Confession: the news is getting to me. I fear reading The Washington Post and The New York Times. Every day there is reporting about a new atrocity that is happening due to Trump and facilitated by the gutless Congressional Republicans who cower in fear that Trump will have them “primaried out” in the next election, and a compliant Supreme Court. Today (Saturday, October 25) there was particularly tragic news in the Post and the Times—thousands starving in Somalia due to US AID food support being terminated and many thousands of others in poor countries in Africa, now at risk of starvation and death, who had depended on US medical and food support. Some 41.7 million Americans—12 percent of the US population— have been cut off from SNAP (food stamps), and food pantries are running out of supplies. Starvation is now a risk for thousands of Americans.  Most people affected are children. Health care premiums are skyrocketing for those using insurance under the ACA, making it unaffordable by many with lower incomes. Medicaid is soon to be terminated for many more. The military is bombing small boats coming out of Venezuela that are accused of  carrying drugs but with no proof or evidence. Thousands of immigrants including many US citizens are being  roughed up and arrested by masked ICE police. Trump has destroyed the East Wing of the White House to make way for a 90,000 square foot ballroom paid for by his billionaire buddies. He has ordered the conviction of Comey and James and others who opposed him on completely bogus accusations. Now he is declaring Canada an enemy because of a Canadian TV ad quoting Reagan about the stupidity of tariffs….

And that is just a portion of the grim news reported today. Tomorrow there will be more, probably worse.

Friends, the Five Alarm Fire is happening. The pain and suffering that Trump is unleashing on poor people in poor countries and on poor people in the US is now a reality as is the pain he is trying to inflict on his political enemies at home.  And it will only get worse. Trump is ordering every red state he can to gerrymander to protect the Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

So what are we to do? The No Kings protests were certainly a start and a good one. But they must be the beginning, not a one-off. Massive resistance must happen. We Americans aren’t bad people. Most of us want to do the right thing. Trump’s popularity is plunging. He appealed to the alienated (mostly) white working class by promising lower prices and preaching a populist message. Many of the people who voted for him will be hit the hardest. Bait and switch, big time. People will figure this out, but will it be in time?

 I have also wondered from time to time how oppressed people in major countries tolerated terrible dictators–the Germans under Hitler, the Italians under Mussolini, the Spanish under Franco, the Russians under Stalin and now Putin, the Japanese under the emperor/military coup, and the Chinese under Mao and now Xi Jinping. Embry and I have been to every one of these countries and have found the ordinary people we met welcoming and kind. They are not bad people, but many in those countries went along with the program when terrible dictators were in power. We are not exempt. To our credit we have a constitution and were founded as a country based on laws, not personalities. But will the U.S. Constitution hold?

What is it about us Homo sapiens that most of us fall in line even when our leaders are bad people? The answer, of course, is that we are basically herd animals. That is why we were the only species–out of many human species–to survive and beat out the competition like our cousins, the Neanderthals.  We follow a leader. Without a leader communities fall apart. Look at what is happening in Hati. The kind of leader that you have, of course, makes all the difference. Now it is our time to deal with a terrible dictator as other great countries have had to do. In many instances it took wars and violent revolutions for the regime change to happen. I hope and pray that this will not be the case for our republic, but it will depend on us fragile humans to muster the strength and courage to get through this, battered but not destroyed. How that will play out I do not know, but I am hopeful it will.

Now that I have ruined your day, you can cheer up a bit by going to my Substack where I am retelling true (and funny) stories, which should brighten your day. My latest one is now posted and is about our experience taking in a homeless family.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

 

Bowie, Maryland, is the jurisdiction in PG County where Collington (the senior living community where we now live)  is located. It comes as close to representing “Middle America” as any Washington metro area community with the exception that  the county is racially integrated with a high percentage of middle and upper-middle income African Americans.

On the day of the No Kings protest,  some 60+ residents of Collington gathered in front of our community to wave signs at the cars passing on a heavily used road. Embry took the Metro to join members of All Souls Church participating in the mass gathering of several hundred thousand near the Capitol. I went to the Bowie Library with two other Collington residents to join a racially integrated crowd (though still mostly white)  of many hundreds spread out along a major highway on both sides of the road, waving their colorful signs and cheering. The atmosphere was   festive and up beat, and it did not hurt that the weather was drop-dead gorgeous.

The most amazing thing to me was the constant cacophony of  honks of automobiles passing with people rolling down their  windows, waving and giving us thumbs up  and victory signs in support of the effort. This went on for at least two hours and was still going strong when I and my two friends from Collington returned to the campus to share our experience with others here who had demonstrated at the entrance to the community. There were similar No Kings protests in other parts of the county.

By now you have probably seen the estimates. Between seven and eight million people  demonstrating all across the country in close to 3,000 locations and in every state in the Union. This would make it the largest coordinated mass demonstration in US history. There were few incidents or arrests and the mood elsewhere all across the country has been described as mostly upbeat, hopeful, and focused on the dangers  Trump has wrought on our nation. Many were waving American flags.

Will this make a difference? Will it change the hearts and minds of the spineless Republicans in Congress who are afraid of standing up to what many of them must  know in their heart of hearts that much of what Trump is doing is wrong? Is this the beginning of something greater or just a flash in the pan? That is, of course, yet to be decided. Trump, Vance, Johnson and the Republican leadership continue to describe us No  Kings participants as Marxists, Communists, Anitfas, thugs, criminals, and people who hate our country. Really? All of us? My guess is at least some of them must know that something is brewing here that could–and I believe will–get our country headed back on the right track. But the No Kings effort on Saturday must be the beginning not the end. As the old saying goes: never give up, never, never give up. We shall overcome.

Standing by for what happens next….

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Apologies for the faulty link to Substack. If you click below (“Visit me…”) , that link will take you to the Substack site. I have already posted two stories that I call “Gullible’s Travels” and a new is in the works. These are all true stories, perhaps “artistically embellished” a tad, but they all happened. Several more will follow.

In the meantime I will continue to post on this photo blog website my rantings and ravings about our current situation and will have a post on Monday about my experience in participating in the NO KINGS event near where we now live. 

I hope that you will subscribe to the stories but you are not expected to pay anything. Several people already have subscribed for an annual fee, an action for which I am honored and grateful but these stories are available for free. Just push the bottom button and it will take you to the post as an unpaid subscriber. 

Visit me on Substack!

Subscribe to my Substack!

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

I have published the second true story about another experience that happened in the early 1980s and which I wrote about on my first  website promoting Civil Rights Journey. More will follow providing further evidence that, yes, I am an idiot. The link is  provided below and I encourage you to subscribe so that you will receive an email when the story is published:

https://joehowell.substack.com/p/gullibles-travels-chapter-two

Subscribe to my Substack!

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Friends and blog followers,

My children persuaded me to post on Substack, which I have resisted up to now but will do for my longer  posts and if this works out, eventually all of them. I am starting with some classics posted almost 15 years ago. The only thing is to be able to read a Substack post you have to subscribe (at no cost to you in my case).

Here is the link that you need to click on:

https://open.substack.com/pub/joehowell/p/the-gullibles-travels-stories

Once you do that the first  time then you will get notices of all the future entrees. Let me know if  you are having trouble or if this does not work for you. Some of the oldies are a tad longer than my recent ones, but I think you will enjoy them. Let me know what you think about the new arrangement. New josephhowellphotography.com/blog/   posts of course will continue as long as it makes sense. Also I am planning to podcast on Substack the best stories and will keep you posted….

And thanks again for your loyal following! This has meant a great deal to me.

Joe

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

We Democrats are continuing to struggle to figure out how we lost the support of the white working class. Most now realize that part of the reason rests with their perception that in general we libs look down on them and part rests with “political correctness”, including our emphasis on “diversity, equity and inclusion” or DEI, which naturally I am in favor of. There are certainly more reasons, but these two are important—especially DEI.

I confess. I am one of casualties of DEI orthodoxy. In the early 2000s I was fired by the University of Maryland for being “a sexist and a racist” and was warned by the Department of Public Policy where I was a lecturer never to set foot on, or even come close to, the University of Maryland campus again.

Here is my story:

When I sold Howell Associates in 1998 (which provided technical assistance to developers of affordable housing and seniors housing), I began to slow down and was looking for some ways that I might make a contribution. I had done some college level teaching before (when in 1981 I was the Benjamin Banneker Professor of Washington Studies at GW, a one-semester, temporary assignment, and enjoyed the experience) and thought I might be able to somehow get back into academia. Someone suggested the University of Maryland where I was able to land a position as lecturer in the School of Public Policy where I lectured on affordable housing finance as part of a larger course on housing. I only lectured a few times a semester but enjoyed the experience and liked the students, many of whom were already working and taking the course as part of their required continuing education.

In my fifth or sixth year of lecturing, I got a voicemail message from an administrator overseeing the program which stated the following: “Mr. Howell, there is no place at the University of Maryland for racists or sexists.  You are fired! Do not come to class and do not set foot on university property again.”

I immediately dialed the callback number and was put into her voicemail. I said that I enjoyed the classes and sorry to hear I had been fired but could she please explain why I am a racist and a sexist.

The next day I received another voicemail message from her stating simply that it was because of the racist and sexist story I told in class this week. Having no idea what she was talking about, I immediately got her voicemailbox again and said, “What story are you talking about?”

The following day I received another voicemail message from her stating, “I am not sure but think it was the racist story you told about the Chinese people.”

I immediately returned the call and got her voicemailbox again. “Why was the story racist and sexist?”

The next day I received her reply in my voicemailbox, “I don’t know, but call the student that complained about you and do not bother me again. You must apologize to her, and do not come on campus again. Ever! And do not call me again!” She gave me the name and telephone number of the student, whom I called immediately. She actually answered the phone. What a relief, I thought, at least I am getting a chance to talk to a real human being. I started off by saying that I understood that I had upset her about something I had said in my class and would like to apologize and then asked her to tell me exactly what I said that offended her. She replied that she would not accept my apology and that what upset her was the racist and sexist story that I had told in class.

This story is the story I had told:

I was at a board meeting of one of my clients, the Chinese American Retirement Enterprise Nonprofit or CAREN Inc. There were six or seven people at the meeting, all Chinese Americans, all young, in their late 20s and 30s, and very enthusiastic and very smart. After I explained to them what one of the obscure HUD regulations was attempting to say, I added, “I know it may sound confusing, but it is not all that complicated. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out.”

One of the people, a young women, smiled, blushed and replied, “Mr. Howell, don’t worry. We get it. We actually are rocket scientists, all of us. We work at NASA.”

I could not help asking her what about the story made me a racist. She replied that it is a racial stereotype that the Chinese are smart. “Ok,” I replied, “I guess I understand why I am a racist but why am I a sexist?”

“You are a sexist because you said a young woman asked the question. You should have said young person. And you can apologize all you want to, but I will never accept your apology.”

I tried calling the Maryland administrator back to assure her I had done my duty and understood why someone as racist and sexist as me should never be allowed on the Maryland campus but of course only got her voicemail. We had never talked in person or over the phone during the entire ordeal.

But as luck would have it, a couple of years later I got a desperate call, not from the administrator but from her assistant, saying that the person who replaced me had quit and they were having trouble finding someone to lecture about affordable housing finance. She was pleased to report that they had concluded that by now I must be rehabilitated enough to come back. Could I be there for the class next week?

I chuckled, accepted, and soldiered on for several more years. Eventually the administrator and I  reconciled though neither of us ever brought up the unpleasant ordeal but I have resisted her demand never  to tell the “racist and sexist story” again.

It is too good a story not to share.

Now who does  not understand why some think we libs might have taken the DEI stuff a little too far?

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

A lot of people are warning that under the unhinged President, we are inching dangerously close to becoming a fascist police state. Well, this is not the first time that the fear of fascism has raised its ugly head. Here is my retelling of a true story (now lost) that I posted in 2012 when I first started blogging. Enjoy.

In 1967 Embry and I were living in New York City. She was in her senior year at Barnard College and I was taking a year off from Union Seminary to participate in a program designed for worn out seminary students to give us a breather. It was long overdue for me and looking back on that year I count it as one of the best I ever had. I had several secular jobs, met regularly with a half dozen other seminary students in a program where we talked about our experiences, and we lived off campus in a rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive a short block away from 125^th Street and Harlem.

We loved out tiny studio apartment. The one window opened onto a fire escape in an air well and the only way that you could figure out what the weather was like was to make a call to the weather lady. But it was perfect for us, and for the first time we were away from Union and all the angst that went with it. And we were still battle scarred from our summer working with SNCC in Southwest Georgia in 1965 in the civil rights movement and all the demonstrations going on as the Vietnam War was heating up and the various protests responding to injustice were continuing. One tends to forget that in those days the grass roots energy was from the Left, not the Right as is the case today. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weathermen, the Black Panthers and various other radical groups were getting all the attention. We were glad to be free from all this, to have a chance to live a normal life, and to take advantage of all the great things to do in the city.

Our apartment was in a five story aging structure, which was poorly maintained due in part to rent control (our rent was $75/month including utilities) and to poor management, and ruled over by a superintendent—or a “super” as they were called–who lived in the basement with his wife, and was feared by everyone who lived in the  40-unit building. His name was Joe Poitras. Poitras spoke with a heavy accent of unknown origin, was balding and overweight, probably in his mid 50s, had tattoos on both arms, an unshaven, perpetually frowning face, and always wore dirty blue jeans and a grease-stained undershirt. No one ever saw him smile but everyone in the building heard him shout, mostly at his wife, often accompanied by loud noises caused by pots and pans being thrown, which we could hear from our apartment on the fifth floor. He was such a feared person that hardly anyone asked him to fix anything for fear of being yelled at. The streetwise Episcopal clergyman that hosted the weekly discussions of our seminarian group gave me the advice to give the guy a generous Christmas tip, which I did, and from that time on, I did not get the scowl that most others got, who presumably did not understand the rules.

In the apartment next to us lived Don, a tall, skinny graduate student at Columbia who had a huge crop of very curly hair making him look a little like a young Art Garfunkel. Occasionally we would chat; and when his door was open, I could see that the only furniture in his room was a mattress and box springs. Except for a guitar next to his bed, there was nothing else that I could see in the room. Across from Don was Mrs. Finklestein, an aging widow who must have been in her mid to late eighties. She was very quiet, frail, and shy and left her apartment only to go shopping occasionally and to do her laundry in the basement. These were the only two people we knew in the apartment house.

In the spring of 1967, I smelled what I thought might be smoke and ventured out into the hallway to see what was going on to discover that smoke was coming out of the trash chute. Oh, my goodness, I concluded, the building was on fire! Don was standing beside the trash chute and looking down the stairwell trying to figure out what was happening. I immediately asked if he had called the super.

“Are you kidding me, call Poitras? He hates my guts. The guy would kill me, and besides the smoke seems to be dying down.” Then without missing a beat he turned to me and said, “You know, we live in a goddamned fascist police state.”

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“Yeah, a fascist police state. Last night around midnight I was not bothering anyone just practicing on my guitar and sitting on my mattress, and I hear a banging on the door. I opened the door and in come two cops. I go up against the wall, arms out and spread eagle, but there was not much to search since I was in my jockey shorts. The cops saw me but didn’t search me and went straight to my bathroom and started flushing my toilet over and over. Then they turned to me and said ‘you no good motherfucker, hippie creep, you try a trick like this again and your ass is going to jail. In fact, you are damn lucky we aren’t locking you up now. Then they slammed the door and left.”

“Good heavens,” I responded. “Sounds pretty weird to me.”

“Weird, maybe, but if this is not fascism, I don’t know what is. We live in a goddamned fascist police state. How else can you explain it?”

By this time the smoke from the trash chute had died down and I was relieved that the apartment building was not going to burn down after all. When Embry returned from doing the laundry, I immediately told her the story, concluding that America in 1967 was becoming a fascist police state. How else could you explain it?

She immediately broke out in laughter.

“What is so funny about that?”

She then told me her story about her experience in the laundry a few minutes earlier talking with Mrs. Finklestein, the elderly lady with an apartment directly across from Don’s. 

“Mrs. Finklestein was in tears and told me that she had lived in New York City all her life but had never had such a terrible experience. In the middle of the night her toilet started to overflow, and she did not know what to do. She was afraid to call Poitras, so she called the police and pleaded for help. She waited and waited, flushing the toilet all night to keep it from flooding her apartment, but the police never came. ‘They had always come before,’ she said, ‘but not this time. The police just do not care anymore. Nobody cares. That is just what the world has come to. This is the way America now is. Nobody cares.”’

The next morning, she had gotten up her nerve and called Poitras, who begrudgingly fixed the toilet. As far as I know, neither told the other about their experience. Don apparently left the building for good the next day and Mrs. Finkelstein was either too weak or too afraid to answer our knock on her door. We departed from the city the next year for Chapel Hill where I would get a masters degree in city planning and Embry a masters in biostatistics, not having a chance to talk to either person, who presumably went through the remainder of their lives believing that that America was a fascist police state or a country where nobody cares.

If only the fears of a fascist police state that many think may be happening today could have a similar happy ending.

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

There are many great things that happen at Collington. On average there is usually one big event each month where all residents—including those living in assisted living and memory care– are invited along with staff members who have been given the time off—to gather for an event or a party. There is usually good music and food, and the atmosphere is festive. Of all these events, however, the annual regatta is the biggest. At least that was what I had been told when I was on the Collington Board of Directors several years ago and when Embry and I had visited Collington before we decided to move here.

This year the annual regatta happened on Friday, September 12. Several weeks before I had noticed an announcement that practices for the regatta would begin on a Saturday and wandered down to Collington’s small lake to see what was going on. There were about a half dozen people gathered on a small pier standing beside a group of six identical sailboats that were modeled after Skipjacks, the famous oyster fishing boats on the Chesapeake Bay with wide beams, shallow drafts, and huge mainsails. These replicas were not all that small—three to four feet long—and weighed at least 25 pounds. Before I had a chance to say more than a greeting, someone handed me a remote control device and pointed to a boat just launched.

“That one is yours,” he said, “go for it.”

I looked at the remote control panel, which had only two keys—one that was labeled “in” and “out,” which controlled the main and the jib, and the other “left “and “right,” which controlled the rudder.

Now those readers who know me know that for practically all my adult life I have been an avid racing and cruising sailor and that sailing has been part of my identity. Embry and I have owned seven sailboats over a 46-year period starting in 1974 with a 16-foot, albeit beat up,  high performance racer with a trapeze (a “505”),  which sank in the Potomac River on the Fourth of July 1974, and ending with “Second Wind,” a 39-foot cruising/racing boat that had been part of the Sunsail charter fleet in the British Virgin Islands, which we sadly sold in 2023. I raced these various boats (my favorite racer was our J-30, “Carolina Blue”), mainly on Wednesday evenings during the sailing season, a tradition on the Bay for many yacht clubs. I once calculated that I had raced in something like over 800 races over the years. I was never a top racing sailor but can count over 25 sailing trophies or plaques that hang on the walls or are in bookcases in our small cottage at Collington.

So, you could conclude that I know what I am doing when it comes to sailboat racing. Well, not exactly. Controlling a model sailboat is a whole lot different from steering the rudder of a boat when you can feel the wind in your face, judge the waves, and feel the boat respond to every touch on the tiller or wheel. Some have described the experience of model sailboat racing more akin to playing a video game than actual boat racing, complicated by the fact that whatever breeze is affecting your boat is probably not the same wind that you feel hitting your face since you may be hundreds of yards away. In a word: It is a challenge.

The practices for the Collington Regatta happened every Saturday for five weeks. After each practice, I was mentally and physically exhausted, and it seemed to take forever before I could get the controls figured out. Also contributing to the exhaustion was the fluky nature of the wind on the small lake. Winds were light, unpredictable and always changing and shifting due I suppose to the barrier of tall trees surrounding most of the lake. My five competitors were all very nice people and had the same difficulties I did. While most had more experience than me sailing model boats, no one had anything close to my experience racing full-size sail boats. I should have had a big advantage.

But, alas, I soon realized I didn’t. I was very much aware that the regatta could be won by any of the six boats. As the date of the regatta got closer, I became more apprehensive, bordering on nervous. My identity as an experienced racing sailor was on the line. What if my boat plowed into the weeds (as had happened to some of my competitor’s boats and could easily happen to mine)? What if I came in last? In fact, on the last day of practice before the Big Regatta, I had come in last–or “DFL” as it is called by sailors– which I blamed on a weak battery in the control mechanism, but this was a reminder that it could very easily happen in the Big Race.

The name of my boat was “Eva J.” And at times she seemed to have a mind of her own, turning left when I thought that I was directing her to turn right and vice versa. That is why I am using the “we” pronoun to describe the regatta experience. Eva J  had her way of doing things. I had mine. When we worked together, we had the best results.

When the day of the regatta finally arrived, I was on pins and needles, which sounds especially odd given the number of regattas I had under my belt including participating in three national championships when Embry and I had trailered our beloved 16-foot Wayfarer (“Mother Courage”) to Lake Huron. But this was different. The regatta had so much hype and so many people would be watching. It was my chance to make a splash as a new resident, to gain some recognition and respect that I knew I richly deserved but so far was sadly lacking.

The six skippers hauled our boats along a hallway leading to the door opening to the path to the lake and stood in line, waiting for our name to be called. An Episcopal clergyman was standing at the door in full clerical garb prepared to give his blessing of the fleet. Others were gathered around the door to observe the beginning of the ritual. One by one, as the door was opened and the name of the boat and the skipper was announced, each of us paraded our boat on its carrying device in front of the crowd of several hundred applauding old folks and staff, some in wheelchairs. Several rows of chairs had been set up and grills were burning, as the dining staff cooked hot dogs and hamburgers and gave out sodas and water, popcorn and popsicles. Sea shanties were blasting over the loudspeakers. Of all the regattas and races that I have participated in over the years, none hold a candle to the atmosphere of the Collington Regatta.

The written announcement promoting the event stated “betting begins at 10:30, the race at 11:00.” Most of the crowd had probably already placed money on their favorite boat. As a new resident, I doubted that neither Eva J nor I had received many bets. Nor do I not recall hearing many cheers for us as we headed for the water.

In addition to all the regalia, the weather was drop-dead gorgeous. Temperatures were in the mid 70s, the sky was Carolina blue with occasional white cloud puffs, and best of all, there was a gentle but consistent breeze. During the five previous weeks of practice, we had never had a breeze this good. How lucky could we be? But still. The race had not yet begun. Not one of us anxious skippers knew how it would turn out. My heart was pounding fast.

The Episcopal priest blessed the fleet, and one by one, each boat was eased into the water as the crowd applauded. We skippers were all feverishly fumbling around with our electronic devices to be sure they were working. The countdown began as we all tried to get into position for the start, then the sound of the horn. Off we went!

One of our neighbors who lived in our cottage cluster announced the race to the crowd over a loudspeaker. Bets were on the line. People were cheering.

The racecourse was probably less than half a mile long and had three rounding marks plus a start/finish line, and the regatta involved racing the boats around the course twice.

Now after five weeks of practice I had figured out that the main factor determining success in this race would be to get “clean air,”—in other words to maneuver the boat into a position where Eva J got better wind than any other boat, not all that different from sailing real boats.  But easier said than done. Yet with a little luck I was able to position Eva J just enough ahead of the others so that she got the better breeze and she headed toward the first mark, up wind, but not so much as to require tacking, and we rounded a good 10 boat lengths ahead of the others, which were bunched together trying to find the breeze. We were able to expand our lead as Eva J zoomed off the wind on a broad reach to the next mark and then downwind to next mark and back up wind to the starting line for the second and final lap around the course. Euphoria! I was nailing it.  We even passed one boat which was struggling to make it to the first mark. None of our competitors were even close. At last, I could start to relax.

Then came my first mistake. With the sun in my eyes on the second time around the course I had trouble finding the second mark, which followed the long downwind, easy leg; and when I finally spotted it, I realized that I had passed it minutes before. I had to make a sharp turn into the wind and tack to get back on course, which cost Eva J and me about five minutes as the boats behind us now were now all charging downwind toward the mark. When I finally got back on track, our lead had been cut well in half. I could not afford another mistake and breathed a long sigh when I realized that we were broadening our lead again. Eva J rounded the last downwind leg, and we headed up wind to the finish line only about a hundred yards away. There was no way that we could lose.

That is, until the crash.

As the boats following us sailed downwind toward the mark that Eva J had rounded several minutes before, one of the boats that had not yet passed the last mark took an unusual course that blocked the course that Eva J. and I were taking to the finish line. It caught me totally by surprise. I did not see the boat and was not expecting it. Bang! We crashed. I could not believe it. Here I was headed to victory, and suddenly, out of the blue, this happens. Just my luck. I am certain Eva J was on a starboard tack, which gave us right-of-way, but that was irrelevant because in model boat racing at Collington that did not make any difference. The only rule was to avert a crash at all costs. I groaned as I realized the sails of the two boats had become intertwined, and the two boats were stuck together being pushed by the wind back to the mark that Eva J had just rounded. The other boats were now catching up fast.

I fiddled with the electronic device feverishly moving the tiller back and forth to try to free us up and finally it worked. The boats separated and Eva J was able to point upwind again in the direction of the finish line. But it took some time—at least two or three minutes, which was enough time for two boats to pass us.

Doomed.

I tried to regain my composure and was comforted by the fact that I knew Eva J had faster boat speed than the other boats. We also had clean air and were on a close tack that would allow us to make the finish without having to tack but not so close as to lose boat speed. The two boats were not that far ahead, and we were slowly catching up. The only question was whether there was enough time to beat them to the finish line.

There was.  I beat them both by about a boat length. The horn sounded. The announcer proclaimed the winner— “Skipper Joe Howell on Eva J!” I would like to think the crowd roared, but do not recall hearing much of anything. I was completely exhausted.

And relieved.

But I will say this: that for the remaining years of my life—which I know will be spent here at Collington—this will surely be one of my favorite memories. The trophy now proudly sits atop  my racing trophy case (and will remain there until next year when I must give it back for the next Collington Annual Regatta.)

Thank you, Collington, for the Big Sailing Regatta.

 

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

Some of you who follow my blog (and for which I am deeply grateful!) may have observed an unusual period of silence. Do not be disturbed. Embry and I are fine. I seem to have found myself bogged down by a combination of aggravated Trump-despair combined with my latest cause to try to preserve a swimming pool at Collington, the latter activity putting me at odds with the establishment.

For the record, we love Collington. The grounds are gorgeous, our cottage terrific, the food good, the staff excellent, the residents friendly with interesting careers and fully engaged with the world, and we are making new friends. One could not ask for more.

Except for one thing: the permanent loss of a 25-meter, indoor lap pool, which ironically was one of my chief recommendations when I did the initial feasibility and programming work for Collington in 1981 and which has continued to be very popular for  a group of 50-70 people who use the pool several days a week for water aerobics and lap swimming. I have been swimming laps myself for about 30 minutes per swim, three times a week and love it. It is also important for attracting new residents.

 The reason the pool will soon disappear is to make room for a new assisted living center, which will replace the original, which most agree is outmoded. This is all part of an ambitious initiative called “Collington Vision 2030,” which will add 55 new units, enlarge the dining room and bar area, add a whole new section called “Main Street” along with smaller upgrades and additions. The problem is that the pool will not be replaced (though a new site for it has been identified) due to insufficient funding. The total project cost is estimated to be $165 million without the new pool, which would add another $5 million to the price tag. Management has stated that the rollout of the new plan is essentially final even though residents were excluded from the initial planning process, leaving many residents distressed. So far, no budging though I have pointed out that the cost of $5 million amounts to only three percent of the total cost, not including the pool and that this gap could be addressed with minor changes to the overall scope.

What is especially troubling to many people is that management has stated emphatically that if the residents want a replacement pool, the residents should pay for it along with providing funding for enlarging the auditorium, a total cost burden to residents of almost $10 million. Except for perhaps a very few people, residents here are not wealthy. We are retired social workers, high school teachers, college professors, doctors and nurses, researchers, engineers, clergy, small businesspeople, and government and foreign service workers. We have writers, artists, musicians and singers but few, if any, multi-millionaires. The cars in the parking lot are mostly old and not expensive, and many are hybrids or EVs.  Requiring residents to raise funds to replace amenities taken away by management with minimal input from residents is unheard of in the senior living industry as far as I can tell and a complete mystery as to why Collington and Kendal are taking a hard line position. I have not thrown in the towel yet.

So rabble rousing about this potential train wreck has been keeping me busy and is why I haven’t blogged recently. But a lot of other things are happening here which I am very happy about. I was asked to do a single person show in the main front lobby area of some of my photographs, nine in black and white and nine in color, and that exhibit opened yesterday. Next month I have been asked to do a “neighbor talk” in the auditorium. And this Friday is the popular annual Collington Sailing Regatta, where six miniature skipjacks compete in our small lake. I have been practicing for several weeks along with five other skippers, who like me  have electronic devices that communicate with these 40-pound replicas, adjusting the sails and rudders. It is fun but very tricky and a whole lot harder than the real thing. The entire community comes out and people bet on the winner. Stay tuned for the results. (I came in DFL in the last practice, due I argue, to a weak battery on my controls.)

                

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!

(Note to reader: this is the first of a new series, which I am calling simply “Life Stories” and will post these from time to time.)

Humbling moments, we all have them. Here is one (of many) that I remember.

In 1968 I was in my final year at Union Seminary in New York. I had struggled with theological issues and matters of faith for some time but had decided to stick it out at Union, lacking other better alternatives. Besides, by my last year at Union, I had managed to finagle a fieldwork assignment at the New York City Department of City Planning, and I was taking city planning courses at Columbia. My senior thesis was titled something like “Making Public Housing Human: Creative Playgrounds in New York City.” I still wonder why Union allowed me to get away with these activities. But, hey, it was the Sixties, and everything was up for grabs.

While I had struggled along the way at Union, I had not thrown in the towel yet and told myself to close things out I should take a least one more course in theology. I chose a seminar on contemporary theology taught by the famous theologian, Daniel Day Williams. Professor Williams was a kind and gentle person, who had written many books on theology and had a world-wide reputation. The seminar was open only to Union Seminary seniors and PhD students from various universities in New York City and very hard to get into. I still have no idea how I made the cut, but I did and realized the first day of class that I was in the Big Leagues. While it was labeled a seminar, there were probably around twenty people in the class, mostly graduate students from Columbia University and a Catholic institution of some sort. There were only a couple of other Union seniors besides me in the class and a lot of very enthusiastic PhD students. The atmosphere was electric, sitting at the foot of a theological icon, one of the few intellectual giants left at Union after the departures of Paul Tillich and Reinhold Neibhur. Everyone had to choose a theologian, write a paper on that person, and deliver a presentation of about 20 minutes about the person and his or her theology.

The first day Professor Williams passed around a paper with a list of famous theologians. I was one of the first to see the list as it was passed around and jumped on Paul Tillich, putting my name in the designated space. I could see others beside me frowning and sighing when they saw his name crossed out. I had hit the jackpot. Paul Tillich, probably the most famous living theologian in the world at the time, recently retired from Union and now teaching at Harvard, and I had lucked out in getting to write about him and his views.

Now Tillich was not new to me. In fact, in some ways he had already had a profound impact on my life. During my senior year at Davidson, Tillich had accepted an invitation to spend three days on campus and deliver a presentation each day in the school’s assembly hall. I attended all three lectures (which later became part of one of his books), sat in the front row of a jammed auditorium, took copious notes, and concluded he was the most profound thinker I had ever heard. That had happened four years earlier, and while I remembered the experience I could not remember exactly what he had said. This would be my chance to dig deeper and to come closer to the meaning of life. So I jumped in and got to work, reading several of his books and most of his opus magnum, Systematic Theology.

My presentation did not happen until week number four, which meant that I had three chances to listen to other students make their presentations. I had never seen anything at Union like the enthusiasm or engagement of my fellow classmates, with eager hands raised after each presentation, and thoughtful questions. During this preparation period I worked hard knowing that the pressure was on to reach the high standards set by the six or seven students who had made brilliant presentations before me.

There was only one problem. The more I read of Tillich’s writing, the less I understood. What he was known for was using terms like “ultimate concern” and “ground of being” to help make religion more relevant to the modern world. But the more I read, the more confused I became.

As the deadline approached, I started to panic, and the night before my presentation in desperation I called a PhD student at Union and a good friend and told him of my plight. He calmed me down, invited me to come to his apartment, and we began around eight in the evening to go over the main points of Tillich’s work. At six the next morning we were still working on it. My friend was extraordinarily patient and went over each concept as long as it took for me to understand it. I had never pulled an all-nighter before (or since), but by nine that morning I thought that I finally had Tillich figured out. I went back to the library and revised my paper and presentation, finishing by three in the afternoon, an hour before the seminar would begin.

I was the second of three presentations that day. The first was by a PhD student at Columbia about some obscure theologian I had never heard of, but whoever he was, he must have been profound because hands immediately went up around the room with questions, comments and replies. Just like the several presentations before hers, there was warm applause at the end and a smile on Professor William’s face.

Then it was my turn.

I walked to the front of the class, and bleary eyed, looked at the eager faces in the room, took a deep breath and launched into my twenty-minute presentation on the theology of Paul Tillich. When I finished, I smiled with satisfaction. I was so exhausted, I could not remember what I had said but felt a great sense of relief that I had managed to deliver my report and thanks to my friend, I had confidence I had nailed it.

 There was complete silence. Professor Williams, with a puzzled look on his face and raised eyebrows, asked the class, “Any questions?”

There was not a single peep. Some people were looking down at their desks to avoid eye contact.

“Thank you, Mr. Howell, you can now go to your seat,” the kindly professor said trying to manage a smile. There was no applause like all the other students had received.

“Well,” I said to myself, “I have either knocked the ball out of the park or somehow have totally missed what Tillich was all about.”

No one spoke to me when the class adjourned and as other student presenters were being congratulated.

I suspected that it might have been the latter, but I did not have a chance to talk to anyone about the presentation and was afraid to talk to the revered professor, so I kept quiet for the remainder of the class and for the rest of the semester, sitting at the back of the room and speaking to no one. I told myself that I could have been so profound that no one had any questions or maybe I could have been so awful that people were speechless. Better just forget about the whole ordeal. So, I shrugged it off and stoically finished the course. I would know soon enough when the semester ended and when I would receive my grade. Who knows, maybe I had nailed it. The final grade would tell. I could have gotten an A+. 

When the grades came in at the end of the semester, I held my breath and opened the envelope to discover a grade of C–, the lowest grade you could get at Union and equivalent to an F in most other graduate schools. There was not a single comment on the paper.

 I had my answer, but by this time the semester was over, Union and Columbia were on strike due to one of the student protests in the Sixties, and in the fall I was headed to planning school in Chapel Hill. A just and proper ending for my three years of suffering through theological education (and occasional anguish) at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. And one of my life’s many humbling moments.

 

Visit me on Substack!
Subscribe to my Substack!