (See GOP Rep. Mace: Trump’s legacy ‘wiped out’ by Capitol riot.) A pipe dream is an unrealistic hope or fantasy. Moreover, “The phrase ‘pipe dream’ is an allusion to the dreams experienced by smokers of opium pipes.” Or in the alternative, a “plan, desire, or idea that will not likely work; a near impossibility.” Which is kind of like the thought that an impeachment, conviction and removal from office can all happen within the space of 10 days. But not to worry. January 20th is coming…

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Pipe dream

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The upper image is courtesy of Trump News – Image Results. With an article, Aides shaken by Trump’s behavior during riots – One News Page.

On the subject of today’s political divisiveness. See Why Has America Become So Divided? | Psychology Today. See also my post from August 2, 2019, On “why it might be better…” (Gasp!) That is, why it might be better if Trump did get re-elected. On that note see also Make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – Idioms. (To “fashion something beautiful or valuable out of poor materials.”)

Re: Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It deals with presidential succession and disability, and says the vice president becomes president if the president dies, resigns, or is “removed from office.” It also allows a “temporary transfer of the president’s duties to the vice president, either by the president alone or by the vice president together with a majority of the president’s cabinet. In either case, the vice president becomes acting president.”

For more interesting reading – somehow tied in with the February 2019 rough draft – see Trump Is A Liberal – Arc Digital, a fascinating discussion of why he’s both “liberal” and dangerous:

As a public figure, Trump … seems constitutionally incapable of metaphysical commitment; he might even be constitutionally incapable of thinking about the good of other people. He is, in other words, a typical product of American society. He is, like nearly all of us, a liberal.

The writer’s point was that “liberalism, which both the Republican and Democratic parties endorse, has slowly eroded the foundation of our society until communal stories, bonds, and shared goals have been washed away, leaving our society fragmented and uncertain of itself.” 

Joel Looper – who wrote the piece – is according to his articles, “Editor and Founder of thecommonpolitic.com. Senior fellow in theology at tdbi.org. Bonhoeffer’s America (forthcoming from Baylor University Press.)” Beyond that there’s not much about him and his views, although he does seem to specialize in the plague on both your houses school of thought. Thus his conclusion that Trump is a liberal: “And that is what makes him dangerous.”

Further, by its own admission “The Common Politic exists in order to build trust and fruitful political dialogue among people of faith. While we hold many different political commitments, we aim to foster in this community a common politic, a way of interacting with others that Christians might call ecclesial or perhaps Spirit-empowered life.” Still More: “Joel Looper has a PhD from the University of Aberdeen. His first book, ‘A Protestantism without Reformation: What Dietrich Bonhoeffer Saw in America’, is forthcoming from Baylor University Press.” Other articles by him include Sex Was Never Safe. Why consent is not enough in the post-Weinstein era, The logical, and theological, problem with Red Letter Christians, and To Change The Church. Ross Douthat’s war with Catholic Liberalism. I thus conclude that he is at the very least thought-provoking, and so I may be reading more of his essays…

The lower image is courtesy of Pipe Dream – Image Results.

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Re:  The Israelite.  Harry Golden grew up in the Jewish ghetto of New York City, but eventually moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.  Thus the “Carolina Israelite.”  I on the other hand am a “classic 69-year-old “WASP” – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – and live in north Georgia.  Thus the “Georgia Wasp.”    

Anyway, in North Carolina Harry wrote and published the “israelite” from the 1940s through the 1960s.  He was a “cigar-smoking, bourbon-loving raconteur.”  (He told good stories.) That also means if he was around today, the “Israelite would be done as a blog.”  But what made Harry special was his positive outlook on life.  As he got older but didn’t turn sour, like many do today.  He still got a kick out of life.  For more on the blog-name connection, see “Wasp” and/or The blog.

2020 – A Christmas like no other?

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“Seattle police wearing masks in December 1918.”  Is this a case of ‘deja vu all over again?

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It’s the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, 2020. Which leads to a question: “Was this past Christmas Day in the crazy, pandemic-plagued year of 2020 truly one ‘like no other?’”

The answer? “Actually, no.” There was for example Christmas in 1918…

Which led me to this article, Was Christmas celebrated during the 1918 Spanish Flu?

A largely unheeded warning from 1918…

For some background, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic started in February that year and lasted until April, 1920. (So, roughly two years and two months?) And in another “deja vu all over again,” the culprit was the H1N1 flu virus. (It also caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic.)

But back to 1918, when there was a little thing called World War I going on. The first recorded such “flu” case in the U.S. was said to come on March 4, 1918, as America geared up to send “our boys” overseas. It was Albert Gitchell, an army cook at Camp Funston in Kansas. (Although there were likely unreported cases before him.) First observed in Haskell County, Kansas, a local doctor –  Loring Miner – warned the US Public Health Service, but to no avail. Within days, 522 men at Camp Funston had reported sick. By March 11, 1918, the virus reached Queens, New York. And in a sign of things to be repeated:

Failure to take preventive measures in March/April was later criticized.

But wait, there’s more! Because the war was raging, censors minimized early reports. That is, they did so in the major countries involved in the war, but not in neutral Spain. There, reports of the disease weren’t censored, which is why the epidemic got the name “Spanish flu.”

From Camp Funston the disease spread through the American Expeditionary Forces, who brought it to Europe and the Western Front by mid-April, 1918. It then spread from France to Great Britain, Italy, Spain and beyond. After the March Treaty of Brest-Litovsk – between Germany and Russia – “Germany started releasing Russian prisoners of war, who then brought the disease to their country.” From there it spread to the rest of the world in four “waves,” with a much-deadlier second wave in late 1918. (With a third wave in 1919 and a fourth in 1920.)

Later that year – on November 11, 1918 – the war ended, and people were so happy they “couldn’t be stopped from gathering to celebrate.” Then too the number of Spanish Flu cases went down toward the end of 1918, so restrictions were eased and many churches “swelled with the joyous music of the [Christmas] season once again.” But as one site noted, “History suggests that celebrating holidays during a pandemic by gathering in large groups, as one might during normal times, could have harmful and long-lasting effects.”

Which may explain the second, third and fourth “waves.” On the other hand, back then “they” had some advantages, as noted in A Look Back at Christmas During the Spanish Flu Pandemic. For one thing, Americans in 1918 were “much more familiar with epidemic disease:”

… epidemic disease was very familiar to the early 20th century public. Families, many of which had lost a child to diphtheria or watched a loved one suffer from polio, were generally willing to comply with some limitations on their activities. Most public health departments wore badges and had police powers, and this was generally uncontroversial. “They could forcibly quarantine you or put you on a quarantine station on an island.”

So much for the “advantage” being familiar with deadly epidemic diseases. But at least they were “willing to comply with some limitations on their activities.” And another point to remember is that – be all that as it may – the United States and the world survived. So much so that if it hadn’t been for this year’s COVID-19 pandemic – illustrated at right – few people today would have any reason to recall the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

Which brings up a link from my last post, December 2020 – and “Bad things to good people?” The gist of that link – Bad Things to Good People? | Psychology Today – was its “scientific” answer: That “the universe has no inherent purpose or design.”

However, the pointy-headed scientist-slash-probably-an-atheist-as-well who came up with that conclusion did offer up some good advice. (“Bless his heart,” as we say in Georgia):

There is much we can do to alleviate each other’s suffering when adversity strikes. Our support and empathy toward our fellow human beings in their time of need helps them not only materially but demonstrates to them that they matter… When we act kindly, it also gives meaning to our own life, as we see that we matter to others.

Which brings up “Christmas spirit.” I Googled “what is the Christmas spirit” and got 4,180,000 results. One answer, from What is Christmas Spirit? – Scientific American Blog Network:

The code of generosity, kindness, and charity toward others is enforced by no one other than ourselves. There are places where this code is strong, and these places (or people) are said to have strong Christmas spirit… After all, we are the sum of the individuals around us who generate the collective force that governs and organizes our social structure… When we “act out” Christmas spirit, we’re making visible this collective force, and we give it power.

Then there’s Christmas Spirit – Its Real Meaning | 7th Sense, which defined that spirit in three simple actions: Giving, Appreciating, and Doing service. Which is pretty much the same advice “pointy-headed scientist-slash-probably-an-atheist-as-well” offered a few paragraphs back…

Which in turn brings up the “mystery” of why this particular plague hit us at this particular time. The short answer? Such “mysteries” – even pandemics – seem to be a part of life. But from them we can learn valuable lessons, like how to develop and grow stronger, spiritually and otherwise. Which means the “answer” to such mysteries largely depends on us. “What will we do with this unexpected calamity? Will we go forward and grow stronger, or turn back the clock and start turning on each other?” In turn, “our” Covid-19 can remind us of our “fragility as human beings,” as noted in a quote from The Plague by Camus, in Part 1, early in the book:

Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.

Which certainly seems true of this latest 2020 pestilence. It certainly came as a surprise. Which brings up a book review from the Salt Lake Tribune on “The Plague,” with this relevant point:

Being alive always was and will always remain an emergency; it is truly an inescapable “underlying condition…” This is what Camus meant when he talked about the “absurdity” of life. Recognizing this absurdity should lead us not to despair but to a tragicomic redemption, a softening of the heart, a turning away from judgment and moralizing to joy and gratitude.

One possible lesson? The current pestilence might lead to a massive change in our present national life, and especially our national political life. The present Coronavirus might lead to a general and sweeping American “softening of the heart.” So with all that in mind:

Merry Christmas, 2020, and may 2021 be a WHOLE lot better!

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A “time of pestilence” can show there are more things to admire in people than to despise…

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The upper image is courtesy of Wikipedia on the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

The “influenza” image was accompanied by a caption: “Rules to reduce the spread of Spanish flu posting by the US Public Health Service. Cough or sneeze into your mouth with a handkerchief, avoid crowded places, do not spit, do not share the use of cups and napkins…. Typographic poster; Unites States, Washington, DC 1918. (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images).”

The image “COVID-19 – illustrated at right” is captioned: “A testing team responds to a confirmed case in a nursing home in Charleston, West Virginia.”

The lower image is courtesy of The Plague – Wikipedia. 

The Mysterious Death of Ashley Wilkes – Revisited

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“Yes, Ashley was quite the Ladies’ man – and not just with his ‘cousin’ Melanie Hamilton…” 

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Now that the Trump Era is almost over… (Referring back to my last post, from December 7.)

It’s that time of year to both look back and look forward. To look back at the Trump era – and especially of this past year – and to look forward to a new beginning, in 2021.

But first – here’s a look back at “The mysterious death of Ashley Wilkes.” I posted that back on September 1, 2015. I followed that up with Introduction to “Ashley Wilkes,” announcing that I’d just published an E-book, a collection of posts from this blog. The title came from my post earlier in 2015, and it was subtitled:  “And other tales from the ‘Georgia Wasp.’”

More recently, this past November I published a newer E-book, (Some of) My Adventures in Old Age. (Subtitled “Or ‘How NICE it was to travel, before COVID.’”) I published that one under a nom de plume, “James B. Ford.” However, I’d published the Wilkes book under “T.D. Scribe.”

Which still sounds strange, even as a pen name, so for reasons including consistency, I just re-published Ashley Wilkes under “James B. Ford.” (Available at Amazon Kindle Books.)

So here’s a look back at that mysterious death, “re-visited.” You can read the whole story in the original post. But since it clocked in at over 3,000 words, here are the highlights. First of all, “Wilkes” – Leslie Howard – was both a hit with the ladies of the time and a suspected British spy. At least the Germans seemed to think so, which is arguably why they shot down BOAC Flight 777, with Howard as a passenger. (From Lisbon to London, “on or about‘ June 1, 1943.”)

One theory for the shoot-down was that Howard was on a top-secret mission – on behalf of Winston Churchill – to persuade Spain’s Francisco Franco not to join the Axis powers. (Germany and Italy. Spain was officially neutral at the time.) Howard’s go-between was said to be Conchita Montenegro (at right), with whom he’d ostensibly had a torrid love affair.

Not to mention his affairs with Tallulah Bankhead and Merle Oberon, two other leading ladies. And while he was said to be something of a ladies’ man, Howard once quipped that he “didn’t chase women but … couldn’t always be bothered to run away” from them either. And by the way, “Conchita” later claimed that she “used her husband’s influence” to secure a meeting between Howard and Franco’s “caudillo while Howard was in Spain on a lecture tour to promote film in May, 1943.” (Talk about broad-minded…)

Another theory had it that the Germans were really after Winston Churchill. He was flying back to London via the same or a similar route about the same time. Churchill had just spent a month in North Africa. The North Africa Campaign was just ending, and Allied leaders were planning the invasion of Sicily and Italy. The normal stop-over for such trips from North Africa to London was Lisbon, in ostensibly-neutral Portugal. (Often via Gibraltar.)

And during the war, Lisbon was a hotbed of “trade, conspiracy, and subterfuge.” (Lisbon was the destination of refugees in the movie Casablanca.) And German spies saw two men who looked like Churchill and his bodyguard at the Lisbon airport. But by a strange coincidence, Lesley Howard was said to resemble Churchill’s lone bodyguard. At the same time, Howard’s “close friend and business manager, Alfred Chenhalls,” was said to resemble Churchill:

A long-standing hypothesis states that the Germans believed that Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was on board the flight. Churchill, in his autobiography, expressed sorrow that a mistake about his activities might have cost Howard his life.

Another note: His airliner was shot down some nine months after the release of his 1942 movie Spitfire. That came three years after Howard starred in 1939’s Gone with the Wind. (A poster for “Spitfire” is at left.) That 1942 movie was originally called The First of the Few in Britain. (The name was changed to “Spitfire” for American audiences.) Howard played “R.J. Mitchell, who designed the Supermarine Spitfire.”

The British title alluded to Winston Churchill‘s speech attributing victory in the Battle of Britain to “the few.”  (That is, the few men who piloted British fighters in the battle, and especially those who flew the Spitfire.)  As Churchill put it, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Less than nine months later after “Spitfire’s” release, Howard’s airliner was attacked by eight Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88C6 fighter aircraft. The airliner – with 16 other passengers and crew – was attacked some 500 miles west of Bordeaux. The plane – or parts of it – came down in the Bay of Biscay, 200 miles north of La Coruña, on the far northwestern tip of Spain.

As to why the Luftwaffe shot down the airliner, here’s what Wikipedia said of Howard:

He was active in anti-German propaganda and reputedly involved with British or Allied Intelligence, which may have led to his death in 1943[.  He] was shot down over the Bay of Biscay, sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death.

Meanwhile, Churchill and his plane may have been saved because of bad weather. His original plan was to change planes in Gibraltar. Instead of transferring to a more-comfortable Pan American Boeing 314 Clipper – also known as the Pan Am “Flying Boat” – he had to continue his flight to London on a bomber. That plane was the definitely uncomfortable B-24 Liberator.

So there may be a lesson there. As the old proverb goes: “Better to continue on in discomfort, rather than getting your ass shot down by eight Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88C6 fighter aircraft!”

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The upper and lower images are courtesy of Ashley Wilkes – Image Results. For other image sources see the original post(s) from 2015.

Now that the Trump Era is almost over…

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Now that the Trump Era is almost over…

Or at least now that his first run-through as president is almost over… (But see Trump’s Possible 2024 Bid Leaves Other GOP Candidates in a Bind.) So to repeat, “Now that at least the first incarnation of a Trump Era is almost over,” it’s time to start looking back. 

Which is what many of us do near year’s-end anyway. I Googled “why do we do year-end reviews” and found these two: How to Conduct a Year-End Review and Why You Need to Do it, and Why You Should Do a Year-End Review for Your Writing. Here’s a bit from the first one:

Ever since I began writing personal goals, December has been a month of reflection and planning. I tend to slow down, take a step back, and think about how I feel the previous year went. I take time to reflect on what I accomplished and what I want in the upcoming year.

Though  did say “these check-ins are frustrating” some years, she added that still, such reviews are “opportunities to learn from my mistakes and find a better way.” 

Then there’s the Review for Your Writing article. (And since I’m a writer I paid special attention to that. E.g., read about my recently-published e-book in “(Some of) My Adventures in Old Age.”) Anyway, this is what the writer  said about such year-end reviews:

A year-end review is about experiencing gratitude … that we made the choice to write instead of watch television or procrastinate… It’s important to note that this isn’t just a feel-good exercise. You can’t move forward – with your writing, your life, or anything else – if you haven’t made peace with where you’ve been.

Which is what I’ll be doing a lot of in the remaining three-or-so weeks of this eventful “Year of Our Lord” 2020. But we were talking about “Now that the Trump Era is almost over…”

Which makes this a good time to go back and review some early posts I did on Donald Trump. And – possibly – some of the hopes I had for him. Like that he might turn out to be the “closet liberal” Ted Cruz once suspected. (See Cruz: Trump [is] a ‘rich, New York liberal,’ 2/26/16.)

One early post with an allusion to Donald Trump came in October 2016, “No city for Grouchy Old White People.” (Part I.) In it I described a summer visit to New York City, with a family-base in Staten Island. One thing I noted was that – in that summer of ’16 – the City was a “refreshing reminder that there’s more to this country than just the right-wing wackos so prevalent back home.” (Trump’s campaign was heating up.) I quoted a Facebook post from September 22:

Ever since last Saturday, September 17, we’ve been taking the Staten Island ferry into and back from Manhattan Island. So that’s eight times – twice a day for four days now – that we’ve seen the Statute of Liberty, off in the distance…  And I don’t remember ONCE seeing a sign that said, “the heck with your tired, your poor,” those “wretched refuse … yearning to breathe free.”  WE’RE GONNA BUILD A FRIKKIN WALL!“

Which was either irony or sarcasm. (I often get those two confused.) Anyway I ended Part I by noting that with all its diversity and relative tolerance, “the Big Apple is ‘No city for Grouchy Old White People.’” (Who seemed to be so prevalent, “back home” and elsewhere.)

I followed that with “No city for Grouchy Old White People” – Part II. I noted that on our many rides on the subway and Staten Island Ferry, “we did a lot of people-watching, of the ‘passing panoply.’” And especially on the crowded subways, we listened “to all kinds of languages spoken by all kinds of different people.” Which was one thing making the visit so refreshing…

And just as an aside: The day we left to go our separate ways – Thursday, September 22 – I kayaked across the Verrazano Narrows. Mostly following the Bridge of the same name, and here’s a picture “down below” to prove it. I took it half-way back to Staten Island. Note that the waters are choppy, and in fact WAY choppier than when I started. It only took 20 minutes to get from Staten Island to Brooklyn, so I toyed with the idea of cruising along the Atlantic side of Brooklyn awhile. But I headed back while still fresh, as detailed in “Part II.”

Anyway, getting back on topic: I ended Part II with a zinger about the kind of people – I feared – who would end up voting for Trump as president. I took the photo below during our visit to the Museum of Natural History, on September 19. And added, “With all the talk of politics lately, I figured this would be a good one size fits all insult, for whatever political opponent you may have in mind.” (Though I knew the kind of political opponent I had in mind.) I then wrote:

“So here’s my gift to you, a souvenir from my recent [2016] visit to New York City:

Here’s a typical [- fill in the blank – ] voter!”

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The upper image is courtesy of Looking Back The Past Year – Image Results. The image accompanied an article, “Inspiring Quotes to Start Off the New Year in 2019.” (How innocent we were…) 

I took the above picture on September 19. Note that I reviewed this Summer of 2016 visit in Looking back on “the summer of ’16,” last February 2020. One final note: I’ll be doing more Trump’s-end and year-end postmortems in the remaining weeks of December 2020, and possibly beyond! 

On the old (2015) “For a book version…”

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An editor’s note:  I originally did this post – on a book about the “mysterious death of Ashley Wilkes” – in 2015. It was a “Page” link – along with ABOUT THAT “WASP” NAME and ABOUT THE BLOG – at the top of the main page. This was shortly after I published “The Mysterious Death of Ashley Wilkes,” discussed below.  Again, that was in October 2015, which gives you an idea how long it’s been since I’ve published a book.

But then in November 2020 I published a new book, described in the post “On ‘(Some of) My Adventures in Old Age.'” Which brings up at least one note: The nom de plume I used for the 2015 Ashley Wilkes book was “T.D. Scribe.” (Short for “The DOR Scribe.”)

Since then I’ve been using a new pen name, “James B. Ford.” And for the record, I’ll be re-publishing “Mysterious Death” and some other books under that fake name under the newer “James B. Ford.” But for now you can go to Amazon.com: Kindle eBooks and type in “James B. Ford” to locate the blurb on “Adventures in Old Age.” Meanwhile here’s the original 2015 “For a book version:”]

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[From October 2015:] I just published a collection of posts from this blog.  (As noted in the Introduction to “Ashley Wilkes.”) The title of the book came from a post I did back on September 1.  (The “strange” death of Ashley Wilkes – and other tales from the Georgia Wasp.)

The cover features the poster above left, at the top of the page. The poster came from the movie Spitfire, originally titled The First of the Few in Britain. The film was released in Britain on September 12, 1942. Less than nine months later – “on or about” June 1, 1943 – Lesley Howard’s airliner was shot down by eight LuftwaffeJunkers Ju 88C6 fighters over the Bay of Biscay. It may have been an accident.  The Germans may have been really after Winston Churchill. Or Howard – “Ashley Wilkes” – may have been the dangerous British spy the Germans thought he was.

As noted, this fascinating tale and others like it are now available in book form.  As far as how to get the book – in either the Kindle or paperback version, see “Intro to Ashley:”

To get an e-book, go to Amazon.com: Kindle eBooks and type in “T. D. Scribe.”  (That’s my nom de plume.)  Or type in “Ashley Wilkes.”  To order the paperback version, go to Shop Books – Lulu and do the same.  (Where the book should be the fifth one down, if you type in “T. D. Scribe,” or right on top if you type “Ashley Wilkes.”)

And now a word about “T.D. Scribe.” That’s the nom de plume I used in my original blog, dorscribe.com. This second blog – modeled on the Carolina Israelite – is devoted to more secular subjects and an homage to Harry Golden. For example, this blog lets me explore such varied topics as Oscar Wilde and “gross indecencies,” “When adultery was proof of ‘loyalty,’” ‘Mi Dulce’ – and Donald Trump – made me a Contrarian, and any number of Travelogs…

But back to the Wilkes book: On the paperback version, here’s the blurb from “Lulu:”

This collection of posts from the “Georgia Wasp” web log starts with “the mysterious death of Ashley Wilkes…”  It ends by asking the musical question: “Whether Moses – some 3,300 years ago – was the first guy to say, ‘It’s only weird if it doesn’t work!’”  (At the Battle of Rephidim. “Hey, you could look it up!”)

As noted in “Intro,” I now have my first book-collection of essays.  In turn, that collection may eventually be seen as a worthy reflection of Harry’s first such effort, 1958’s Only in America.  As the old saying goes:  “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Although to Oscar Wilde – seen below – such imitation was “the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”  (Which may of course be also true…)

And just as an aside, I’ll shortly be updating the “For a book version” link at the top of the Home page with information on how to get my newest e-book, (Some of) My Adventures in Old Age. (Subtitled “Or ‘How NICE it was to travel, before COVID.’”)

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Oscar Wilde Sarony.jpg

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The image immediately above is courtesy of Oscar Wilde – Wikipedia.

See also Quote by Oscar Wilde: “Imitation is the sincerest form…”  But finally, see also a separate “Goodreads” article, Quotes About Imitation (76 quotes) – Goodreads.  The latter included the following pithy observations at odds with Wilde’s “acerbic and iconoclastic wit:”

“Through others we become ourselves.”
― Lev S. Vygotsky

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood

“Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery – it’s the sincerest form of learning.”
― George Bernard Shaw

and finally, this:

“There is only one thing which is generally safe from plagiarism — self-denial.”
― G.K. Chesterton.

On “(Some of) My Adventures in Old Age…”

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To see more images of the “meanest 33 miles in history,” go to Chilkoot Trail – Image Results…

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

This blog is modeled on the Carolina Israelite. That was an old-time newspaper – more like a personal newsletter – written and published by Harry Golden. Back in the 1950s, people called him a  “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.” (For his work on the Israelite.)

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

(Some of) My Adventures in Old Age: Or, “How NICE it was to travel, before COVID” by [James B. Ford]I just published a new E-book, (Some of) My Adventures in Old Age. (“Or ‘How NICE it was to travel, before COVID.'”) It’s published under my nom de plume, “James B. Ford.” The cover photo – at right – shows me in Jerusalem in May 2019, wearing a “shemagh.” Also called a keffiyeh, I got it at Ranger Joe’s in Ft. Benning before leaving for Israel. (To “blend in.”) I’m wearing it over my black Atlanta United ball cap, thus “blending in” the best of the old and new.

In the blurb I wrote for Amazon Kindle eBooks, I said this book should be timely – “in the middle of our Covid-19 pandemic” – because right now “lots of Americans can only dream about visiting such exotic locales in the future, when the crisis passes.”

I compared it to the 1920s and ‘30s, when so many Americans were fascinated by Hemingway’s books on France and Spain. (Like “The Sun Also Rises ” and “A Moveable Feast.”)

I’m guessing part of it was that back then most Americans could only DREAM of travel to such exotic places. (Like today with Covid…) Then too it may be because Hemingway gave all those exotic street names and local pubs and restaurants. Like my finding the “BEERBAZAAR,” in Jerusalem, in May 2019. Which makes me think I should have written down way more information when I was “over there.” Then I could do more what Hemingway did, vivid description. But I have something Hemingway didn’t have. GOOGLE MAPS!

Then too – aside from my May 2019 pilgrimage to Israel – the book includes chapters on hiking the Chilkoot Trail in 2016. (“Meanest 33 miles in history,” exemplified by the top photo.) Or hiking the Camino de Santiago, twice. The first time was in 2017. I met my brother in Pamplona – home of Hemingway’s Café Iruna – and together we hiked (and biked) the 450 miles to Santiago de Compostela. (He flew into Paris and hiked over the Pyrenees, but the Chilkoot Trail had cured me of any such wishes to go hiking over mountains again so soon.)

Incidentally, the last two chapters of the book are based on my last two posts, Here’s that second post on the Portuguese Camino, and “They sell beer at the McDonald’s in Portugal!”

That last post was really long – “Word count 3450” – or three thousand four hundred fifty words. Mostly because I had a lot to fit in, but to balance things out I’ll make this post shorter. The upshot is that I wrote about a lot of great adventures, but still had more to write about. Plus those I did cover I didn’t do full justice to. (Which reminds me of the joke about the Southern lady talking to a Northern lady and ending a sentence with a preposition.*)

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There’s more on that later, but first a couple production notes on the E-book. First off, you’ll notice that on page 6 of the Introduction – right after the paragraph beginning “May 28, 2019, Tel Aviv” – the line spacing goes all kerflooey. From justified it goes to non-justified text, and the line spacing gets wider. It goes back to normal for the next one-line paragraph – “Then the COVID hit” – but the text stays non-justified through near the  middle of the next page. (It says page 6 again; there are apparently two “page 6’s.”) Then it goes back to justified text.

I tried correcting it, uploading a second and ostensibly-corrected Word document, but it stayed the same, kerflooey for a page or two. Another note: I had the “Observations” at the end of many chapters in italics and non-justified, as well as the notes at the end of the book. The program made all those justified type. And for the paperback version the publishing program required a minimum of 100 pages, so I had to add four pages to the original 96.

So I’ll try to upload a corrected version, with the additional four pages and with a proper note at the very end as to where to buy a paperback version. I’ll let you know how it goes…

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Meanwhile, back to the subject of the book not doing justice to all my adventures…

For one example, as to the Portuguese Camino hike: I only got “us” as far as the Casa Límia in Ponte de Lima. That’s only about a third of the way up to Santiago de Compostela. Then too I could only provide limited coverage of my pilgrimage to Israel, which I last covered in This time last year – in Jerusalem, in May 2020. And by the way, that post has a lot of those “image may contain” boxes, that used to be pictures I posted, to make the posts more interesting. And which in turn is a problem I address in the book. And that’s why I now use lead captions like “To see more images of the ‘meanest 33 miles in history,’ go to Chilkoot Trail – Image Results.” That makes it much easier to transmogrify these blog-posts into future picture-less book chapters.

And about that Jerusalem trip. I described the Leonardo Moria Hotel, a short walk from St. George’s Pilgrim Guest House, with a lounge sometimes functioning as a piano bar. (Once even having a yarmulke-topped pianist playing the Chicken Dance.) That turned out to be a favorite watering hole, not just for me but eventually many of my fellow pilgrims at St. George’s. (One night, for a birthday, “we” had 17 pilgrims there. I should have gotten a commission…)

So one point of this “limited coverage” business is that in the future I’ll have to do at least one Sequel. (Tentatively titled “(More of) My Adventures in Old Age.”) In it I hope to add more oversea-travel adventures, including a return to St. George’s. (Once we kick COVID’s ass.)

Stay tuned!!!

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The upper image is courtesy of Chilkoot Trail – Image Results. See also Explore the Chilkoot Trail – Klondike Gold Rush. The lower image is courtesy of St George’s College Jerusalem – Image Results. 

Re: “Joke about the Southern lady.” Or it could be a “snobbish English teacher.” See Ending a sentence with a preposition. : Jokes: “A snobbish English teacher was sitting in an Atlanta airport coffee shop waiting for her flight back to Connecticut, when a friendly Southern Belle sat down next to her. ‘Where y’all goin’ to?’ asked the Southern Belle. Turning her nose in the air, the snob replied ‘I don’t answer people who end their sentences with prepositions.’ The Southern Belle thought a moment, and tried again. ‘Where y’all goin’ to, BITCH?'” The way I heard was, “So where y’all from?” And the Southern lady eventually thinking a bit, then sayin, “Okay, so where y’all from, bitch?”

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Re:  The Israelite.  Harry Golden grew up in the Jewish ghetto of New York City, but eventually moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.  Thus the “Carolina Israelite.”  I on the other hand am a “classic 69-year-old “WASP” – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – and live in north Georgia.  Thus the “Georgia Wasp.”    

Anyway, in North Carolina Harry wrote and published the “israelite” from the 1940s through the 1960s.  He was a “cigar-smoking, bourbon-loving raconteur.”  (He told good stories.) That also means if he was around today, the “Israelite would be done as a blog.”  But what made Harry special was his positive outlook on life.  As he got older but didn’t turn sour, like many do today.  He still got a kick out of life.  For more on the blog-name connection, see “Wasp” and/or The blog.

“They sell beer at the McDonald’s in Portugal!”

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For more images of the Portuguese Way – my last (2019) hiking adventure –  see Wikipedia…

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I’m putting together a new book, and this will be the last chapter. (Chapter 14.) The book – “(Some of) My Adventures in Old Age” – will end with an episode from my last overseas adventure. The last chapter will be, “They sell beer at the McDonald’s in Portugal!”

Which I thought pretty noteworthy.

That was back in September 2019.That’s when my brother, his wife and I hiked the Portuguese Camino. So this post (chapter) continues my last post on the hike: Here’s that second post on the Portuguese Camino. (Chapter 13 in the book.) And incidentally, the photo atop the page shows the “Douro river and Dom Luís Bridge,” near sunset. (Courtesy of Wikipedia.) The morning we left Porto we hiked west, right under that same Dom Luis Bridge.

We were headed off on a 150-mile (or so) hike to Santiago, partly by way of the Coastal Camino Route. That’s the “stunning and very scenic alternative route to the classic Portuguese Camino. Starting in colorful UNESCO-listed Porto this Camino trail will take you to charming seaside towns and villages in Northern Portugal, along the superb Atlantic Coast.”

But of course – being generally “contrary” – we only went part way up the Coastal Route. We left Porto Monday, September 2. We hiked the Coastal Route for two days and got to Vila do Conde the afternoon of Tuesday, September 3. From there we “shunted over to the main Portuguese Route and headed north from there,” that is, north from Barcelos.  

My last post – “Second Portuguese” – gave an overview of the trip, noting how we got up as far as Ponte de Lima. And again, that’s about a third of the way up to Santiago. For this “chapter” – blog post – I’ll quote some Facebook posts I did on the way. (At or near the event in question.)

And again, I’ll end this book with the dramatic discovery, “they sell beer at the McDonald’s in Portugal!” Which is something I didn’t learn until we got to the “McDonald’s – Ponte de Lima.” So as in “Greetings from the Portuguese Camino,” I’ll end this chapter at Ponte de Lima.

Which means I’ll have to write at least one sequel…

So, to “start at the very beginning, a very good place to start,” here’s a list of the days and dates in question, beginning with the day we left Porto:

Monday, September 2: First day, from Porto to Cabo do Mundo, we hiked nine miles, to Casa Velha. (10.8 miles according to Tom’s calculations.) Early in the morning I wrote, “Today we left Porto behind, kinda. Our first stop came 90 minutes and three and a half miles from our start at the Cathedral. [I had] OJ and a very rich, chocolatey [dessert-like] thing. I figured I earned it.”

We hiked west along the Douro, on the Porto side, then hit the Atlantic and swung north. It’s a less traveled scenic alternative to the main Camino Portuguese. “Lots of beachside resorts, bathing beauties, and of course some old pot-bellied guys in speedos.”

I took a picture of the boardwalk section, winding along the shore, then posted:

First days hike is history. West through Porto – with shady spots and sidewalk cafes – and out to the coast. Then north. Made Cabo do Mundo, 10.8 miles. Nothing too sore. Good first hike.

Tuesday, September 3: The second day we hiked 10.2 miles to Vila do Conde, and the Hotel Brazao. I took pictures of the morning and early afternoon beachside, much of it along a boardwalk. Once we reached Vila do Conde, we left the Coastal Route and started heading east and north, over towards the main Camino Portuguese. I wrote, “Near the end of the day we negotiated a closed-in foresty place, with a narrow two-lane cobblestone road with LOTS of cars whizzing by, on the way to Vila do Conde.”

The following morning, September 4, I posted:

Good morning from Vila do Conde, Portugal. Yesterday we hiked 10.2 miles, from Cabo do Mundo to Vila do Conde. The pictures show the last stretch before we got to the bridge into town. No more beachside vistas, we’re on the main Camino now, not the scenic side route. Today a mere six miles, so we’re pillaging a bit.

That “pillaging” came from the auto-correct on my tablet. The same feature that changed each “do” or “de” – common in Portuguese – to “Dr.” Every stinkin’ time! So it had me “pillaging” instead of “lollygagging,” like I wrote. I added that tomorrow we had “a 13 mile hike, then a day off Friday. My feet aren’t TOO sore, and the 15 pound pack is pretty much adjusted, strap-wise. And that’s ‘lollygagging’ a bit. No pillaging so far…”

The Hotel Brazao in Vila do Conde was the last place on the Coastal Route for us. Google Maps said it was 6.6 miles to Villa d’Arcos, but “we” figured 6.3.

Wednesday, September 4: This morning, as we got ready to head out again, I saw a van taking luggage for some other “pilgrims” ahead to their next stop. Which meant all they had to carry – hiking – was a day pack. Not the pack we carried, 10 percent of body weight. (In my case 15 pounds.) That “10%” pack held all our worldly goods, for the duration of the hike. Tom calls the light day-packs “pansy packs.” (He actually used another, more earthy epithet, but I figure this book is family oriented.) And I wrote on Facebooke about “wussie – boys who don’t want to ‘pack their own gear.’ WIMPS! What the hell kind of pilgrimage is that?”

You know, without the sore feet, the aching back and such?

Anyway, because we had some time – a mere 6.3 mile hike to Villa d’Arcos – we did some touristy stuff in the morning. We visited the Museu de Construção Naval (Shipbuilding Museum), and also parts of the Convent of Santa Clara

The Convent of Santa Clara was closed but the Cathedral next door was open. It was there Tom made a “new bestest buddy Fernando – from the cathedral,” who “bent his ear for a good long time, much of it in indecipherable Portuguese.” I took a great picture of them as they chatted, with a view from the hilltop, with the river and ocean in the background.

We ended the day at Villa d’Arcos. It’s not a city. It’s a four-star hotel at Rua da Alegria 38. “From there we hike to Barcelos tomorrow. Tom booked the Hotel Bagoeira for two nights.” Villa d’Arcos is a shade over six miles from Vila do Conde, but as noted we got a late start. I took pictures of the aqueduct in Vila do Conde, “and some narrow streets like we had to hike through today.” And the Villa d’ Arcos itself was a “nice swanky place with a mini-bar in my room, and a local-color cafe down the road to eat. (A light snack. We had a heavy meal on the road.) So tomorrow we’ll be joining up with the main Camino hereabouts.”

Not much of a hike, mile-wise, but a “dearth of Camino signs. Plus lots of narrow walled-in streets, roads, lanes, alleys, whatever to negotiate. But we ended up in a Happy Place, with a beautiful sun setting in the west… And the morning and the evening were the third day,” of hiking that is. (See Genesis 1:13.) “Tomorrow 13 miles…”

Thursday, September 5: We stopped for lunch in Pedra Furada, “after a LOOONG stretch of nary a place to stop, in between here and Villa d’Arcos where we started.” We’d hiked about eight of the day’s total 13 miles before finding a place to stop for lunch. (We’d gotten up and started early.) During lunch I posted this on Facebook, with a picture I took of a fellow pilgrim:

Good 12:30 noonish from Pedra Furada, Portugal. We’re headed to Barcelos and a day off tomorrow, after a 13-mile hike today. Only one Super Bock for lunch, plus a cheese and tomato sandwich. I followed up the cerveza with a Lipton Pessego iced tea. [Thirsty.] Outside the front door a fellow Caminista spritzes his bald head with sunscreen, fixin’ to head north.

Friday, September 6: To clarify, we checked in for our first day off on Thursday, September 5. Friday, September 6 was that day off, and we enjoyed the sites of Barcelos and nearby Braga. Braga is home of the “Bom Jesus do Monte” church. (“Good Jesus of the Mount.”) It was quite a sight from the top of that mountain. Then we hit the road again Saturday, September 7.

That pretty much became the pattern. Four days hiking, increasing the number of miles hiked per day, with the fourth day ending after a long day’s hike. So we hiked 13 miles on September 5 and reached Hotel Bagoeira in Barcelos for our first day off. On September 6 we did some sightseeing, including a bus trip to Braga. A beautiful city, especially in the center square. Lots of marigolds and churches. But in the middle of that bus trip I had some business to attend to.

I originally booked a train back from Santiago – once the hike was over – to spend two nights in Lisbon before leaving for home. Then I changed my mind and figured it’d be better to spend one of those nights in Porto. So after the 45-minute bus trip to Braga, we split up and went our separate ways. I went to change my Comboios (train) ticket, back from Porto to Lisbon, and in the process had a 1:00 lunch of Portuguese lasagna. “Very cheesy, filled with hunks of ham, and VERY good.” Once I’d changed the tickets I posted this on Facebook:

Quite the “Mission Accomplished!” this morning. For various reasons I wanted to change my return trip plans to spend one more night in Porto and not two nights in Lisbon. But the 9/23 ticket was already paid for. Long story short, I had my was of Euros read to pay the 56.50, but the nice clerk said, “No no, same price, you already paid!”

That wasn’t supposed to be “was of Euros.” It was another example of my tablet’s “stupid autocorrect.” What I meant to say was “wad of Euros.”

Which brings up a good point. Both here and in Israel (back in May) I was often in the situation of not knowing the right rate of exchange, and so could have been easily cheated. But in general both store clerks and public officials were very attentive, and honest. Like the guy who exchanged my ticket and saw my “wad of Euros.” He could have said to himself, “I’ve got a dumb American sucker on my hands!” And charged me the 56.50 Euros, then pocketed it. Much like the guy I bought that “Tapazino” from on my first morning in Jerusalem. I was pleasantly surprised by all this, but of course wouldn’t want to make a habit of it…

After changing train tickets I had had some time before meeting up with the others, so I figured the “Mission Accomplished” warranted a celebratory cerveza. I stopped at a cafe around the corner from the Comboios station. I posted two pictures, one a selfie of me in a state of happy bliss, and one of the passing scene I was looking at.

Later we met up and took another bus ride, up to the top of a nearby mountain to see that “Bom Jesus do Monte.” Quite a site. I took quite a few pictures. After that we stopped at a sidewalk café in the Braga’s city center, with lots of beautiful fountains. Then took the 45 minute bus ride back to Barcelos. It felt good to be sitting instead of hiking. I ended the day posting, “Tomorrow we get back to hiking, a ‘mere’ ten miles, not the 13 that did a job on my feet.”

Saturday, September 7: This day we ended up at Casas da Quinta da Cancela. (Expedia says it’s in Barcelos, but it’s actually Balugaes.) If you check on Google Maps, you’ll see a large complex surrounded by a high stone wall. With no sign – on the N308 part of the Camino – to indicate how to get in. Carol wrote this later, once we got back, to accompany some photos:

After you walked ten plus miles for the day, then comes the fun (and most times agonizing) job of searching for the hotel. I am uncertain of how much land the villa had but it was surrounded by this rock wall in its entirety. On the opposite end of this wall (guessing three or four acres) was the Camino we came in on. There is a gate in the rock wall that went to the villa, but no sign to indicating such. We walked up and down the Camino [N308] numerous times looking for it. Finally [she and I] parked ourselves on a corner while Tom went down a couple of blocks. He ran into group of men and one offered to give him (backpack and all) a ride on his motorcycle to it. Tom declined and another man walked us to it. Many times, you rely on the kindness of strangers during your journey.

Which is true. The entrance is on the other side of the complex, away from the N308.

And as to finding the entrance to what turned out to be a lovely Quinta da Cancela, with separate small villas for rent, here’s what I wrote: “That’s where we had a hell of a time finding the entrance. It’s a big walled-in space with the entrance on the other side of the N308 that runs through – actually is – the Camino in that stretch.” I too noted “Tom had to walk down to the intersection with the N204 and ask directions. There was only one restaurant in that one intersection town (Balugaes), the Cantinho dos Sabores.”

That’s where we ate once we got checked in and “refreshed.” I added, “The food was pretty good, but as I remember the service was pretty slow. But there was beer…”

In fact the service was so slow that by the time we got back it was way after dark, and the gate by the N308 was locked. We had to climb over a chest-high stone wall. Tom climbed over first and tried to unlock the gate from the inside. No luck. So I had to “assist” Carol over the wall, then climb over myself. (“And no one to take a video!”)

Sunday, September 8: Today we reached Casa Límia in Ponte de Lima, a third of the way on our hike, but where this book will end. (I’ll be writing a sequel.) One thing I noted on Facebook:

Greetings from Ponte de Lima, Portugal. Sorry about the lapse, but the Wi-Fi yesterday evening sucked. This morning at 10:10 I was hiking along listening to my iPod Shuffle, and a very old sermon by Father Paul came on.

“Father Paul” used to be the priest at our Episcopal church. I’m not sure how his sermon got on my iPod Shuffle, but likely it was from the time I volunteered three mornings a week. I did quite a bit of work on the church Office Mac, and had an account to download music. Father Paul also persuaded me to update the parish newsletter and website, after I mentioned I had a Master’s Degree in Journalism. And working the parish website is what gave me the experience and impetus to get into blogging. Which is how I came to write this book…

So anyway, in his sermon he talked about the lousy winter weather on that long-ago Sunday, and about dreaming of days at the beach, and about one time having a casting net. From there he went to some fisherman-Apostles “dropping their nets,” then getting on with REAL life. It made sense listening to the sermon, but it’s hard to translate all that into a short blurb in this chapter. But I did note that “I got a few chuckles hiking along the dry dusty Camino.” And I thought it appropriate to hear this reprise sermon on a Sunday; I’d been routinely listening to my music on the hike and hadn’t heard it before. (“A message from God?”)

I posted on Facebook that we’d made 11 [plus] miles, “complete with an iPod Shuffle sermon from Father Paul, from a few winters ago. And had a helluva time finding this rental place. (Which seemed to happen quite a lot.)” For the second day in a row we had a tough time finding the night’s lodging; in this case, the one in Ponte de Lima. But there was a reward to come…

I added that “we busted ass today. And my sore feet can prove it!”

So about 8:00 p.m. we were on our way out to dinner at the nearby McDonald’s, “sore feet and all – and got invited to a ‘porch’ party.” There were two other couples in the three-story Casa, as I recall. They all spoke limited English, but were nice enough to share some of their libations. We accepted, then went off to the McDonald’s. It was there – at the fancy-schmancy kiosk – that I saw that they did indeed sell beer, along with Big Macs, etc. Later I posted:

We had dinner at McDonald’s, with a couple cervezas for me. Then a nightcap – or so we thought – at a bar up the street. Then ran into the party-goers from earlier, staying at the same complex. They FORCED us to have some dessert and “grava” on the way in. I suppose there’s a lesson there: Bust your ass and get rewarded – in some indirect way. BUEN CAMINO! Or, “the Camino provides!” I suppose there’s a lesson there somewhere …

In other words the party-goers we’d met on the way out were still there partying on the porch when we got back. “AND A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY All!”

So Ponte de Lima is now known – to me anyway – as where I found out that “they sell beer at the McDonald’s in Portugal.” And where we got invited to a “porch party.” And for those who may be interested, that McDonald’s is at “Rua Salvato Feijo 17,” in Ponte de Lima.

Monday, September 9: That’s the day we headed off to Rubiães, but that and the rest of the hike’s adventures will be the subject for my upcoming Sequel…

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The upper image is courtesy of the Portuguese Way article in Wikipedia.

The lower image is courtesy of Rubiaes Camino – Image Results. It’s accompanied by an article, The Journey from Within, which included an interesting experiment that pilgrim noted, on being oblivious in everyday life. The experiment involved a “fiddler” at a major-city metro station, who played the violin while reporters observed and recorded by-passer response:

In the 45 minutes that the fiddler played, more than 1,100 people walked by, but only seven (!) stopped for at least a minute to enjoy the performance. When asked upon exiting the station, many people didn’t even recall their path crossed a musician, only a few feet away.

It turned out the man, “in jeans and t-shirt, was Joshua Bell, one of the best violinists in the world.” His normal rate of pay? “$1,000 a minute. That day at the metro, playing an incredibly difficult piece on one of the most valuable violins ever made bought Bell a total of $32.17 in donations.”

Again, a lesson there. “Stop and smell the frikkin’ roses!” And the link in the main text is to 4. From Ponte de Lima to Rubiães – Camino de Santiago.

Here’s that second post on the Portuguese Camino…

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To see images of the Portuguese Way – my last (2019) hiking adventure – Google Wikipedia…

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I’m putting together a new book, “(Some of) My Adventures in Old Age.”

I’ll describe some of my adventures, from back when it was possible to travel and have such adventures. I’ll end the book with my last overseas adventure, from September 2019. That’s when I hiked the Portuguese Camino from Porto “back up” to Santiago de Compostela. (I hiked and biked the French Way – from Pamplona to Santiago – with my brother in 2017.)

Which led me to the last post I actually did on the trip. Back in October, 2019, I posted   “Greetings from the Portuguese Camino.” But that post only got as far as Ponte de Lima: “We started out on the Coastal Route after Porto, then shunted over to the Inland Route. There – among other rivers – we crossed the Lima River at Ponte de Lima.” Since Google Maps has the distance from Porto to Ponte de Lima as 51 miles or so, and since they had the distance from Porto to Santiago de Compostela as 153 miles, that meant I only covered a third of the hike.

Which is why I ended the Greetings post with this: “I’ll be writing more about our Portuguese Camino adventure, but in the meantime: The good memories weren’t just limited to Cruzcampo, Sagres, Mahou and Super Bock…” (Four Portuguese beers.) But I also wrote about the trip in my companion blog. I called it  Just got back – Portuguese Camino, and started off with the same “boy are my arms tired” schtick as the  “Greetings” post:

I just flew back from Lisbon in Portugal. “And, boy, are my arms tired!” But seriously, I did just finish a 160-mile hike* on the Portuguese Camino. I flew to Lisbon on August 28 and flew back [home] on September 25, and so technically was gone a full month.

I had some notes on flying into Lisbon and getting to my hotel room. “Another red-eye flight, just like the one I made to Tel Aviv and Israel last May.” I also learned early on that – as far as Lisbon goes – the internet lied about cheap Portuguese taxis. (Bonjour!)  Instead of a four-Euro ride to my hotel – as I’d been led to believe – it was more like 15 Euros. Which wasn’t that bad, for one ride anyway. But luckily I hooked up with the Lisbon Metro.

I took the Red Line Metro train from “Aeroporto” station and got off at Saldanha station. My “Hotel Alif” was right across from Campo Pequeno. It’s a famous bull ring togged out like one of our football stadiums, but with lots of restaurants open on weekdays. It’s circular, with the bull-ring in the middle, and all around the perimeter they have restaurants, along with stairs, restrooms and the like. Much like our football or baseball stadiums. (That first day I got yelled at for cutting through one of the restaurants, getting acquainted with the area. Next night I went back to that restaurant for dinner and got served by the same waiter. He seemed a lot nicer then.)

Also next day – Friday, August 30 – I did some touristy stuff, including a visit to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (“Monument to the Discoveries”). That’s been a lifelong dream, or at least it has been since 1979, when I made my first trip to Europe and couldn’t make it to Lisbon.

For a small fee I took the elevator up to the observation tower.

There I heard three young ladies talking, and I could actually understand what they were saying, mostly. (A welcome change.) It turned out they were from Australia. I also visited the Museu de Marinha (Navy Museum), a few blocks up from the Monument. I crossed through the Praça do Império, the city square and park between the two museums. There was a “Loja” at the Pavilhão das Galeotas, displaying “royal vessels.” This was across a square from the main entrance. They served beer at the Loja, so before going over to the entrance I stopped and enjoyed a “Sagres.” (Which became one of my four favorite Portuguese beers.)

On Saturday, the 31st, I took a train up to Porto, coming in at Campanhã station. I met up with Tom and Carol, who were waiting at the station. (Thankfully.) I’d booked a room at the Oporto Brothers Hostel, Rua da Alegria 919. They’d gotten a place at Rua Antero Quental 374, a 12-minute walk from my hostel. It’s a 16-minute walk via the Rua da Constituição, but that’s one of the main drags in Porto. I’ve found that the name of a major street can come in handy if you get lost in a city where they don’t speak your language. But in case you can’t pronounce it right (“Rua da Constituição”), it helps to have it written down.

So, I unloaded my pack at Oporto Brothers, then we spent the next day and a half sightseeing. For one thing we visited the Casa do Infante. It featured an historical collection in the house where Prince Henry the Navigator was born.

We also went to a wine – or rather “port” – tasting, but I was a bit disappointed. One small glass, and here I was ready to forego beer for the day. (They say, “Never mix the grape and the grain.”) And we took a cruise on one of the Rabelo boats that Porto is famous for. From the boat ramp beside the Ponte do Freixo out to the Atlantic Ocean, pretty much the same way – beside the river – that we’d be hiking the next day. As for some flavor of that first day’s hike:

We hiked west along the Douro River, on the Porto side, then hit the Atlantic Ocean and swung north. It’s the lesser traveled scenic alternative for the Camino Portuguese. Lots of beachside resorts, bathing beauties, and of course some old pot-bellied guys in speedos.

On the plus side – aside from fat guys in speedos – I got a picture that first morning of two lovely young fellow peregrinos. One was adjusting the other’s pack. (I’m always interested in the gear my fellow hikers are packing. I might learn something.) Later I posted on Facebook: “First day’s hike is history. West through Porto – with shady spots and sidewalk cafes – and out to the coast. Then north. Made Cabo do Mundo, 10.8 miles. Nothing too sore. Good first hike.”

That last referred to the first day’s hike. It was a nice thought (“nothing too sore”), but turned out misleading. I learned – yet again – that it’s not the first day of hiking, or even three, that wears on the feet. It’s the pounding of day after day of hiking with a 15-pound pack. (They recommend no more than ten percent of your body weight.) And it’s my opinion that there’s no way to train in advance for that – except to do the same constant hiking at home, day after day. A long hike once or twice a week won’t do it. It’ll help, but you still have to go through the agony of getting your feet accustomed to constant pounding, day after day.

Incidentally, for this trip my brother had  a copy of A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino Portugués, by John Brierley. (I still have my copy of Brierly’s Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago (French Way). I’m saving it for our return trip, hopefully next year, 2021, at which time I’ll finally be able to say that I hiked “over the *&^%$ Pyrenees!” See Remembering the “Chilkoot &^%$# Trail!”,” and links therein.) The Brierly book had “all the information needed by modern pilgrims wishing to walk the unique route to Santiago that was used by Queen Isabel of Portugal.” 

“Brierly” also had – as Carol wrote later – “maps, routes, directions, historical information, places for a break (coffee cups on the map), Albergues (which we never used), restaurants and highlighted points of interest.” Those “coffee cups” in the map-book meant places we could stop and have a cool drink on a hot day, and usually something to eat as well. And on occasion those “coffee cups” were spaced way far apart, which meant a long session of hiking with no place to stop except the side of the path and some lukewarm water. 

As for albergues (or auberges), they’re a “shared dormitory-style accommodation.” Some people swear by them, saying that’s where the magic of hiking the Camino comes from. But Tom stayed in one back in 2017, when he started in France and hiked over the Pyrenees. That was enough. From then on – “even to this day” – he’ll book ahead for private rooms.

Anyway, in the Greetings post I talked about taking pictures with my cheap tablet, then posting them on Facebook to the folks back home. Posting pictures on Facebook with a tablet wasn’t that hard, but writing commentary was a pain. “For one thing I seem to have fat thumbs.” For another, the tablet’s “autocorrect” had a serious problem with foreign (Portuguese) names.

For example it kept changing the “de” or “do” in so many Portuguese city names to “Dr.” Every time. Here’s an example in an early Facebook post from Portugal:

Good morning from Cabo Dr Mundo. (BTW, autocorrect is having a hissy with these Portuguese names, plus my colloquialisms.) Ready for another 10 mile hike. Slept through the night. “Cozy quarters.”

That “cozy quarters” was shorthand for the apartment having one bedroom, which Carol got. Tom and I slept in the living room, me on the couch. But there was a nice restaurant nearby.

Which brings us way past the preferred number of words in a blog post. So I’ll be doing at least one more post in the near future on this adventure. I’m hoping to finish my “Old Age Adventure” book in time for Christmas. I’ll hand out the paperbacks for family gifts…

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“The Douro river and Dom Luís Bridge.” (That’s the one we passed heading out of town.)

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Notes:

First a note on images, or the lack thereof. I’ve discovered that with past e-books, and especially the paperback alternative versions, trying to keep the same photos as in the blog – even in miniature – wreaked havoc with page breaks. So for this and future books, and probably for blog-posts as well, I’ll forego actual images, at least for the original post. Instead I’ll provide a link like the one at the top of the page, by which faithful readers can view the image “on their own dime.”

Which leads to the caption of the photo at the top of the page: “A marking in a boardwalk of the Portuguese coastal way..”

Re: 160-mile hike. I’m not sure how many exact miles we hiked. Estimates varied. 153? 160?

Re: “Bonjour” See Bonjour State Farm – Image Results.

Re: Best length for a blog-post. Answer: “It depends.” See How Long Should Your Blog Post Be – The Write Practice. “Want more shares on social media? Aim for medium length blog posts between 600 to 1,250 words.” In other words, “longer is usually better for social shares and SEO whereas shorter is usually better for getting more comments.”

“Joseph Welch, dead at only 69? OMG!”

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Joseph Welch, at left – “Judge Weaver” in Anatomy of a Murder – at the 1954 McCarthy hearings…

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AnatomyMurder2.jpgThe other night I started re-watching the 1959 movie, Anatomy of a Murder, starring Jimmy Stewart. (I should say, re-watching again. It’s one of those rare classic movies, like Casablanca, that I can watch over and over again. One law professor said it was “probably the finest pure trial movie ever made.”)

And one of my favorite characters in this classic courtroom crime film is Joseph N. Welch. He plays the judge presiding at the murder trial in Iron Bay, a resort town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (The regular “UP” judge is indisposed, so Judge Weaver – Joseph Welch – is brought in from the Lower Peninsula.)

Some background. Ben Gazzara plays Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion, who guns down a local tavern keeper, Barney Quill, an hour or more after Quill raped Manion’s wife Laura. (Played by Lee Remick.) Stewart plays defense attorney Paul Biegler, who used to be the town prosecutor, but lost the election to Mitch Lodwick. (Who feels that – due to the importance of the case – he needs to call in the help of state Assistant Attorney General Claude Dancer, played by George C. Scott.)

Incidentally, both the film and novel that inspired it were based on an actual Michigan case in 1952. There the defense used the concept of “irresistible impulse” – based on an obscure 1886 state supreme court holding – to win an acquittal “by reason of insanity.”

Two days after trial that defendant was judged to be sane by a psychiatrist and released. (Only to be divorced by his wife, also soon after trial.) In Anatomy, Lt. Manion is released as well, but then he and his wife skip town before attorney Biegler can get the lieutenant to sign a promissory note for $3,000. (The amount he agreed to pay Biegler while in jail awaiting trial. But note, a “real” defense lawyer would have gotten the promissory note well before that, most likely before trial but at least right after the verdict. That’s why the call it artistic license.)  

But back to Joseph Welch: Aside from playing Judge Weaver in Anatomy of a Murder, he was a “real-life lawyer famous for dressing down Joseph McCarthy” – left, with counsel  Roy Cohn – “during the Army–McCarthy hearings.” For some background on that…

June 9, 1954. The hearings were in their 30th day, the result of Senator Joseph McCarthy‘s “aggressive investigations of suspected Communists and security risks” within the U.S. Army. (As well as a counter-accusation that Committee Counsel Roy Cohn – at right in the photo above – had pressured the Army “to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine, a former McCarthy aide and friend of Cohn’s.”)  

Joseph Welch served as Army counsel, and on June 9 challenged Cohn to give his alleged list of “130 security risks” to the U.S. Attorney General. McCarthy responded that Welch should “check on Fred Fisher, a young lawyer in Welch’s own Boston law firm.” Fisher had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, in what Welch considered a youthful indiscretion. McCarthy insisted it was a “Communist front.” When McCarthy continued his attacks Welch responded:

Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who … came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career… Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr… It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.

JosephNWelch.jpgMcCarthy tried to renew his attack on Fisher, but Welch interrupted. “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” McCarthy tried to attack Fisher yet again, but Welch would have none of it. He refused to discuss the matter further, said that if there was a God in heaven it would do neither McCarthy nor his cause any good, then prompted the chairman to call the next witness. “At this, those watching the proceedings broke into applause.”

For one thing, I’d say we could use a lot more “Joseph Welch” in today’s political arena…

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But what also struck me – as I watched Welch preside over the “Anatomy” trial – came when I started wondering how old he was when he did the movie. “I’m guessing, what? 80? 85?“

I did some research, and learned that when Welch died he was way too close to how old I am now. Born in 1890, he played in Anatomy of a Murder in 1959, and died not long after that. “Sixteen days before his 70th birthday, and fifteen months after the release of Anatomy of a Murder, Welch suffered a heart attack and died on October 6, 1960.”

Which leads to a personal note: I just turned 69, and 16 days before my 70th birthday will be next June, 2021. So again: OMG! On the other hand, I’m guessing that Judge Welch didn’t exercise seven hours a week like I do. (Including yoga, weights and hour-bouts of stair-stepping, with a 30-pound weight vest and 10 pounds of ankle weights. See also my 2018 post, A Geezer’s guide to supplements. For my part, I want to live to at least 120, like Moses.)

But I’m not the only one “of a certain age” these days paying lots more attention to good habits, exercise and nutrition. That Christie Brinkley still looks good too – at a “mere slip of 65…”

My how times have changed!

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Christie Brinkley at age 65 – in 2019 – and “Times have indeed changed!”

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The upper image is courtesy of the Joseph N. Welch link in the article, Anatomy of a Murder – Wikipedia. The full caption: “Welch (left) being questioned by Senator Joe McCarthy (right) at the Army–McCarthy hearings, June 9, 1954.” See also Joseph N. Welch – Wikipedia.

The poster image is also courtesy of, Anatomy of a Murder – Wikipedia. The “teaser” at the top of the poster reads, “Last year’s No. 1 best-seller … This year’s No. 1 motion picture.”

Some notes on Fred Fisher (1921-1989). After the Army-McCarthy hearings, he went on to become a partner at Hale and Dorr, Welch’s firm. In 1973–74, he served as president of the Massachusetts Bar Association. Fisher died in 1989 in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he was lecturing. In his New York Times obituary, Fisher was referred to as a “McCarthy target.” 

Ironically, G. David Schine – who the Army said got preferential treatment because of Cohn’s pressure tactics – also died “young,” at 68 in a plane crash. He started life as “the wealthy heir to a hotel chain fortune,” and after the Army-McCarthy hearings went on to a career in Hollywood, most prominently as a firm producer. Also a musician, he once “conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra in place of Arthur Fiedler at a concert,” at which some members of the orchestra refused to play. One musician commented later: “That man ruined my father’s life. No way I was going to play for him.”

The lower image is courtesy of Christie Brinkley 2020 – Image Results. The image accompanies an article from the UK Home | Daily Mail Online, “Christie Brinkley, 65, reveals major cleavage in breezy outfit as she is joined by daughter Alexa Ray Joel, 33, for star-studded Polo Hamptons Match & Cocktail Party.” Note: The article and photo were dated 2019, when she was actually 65. 

On “270 to win” – August 2020…

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The Making of the President 1960 – or is this the year to be “the unmaking of the president?”

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One thing that surprised me – greatly – about the 2016 election was the disconnect. That is, the difference between pre-election polling and what finally happened. (In other words, “so many forecasts were off the mark.” In further words, I wasn’t the only one surprised; see the notes. )

In plain words there was huge “disconnect” between pre-election perception and reality. (“What actually happened.”) For example, one friend said confidently a day or two before the election that Trump would end up conceding by 11:00 p.m. election night. On the other hand, many state-by-state polling – while showing Clinton ahead – were well within the designated margins of error.

Heading in to Election Day 2016, I kept track of the polls “religiously.” (After all, there was a lot at stake, wasn’t there?) All that summer and into the fall I kept tracking. And to be honest, I drew some comfort from polls showing Clinton leading. But I wasn’t nearly as confident as my friend about when – and if – Trump would concede. (Remember the hubbub about his saying he wouldn’t accept the results if he lost?)  In fact I was so surprised – on election night and many days after – that I was reluctant to start keeping track again for this time around. (See jinxing.)

But here we go again… This time I want to keep track of pre-election polling – In black and white – so that if there is another “foul up” I may better understand why, and “what Happened.” (But I’d much rather enjoy the celebrating, the fireworks and the dancing in the streets.) 

But seriously… For starters we can recognize that national polls are meaningless. The president is not elected by popular vote. What matters is the number of votes he (or she, eventually) gets in the Electoral College. For example, I remember reading Ted White‘s book, The Making of the President 1960. It mirrored what Wikipedia called a “closely contested election.”

But it wasn’t really “close,” even though – as both White and Wikipedia emphasized – Kennedy “won the national popular vote by 112,827, a margin of 0.17 percent.” (And some say Nixon should have been credited with the popular vote victory, because that “popular vote was complicated by the presence of several unpledged electors in the Deep South.”) But – as happened in the 2000 and 2016 presidential election – the popular vote didn’t matter in 1960. It didn’t matter who won what has now become a near-worthless consolation prize.

Where it counted – in the Electoral College – Kennedy won by 303 votes to 219.* Or you could say 84 more Electoral votes. In plain words, Kennedy won with 38 percent more electoral votes than Nixon, not “0.17 percent.”

And so it may be in the 2020 election. Which means I started researching four websites that track state-by-state polls in the Electoral College. First, 2020 Presidential Election Interactive Map. Next, 2020 Presidential Election Interactive Map – Electoral Vote Map. That’s a product of Political Wire, founded by Taegan Goddard and “one of the oldest left-wing and most influential political blogs and news aggregate sites on the internet.” (See also Political Wire – Wikipedia.) A third site is ElectoralVote. (Electoral-vote.com, and yes it can be confusing.)

As of August 29, ElectoralVote – the third one – had Biden with 388 electoral votes, Trump 132 and 18 “ties.” (I’m assuming the “ties” are in the most recent polling.) That includes 213 “strongly Dem” and 90 votes “likely Dem,” which puts Biden over the top with those two alone. “Likely Dem” votes include Wisconsin’s 10 with Biden leading the polls 50-41; Michigan’s 16 split 50-42 Biden; Pennsylvania’s 20 split 49-43 Biden; Florida’s 29 split 49-43; and Arizona’s 11 split 47-38.

And for purposes of comparison, as of August 29 Trump had 81 electoral votes “strongly GOP” and 39 “likely GOP.” So his combined “strongly” and “likely” total of 120 is about half – 56% – of Biden’s “strongly Dem” standing alone. But again, that’s according to ElectoralVote.

According to Goddard’s left-wing Presidential Election Interactive Map, Biden has 320 electoral votes to Trump’s 125, with 93 “toss ups.” But Goddard has ElectoralVote‘s Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona all solidly Democrat, while ElectoralVote has those states “likely Dem.” And incidentally, Goddard’s map is “based on the consensus” of forecasts, including but not limited to Cook Political Report, and Inside Elections, along with “the latest polling data from FiveThirtyEight, RealClearPolitics and Electoral-Vote.com.”

Then there’s 2020 Presidential Election Interactive Map. That site has Biden with 278 electoral college votes to Trump’s 169. But it includes a proviso, “Democratic candidate wins in your scenario. No combinations remain for Republicans to win.” The problem is I clicked on some of the states, thinking that might give better information about percentages, and that may have messed up some of the figures. That is, it’s not my scenario that I’m interested in. I’m interested in the reality of what’s happening in each state, as that affects the electoral college vote. So the fact that it’s Interactive – and that I interacted with it, though inadvertently – concerns me a bit.

Then there’s a fourth website, Biden vs Trump: US presidential election 2020 poll tracker. I found it much more user-friendly because it listed the solid, leaning and toss-up states by name, not on some “stupid map.” Further, it listed and/or ranked those states in order of the number of electoral votes each had, with California’s 55 leading the list. And that website showed – as of August 27 – Biden with 203 solid and 95 leaning electoral votes, while Trump had 80 solid and 39 leaning votes. And 121 “toss up” votes.

So even if Trump won all the “toss-ups” – according to this site – and Biden held his 203 solid and 93 leaning, Biden would still win. And in four of those toss-up states – Florida (29), Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20) and Wisconsin (10) – Biden has a polling lead of five points or more.

So the Electoral College polling math definitely favors Biden, regardless of what national-polling figures may show. For example, August 29th’s New poll shows Biden’s lead over Trump shrinks.

It led with a note that right after the Republican convention, Biden’s “lead” dropped from nine points at the end of July to six points after the convention. But check “yougov’s” website and you’ll see the lead thought, Explore what America thinks | YouGov. But again, it’s not what America thinks as a whole that matters. It’s not a “national popularity contest.” What matters is what Americans think in their individual states. Further, that article added:

The new Yahoo News-YouGov poll shows that nearly every voter in America has made up his or her mind, with 96 percent Biden and Trump supporters now saying they have decided how they will vote — up 2 percent from when the same voters were surveyed in late July. Only 8 percent remain undecided.

And it looks like Trump will need every one of those “eight percenters” to vote for him to get re-elected. (But then even that may not be enough.) But still it’s only the end of August, and there’s a little over two months left before the election. Meanwhile, I’ll keep tracking state-by-state Electoral College polls, looking for any major shifts.  It’s called prognostication…

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Another prognosticator, Punxsutawney Phil: How will Phil feel this next February 2?

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The upper image is courtesy of Book Making Of The President – Image Results. The image is part of an ad in Etsy – Shop for handmade, vintage, custom, and unique gifts: “Find things you’ll love. Support independent sellers. Only on Etsy.” The caption: “Collector’s [Edition?] The Making of the PRESIDENT 1960 Theodore H White Illustrated American Past Book of the Month Club Collectible Book Decor Table.” See also The Making of the President 1960 – Wikipedia. The book “recounts and analyzes the 1960 election in which John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States.” Further:

The book traces the 1960 campaign from the primaries … to the conclusion of the general election contest against Richard Nixon. Much of the narrative is written in an almost novelistic style, describing politicians’ looks, voices and personalities. But it also contains thought-provoking discussions of various trends in American life and politics.

Also about that 2016 election: I read an article of interest, Polls Versus Reality in 2016. Numbers: The Good and the Bad. Some conclusions: 1) “[T]hat so many forecasts were off the mark was surprising, given the increasingly wide variety of methods being tested and reported via the mainstream media and other outlets.” (So I wasn’t alone.) 2) “Most national polls had Clinton winning the popular vote by a fair margin, and that turned out to be fairly accurate.” (But irrelevant, as noted.) And 3) the “Shy Trumper effect… Voting for Trump is considered socially undesirable by some people… they don’t want to admit it either to an interviewer on the phone or to pollsters … and then when they get in to the voting booth, who they actual vote for is not the same person they told pollsters they were going to voter for.” (Ellipses in original.) Though it’s hard to imagine “shy Trumpsters” this time…

Re: “Kennedy won by 303 votes to 219.” For math majors and others of that ilk, that totals 522 electoral college votes, not the current 538. As to what accounted for the “missing 16,” I researched the issue but was unable to find a definitive answer, as of press time mean.

The lower image is courtesy of Prognosticate – Image Results. it was accompanied by an article, “Spring is coming: US groundhogs prognosticate during polar vortex.” (Washington Examiner, February 2019.) See also Groundhog Day – Wikipedia, on the American tradition based on the “Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will persist for six more weeks; but if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.”