Dr. Killebrew is a retired orthopedic surgeon and close friend from high school in Nashville and a fraternity brother at Davidson College. He has joined me on something like a dozen sailing adventures in the Caribbean. He lives in LaGrange, Georgia, in the heart of the Deep South. He was a lifelong, moderate Republican prior to the Age of Trump when he became an Independent. Here is his petition to his elected officials in Georgia:

An open letter to Senators Johnny Isakson, David Perdue and Congressman Drew Ferguson

Gentlemen:

Once again a mass killing has put gun control at the top of our nation’s political agenda. Once again there is a national outpouring of grief and sorrow over the insane shooting of innocents.  Once again the focal point of debate is gun control and the NRA.  Once again, I suspect, this momentary tidal wave of emotion will recede and calmer waters will return, until, with the same degree of certainty as the ebb and flood of the tide itself, the next wave occurs.  You can bet on it.  It’s not a question of if, only when and where.  As someone has said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  If we continue the skillful neglect of this issue, then it is we who are insane.

I am a gun owner who does not belong to the NRA, so I come to this issue not as an extremist but as an “alt centrist,” if you will.   I don’t want to have guns confiscated.   I do want the mass killings to stop.

I think it would be good for us as a nation to keep our eye on the ball here, and the “ball” is mass shootings, which is a different problem from guns used in, say, armed robberies, or inner city gang homicides, or domestic shootings, or self-inflicted shootings, either intentional or accidental.  The gun issue is a multifactorial one which will not yield to one sweeping piece of legislation.  Rather, it will require different approaches tailored to each of the differing problems. That said, surely we can all agree that measures should be taken to bring mass shootings to a halt.  The perpetrators of these atrocious acts would seem to be, at least temporarily, mentally unbalanced, and, unquestionably, armed to the teeth. 

 I fail to understand why any civilian needs to possess weapons with the continuous firepower of those used in the recent mass shootings.  Someone is going to have to explain to me why any law abiding citizen needs to own multiple clips and multiple magazines, each holding 15 or 20 or 30 or 50 or more rounds. To what end?  Certainly not hunting.  Certainly not target practice or competition. Certainly not to control vermin or armadillos. The only reasons I can think of involve doing bad things. 

So, without limiting gun ownership at all, why not try to limit their continuous firepower?  Place controls on the number of clips and magazines one can own, and on their capacity.  We already limit shotguns to three shells plus a plug.  We already proscribe ownership of automatic weapons.  No less a personage than the late Supreme Court Justice John Scalia voiced his opinion that rights, including those granted under the Second Amendment are not without limits.  We can’t own machine guns.  We can’t own bazookas.  We can’t shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater.   This ought to be a slam dunk, though I acknowledge that in the realm of legislation there is no such thing.  What to do about oversized magazines already in circulation would have to be addressed.  It won’t be easy, but it is necessary.

As for the other part of the problem, the mental derangement of the perpetrators themselves, we should improve background checks.  I fail to understand why such checks are deemed unnecessary at gun shows.  Beyond that, I know there are difficulties.  Mental derangement can first appear long after the purchase of a weapon; so addressing that issue gets us into murky territory, certainly more contentious than putting limits on the continuous firepower afforded by oversized magazines.  All that said, steps to keep guns out of the hands of people who use them to do bad things must be enhanced. 

Gun control advocates may say that what I propose here doesn’t go nearly far enough.  To them I would say that overreach risks getting nothing.  The gun lobby may say that these proposals go too far.  To them I would say that the continued stonewalling of any and all efforts to remedy the current situation risks waking up one day and finding that a ground swell of revulsion has led to the loss of all gun freedoms.  The more extreme a pendulum’s starting point, the greater its arc in the opposite direction.

The first responsibility of government is the protection of the public.  We, the public here in Georgia and Troup County, look to you, our elected leaders, to stand up and step forward to address this recurring public menace and national nightmare.  Consider for  moment all the collective energy and national treasure we expend countering threats posed by Russia, China, North Korea and ISIS, not one of which has thus far shot dead a single American school child.  So, let’s all get our eyes on the ball.  Act now to curtail and end the insanity of mass shootings.

Respectfully yours,

Jim Killebrew

LaGrange, Georgia

Note that this letter was written in 2018 in response to the killings that year in the Parkland, not the Uvalde Massacre. I do not believe he ever received a response. There were fewer than 300 million guns in the U.S. at the time. Today there are over 400 million.

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Hey, do you think those school killings this week in Texas  will hurt us with the voters? There seems to a lot of fuss, and some are blaming us Republicans for opposing gun control.

Hell, no! All the fuss will die off in a couple of days as it always does, and besides we’ve got  conspiracy theories raging on social media: the Democrats had hired the guy to snuff out all those kids for the sole purpose of trying to ram gun control down the throats of the American people. Just watch. Gun sales will soar. Not a single Republican Senator will vote to take away our sacred weapons. And the Dems won’t be able to  overcome our filibuster in the Senate to pass anything hindering our Second Amendment rights. We will trounce them in the mid terms  for trying. Hey, is this a great country or what?

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Last week I received the following email from my dear friend, Roger, a Brit, who in the summer of 1963 worked with me and other college students on the mean streets of New York’s Lower East Side.  We worked with disadvantaged kids—mainly African American and Latino– at two small churches on Henry Street, which were at the time mission “chapels” of Trinity Parish on Wall Street. Roger is now retired after a successful, long ministry as an Anglican clergyman in various parishes in the Liverpool metro area.  

What does your blog have to say about the following – found in “The Guardian” (more left wing than otherwise, and the only newspaper we take)?
“White supremacy is as American as apple pie. What we saw in Buffalo last week is another manifestation of it.”
“The Trump forces have gotten stronger”. “Race is the most explosive issue the history of this country: from war to civic strife to Buffalo”
Dare I ask “where are y’all in the U.S. going? Are we much better?” It’s scary for our children and grandchildren…!
You’re the blogger. Any answers?

 

Short answer, Roger, yes and no. Yes, we are a racist country, and no, you Brits are not much better.

Here is the long answer:

I attribute the current situation in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd and other African Americans, and the “Black Lives Matter” protests that followed–and more recently the Buffalo massacre–to two things: old fashioned tribalism and the legacy of slavery in the U.S.

We homo sapiens on the Planet Earth evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago from our ancestors that banded together to form small tribes, which gave them an edge over those who tried to go it alone. The Us versus Them, stick together mentality gave them a leg up. It has found its way into our DNA.

I like to say that we humans are basically herd animals. We band together and follow a leader, often an alpha male. Anything that challenges the unity of the tribe—or is considered “Other,” or “not like us” –is considered threatening. This is not a uniquely American phenomena. It is a fact of life all over the world. And it is not always about race. Remember the Holocaust, the current get-tough actions of China toward its minority Muslim population in  western China, the genocide in Myanmar against the Rohingya people, the massacres in Rwanda, and tribal conflicts throughout sub-Saharan and North Africa. The list is long. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Racism may be “as American as apple pie,” but tribalism is part of our humanity, albeit the dark side. We are stuck with it. The question is how we contain it.

Why racial tribalism in the United States? Our legacy is slavery. But I should point out that you Brits do not get off the hook. You were involved in transporting slaves from Africa to the U.S. That is the origin of my favorite hymn (and the name of my third sailboat) “Amazing Grace.” It is a disgraceful history. Prior to the Civil War slaves were considered property and in 1787 were counted as three-fifths of a person for determining congressional representation and taxation from slave states. At the time this was considered a reasonable compromise. In Plessy v Ferguson the U.S. Supreme in 1896 upheld legal segregation, which led to more than sixty years of Jim Crow laws and lynching in the South. It is hard to believe now, but I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee at a time when schools, lunch counters, public transportation, rest rooms, housing, neighborhoods, and just about everything else was segregated by law in the South. Even worse, we did not think that much about it. It was just the way things were. There was no question about whether Whites were superior. Blacks were “other” and to some, not fully human.

So compared to where we are now to where we were in the 1950s, we have come a long way. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was certainly a defining moment for me and, I think, for Embry and changed our lives in ways for which we both will be forever grateful.

Some protest that we really have not made that much progress and that we are stuck in a racist society. Good heavens! We have had an African American as President of our country.  African Americans now run top U.S. corporations, attend American’s finest schools, hold public office throughout the country, and segregation has been illegal since 1954. Of course, we have made progress. And, of course, it is not nearly enough.

What I believe we are experiencing now is a last gasp backlash fueled in part by economic seismic changes in our country where a hefty portion the White working class feels their position has slipped, and the rise of African Americans in the U.S. has come at their expense. Good jobs have been shipped overseas. Unions have almost disappeared, and many White people are struggling to get by. An African American may now be their boss.  African Americans they know may live in better homes and make more money than they are making.  They see African Americans as getting a bigger piece of the pie, that African Americans have gotten the lucky breaks.

 It is not just many in the White working class that have pushed back, however, there are a lot of others who are still stuck in the attitudes of the pre-civil rights era and who remain for whatever reason racists. I think an argument could be made that due to history and upbringing and the nature of our humanity—tribalism, if you will—we White folks, all of us, could plead guilty for being prejudiced from time to time. Sad but true. We are all guilty.

So, the real question is what we are going to do about it. Where do we go from here? The answer is we press on. Yes, we remain a racist country in many ways, some of them subtle (“de facto segregation”), but we have made progress—enormous progress compared to where we were during my childhood. We cannot let the country slip into tribalism and allow discrimination and acts of violence against people of color to continue or, as things now stand, increase.

There is no easy answer. And as they say, the devil is in the details. A lot depends on leadership. Afterall we are herd animals. We need enlightened, courageous progressive leaders. The “Trump insurgency” must be fought at every turn, and progressives must be elected. Tougher laws must be passed regarding hate crimes. We need gun control. Elections must remain legitimate.  There is a long list. I also believe that we must level the playing field so that all Americans who work can make a living wage and the Great Disparity between the haves and have-nots shrinks. I know, wishful thinking; but if we can’t tackle the excesses of capitalism, we will not heal the wounds that cause working people to turn against each other based on race. And most of all, we can’t allow our country to slip into tribalism in the extreme and totalitarianism, which is the Elephant in the Room, whose name is Donald J Trump.

 

 

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Thank you, Mr. President, for reaching out to me via email for my advice regarding Ukraine. I had no idea that you are one of my most loyal blog followers, and I am humbled that you consider me the one person whose insight about foreign policy you value the most.

Here are my recommendations:

1. Keep in mind that 2022 is not 1939. The biggest mistake we Americans have made in the past is fighting a current war because of lessons learned from a past one. Putin is a scoundrel, but he is not Hitler, and Russia is not Germany in the 1930s. Both Republicans and Democrats have fought wars based on faulty information and wrong assumptions—Vietnam, Iraq II, and Afghanistan. There is plenty of blame to go around for these failed efforts. Don’t allow yourself to join the club.
2. From bad intelligence or sheer ego Putin thought the Ukrainians would welcome the Russian “liberators” with open arms. The “special operation” would be over in weeks if not days, with Zelensky, considered by many to be a lightweight, surrendering. Casualties would be few. Facing Russian armed forces many times larger than the Ukraine army, the Ukraine army would cave, and Zelensky would have no choice but to waive a white flag. Putin concluded correctly that there would not be much anyone could do about it without risking another World War, which he also correctly concluded neither we nor our NATO allies have a stomach for. I do not know if this incursion was contemplated to be the first of many to follow, which would restore the Russian territory to essentially what it was under Peter the Great but suspect that it must at least have been in the back of Putin’s mind. He has let it be known many times that his mission is to “Make Russia Great Again,” whatever that means. It is a fair guess that this was  his motive. He has stated publicly that he resents the fact that the West has tried to humiliate Russia, reneged on its promise not to allow European countries on Russian borders to join NATO, and dissed him and his country on numerous occasions. Making Russia great again is how he wants his legacy to read, how he wants to go down with high marks in the Russian history books.
3. And what has happened? The war so far has been a near total disaster for Russia. Ukraine not only has been able to hold its own on most of the fighting, but it has also retaken territory that has been occupied by Russia, sunk many Russian ships in the Black Sea including their flagship, and killed thousands of Russian soldiers, perhaps close to a dozen generals, taken out hundreds of Russian tanks, many thousand trucks and heavy artillery. Russian troop morale is reported to be low with desertions increasing.
4. Of course, the damage to Ukraine is horrendous. Thousands of apartment houses have been obliterated, and many towns and villages are ghost towns. Russians have bombed schools and hospitals, lined up civilians and executed them, raped Ukrainian women, and committed countless war crimes. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers have died. But the country has not broken. And even worse for Putin, the two holdouts, Sweden and Finland, are now poised to join NATO.
5. The surprise element that Putin apparently did not count on was the quick NATO, unified response to provide the arms and modern weapons to level the playing field. That part has succeeded beyond expectations so far and has been the “game changer.” Russian casualties are estimated to be many thousands, some sources say over a third of its fighting force. Without bringing in many more forces and weapons, many experts conclude that Russia probably no longer has the power to win a victory over Ukraine using conventional weapons. (Note the qualification: “using conventional weapons.”)
6. So, the question that you and others both in the U.S. and NATO are struggling with is this: what to do next. With our help and that of NATO by providing modern weapons, Ukraine has got the Russian army on the ropes. Do you go for the knockout? Do you let an opportunity like this go to waste, to teach Putin a lesson he will have to live with forever? Do you now  set an example for other despots and dictators that taking over countries by force is no longer permitted– at least in the developed world? Many advisors say yes, go for it when you have the chance. Give Zelensky whatever additional support he needs and stay the course. It is now our game to lose. Do not let this opportunity slip away. Italy, Germany, and France, however, are urging negotiations and a resolution allowing Russia to keep a portion of the eastern part of the country. They want the war to end sooner rather than later. What should the U.S. do?
7. I side with the European members of NATO, Mr. President. The risks are too great if the war continues for an extended period. There are many differences between 1939 and 2022, but the most important one is that the other side has nuclear weapons. Lots of them. They also have chemical and biological weapons. The risk that these weapons could be used is too great not to find a solution to draw this terrible war to a close without getting us into World War III. We must find an offramp to allow Putin to avoid the kind of humiliation that would lead him to respond with the unthinkable. We have got to find a solution that will allow him to save face.
8. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962? If people try to tell you that Khrushchev backed down because he was a wimp and scared of the U.S., remind them that the reason the Soviet ships turned around was because a back-channel deal had been cut for the U.S. to remove our missiles from Turkey and Italy. The bottom line is this: We have got to come up with a deal that will allow Putin to declare “victory” of sorts and bring the war to a close.  Ruthless dictators are a lot of things. One of them is not  a wimp. If he feels cornered, Putin will fight with all he has. His ego will not let him lose.
9. I know that it is not in our power to make this decision. The war is between Ukraine and Russia, not—at least not yet—between the U.S. and NATO allies versus Russia, though it seems to me getting very close to a proxy war. In any event, Zelensky must be part of the solution. But we and our NATO allies are the only reason Ukraine can hold off Russia. Without our support, Ukraine is toast. We have considerable leverage on this one.
10. So here is the deal that I think will work: Ukraine agrees to let Putin have a small portion of land in eastern Ukraine which provides the “safe boundary” he says he is looking for. Ukraine agrees not ever to join NATO, and gradually we lift the sanctions. Russia pulls out, and the war is over.I know that the negotiations will be difficult to determine how much land Putin gets to keep. I know it will take time to reach an agreement, but for this war to go on for months longer leaves more dead bodies of innocent civilians and destroyed towns and villages in its wake. And if it appears that there is no offramp for Trump to save face, it risks the use of the unthinkable.
11. There will be other issues, of course, war crimes prosecution at the top of the list and the sanctions. And there will be a lot of give and take on the basic framework, but this must happen. If Putin is forced into a corner and uses “unconventional weapons,” this could result in World War III and the end of the world as we know it. As to whether Putin would take a negotiated settlement as a green light to go after the Baltics, I believe is highly unlikely. This venture has been a catastrophe for Russia, and he knows it. The Russian people will figure this out if they haven’t already. Why would he try something like this again?

Get it done, Chief, you can do it!

And thanks again for reading my blog regularly. Your kind comments are always welcomed.

Your good friend and advisor,

Joe

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A Play In One Act

• Setting: The Oval Office
• Characters: Joe Biden, Advisor 1, Advisor 2

Biden: Welcome to the Oval Office, gentlemen. I have summoned you here because I need your advice about the War in Ukraine. Though the Ukrainians are making a heroic effort to hold off the Russians—thanks in large part to our weapons–it looks like the war could go on for quite a while with many more casualties. I am not sure what to do. I need your advice.

Advisor 1: Stay the course, Mr. President. With our weapons and the sanctions now falling into place, the Ukrainians will win. Putin made a terrible mistake and he knows it. He has lost thousands of troops, many of his best generals, several thousand tanks and even more heavy artillery. And what has he achieved? Killing thousands of innocent civilians and destroying villages and towns and cities, but not much more. He is a pariah and hated by the free world. David is standing up to Goliath. Putin is being humiliated. I say we can win this war. We can punish Russia, isolate them and put them in their place. Teach Putin a lesson and teach the world a lesson that conquering other countries will no longer be tolerated. This is your chance for greatness, Mr. President. This will be your legacy—standing up to tyranny. No Neville Chamberlin, you. You have drawn a line in the sand, and it is working.

Biden: Thank you very much, Advisor. It is always nice to feel appreciated and to know you are doing the right thing.

Advisor 2: Not so fast, Mr. President, if I may. I am the foremost Russian expert in the U.S. and maybe in the world. I have spent my entire career studying the country and their leaders—especially Putin. I hate Putin as much as anybody, but I have to tell you he will not accept defeat. If he feels cornered, he will react like a threatened animal and lash back. He will not accept humiliation or defeat. And besides staying the course means the war will continue for months, perhaps longer, and many more innocent civilians will die. But it could get even worse and impact a lot more people than the Ukrainians. A lot of countries depend on wheat and grain from Ukraine. The farmers in Ukraine have traded their pitchforks for AK 47s. They are not planting wheat. Every country in North Africa depends on Ukrainian wheat for survival. So do other countries. The world is facing massive starvation if the war continues for much longer. You have got to figure a way out of this. This war needs to stop and stop soon.

Advisor 1: Excuse me, Advisor 2. You certainly could not be suggesting that our President cut and run just when we have the chance to see Putin humiliated and weaken Russia forever. Intellectuals are leaving the country, and there are signs that the Russian people are unhappy with all the sanctions. President Biden would go down as a wimp and a loser if he gives in while ahead.

Biden: Thank you, Advisor. I do not want to be a wimp or a loser.

Advisor 1:  Besides what could Putin do anyway? His army is pathetic. If he can’t take over a  country like Ukraine, how much of a threat could he be to us or NATO countries?

Advisor 2: It is called nuclear weapons. Do you want me to spell that out for you. N-U-C….

Advisor 1. Oh, please. Don’t try to pull the nukes-scare trick. Nobody would dare to do that. It would mean the end of the world as we know it. There is nothing to worry about, Mr. President. No worries. Advisor 2 does not know what he is talking about. MAD, “Mutually Assured Destruction.” He nukes us. We nuke them. No winners. Nuclear war will not happen.

Advisor 2. Putin has said more than once that he will use nuclear weapons if left with no options. I know this man. I know that when he feels he has no other options, he will use nuclear weapons.

Biden: How many nuclear weapons does Russia have?

Advisor 2. Just short of 6,000. 5,977 to  be exact.

Biden: And us?

Advisor 2: Nowhere close. 1,389 active, 2,361 inactive but available, and 1,800 in line to be dismantled.

Biden: So if Putin did decide to use nuclear weapons, that would not be good, right?

Advisor 2: Right, Mr. President.

Biden: And we would have to retaliate, right?

Advisor 2: Correct, Mr. President.

Biden: I think we should put a hold on dismantling the 1,800.

Advisor 1: Scare tactics. Don’t fall for it.

Biden: So what then do you recommend, Advisor 2?

Advisor 2: Cut a deal. Let Putin have eastern Ukraine and declare victory and take his troops home.

Biden: But that is not what the Ukrainians want. We have told them repeatedly that it is their decision to make to end the war, not ours.

Advisor 1: Plus, it shows we are a bunch of wussies. We would  have let Putin get away with murder. He will come back and attack what is left of Ukraine again and then go after Moldova and then the Baltics. He won’t stop until he has expanded Russia to be the size it was under Peter the Great or Stalin. He is the new Hitler. Do you want to be the new Neville Chamberlin?

Biden: What do I tell Zelensky?

Advisor 2: You tell him to cut a deal.

Advisor 1: Traitor.

Advisor 2: Do the arithmetic. No deal—tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dead in Ukraine, mainly civilians. Starvation in North Africa and possibly—I would argue probably—hundreds of millions dead in the U.S., Western Europe, and Russia and the end of the world as we know it. Deal–bruised ego for Zelensky, angered diehard Ukrainian nationalists, but the bombing and killing would stop. Wheat for North Africa. That is the tradeoff.

Biden: What if Putin does not take the deal?

Advisor 2: Offer to end the sanctions and banking restrictions.

Biden: If that does not do it?

Advisor 2: Give him his yachts back.

Biden: And if that does not work?

Advisor: Give the oligarchs their mansions overseas and their boats back.

Biden: What else?

Advisor 2: Tell him you will order McDonalds, Burger King and Starbucks to reopen immediately. The Russian people will love him for that. A deal sealer. He will be more popular than ever.

Advisor 1. Don’t listen to him. This is your chance for greatness, your legacy of  standing up against tyranny, fighting for justice, democracy and American values. You can’t give in to this nonsense and scare tactics. History will not look kindly on you.

Biden: I will give it some thought and get back to you.

 

Question: If you were President Biden, what would you do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Last week Embry and I attended the reunion for my high school Class of 1960. I attended a private school for boys called Montgomery Bell Academy–“MBA”–located in Nashville, Tennessee. I have fond memories of MBA. Most teachers were good, a few excellent, and I made a half dozen or so great friends that I have remained close to for over 60 years.

When I entered the school as a freshman in 1956, I was coming off a year at home where I was recovering from a spinal fusion to straighten my backbone that looked like the letter “C,” a casualty caused by losing my stomach muscles two years earlier due to polio. I could not play sports and for most of my high school years had a full, upper body cast.  For this reason, I am especially grateful to MBA for the opportunity created for me to become MBA’s first “student trainer.” Being a student trainer was the next best thing to playing a sport.  I taped ankles and wrapped knees and cheered my classmates playing football, basketball, and running track. Our teams then were not great, but they were good, and my classmates played with a lot of heart. Tommy Owen, the head coach, was a legendary coach, who was loved and respected by everyone I knew. Since I spent a lot of time in the trainer’s room next to his office, after practice he and I were often the only two people in the locker room. He became for me a role model and mentor. The summer following my freshman year in college I accepted his invitation to be the head boys’ counselor at a summer camp, which was then (regrettably) called “Camp Easter Seal for Crippled Children,” an experience which made me appreciate how much courage and determination those handicapped kids had. It also made me realize that I had gotten off pretty easy myself as a “crippled child”.

Fast forward 62 years. In the MBA Class of 1960, we are now all 80 or will be soon. We are old codgers, the oldest reunion class to be included in the annual five-year MBA class reunions. It will probably be our last. MBA was small when we were students. There were only about 50 boys in our class. About a third have died including one of my best friends, about a third attended the reunion, and there was not much information about the balance who did not show up. Some live out of town. I suspect many may be struggling with health issues. Others have lost interest. I remember reading somewhere that if you consult mortality and morbidity tables, you will find that the number of survivors in school reunions tracks close to what actuaries and demographers predict. Such is life—and death—on the planet Earth.

Reunions for me have tended to be emotionally exhausting. It is always great to see old friends. Several of my MBA close friends were able to make it. Reconnecting with them is always the best part, and this reunion was no exception. It seems you pick up just where you left off the last time you were together. I remembered and talked with everyone who was there, which is one of the benefits of going to a small school. Wives were present at this reunion as well, and that was also a good thing even though Embry complained that most of the time, she had to introduce herself while I was off reuniting with classmates.

But I do not think that reconnecting is what causes the emotional exhaustion. It is what goes on in your mind thinking about what it all means or, to be more specific, what your own life means. How do you compare with those around you? Have you given your life’s journey your best shot? Have you made a positive contribution? How do your values compare to those of your classmates? Of course, there are no easy answers to these questions.

One friend warned me ahead of time not to talk about diversity or inclusion and that most in our class remained “generally conservative”. Well, that I could understand since I grew up in a conservative family and am a product of Nashville’s social class structure. So, I kept my mouth shut regarding politics; and when asked by one person if I thought, “like everyone in Nashville did,” that Biden is a crook and should be impeached and thrown in jail, I politely said “no” and changed the subject.

Politics, of course, was the elephant in the room. If we had opened this Pandora’s Box, who knows where it would have taken us? I know most of my classmates would probably have different opinions from mine but not how many would be Trump supporters or would have applauded the now infamous Alito draft Supreme Court decision on abortion or be against same sex marriage or for banning “woke” books and those discussing Critical Race Theory. I do not want to know. I want to think that we are all on the same page and share basically the same values. But I also know that our country is deeply divided, probably more so than at any other point in our history except the Civil War. Good people are on both sides. So, for reunions it is best to let those sleeping dogs lie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We Republicans believe in individual freedom. We are not like the socialist Democrats who will do anything they can to take away your individual rights and personal freedoms. Vote for freedom. Vote Republican!

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Some of you may recall my blog post series from years earlier entitled “Gullible’s Travels.” Here is another entry:

At 11:46 AM on Tuesday, April 5, 2022, my iMac computer froze up and went haywire with an arrow darting all over the place. Onto the screen came the message: “Urgent! Your computer has been hacked. Call Apple Security immediately. You are at great risk.” A phone number was listed.

So, in desperation I immediately called the Apple computer number and was connected first to an operator and then to Harry Martin, who said that he was with Apple Security and would be pleased to help me with all computer security matters. He had what seemed to me like a Slavic, or perhaps Russian, accent, which also seemed to be from an older man. This caught my attention since all the other Apple Help people I have dealt with—and I have dealt with a bunch– have had American accents and were probably in their 20s. Odd, I thought, but I was desperate.

Mr. Martin said that I needed to have my security upgraded, which he would be glad do for me; but for that to happen, I needed to give him control of my computer, which, of course, I did. It took about two hours for him to install the necessary software on the computer, but to see if any financial data had been compromised, he also needed to check my online bank accounts. “If you have been hacked,” he said, “chances are they have gone after your bank accounts. That is what these hackers are usually after. We must check those first.”

I told him my bank was PNC. With his software in place on my computer, he was able to log into my PNC account, which I enabled him to do. He asked me to tell him my pass my password “to make it easier for me.” I refused to give it to him and typed it in myself. Presto! My PNC account appeared on the screen, which he had access to and could see exactly how much money I had in my accounts. There did not seem to be any unusual transactions posted in the account. I was relieved. But as a courtesy, he linked me in phone conversation to a top security expert at PNC Bank. The familiar voice of the PNC Bank operator came on first and then linked me to a PNC “security expert,” whose name was Sam Williams. Mr. Williams also spoke with a similar Slavic accent. I was beginning to get suspicious, but I was curious as to how this was going to play out.

Mr. Williams introduced himself as a top security executive at PNC Bank and assured me that the bank had my account as their number one concern and would do all they could to help me. It took about 15 minutes or so for him to check all the accounts, including recent transactions and said that it appeared that in fact according to their records, three suspicious transfers from my account had been recorded a few minutes earlier and were due to happen in the next hour. All payments from my account were to accounts in Mexico and totaled about $15,000. I confirmed that the transactions were fraudulent and requested that the bank stop the transfer. He said he would do that, but that due to “international banking regulations and commitments by PNC,” there was only a 20–30-minute window that PNC had to keep the transfers from happening and that I had to act fast.

He linked me into conversation  with another PNC employee whose name was Justin Lee, who said he was head of the “PNC Encryption Department” and would immediately stop the funds from going to Mexico. He was understanding and sympathetic. But given the short time frame, the only way that the transfer could be stopped would be for me to take all the money out of my checking and savings accounts using the ATM at my local PNC branch. In addition, the money must be exclusively in $20 bills. I should notify him when I had the money in hand, and then would give me further instructions.

If you are concluding that I am an idiot, you are not that far off base. My only excuse is that while I now was convinced that this was likely a fraud, I was curious as to how it would play out.

But when he directed me to go to the ATM immediately and take out all my money in $20 bills, that was the last straw. I had had enough.

When I objected to taking the money out of the ATM, he jumped in saying the situation was dire and that once the transfer of funds happened, I would have no chance of recovering the money. But he had a solution: He would instruct me how to convert the funds to bitcoins and deposit them into a safe account in another financial institution, where I could retrieve the funds at my convenience. By this time, he was pleading with me.

He cautioned me to say nothing to the bank about this because several employees of the branch where my money was deposited were under investigation by the bank for possible fraud. If I said anything to the suspects about this “incident,” they might be able to avoid arrest.

Game over. I burst out laughing. “Good try, fellas,” I chuckled, then with  a touch of outrage,” I am reporting you to the police!” I hung up. How could anyone be so stupid to fall for such a scam? Yet, I had to give them credit for a well-orchestrated con. It must work sometimes, or they would not be doing this, right?

It took about an hour to straighten things out with PNC Bank. No fraudulent activities had been observed and nothing was unusual. They assured me that this happens more often than you would  think and that  the account was secure. However, they suggested I change my bank and computer password, which, of course, I did. And then it took another hour or so to get Apple to clean up my computer and put on new security.

 I tried calling back the “Apple Security” and “PNC Bank” numbers that initiated the scam. No one answered the calls.

And today, April 11, at 8:07 A.M., a new warning came across my computer screen and my iPhone screen from “Apple Security” warning me that all my passwords had been stolen and that I had to act quickly. Then the message disappeared and has not shown up again.

 Rest assured. I am not taking the bait this time.

 

 

 

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Milestone birthdays in the Howell family have typically been the occasions for surprises. On my 40^th Embry and I climbed Old Rag Mountain in western Virginia followed by dinner at the Graves Mountain Lodge with my parents and Embry’s mother and our two children, ages 12 and eight. On that occasion we were also joined by about a  half dozen close friends who showed up to my complete surprise. On my 50^th our daughter, Jessica, invited me to a quiet dinner with her where we would be joined later by Embry. Our son, Andrew, was away in college. The restaurant was located in the heart of artsy Takoma Park in DC with lots of art galleries. We passed by one gallery, which was crowded with people viewing framed, black and white photographs on the walls. I took a second look through the large gallery window from the street and recognized a lot of friends, which for a moment puzzled me. Then I realized that the exhibit was showing my photographs!  Andrew was dressed up in a white, tux shirt and black bowtie and serving drinks. Jessica, who responsible for this surprise, was sheepishly giggling. Everyone applauded when we entered the gallery followed by a boisterous singing of “Happy Birthday.” On the 60^th we were in the BVIs sailing with Jessica, her husband, Peter, Andrew, and his girlfriend at the time, so there were no surprises though we had a fabulous cruise for the week. And on the 70^th we were in London visiting Andrew, who was working there at the time, his wife Karen and their daughter, Sadie, where we were joined on my birthday by several surprise guests–dear friends, Roger and Geraldine, who lived near Liverpool, Sam, my college roommate, and his wife, Diane, then Jessica and Peter, and their two children. I think there were also a couple of others. I can’t remember all the details or how they all were able to show up in London. But it was quite a party and quite a weekend.

So, with that kind of history, you would expect another surprise on a milestone 80th birthday, right? Well, not me. Everyone is still recovering  as covid-time is winding down. Large gatherings are still discouraged, and besides we had just seen our children and grandchildren the weekend before. This time there would be no surprises. I secretly breathed a sigh of relief. The plan was to have a quiet dinner with Embry at the Capital Grill, an upscale steakhouse not far from the Capitol, and be done with it.

The morning of my birthday, April Fool’s Day, I checked my email to see a message from “Kudoboard,” a sender I was not familiar with. I clicked on it. For the better part of an hour, I read the birthday comments and viewed photographs from dear friends from all over the country and the world—over fifty people—and was overwhelmed. Surprise Number One. Embry had an early morning commitment and was not around when I viewed the birthday wishes, reminisces, and photos  on my iPhone. When she returned, I viewed them all again with her, this time using the desktop computer. We both were in tears. Many of you who are reading this, I suspect, contributed. I am profoundly grateful and humbled. The mastermind behind all this was Andrew and I remain in awe that he could pull this off.

The rest of the day was quiet until dinner at the Capital Grill. When we were escorted to our table, there were Andrew and Jessica! What were they doing here? Andrew had come down from Maplewood, NJ on Amtrack, and Jessica had flown down from Portland, Maine. Well beyond the call of duty though I was very touched that they made the effort. Surprise Number Two.

Following a terrific meal, we returned to our apartment where both children would spend the night. Before we all turned in, Andrew beckoned me to turn on my computer where he typed in “Joseph Toy Howell III” and up popped  a Wikipedia page featuring me! Surprise Number Three. Now this may not seem like a big deal to you, but for me it was huge. I do not recall saying anything to my kids about this, but for a long time my heart’s desire had been to be listed in Wikipedia. In fact, I once even had a dream that I typed my name in, and there I was. If you make it onto Wikipedia, then you must be famous or at least notable, right? As Embry will tell you, I have always wanted to be famous or notable. Of course, the challenge was that I was—and am—neither, but somehow my son cobbled together enough “accomplishments” that Joseph Toy Howell III passed the Wikipedia test. Apparently, there are still “citations” that they require, which might mean the page will fade away into the ether, but for one shining moment, there I was on Wikipedia. Me. Joseph Toy Howell III. My life is now complete.

But I must tell you that making it onto a Wikipedia page is one thing. Having your son think you are worthy enough to be there and figuring out how to make that happen is something else. That is the real story here and what I am most proud of and grateful for.

I went to bed the evening of April 1 feeling appreciated and affirmed and grateful for the 80 years I have spent on this fragile planet.

But there was one more surprise to come and that occurred the following morning when Jessica insisted that we walk up to the Washington National Cathedral where one of her close friends, a singer and artist and also a friend of ours, was performing with some group she is in. Any normal person would think there was something fishy about a performance in the Bishop’s Garden adjacent to the cathedral at ten in the morning, but not me. Andrew and I, followed by Embry, walked up to the cathedral from our apartment (about a mile and a half) arriving just after 10 where there was no evidence of any performance but a lot of evidence of Surprise Number Four—dear friends, mainly from the neighborhood, and dear relatives–packed into the gazebo in the Bishop’s Garden with yet another round of “Happy Birthday,” coffee, bagels and, of course, a birthday cake. The weather was perfect with temperatures in the mid 60s, no wind, a Carolina blue sky and the garden in its spring splendor with cherry blossoms bursting out everywhere. This event was planned and executed by Jessica Ellis, the very same Jessica, who 30 years before pulled off perhaps the biggest of all surprise birthday events at the Takoma Park art gallery.

Folks, I have been blessed. There is nothing more to add.

 

 

 

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In less than two weeks, I will turn 80. That is old. If anyone who is 80 or older tells you something different, they are lying. Those of us at this age all know the truth. We know how we have had to slow down, endure aches and pains, and are not able to do many of the things we used to do. We know our remaining time on this dear but challenged planet is limited. And we know that over the course of our long lives we have had to deal with a lot. The first is loss. Everyone my age whom I know is an orphan. Our parents have all died, years ago in most cases. Many of us along the way have also lost close friends, spouses, and loved ones. I lost my only brother, five years my junior, over a decade ago. Embry and I lost our first child, just before what would have been her first birthday.

We all have battle scars. Some of us have dealt with serious illnesses and survived. Others have experienced broken or failed relationships. Everyone our age has experienced hardships and disappointments at one time or another. We have made our share of mistakes. But we also have had victories and accomplishments. Some may measure success by money. Others by power or fame. Acknowledgement and appreciation are also measures. I would add kindness and respect for others. I would also add trying to level the playing field and standing up for what is just and right. But when it comes down to it, I think the greatest measure is looking yourself in the mirror and being able to say you played the cards you were dealt as best as you could.

If you have reached the ripe old age of 80, you are first and foremost a survivor. When I was born in 1942, my life expectancy was 71. Well over half the people who were born in the U.S. that year are no longer with us. Given the advantages of a being born into the White middle/upper middle class, making lifestyle choices like not smoking, and having access to good medical care, most of my immediate cohort of friends are still alive and have beaten the odds. Still, my estimate is that about a third of my high school and college classmates are gone. Such is life–and death–on the planet Earth.

And just think about the changes we have witnessed as we 80-year-olds have progressed up the age scale. When I was born in 1942, growing up in Nashville, I did not know anyone who had a television set until I was almost 10. I have a distinct memory of seeing the first jet plane in the air when I was eight or nine, playing in my friend’s front yard. Telephones were around, but in Nashville everyone I knew had a party line, shared with two or more homes. And, of course, there was no such thing as an atomic bomb. The idea of sending a man to the moon was the stuff of science fiction. The computer revolution really did not start until after I graduated from college. Embry’s first job in New York in 1968 was a computer programmer, which in those days was just emerging as a cutting-edge job opportunity. Then came the 80s and 90s and beyond with countless satellites in the sky, personal computers, cell phones, high definition, flat screen televisions, the internet, GPS, and all the rest. Who would have believed in our short life span we would witness the Technology Revolution, following in the footsteps of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions? And to cap it all off, we are finishing our lives in the worst pandemic in over 100 years.

And we old folks have been around long enough to understand that life is a lot easier for some than for others. We have lived through the Cold War and others—in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine—and watched as people suffered tragedy in these and other war-torn countries and suffered through revolutions and natural disasters. The Vietnam War was the defining war for us 80-year-olds. A universal draft was in effect for all young men, which during this controversial war was resisted by many and helped spawn the Peace Movement. Many of my friends where I attended Union Seminary burned their draft cards. A lot of us marched in support of them and against the war.

We have witnessed man’s inhumanity to man both in the U.S. and around the world. During my entire childhood and adolescence growing up in Nashville, Jim Crow laws governed everything. Schools were racially segregated as were eating establishments, bathrooms, parks, swimming pools, playgrounds, and neighborhoods. But in the 1960s that all began to change with the Civil Rights Movement. One of the experiences that I proudly remember is the summer Embry and I spent in Southwest Georgia working in “The Movement” with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1966.

Despite the successes and failures, victories and defeats, and the hardships and challenges every human experiences during a lifetime, many people I know who have survived to age 80 realize that we White people in the U.S. were dealt a pretty good hand compared to others in this world who have experienced poverty, wars, discrimination, poor education, and lack of opportunity. Some would argue that my generation has had it easy. Our parents experienced the Great Depression and World War II. By comparison, we got what could almost be described as a free ride. And even worse: we are passing along to the next generation a planet which is threatened by global warming. Weapons of mass destruction remain ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

My emotional reaction to all this is mixed– sadness for the state of the world I have lived in for the last 80 years, and for the challenges my generation is leaving in our wake for our children and grandchildren to tackle. But at the same time, I am deeply grateful. I have beaten the odds by living this long and am still going. Note that I omit the adverb “strong.” But I am still getting in my steps, walking my 15- 20 miles a week, albeit at a pretty slow pace.

Some will call beating the odds luck. I am not sure what “luck” is, but I know it when I see it, and I know that I have had more than my share—a strong marriage, children (and grandchildren!) who have made us proud, a career that I loved, many dear friends along the way, passionate pursuits and hobbies like sailing, writing, photography, serious running, and now walking—and thanks to Embry, traveling the world. I dodged a major bullet in 1954 when I had back surgery to straighten out a spinal cord shaped like the letter “C,” caused by polio, which I experienced in 1952.  The operation at the time was relatively new and would not have been available to me if had been born 10 years earlier. The prognosis then would have been eight more years before my organs, displaced by the shape of my spine, would have given out. I would not have made it much past my twentieth birthday. I am indeed “the lucky one.”

I read somewhere that “a coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” Maybe the same could be said for luck.

But as we codgers look back on our lives and are thankful for reaching our ninth decade, I can’t help asking the question, what does all this mean? Why are we here? What is the meaning of our lives? What happens next? These are the questions that from time immemorial religion has tried to address. Some of us 80-year-olds may tell you they have all the answers based on their religious beliefs. Others—I suspect most of us—will say that even though human life has a spiritual dimension, that there is a mystery about life that cannot be explained by science, and that there is a role for religious belief and practice, we have no choice but to live –and ultimately die –with some uncertainty. As for me, all I can say is that deep down, I do believe there is a purpose in  life, that the spiritual dimension is real, and that for having almost made it to 80 and (hopefully) beyond, I am profoundly grateful. What more is there to say?

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