On November 5 voters will decide the outcome of the most consequential election in my lifetime. This election is not about the traditional issues that have separated (modern) Democrats from Republicans. Democrats have tended to focus on leveling the playing field, expanding the social safety net and embracing reform movements like civil rights, and gender identity issues. Republicans have championed a strong, unfettered business-based economy, individual responsibility, “family values,” a strong military, and a robust foreign policy. As the saying goes, “Those trains have done left the station.” The fundamental underlining question on the table in this election is whether democracy will survive in the United States. The Republican Party has been transformed from supporting traditional conservative values to a radical populist party supported largely by an alienated, white working class and financed and directed primarily by billionaire tech libertarians. At stake is the survival of our system of government.

Before I start my day, I will typically open my iPhone and take a quick look at my calendar (usually not much there) and read two blog posts, one by Robert Reich and the second by Heather Cox Richardson. They rarely let me down. On October 3 the Reich post was about the threat to our democracy where he posted the following, referring to Vance’s phony, “nice guy” debate performance and his close relationship with billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel:

Thiel and Vance — along with Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, Blake Masters, tech entrepreneur David Sacks, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg, Sequoia Capital’s Doug Leone, blogger Curtis Yarvin, and others in the anti-democracy movement — believe that the only way true libertarians can win in America is for a Caesar-like figure to wrest power from the American establishment and install a monarchical regime, run like a startup.

Reich describes Vance as the heir apparent to lead the effort to transform the United States into a totalitarian country. Regardless what happens  in 2024, Vance will likely be the Republican candidate in 2028 and the battle for the soul of America will continue. In other words, this battle will not disappear in 2024 and will likely be the most important issue that our nation will face now and possibly for years to come.

And it is far from certain how this movie will end. But even if we Democrats pull off a victory this election, Trump and Vance will likely fight the outcome just as Trump did in 2000. There could be another January 6 type event, this time on steroids.

This leads to the fundamental question: what is wrong with us? Surely there are important issues that are fueling the fire. Our country has become more divided and unequal according to social class and income. There is push back on immigration. Racism persists. Wars in Europe and the Middle East persist and are intensifying.  Covid was a huge factor and continues to be a potential threat. Inflation has aggravated economic inequalities. Lack of affordable housing (my field) is a big problem. Social media  and alternative news options also play a role. “Political correctness” and culture wars alienate many on the right. Huge divisions surround the abortion issue. Then there is climate change, horrific hurricanes, and coastal flooding.

But still. We live in a great country. There is much to celebrate—the fact that for now we still have a democracy, that we have made great progress on racial and gender issues, that we are not a police state, and that new opportunities pop up when others fail. We are the wealthiest and most powerful nation on this planet. We have the most robust culture and produce some of the world’s greatest artists, writers, athletes, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, inventors, philanthropists, scientists, and performers. And we are trying to address the problems facing us.  Yet there are those that want to throw all this out in favor of an authoritarian system? What is wrong with them?

In times like this I keep falling back on the explanation that this is our human nature. We are a flawed species. Humans have risen to the top of the food chain due to our superior brain and intellect, but we are just another animal and have animal instincts when it comes to self-preservation. When animals feel cornered or threatened, they fight back. So do we humans. We are also herd animals. We evolved   because over hundreds of thousands of years we gradually formed family groups, clans, tribes, and eventually nations and figured out that working together in groups produces better outcomes. And the key to tribal–and national–survival is having a strong and good leader.

We humans have a mixed track record in leadership. While we have had our share of good leaders, we have also produced the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Franco, Mussolini, Putin, and Xi. I suspect that the list of bad leaders—some horrific– is much longer than the list of great leaders. But few would argue that leaders do not make a difference. That is why the election of 2024 is so important.

And never have the stakes been higher.  According to many pundits we are closer to World War III than we have ever been, given the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and that nuclear saber rattling is raising its ugly head.

I find myself often asking the perplexing question, “How can half the voting population of the United States in 2024 vote for Trump?” The polls say that this will likely happen, and that the election remains a tossup. We now know what Trump is like—narcissist, braggart, egotist, perpetual liar, and one who like Biden is wrestling with nagging intellectual frailties of old age. His  term as president was saved from complete disaster by having at least some competent advisers who provided guardrails that kept him—and our country—from plunging over the cliff. Another term will not have such advisers, and Project 2025 lays out in excruciating detail how our country could become closer to a dictatorship if Trump is reelected in November. If he wins, there will be no excuse for arguing that the country was not forewarned. A second presidency of Donald J Trump could mean the end of the world’s oldest continuing democracy.

The reason I have trouble understanding why Trump remains popular with half the country is because I do not believe half of us Americans are “bad people.” Half the voters in our country can’t be “nuts.” And a huge majority of evangelicals—who are among Trump’s most ardent MAGA followers—can’t all be crazy. What is going on?

What is going on is this: Trump is a symbol rather than a cause of “America’s Great Discontent.” When he ran and unexpectedly won in 2016, Trump sensed the anger and anxiety that many Americans felt and exploited that. He sensed that many people were struggling to get by and were resentful of others who seemed to have had it easy and who they believed looked down on them. The most vocal supporters of Trump then and now are white men with no college degree, many working in blue collar jobs. For many of these people Trump is their hero because he is a thorn in the flesh of America’s elite—intellectuals, professionals, academics, scientists, business people, and anyone who is of a liberal bent.

 Make no mistake: Many of these grievances are legitimate. They are the cause of the basic grievance fueling old fashioned populism—the little guys versus the big guys.  The irony in this case is that Trump’s policies in his presidency provided tax cuts for the ultra-rich and large corporations and did not address class and income disparities.  Rather, they exacerbated them. And Trump’s contempt for programs like Obamacare, Child Tax Credits, and supportive services that have helped the working class and lower income people prove that he is a “faux populist.” In other words what he has done is less important than what he has said.  If he calls out the “liberal elite” as enemies of his base, this is enough for him to hold on to his supporters. As the saying goes, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” He is the symbol of grievance and has said so himself: “I will be your retribution!”

This is not to say that the white working class and evangelical MAGA supporters are the only ones who will vote for Trump on November 5. There are lots of others, many of whom are wealthy people who have benefitted from Trump’s tax cuts in 2017 that benefitted the wealthy and large corporations. Those cuts are responsible for  more than  $1.5 trillion of the deficits our country has experienced over the past eight years  and are due to expire early 2025. Many who have benefitted from the tax cuts will hold their nose and vote for Trump anyway both to preserve the cuts they have benefitted from for the last eight years and the additional cuts that Trump has promised. And surely there are many more who have their own reasons, many of whom are part of Trump’s  cult of personality.  It is hard to deny that the powerful persona of Donald Trump casts an ominous   shadow over election day 2024 and the actions that will follow.  

Whether Trump gets reelected or not, this should be wakeup call that there is something wrong in our country which needs to be addressed. Besides the income and social class disparities, there are three other controversial issues where Tump’s proclamations carry weight with his followers—race, immigration and abortion. I do not believe that Trump himself really cares about any of these issues. He only cares about himself. What he looks for, however, is an issue which divides Americans and then calculates which side of the issue will help him win votes. His white, working class followers have opposed progressive initiatives like “Black Lives Matter,” “DEI,” and a woman’s right to choose. Reading the tea leaves, Trump has sided with those who oppose these progressive initiatives. And top on the list, of course, is immigration, which many in his base believe has threatened their jobs and their fragile position in our society. Trump has made immigration his centerpiece policy initiative and has pledged to close the border and expel millions of immigrants. His ranting and raving on this issue keeps the fire going among his base, even though what he proposes to do would make America seem more like Nazi Germany than the country we now know.

So, yes, I am apprehensive and fearful. I am a big fan of Harris and Walz and pray they will eke out a win, but if they do win, that also raises the issue of another rebellion like January 6, this time on steroids.

Oh, I have not mentioned foreign policy. The good news is that Trump would likely keep us out of a nuclear war with Russia. The casualty, of course, would be Ukraine, which he would abandon, probably along with  NATO and perhaps even the United Nations.

This is certainly the most consequential election in my lifetime. The stakes have never been higher. But the other takeaway is that these issues–income and social class disparities, lingering racism, abortion, and immigration–are issues which will continue to haunt the United States regardless of who gets elected. We Americans must address these challenges and make our country kinder, gentler, and fairer. If not, another faux populist is likely to take Trump’s place four years from now, if not sooner.

 

 

 

 

Here are my two recent letter-to-the-editor submissions to the Washington Post regarding supplying long range missiles provided by NATO to destroy strategic targets deep into Russia. So far neither has been published.

In the David Ignatius op-ed on September 16 on the Russian Ukrainian War, he describes a high level meeting in Europe supporting Ukraine war efforts with the theme, “The Necessity to Win.” Ignatius correctly questions whether this initiative could lead to a dangerous escalation. The current Biden Administration policy of fully supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes” is now front and center as Biden contemplates whether to approve the use of NATO produced, long range weapons that could strike deep into the heart of Russia. Putin responded over the weekend that this approval would in effect be a declaration of war between NATO and Russia. He also has assembled tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus and has stated that he will use them if the security of Russia is threatened. Some say that Putin is bluffing, but what if he is not? This could put the world on the edge of a nuclear war, which would end life on Earth as we know it. There must be a peaceful solution to this conflict, which neither side will be able to “win,” and it must happen soon.

Risking World War III

In a Washington Post editorial published on September 23, the Post argues that Biden should lend his support to allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to destroy strategic targets 155 miles into Russia and supports delivering long range tactical bombs (“ATACMS”), since “Ukraine urgently needs all the weapons it can get to continue to stave off Mr. Putin’s aggressions.” The Post does not mention that Putin has declared that the use of these weapons would result in a declaration of war between Russia and NATO. The Post, however, does acknowledge Putin “issuing ‘red lines,’  implicitly threatening nuclear war.” The Post dismisses this as an empty threat noting that Putin has not “followed through on his threats. There is no reason to think that he would risk a wider war with the North American Treaty Organization at a time when his forces are already severally depleted.”

There is no mention in the editorial of the need to bring this war to a negotiated end, given the risks associated with further escalation. Nor is there any indication that the editorial writers have considered the consequences to the world as we know it should Russia declare war on NATO and should Russia follow through on Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons. The depletion of Russian troops is not the reason for NATO to escalate against Russia but rather a warning that when a ruthless dictator is pushed into a corner and threatened with defeat, he will use whatever weapons he has at his disposal to strike back.

Should the unthinkable happen, game over for the planet Earth as we know it.

 

I got a lot of thoughtful feedback from my last blog post urging Biden not to approve the use of NATO long range missiles against Russia. The consensus was that appeasement never works and that the risk of nuclear war is probably not that high given that it would destroy most of the planet. In other words, the risk is worth it.

I respectfully disagree. It is exactly in times like this when no one believes any nation could be so foolish as to start a nuclear war that we are most at risk. Friends, do not deceive yourselves. Nuclear war could happen. Read Jacobsen’s book, Nuclear War, and then let’s continue the conversation. Does anyone believe that these weapons will never be used, ever? The only way that we can assure that they won’t is to outlaw them and dispose of them. If they remain an option, at some point in the future, odds are they will be used. Maybe by accident, maybe by design. Go to the internet and see what AI has to say about it.

Some will conclude that as has been the case before, I am simply over reacting. I hope they are right. But I also must say that  given what is happening in Ukraine and in Palestine, Israel, and now Lebanon, this is the most apprehensive I have been since the fall of the Soviet Union that calamity will befall our troubled planet. 

 

 

 

President Biden, do not allow NATO long range missiles provided to Ukraine to strike targets deep into Russia. The only viable alternative is to work out a truce followed by a peace agreement. This horrid war must stop. Yeah, I know, good luck on that, but the alternative could lead to the end of the world as we know it.

Of course, I am talking about the nuclear option that I wrote about in my previous blog post. The Jacobsen book, Nuclear War, still haunts me. If you read that post you know that I believe that we are dangerously close to a miscalculation that could lead to Nuclear Armageddon. Putin has said two things, first that he is prepared to use “tactical” nuclear weapons in the Ukraine War if he believes Russian security is threatened and, second, that if long range weapons provided by a NATO country strike deep into Russia, he will consider this an act of war between Russia and NATO. This puts us one step closer to World War III.

There was an article today (September 14) buried on page 6 of the New York Times with the headline, “Putin Warns Ukraine’s Use of Western Weapons Means War With NATO.” Advisors and others shrug this off as just another empty threat. Same old, same old. At the same time the article and other reporting by CNN and NBC point out that Putin’s tone and demeanor were noticeably different in this announcement than in past times when he was ranting about one thing or another.

And this article did not even make it to the front page!

Is Biden or anyone in the White House asking the question what if Putin is actually serious this time? That he will use nuclear weapons to “protect the security of Russia” if long range missiles provided by a NATO country are used against Russia.

Friends, this madness must stop. This war–and the war in Palestine–must come to an end before they spiral into a conflict which is out of control. I understand that the natural reaction will be to conclude that I am naïve and unrealistic, that there is nothing ordinary people can do about it, and that nuclear war will not happen because of the MAD theory: No country would initiate a nuclear war because ultimately it would result in the destruction of that country. So why worry if there is nothing we can do about it? Valid comments, but still….

Here is the latest from Wikipedia on the Ukraine nuclear threat:

 

“During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been constant speculation about whether Russia‘s president Vladimir Putin will use a tactical nuclear weapon either against Ukraine or in a demonstration strike over unpopulated areas, given that the course of the war does not seem favorable to what the Kremlin anticipated, and several members of the Russian government have threatened the use of nuclear weapons.^{[28][29][30][31]}

On 25 March 2023, President Putin announced the stationing of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Russia would maintain control of the weapons. As of May 2023 the weapons are a small number of Iskander missile warheads. Russia plans to finish a “storage facility” for tactical nuclear weapons by July 1. President Putin told Russian state television: “There is nothing unusual here either. Firstly, the United States has been doing this for decades. They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allied countries.”^[32] In December 2023, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko announced that the nuclear weapons deliveries were completed that October.^[33][34]

In May 2024, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would be holding drills with tactical nuclear weapons, days after responding to comments from senior Western officials.^[35]”

 

Type into Google the following: “What are the chances of nuclear war happening in the future?” and see what you get from AI. The estimates range from around 50% to 80% in the time frame from now to 2100. Good heavens! These odds are high!

Also check out the Wikipedia article about the chances of nuclear war where you will find that we are closer to nuclear war now than we have been in decades.

Biden must resist this escalation and use this as a wakeup call to work harder toward negotiations resulting in a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia. Naïve? Perhaps, but think about the alternative. The pathway to our survival as a species and as a planet requires eliminating these weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, not producing more lethal weapons as now is the case.

If we Homo sapiens on the planet Earth can’t figure out how to resolve conflicts without using the  deadliest weapons we have, eventually it will be the end of us.

Don’t do it, Joe. Not on your watch. You have only got a few more months to go. Do not give Putin the opportunity to unleash nuclear weapons!

Yes, this is true. Scientists now agree: In 1.3 billion years when the Sun begins to expand into a red giant, it will become too hot for any life to survive on this wonderful, blue planet. Plants may start disappearing as soon as 600 million years from now. And in about seven billion years the entire planet will cease to exist along with the Sun and the entire solar system.

Are you worried?

Well, I am. Not so much for my own sake since it is unlikely that I will still be around 1.3 billion years from now. (Hey, like many octogenarians, I am thankful for every day that I wake up and discover that I am still here.) It is because that at this moment it seems that forces that could destroy life on our planet are lining up against us and that in the long run, the future could be bleak. Let’s examine the two scariest threats: climate change and nuclear war. (There is not enough known about AI at this point to fully understand its impact though it seems likely that it too could become a major existential threat.)

Climate Change 

Despite objections by many elected Republicans and other climate change deniers, climate change is real and will eventually destroy life on the planet as we know it if we do not meet the challenges of global warming. We are trying hard and making some progress, but still there is so much farther to go, and winning this battle will require the cooperation of Russia, India and China along with Europe, South America, and most other countries. We humans may have the technical ability to tackle this but do not appear to have the will or ability to do what scientists tell us we must do to reduce carbon emissions and win this battle.

And if temperatures continue to rise, the Greenland Icecap will eventually melt. The oceans will rise some 30 feet. Game over. Of course, that is still aways off, but if we are not able to reduce carbon emissions, we will continue along a projectory for it to happen.

And here is the thing. While doing research on another recent obsession of mine (on “the evolution of the universe”), I learned that the planet Earth since its beginning some four billion years ago has experienced five mass extinctions, which wiped out between 85 percent and 95 percent of all plant and animal life on the planet at that time. These extinctions have happened routinely on average every 60-100 million years and were caused mainly by climate change. The last mass extinction happened 66 million years ago when a giant asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula causing most of the giant dinosaurs to die within hours. Smaller ones may have survived months or even years longer, but the debris in the air reduced sunlight destroying the habitat which supported these creatures.

The timing is about right for another mass extinction and do-over for the planet Earth.

The good news about the Fifth Mass Extinction is that this gave an opening for us mammals to evolve and thrive. The bad news is that the king of the mammal world, we Homo sapiens, for the last century and a half have been trashing this delicate planet at an alarming rate. Because of our actions many scientists believe the planet has already entered its Sixth Mass Extinction. This is because we humans are destroying the habitats of other animals. Scientists and those who keep track of such things estimate that during the last 500 years almost 900 species have ceased to exist. One in four mammals and one in eight birds face a high risk of extinction in the next few decades. In just the last 50 years the human population on the planet has doubled. The population of all other animals has declined by 70 percent. The existential question is this: If the planet is now already in a Sixth Mass Extinction, will we humans be part of it?

This question leads to the other big existential threat.

Nuclear War

Why have we heard so little about this threat in recent times? I have just finished reading two very good but very disturbing books—Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The first book is a fictional account about a theoretical nuclear war, which happens so fast that it is impossible to avert total disaster–sort of like what happened to the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The book presents a compelling story of how a full scale nuclear war could happen at any time, either by a miscalculation or accident or if a bad actor uses this weapon. The second book is about a deserted world where a father and son hunt for canned food left over following an unnamed–but most likely a nuclear disaster–while trying to escape bands of roaming human cannibals. These books will scare the bejesus out of you.

Jacobsen is a reporter for The New York Times who has specialized in writing about national security issues for many years. For this book she interviewed scores of experts and former officials in the government and the private sector involved in national security and nuclear weapon development. While fiction, the book provides extensive footnotes and documentation that what Jacobson is writing about could happen. Of course, it is unthinkable and beyond our comprehension. Yet she makes a compelling case that the threat of nuclear holocaust is real and more of a threat now than at any other time since we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Lord have mercy!

Following the explosions of the two atomic bombs, in the late 1940s and early 1950s there was a huge uproar led by Bertrand Russell and other intellectuals warning the world of dire consequences. “Ban the bomb” was a common mantra around the world. Then there was pushback and a counter argument that we really need not worry so much about a nuclear war because of a theory called MAD or “Mutually Assured Destruction.” In other words, the consequences of a nuclear war are so dire and extreme, no leader would initiate an action which could ultimately result in the destruction of one’s own country. Well, since we are still here and except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki no nuclear war has happened, maybe the theory is correct.

But what if it isn’t?

There are now nine nations that have “strategic nuclear arsenals”—the United States, Russia, China, France, the U.K., Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea— and the number continues to grow. Iran is likely to be next. And one nation—North Korea—is a rogue nation with an unpredictable leader, who many label as a nutcase. In Jacobsen’s book, North Korea is the bad actor that starts the war which leads to the massive annihilation of human life on Earth.

The total number of warheads that these nine nations have is a tad over 12,000. One average size nuclear weapon exploded in New York City would cause about 600,000 deaths, wounding many others. Do the arithmetic. Humans currently have the capacity to kill 7.2 billion people, which is 80 percent of all humans on the planet. And as Jacobsen’s book describes, this could happen very quickly.

As scary as this is, actually we have made progress because of the numerous nuclear treaties between the US and the Soviet Union beginning in the 1960s with the latest with Russia in 2010 (“START”). At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union had 40,000 nukes and we had 30,000, enough to destroy all life on the planet many times over.

Note that the reduction in the number of nuclear warheads applies to strategic nuclear weapons and not to the so called “tactical nuclear weapons,” which Putin has already threatened to use in his war on Ukraine. Some of these less powerful weapons, however, have twenty times the power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yes, progress has been made. But friends, this is madness!

What the Jacobsen book convincingly portrays is that just because a full scale nuclear war has not happened yet does not mean it will never happen. And if it does, it will mean that we humans will be part of the Sixth Mass Extinction, that the next do-over will begin, and that the Earth will continue to experience extinctions until our Sun becomes a red giant a little over a billion years from now. If the past is any indication of the future, before life on Earth perishes, we can expect more mass extinctions. If one happens, say, every 70 million years on average, there would be 14 more of these “wipe the slate clean” do-overs.

These questions lead us from the world of science to the world of spirituality and religion. Where does God fit in to all this? And what is the meaning and purpose of life in our fragile world as we humans stagger through our lives trying to play the cards we have been dealt as best as we can?

Read these two books. Then mix yourself a stiff drink and pray that nothing like this will ever happen—even though the odds are that unless we rid the planet of these horrific weapons—along with other weapons of mass destruction– it will happen, probably not soon but sometime. And according to Jacobson the timing could well be sooner rather than later. The fuel is in place waiting for a rogue nation or bad actor to strike a match which starts the fire that completes the Sixth Mass Extinction on the planet Earth. God help us.

 

 

As we departed by train for Lyon, the second largest city in France with a metro population of about 1.3 million and where we would begin a river cruise, we talked about how great the trip had been and with no “incidents” to speak of. For some reason Embry had nagging fears that something was bound to go wrong. This was understandable given our recent track record of our ill-fated flight to the BVIs, our challenges getting to Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, and the horrid Covid cruise in 2020. We were batting 0 for 4 for the past four trips. However, these trips were not total disasters by any means, and we now look back on them fondly, but they all had “issues” (which have been described in previous blog posts). What would go wrong this time? But the most vulnerable part of the trip was over. We had zipped through the airports thanks to wheelchair support for the frail elderly and thanks to our son, Andrew, our volunteer guide, who had led the excursion to Brittany to visit our sister-in-law and then on to an Airbnb in Paris and the Olympics. We were flying high. What could possibly go wrong on a river cruise?

Going on a European river cruise had been on my bucket list for years and that is why Embry had booked this cruise following the Olympics. It was for a six-day cruise on a riverboat owned by a German, family-owned company called Amadeus. The company owns 19 riverboats, which cruise the various rivers throughout Europe. This cruise, which was billed as primarily a German speaking cruise, covered about 550 miles on the Saone and Rhone rivers. The first leg was on the Saone River motoring upstream from Lyon for about 120 miles, then back downstream to Lyon where the river merged with the Rhone where we motored south for another 150 miles almost to the Mediterranean before returning to Lyon. The cruise took us through some of the most beautiful country you will ever see—one bucolic countryside after another, luxuriant hillsides and vineyards, ancient villages with busy central courtyards, town squares, and outdoor cafes, castles, Roman ruins, chateaus, and Medieval churches—just what you would expect and more. There was surprisingly little river boat traffic, and the weather was perfect—partly cloudy, highs around 80 and low humidity the entire time. Since the boat motored most of the nights, days were available for excursions to visit by tour bus other points of interest not on the river. Our favorite was Cluny, which in the Middle Ages was the largest abbey in France and contained the largest church in the world at the time, predating St Peter’s in Rome.

The Amadeus Provencal was the name of our riverboat, which looked like all the other riverboats on the Saone and Rhine, due to the challenge of passing under scores of low bridges and through dozens of locks. The boat was over a football field long, but only 15 feet tall and about 30 feet wide and drawing only about five feet. Staterooms were small but attractive and had large picture windows, which could be opened. There was a large dining room, a lounge/meeting room about the same size, a vast roof deck, an exercise room, and even a tiny “infinity swimming pool.” The boat cruised at 12-15 knots. Maximum guest capacity was 140 passengers though there were only 90 on our boat, which also had a crew of 40. Service was excellent with three meals a day included in the price including a four-course evening meal every day with unlimited wine. Waiters darted about carrying three bottles, white, red, and rose wine, assuring no glass was ever empty. The food was good but not superior—after all, this was a German company, not a French one–but still, nothing to complain about.

The first observation we had after boarding was “Good heavens, this is a retirement community!” Only a handful of the 90 passengers lacked gray or white hair.

Since the cruise was billed as primarily German speaking, Embry and I were a tad concerned, I less than her since with my horrible hearing I can’t hear much anyway. To our surprise, however, three “official” languages were in use—German, Dutch, and English. This meant that all the land excursions included local guides who spoke English. This was surprising because there were only seven native, English speakers, the two of us, two elderly British couples, and Nancy, an expat lady my age who had immigrated from the U.S. to Rome 25 years ago. Since the excursions—and table seating– were organized by language, we English speakers were able to have our own small group experience. Of course, since most Germans and Dutch are multilingual, we were able to chat with some of them at gatherings on the boat.

The only issue was Nancy. She was the American expat lady who asked me on the first day how old I was and proudly announced that she was born one year after me. She looked to me like she was closer to 100. The assigned seating for meals placed the two British couples at one table and the three Americans at another. The first evening meal together was a disaster. Nancy talked incessantly about herself and neither of us could get a word in. We got her entire life history—graduate of Vassar, PhD from Penn, accomplished college professor in biochemistry, Trump hater, and a bitter, outspoken critic of the U.S.—and an authority and know-it-all on whatever subject you might bring up to try to broaden the conversation. Well, one meal with her might be tolerable. Three meals a day for the entire cruise? As we left the meal the first evening, we looked at each other in dismay. Embry replied, “No worries. I told the head waiter that they had to put us at another table,” which they did, giving us our own table next to Nancy’s table, who except for the last day sadly remained alone at her table throughout the cruise. This was an unfortunate situation, which many guests on the boat let us know they were aware of. Never married, no family, lived alone in Rome, and alienated from her Trump-supporting siblings. In fact, she had partitioned the two British couples to allow her to join them. They turned her down.

The thing is that not only was her mealtime behavior intolerable for more than one meal with her, but she was also not playing with a full deck. Because she was one of us seven native English speakers, she joined us on most of the excursions. Several times she would initiate a conversation with us asking, “Do I know you?” or “Do you know me?” And she routinely asked questions to our guides which made no sense. We took a deep breath and asked the waiters to put us back at her table for the last meal, which they did, and which we endured but felt sympathy for her, for surely for her it was an imperfect river cruise.

The cruise concluded on a Saturday. The evening before there was a huge goodbye banquet followed by entertainment. I felt fine. However, around two A.M. early that Saturday morning I woke up with chills, fever, and an aching body. By the time for our last breakfast on board I knew something was wrong. I had no idea what disease I had, but whatever it was, there was nothing I could do other than gut it out on the long train ride from Lyon to the Paris CDG airport, spending a painful evening at a Novotel at the airport, and finally enduring the long slog on the flight home, fortunately in business class, but feeling worse every hour of the seven hour flight. Embry had searched in vain to purchase a face mask for me at the train station and airport so that I would not infect others but could find none. We did not see a soul wearing one on the flight over or anywhere we went in France.  After we landed the frail elderly wheelchair routine worked again, allowing us to avoid the massive line and go through passport control at Dulles in only a few minutes. On the cab ride home, all I could think about was collapsing into bed.

Of course, how could I avoid asking the question: Could this be the dreaded Covid? This would be my second episode. The first one in 2020 involved a rebound lasting almost a month.   After stumbling into our apartment, I immediately took a Covid test. It came out positive. Hardly a surprise, but still…. Someone on the boat had to have infected me but who? And how many people might I have infected? I coughed incessantly on the flight home and felt guilty about the harm I may have caused. Sadly, hardly anyone wears a mask nowadays, and Embry could not find a mask for me when I needed one.

After one full week, ending last Saturday, I finally started to feel a tad better and gave myself another Covid test.  Negative for Covid! Hurrah! I am now beginning to feel better and to get my strength back. I would not describe my Covid experience as a light case. I was miserable. Maybe I should have taken Paxlovid, though the doctor I talked to at Kaiser advised against it. But the good news is that Covid did not kill me.  I read in The New York Times today that 600 people are now dying every week in the U.S. from Covid—mainly seniors who have never been vaccinated. The Fat Lady hasn’t sung yet to celebrate putting the nail in the coffin of   this horrid disease. With so few people masked nowadays, it is only going to get worse.

Then I think about what could have happened. What if I had come down with Covid during the river cruise or at any time on Our Last Big Trip? It would have been a disaster! So, I am the lucky one. I am profoundly grateful finally to start to get back on my feet and to have made it through Our Last Big Trip before Covid nailed me. Embry’s intuition was right. Danger was lurking in the shadows, but we made it. Even if barely. And fortunately, she never got Covid despite being exposed.

If asked the question, “Other than that, Mr. Howell, how did you enjoy the cruise?” my answer would be “immensely” and ditto for the entire Howell’s Last Big Trip. Bottom line: If you have not done a European riverboat cruise, put it on your bucket list.

 

 

 

Our Last Big Trip. Episode Three: Paris

Andrew drove us back to Rennes where we turned in the rental car and hopped on the train to Paris, a high-speed, comfortable ride of about two hours. Oh, have I mentioned that the newer, high speed trains in France put our feeble Amtrak trains to shame? But my intent is not to downgrade the U.S. I would not want to live anywhere else. I will not argue against the claim that despite our many flaws and challenges, the U.S. is the best our small and fragile planet has to offer as we tiptoe through the 21^st Century. But still. One of the main takeaways from all our traveling over the years is that there is much to praise, celebrate and, yes, to envy in comparing our country to other countries. And Paris perhaps stands alone as Exhibit A as the most intriguing and beautiful world capital in the world.

In carefully planning out the entire trip, Embry had reserved an Airbnb in a neighborhood near the Bastille Memorial and the Bastille Metro stop. A few days earlier she had been contacted by the owner informing her that since major construction was underway in their apartment building, the apartment was dark, gloomy, and during the day  subject to the sounds of a jackhammer. He gave us the option to cancel, but at the time we felt it was too late to make a change. We told him we would take our chances. While the owner’s warning was accurate, the apartment was plenty large and was located on the ground level, which made all the difference from what could have been a heavy lift dragging luggage up to a fifth or sixth-story apartment.  It worked out fine.

 Paris is always busy and charming, but the 2024 Paris Olympics transformed the bustling city into a Paris-on-steroids. Andrew said he read somewhere that most Parisians who could get out of town got out and had rented their homes to visitors like us and that the city now was a mix of sports enthusiasts from all over the world. Athletic events are being held not only all over the city but all over the country and beyond. Sailboat racing is happening on the Mediterranean and surfing competition is in Tahiti! But most events are happening in the city concentrated around the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysée, and in several large sports stadiums.

We spent one full week in Paris. This included for all six of us two official Olympic events—table tennis and beach volleyball–and two additional events for Andrew’s family, water polo and track and field. Everyone besides me also took a day trip to Versailles. We ate most breakfasts at the Airbnb and had two or three dinners with the whole family there as well, eating out for most lunches in bustling sidewalk cafes and brasseries. We all ate dinner out together at three restaurants—two French and one Japanese. All were fabulous and compared to U.S. prices were reasonable, with tipping strictly optional. The first afternoon Embry and I took a boat ride on the Siene, spent another afternoon visiting a terrific new museum on medieval art (“The Cluny”), and all six of us spent a lot of time strolling along the busy sidewalks, enjoying a coffee and a croissant at a café, and people watching. In other words, doing the Paris thing. And the entire time except for the deluge during the opening ceremony the weather was near perfect—sunny skies and low humidity with highs in the mid 80s. The Airbnb apartment where we stayed with our teenage grandson, Parker, was also in a fabulous neighborhood with all sorts of stores and restaurants, convenient to the Metro and only a 20-minute walk to the Ile de la Cite where the rest of Andrew’s family was staying. Other words, lucky choice.

The only downside was the handicapped-hostile Metro system with almost no elevators or escalators. And due to street closures to permit Olympic street events like cycling and road racing, the Metro was the only way to get around to Olympic events. Twice we admitted defeat and tried a taxi, but both times after roadblocks and vain searches for alternative routes, the driver gave up and directed us back to the nearest Metro station. I did not count the steps in every Metro station we entered but counted enough to conclude that the number per station averaged about 50 steps on two and sometimes three levels, and that is only for one way. Who goes down these treacherous steps has to go up again to exit.  For a hiking stick addict like me with a bad left knee and balance issues this presented a bit of a challenge. But it also provided a window into the soul of Parisians (and visitors to the games), who it turns out are kind people. Several people asked me if I needed help as I inched up or down the steep steps desperately clinging onto a handrail, slowing down foot traffic behind me. Without exception, someone—often several people—immediately would pop up out of their seats when I boarded a crowded train car. It reminded me of our experience in China train stations when young men grabbed our suitcases and charged up the steep stairs where we would find our bags waiting for us. I compare this with our DC Metro experience where often a surely teenager is sprawled out in a seat reserved for seniors and handicapped people, and the only way to get him to move is to threaten to strike him with a hiking stick.

And what about the 2024 Paris Olympics? If you watched the Paris Olympics on TV, you know how the games turned out and what these extraordinarily successful games were like. The United States exceeded most expectations, tying with China with 40 gold medals and first overall in total medals. And many of the games, like the basketball game were epic. Of course, watching French television (and later aboard a river boat), German television, the only games we saw the U.S. teams on television were when we played France or Germany or were playing for a medal.

The two events we attended in person were in jampacked stadiums with people from all over the world waving national flags and screaming and hollering even though most of us did not have a dog in the fight. Both events featured two contests, one for a men’s team and the other for a women’s team. The table tennis took place in a massive, indoor stadium and  featured two extraordinary players, a Chinese player ranked number one in the world versus a 17-year old French prodigy, who was the darling of spectators, who were mostly French. It turned out to be a close, three game match with the Chinese barely beating the French player. Later both players went on to win medals, a gold for China and a bronze for France. China also won the second table tennis match and went on to win gold for the women. Beach volleyball was held in a medium-sized outdoor stadium holding several thousand raucous fans and featuring China versus Switzerland for women and Germany versus Brazil for men. Both matches were close, with China and Germany winning. Even though most people were from other countries, everyone seemed to be caught up in the action, cheering wildly. We cheered for the French table tennis player and the German men, but I suppose like most of the people there, who won was less important than a good match. Few I guess were disappointed. We certainly weren’t. What also stood out about these games and the ones we watched on television was that after each match everyone shook hands and many often embraced their opponents. What is important for most athletes is participating. You are on the world stage and your goal is to do your best. If your team wins that is great, but since over 200 countries are participating, only a small percentage of athletes will win their events and an even smaller number will win medals. But for most athletes—and I suppose for most spectators– that is ok. Being there as part of this world event is what is important. The experience is magical and will last a lifetime. I know that it will for me.

I am checking this one off my bucket list. The Paris 2024 Olympics far exceeded my expectations.

Next installment: the riverboat cruise on the Soane and Rhone rivers.

 

 

We were among the first to deplane in Paris a little after seven in the morning (about one in the morning EDT. Good luck on avoiding jet lag!) As we approached the entrance to the terminal, I saw a guy standing in the jetway behind a wheelchair and holding up a sign with my name on it. With delight I hopped in the chair, and he rushed me along with Embry scurrying to keep up. We whizzed past a long line of several hundred groggy passengers waiting to get through passport control and paused at the security station at the end where there was no line and the wheelchair escort handed our passports to the official, who stamped them and in we went to the baggage claim area. I looked at my watch. Less than ten minutes since we deplaned! Hey, I concluded, we have stumbled upon the Holy Grail of air travel. The only apparent qualification required is disability. Yet I do not believe we even had to show doctor’s orders. I could not help wondering how long it would take for perfectly able people to figure this out.

The wheelchair escort patiently waited with us for our bags to arrive, pulled them off the belt, and then rushed me and the bags to the taxi area with Embry in pursuit. I wasn’t even aware we were going to take a taxi to Orly where we would meet Andrew’s flight since we had plenty of time to take a bus; but before we had a chance to discuss it, our bags were in the trunk of the taxi, and I was sitting on the backseat with Embry. Off we went. The charge for the hour-long ride was something like 40 Euros. Well worth it.

We had four hours to kill before Andrew’s plane landed, which we spent mainly in an Orly airport café, sipping coffee, munching on croissants and people watching, which from prior experience I understood to be the number one recreational activity in France. Now I should point out that France is hardly a mystery to us. Embry lived in a Paris suburb for four months with a French family when she was twelve and attended French grammar school and another three months with the same family over the summer when she was sixteen. In the mid 1980s she also spent six weeks in Paris doing research for her PhD on the French health care system. Over the years she has remained especially close to her older “French sister,” Marielle, now in her late 80s, who lives in an apartment near Notre Dame, which is where Andrew, Karen and our granddaughter, Sadie, will be staying. Andrew also spent most of a summer with the same family when he was a teenager as did our daughter, Jessica. Marielle’s son spent one summer with us. Andrew studied in Paris for his junior year abroad. Everyone in the Howell family except me is fluent in French and we are all Francophiles.  So you might say we have a French connection. Part of the motivation behind Our Last Big Trip is nostalgia. Sadly, this will likely be the last time we visit France.

The takeaway for me waiting for Andrew’s plane to land was how diverse the people were in the airport. While this could be due in part to the Olympics, certainly France is now far more diverse than it was a dozen years ago. There were many people of color coming and going and lots of women wearing Muslim headscarves.

While the main purpose of the trip, of course, is to see some of the Paris 2024 Olympics, the plan was to come a few days early allowing us to visit Martine, who was the first wife of Embry’s older brother, Mike, (artist and poet who died last December at age 88). We are very close to her children, our niece and nephew, and still consider Martine part of our extended family. Martine is French; and while spending most of her teaching career in the United States, she retired to France about twenty years ago and now lives with her partner, Bernard, in Britany, the northwest part of France close to the British Chanel. Andrew had volunteered to be our driver and tour guide for the first four days, allowing us to reunite with our dear friend. At our advanced ages, it would have been a heavy lift to pull this off by ourselves. He rented a car at the airport and then drove us first to the famous tourist destination, Mt. Saint Michel, then to Rennes, a charming town of around 250,000 and about half way to Quimper where Martine lives.

The magical island of Mt. Saint Michel did not disappoint though it was quite crowded.( I intend to post some photos.) Neither did Rennes, a beautiful city with a medieval core where we spent two nights and one full day touring the old part of the town. The small, “garden hotel” (25 rooms max) where we stayed was quaint and well located but with no frills. The elevator could barely accommodate  three people, and the units were barely large enough to accommodate a double bed—but no complaints from us. We strolled along the cobblestone streets and ancient sidewalks, enjoyed what Andrew  described as likely to turn out to be the best meal of the trip—a six course, delicious extravaganza with paired wines, extraordinary service, and hardly any ambient noise—and stumbled upon a fabulous light show celebrating the Paris Olympics on our way back to the hotel.

What stands out most to me about the drive to Britany were the beauty of the countryside, the lack of any billboards or advertising on any of the major highways or back roads, and the two ancient villages we visited along the way. The first was completely by chance. We were curious as to what the villages were like that we had been seeing from a distance along the toll road to Britany, took an arbitrary exit and within a few minutes were sipping wine and having a delicious lunch in a café on a small, cobblestoned courtyard facing a church that looked to us like a relic from the Middle Ages. The second excursion Andrew had chosen from his research because it included a restored castle and elegant gardens. We were one of only a handful of visitors roaming through the ground level rooms and corridors of the giant Gothic structure with portraits of former owners, armor, and medieval furniture and situated along a winding, small river. Then off again to Quimper with a brief stop along the way for lunch at a beachfront café facing the Atlantic Ocean. We reunited with Martine and Bernard around dinner time and fully enjoyed our time with them, although way too short with only two nights and a full day.

So what is it about France that makes it such a magical and alluring country, which the Howell family  has returned to again and again over the years? The country is far from perfect and has had its ups and downs—the excesses of the Catholic Church and the aristocracy beginning in the Middle Ages, the bloody French Revolution, Napolean, the class (and racial) divisions that persist, and the sellout to the Nazis in World War II. The country has had its share of cultural snobs. Graffiti persists here as it does in the U.S. and so many countries. Yet it is hard not to make comparisons with French sensibilities and our way of life in the U.S.  Start with the French countryside. Drop dead gorgeous.  All of it. No billboards or advertising along the major toll roads or the winding country roads, no signs of abject, rural poverty which are prevalent in so many other countries and in locations in the U.S. Where are the mobile homes and the shacks in disrepair? Where are the abandoned junk cars, the fast food joints, and big box stores sucking the life out of the village centers? (McDonalds, Burger King and Starbucks are now in France  but not so much in the villages.) Where are the sprawling subdivisions, the regional malls, the vast parking lots and the giant warehouses? As one with a master’s degree in urban planning, I can’t help mourning what I would call lost opportunities in the U.S. In a word, France puts us to shame.

Now,  to the Paris and the 2024 Olympics….

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next several blog posts will be about our three-week adventure in Europe, what I am calling our “last big trip.” Well, you can’t blame me for putting my foot down. If you have been following the blog, you know that the last several experiences in getting to our destination have been stressful. In 2021 following Christmas our flight to the BVIs for the “Last Hurrah” bareboat charter with our children and grandchildren was cancelled forcing us to fly on a tiny plane carrying only four other passengers to land on the island of Virgin Gorda, not on Tortola where the main airport is.   In a blinding rainstorm, we finally made a bumpy landing on a dirt road masquerading as a runway–the last try before the pilot had to return to San Juan. The rest of the family made it to Tortola, got checked out for the charter, and sailed the boat in rough seas to Virgin Gorda where they picked us up for a fabulous Christmas week cruise. The last three trips have also been stressful. I have failed to make it through security without extreme difficulty on each one—to Costa Rica (passport was due to expire), Puerto Rica (eye identification failure), and Charlotte, NC, (gun shown on security cameras to be hidden in groin area). Each time it was touch and go if we would get to the gate before the doors closed, but we made it by a hair. That is why I announced a few months ago to Embry that I was finished. Done. Flying days over. Too old to go through these unpleasantries again.

“You can’t quit now,” she replied. “Remember that in late July we are going to the Olympics in Paris with Andrew’s family….”

 I begrudgingly conceded.

Now it is not like we have never traveled and are not used to stress. It is part of the experience. Embry reminded me that between us we have visited or lived in (for short periods) over 50 different countries, including many in Africa and Asia. While we both love to travel, I give Embry full credit for organizing our trips.  Mostly we have avoided group tours. The highlight some readers may recall was our 2015 four-month journey around the world without flying. But we are older now.  I am now almost halfway through my 83^rd year.  Embry is four years younger. All good things eventually come to an end.

And on this trip we would mostly be on our own again. The plan was to fly business class to Paris where we would meet our son, Andrew, who had volunteered to be our tour guide and driver for the first leg and was flying from Newark.  We would  rent a car at the airport and drive about 100 miles to Rennes for two nights and then another 100 miles to Quimper in Brittany where we would spend two nights with our dear friend and (former) sister-in-law, Martine, and her partner,Bernard, and then drive back to Rennes, leave our car and take the train back to Paris where Embry had  reserved an Air B&B near the Bastille in Paris where we would meet up with the rest of Andrew’s family. We would join them for several of the Paris 2014 Olympic events and then after ten days in Paris take the train to Lyon where  Embry had booked a river cruise down the Soane, part of a German speaking group tour. Since neither of us speaks German, it sounded to me a bit odd, but I have learned not to second guess Embry. I am sure it will be fine since I have never met a German who did not speak at least some English. But still. Many moving parts and opportunities for mishaps.

And for us the first leg of our journeys recently have been the most challenging. So off we headed for Dulles to catch a United Flight to Paris on Sunday, July 28. I was bracing for the worst. The amount of time it usually takes to get from the ticket and bag check area to our departure gate at Dulles is no less than 45 minutes and involves a walk of over a mile. At times it has taken hours. That is why for this trip we arrived with over two hours to spare. This would be our first major hurdle. I could not help wondering what would go wrong this time.

When we got out of our Uber car and entered  into the United Airlines section, it was the usual chaos with long lines everywhere, troubled parents with screaming children, confused passengers with flights cancelled, people desperately charging toward the mile-long security lines. I noted that we still had plenty of time to make it to the gate but there was the lingering fear of what offense they were going to charge me with this time.

Surprise Number One. The total time required to get from the United international desk and baggage check to the gate was under twenty minutes!

How did we do it? Exhausted from our last three airport episodes,  Embry surprised me this time  by reserving a wheelchair for me. It was not like she was cheating. Due to my balance issues and nagging pain in my left knee, I now get by with the help of a hiking/walking stick, but I inch along. So a wheelchair made sense, and technically speaking I am handicapped.  But the main reason was that a friend told Embry that nowadays the only way to navigate through security and boarding without extreme hardship is to reserve a wheelchair. A wheelchair escort cheerfully welcomed us, checked me in with no hassle, and with Embry following us rushed us past the long security line to a special line for wheelchairs where no one was waiting and clearing security was no problem, and then off to the races toward the gate. Since we were early, he pushed me along to the United Club waiting area, patted me on the back and then cheerfully departed with the wheelchair—along with my carryon bag, which he had placed below the seat. Realizing what had happened, Embry charged off and caught up with him just before he entered the United transit bus gate back to the main terminal. Disaster averted. Close call number one.

At the gate an attendant pushed my wheelchair to the front of the line where we were the first to board. While far from perfect, business class is surely easier than coach, and the flight to Paris was without incident.

But what wil happen next? The first leg of this adventure in my thinking could be the most challenging. We had to get ourselves from Charles de Gaul Airport to Orly where we would meet Andrew’s flight several hours later, then rent a car and drive to Rennes, several hours away. Lots of opportunities for incidents….

Stay tuned.