Stodghill Says So

Was it something in the air?

2009-11-03T15:31:00.000-05:00

I don't qualify as a Civil War buff or even someone truly knowledgable on the subject, yet like so many others I have visited a number of battlefields from that war and enjoy hearing about them.
From the time I was a young boy, one thing about that war has puzzled me. How is it that you could enjoy a leisurely breakfast, then set out by car and well before lunch have visited the boyhood homes of three men who played prominent roles in that war and what followed in the Old West? You can do this in a small area of East Central Ohio.
None of these were jovial men or even sociable men by normal standards. Two were poor students at Wes Point and ranked near the bottom of their respective classes. Yet fame awaited.
The first was William Tecumseh Sherman of Lancaster. Unlike the other two, he was a brlliant student. Not as concerned about military customs and protocol as he might have been, however.
Just over thirty miles to the northeast was the home of Phillip Sheridan in Somerset. Like numerous short men, he carried a big chip on his shoulder.
Drive on and you come to a wide spot in the road called New Rumley, at one time the home of an impetuous and impatient young man named George Armstrong Custer. Like Sheridan, he wasn't overly fond of books.
Sherman, an outstanding general, is best remembered for his march through Georgia and the Carolinas. He left a lot of smoke and ashes in his wake, as did Sheridan in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. With Custer leading the way, his cavalry was hot on Robert E. Lee's heels and both he and Sheridan were present when Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
Then all three moved westward. Sherman was in overall command during the Indian Wars but it was Sheridan, closer to the action and a man of many prejudices, who said, "I never saw a good Injun who wasn't dead." This was quickly transformed by others into, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
Then there was the man who couldn't wait on others, Custer. With the entire 8th Infantry Regiment close enough to hear the gunfire, he went charging into oblivion at the Little Big Horn.
So was it something in the air of East Central Ohio that made them the way they were? Slash, burn, destroy, throw caution to the wind, that was the way they lived and in one case died. Whatever it was, it made for some interesting stories in the history books.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

Do you know what it means to suffer?

2009-11-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

It was one of those rare times when you couldn't ask for a single thing that would make life better. The brutal fighting in and around the town of Mortain was over and that meant the Battle of Normandy was over. More war lay ahead but at the moment all that mattered was the warm sunlight falling on a grassy hillside and the quiet that seemed so tangible you could reach out and touch it, store a little of it away in your pockets.
Then a chaplain came walking by, a hellfire and brimstone preacher who saw us as a captive audience. He stopped and looked us over with disgust.
"You're soft," he cried in a high-pitched voice laced with the hills and hollows of Appalachia. "You don't know what it means to suffer. You don't know what it means to be really hungry. Well I know and I'm going to tell you."
No one had informed him that some of the men sitting by themselves off to the left were from the 30th Infantry Division. For a week they had been surrounded on a hillside with nothing to eat but some unripe apples and hard potatoes they had dug from the ground.
So he told them and the rest of us who'd been eating high on the hog what it was like to be really hungry.
"After breakfast one morning I went for a walk in the woods and got lost. It was ten-thirty at night before I got back. All that time I didn't have a thing to eat. That's what it means to be hungry. That's what it means to suffer."
One by one the men from the 30th got up and walked away. One by one the rest of us did the same.
Well, it was nice while it lasted.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

Losing Independence?

2009-10-30T09:51:00.050-04:00

Any halfway intelligent person could make out a good case claiming I'm nutty as the floor sweepings at a Planter's factory. Then the defense would have its turn and I'd convince the judge and jury that I was the only sane person in the room.
OK, maybe not the judge. They live in a world of their own.
The point is, I've entered yet another stage of life. My entire existence has consisted of moving from one compartment to another, slamming the door behind me as I leave one and enter the next. I often think back to one of those earlier stages, but they're over with, finished, kaput. "Allus kaput," how often I heard that during one of those earlier phases.
As yet I have not come up with a new name for this latest step. Seizure Stage has a nice ring to it but lacks mass market appeal. I'll work on it.
Many people know I haven't been at the top of my game for a couple of weeks. Not that the top of my game at 84 amounts to a helluva lot. But during those recent days every ailment I've had in the 21st century came back. A Homecoming celebration of sorts. Like any similar gathering, one new wrinkle was added to make it memorable. A trial run was conducted Monday while I was typing some bit of fluff. Suddenly a pair of vise grips took me by the shoulders, lifted me in the air and dropped me again. What happened? I had no idea, but it was startling. I looked down and around to see if I had been smoking a pipe and it now was in the initial stage of igniting me. I hadn't had a pipe in my mouth, but I had just Lost Time.
Jackie took my blood pressure: 81 over 40 something. Low blood pressure brings on hallucination.
Then yesterday morning I was loafing in my living room chair as Jackie prepared to go to the drug store. I asked her to get a package of those cheap buns with gooey icing because nothing else sounded good. She went down the hall to get her coat and purse, then stood in front of me and said they were called sticky buns. I heard that, sticky buns. The next thing I knew she was holding one of my arms, which had been swinging wildly in the air. She said my face had been distorted, although I'm not sure how she could tell the difference.
Jackie called my favorite doctor and he returned the call on his new i-phone. I'm sure of that because we had been playing with it Tuesday when I went in for my monthly shot of joy juice that offsets the effect of a tumor on the pituitary gland that has been there for many years. Jackie was somewhat perturbed because she thought I should be asking medical questions and instead the doc and I were shooting at each other with various weapons on the i-phone.
So yesterday he said, "We can do two things. We can put him in the hospital for ten days to two weeks and run a lot of tests. Will he agree to an operation?"
He had to ask but already know the answer, "No."
"OK, I'll write a prescription for anti-seizure medicine and he can come see me again in a week."
So that's the way they left it, but I sure hope he has the i-phone ready to play with. Unless he has an even newer toy by then.
For obvious reasons I won't be driving a car anytime soon. Some people who don't know better will say that means a loss of independence. Nonsense. A car is handy at times but it owns you, not vice versa. You want independence, watch the last few minutes of the movie Elmer Gantry. He had everything, was on top of the world, but lost it all. With only the shirt on his back and a cheap suitcase in hand containing all his worldly possessions, Elmer (Burt Lancaster) walked off into the sunset with a big grin on his face. That's independence.
Whatever, I suppose some people think I should take life more seriously. Why, when it's so humorous and filled with all these many unexpected twists and turns? Not a single one of us is going to get out of it alive. Eat, drink and make merry; it all comes out the same in the end. As the drunk said as he stood up at our table a week before D-Day: "You who are about to sigh, I dalute you." It's the only way to live.

Out of action - temporarily, I hope

2009-10-27T17:33:00.000-04:00

Thanks to a Perfect Storm, medical variety, I have been on the ropes lately. Hope it ends soon and I can be back to blogging and writing. Thanks for the kind words and comments. - Dick

Ever get more than you asked for?

2009-10-20T10:30:00.053-04:00

I sometimes recall driving across France in the summer of 1985. As tends to happen in July, the windshield grew buggy after a couple of hours so I pulled up at what appeared to be an auto supply store in a small town. I was hoping to buy a bottle of window cleaner but the woman behind the counter had no idea what I was asking for. After several minutes of motioning as if I were cleaning a window, arm waving and talking the woman may have decided I was a nut and called the manager.
We went outside, I showed him the dirty windshield and did more motioning until his face lit up and he began nodding his head and giving me directions. In French, of course, accompanied by some pointing and waving of his own.
I got behind the wheel while he opened a garage door. He then went to the middle of the street and stopped traffic in both directions so I could back up and enter the garage. Inside a mechanic was working on a large Mercedes. The manager gave him instructions and he walked away somewhere, then returned with two buckets of water, one soapy, the other clear.
He then washed and rinsed the windshield. After that he stepped back, sighted along where he had worked, shook his head and started over. Following several cleanings, rinsings, dryings and sightings he was satisfied. Never, not even on a new car in a showroom, was a windshield so spotless.
A little embarrassed by having taken him away from his work on the Mercedes, I got out my wallet. The manager shook his head, said, "No, no," opened the garage door again, went to the middle of the street and blocked traffic so I could back out. As we drove away he stood watching and waving his hand.
After all these years I'm still embarrassed by it even though I know they do things differently in France. No halfway jobs there.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

What a difference a word makes

2009-10-19T11:03:00.006-04:00

Today over at that excellent site, Criminalbrief.com, James Lincoln Warren wrote how one word can make all the difference in the military. This is all too true, as I learned at the age of 18 when I was a radioman in a rifle company in Europe back in 1944. I was not thrilled with the job because the radio weighed 38.8 pounds and that was on top of the 65 or more I was already carrying. With that kind of load it wasn't easy to follow my system for staying alive: move fast, keep low, stay mobile. Hit the ground and roll? Forget it with that thing strapped to your back.
A big offensive by three infantry divisions was planned so the night before our battalion's code name was changed from Apple to Queen. The battalion commander was Apple 1, his executive officer Apple 2, Easy Company Apple 3, Fox Company Apple 4 and my company, George for G, was Apple 5.

By morning I had forgotten we no longer were Apple. For weeks we had gotten four hours of sleep on a good night, none at all on some. We had eaten nothing but field rations intended for short term use. We had hiked countless miles, fought in major battles and in general lived worse than any dogs. I should be worrying about Apples and Queens?

The time for the offensive arrived and passed and we were still there on the Line of Departure. To find out what was going on I followed orders and time after time called, "Apple 1, this is Apple 5. I have a message for you. Over." Nothing. Dead silence. An hour went by and nearly another when half a dozen majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels arrived. They did not have nice things to say to me.
Why, I have often wondered, if they were so smart did it take them two hours to get to the source of the problem? The offensive was a complete failure and they probably blamed me for that too. I had two words for them, but kept them to myself.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

How the government handles health care

2009-10-14T10:24:00.004-04:00

In its unbounded determination to make a new man of me the VA has decided to give me a free hearing aid. This may be related to my saying, "What?" a dozen or so times during yesterday's routine visit to my primary care doctor at the Akron VA Clinic.

If the VA succeeds in its quest it could cause problems. Jackie has often said she will not tolerate having a new man around the place. She claims to have had it up to her ears with men. While she didn't specifically exclude me from this statement I'm sure she meant to.

I'm hoping this hearing aid will not mean a compulsory yearly examination of my ears. They gave me an expensive pair of glasses, then insisted I have a check-up every 12 months. Oddly enough, my eyes have improved every year. During the most recent exam I mentioned that I spend the entire day working at a computer. They gave me a second pair of special glasses that make it easier but don't work anywhere else.

The VA gave me an expensive, deluxe model rollator so I would walk more and it would be easier. It's easier but I don't walk more. It's nice, though, to always have a seat with me and I like to play with the brakes. It needs brakes because you walk like a man of 20 and reach a high rate of speed.

I also get any prescription drug on the market for a nominal fee. If I don't have the nominal fee the VA gives them to me for free. When I got out of the hospital after a heart attack five years ago I was given a list of new prescriptions to take to a drug store. It set us back $375. From the VA it's $64.

Got a flu shot at the clinic yesterday. No charge. I was given five pages of lab test results to give to the Medicare doctor. No charge. I get my toenails trimmed every three months. No charge. The list of other benefits would fill pages and there is no limit to the number of procedures on one visit to the clinic.

Did somebody say the government doesn't know how to run a health care program?

Life's Disappointments

2009-10-13T09:22:00.002-04:00

Certain things that happen along the bumpy road of life are really disappointing. Like not finding a cherry in your serving of fruit cocktail. Or flopping down at your seventh grade desk in the morning only to find that the pretty girl in the next row is skipping school that day. Digging a near-perfect foxhole at the close of a dreary day, covering it with logs and dirt, leaning back contentedly while examining your handiwork and then hearing the cry, "On your feet, we're moving out in five minutes!"

This day has been free of disappointments, at least so far, and that's the best time to think about other days when that was not true. When everything is going wrong and the world lies heavy on your shoulders there's not much joy in remembering days when the bird of paradise dropped a load on your head. No, bad days are best recalled on good days.

Some people say disappointment and hardship build character. I say the hell with that idea, I'm enough of a character as it is. When you've been beaten into the dirt you don't want some guy hitting you over the head with a shovel and saying, "This is making a better man of you."

On the other hand, having it too easy isn't good for a person, especially a young person. If you always have a cherry in your fruit cocktail you don't fully appreciate the joy of finding one there. This is true, especially for other people. Myself, I've had more than my fair share of bad days and disappointments so you can yell, "On your feet, we're moving out in five minutes!" till your lungs burst because I ain't moving anywhere. Not even if the pretty girl in the next row never shows up again.

www.dickstodghill.com

British TV and Eating Habits

2009-10-11T10:52:00.005-04:00

A couple of young British actors, Jenny Funnell and Moira Brooker, were on PBS last evening during a showing of a rerun of an As Time Goes By reunion. They were here to encourage viewers to subscribe to PBS, something that seems to happen six or more times a year. Listening to their stories of behind-the-scenes events was interesting, but it was a refence to having lunch in the studio canteen that caught my attention. Apparently the entire cast ate beans on toast every day.
Beans on toast seem to be a British favorite. In the old Inspector Morse series, Sergeant Lewis frequently hoped they would stop somewhere for beans on toast. In the new series in which Lewis has been promoted to inspector he has not mentioned this delicacy, perhaps because he now is the boss and can decide to stop for them whenever he likes.
I have no idea what type of beans are served with beans on toast but I have an idea they are not good old Boston baked beans. This suspicion in based on the fact that when it comes to eating, the British haven't a clue. They do many things well in England. Eating is not one of them.
However, they make TV shows, both dramas and comedies, far better than is done on this side of the Atlantic. Why this is true escapes me. Perhaps it is because they film about half a dozen episodes and call it a year. If the show proves popular they do another six the following season. In this country they make anywhere from 13 to 39 episodes a year. That doesn't allow enough time for writers to come up with crisp new ideas.
In a poll among British TV viewers, As Time Goes By ranks No. 29 on the list of 100 all-time best comedies. It should be much higher than that. The opinions of viewers rarely amount to much so polls are meaningless in my opinion. No one asked for my opinion, of course, which is concrete proof that polls don't mean a thing. If you have never watched As Time Goes By, try to see it and you will find I am right. The stars are Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer, enough in itself to make the show a winner, but Funnell and Brooker plus Phillip Bretherton play wonderful roles as well. It definitely rates higher than No. 29. I'd place it No. 1, but nobody asked.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

I don't get it

2009-10-10T11:19:00.007-04:00

Remember when certain things happened with public officials and they tried to keep it hidden? It was generally agreed that the cover up was worse than the original offense. How much better it would have been if the perpetrator had just come out and said, "I goofed and I'm sorry." More often than not the cover ups involved sex, but with Richard Nixon the result may have changed the course of history.

The point is, they never learn. Now it isn't break-ins or sex, it's pictures - 21 photographs showing Americans abusing prisoners in Afghanistan. A Federal appeals court said they should be released. Now Congress is about to pass a law keeping the photos hidden.

Some people say releasing them would endanger American soldiers and other government employees. Come on now, does keeping them hidden when everyone knows they exist keep them safe? No matter how bad they may be, and apparently they are pretty bad, imaginations will make them even worse. The cover up won't work. They seldom if ever do. We'd be better off to show them, apologize the way we keep apologizing for bad behavior in Iraq and Afghanistan, and get it over with.

Along with the Afghan photos, the residents of Okinawa want the government of Japan to force the United States to reduce the number of its troops there. Again, bad behavior is the reason.

It's nothing new, unfortunately. When I was a military policeman after the end of World War II in Europe my unit had to investigate some of the 500 rapes by Americans reported yearly. The worst cases I saw personally involved groups of men banging on doors of houses and demanding that all the females be sent out. One of those cases was in Belgium, an ally. It was hurtful to hear a man say it was better under the Germans because at least they were gentlemen.

Is there an answer? Perhaps a crash course in proper behavior for all American troops. I don't know if it would help or not, but I'm sure that covering up bad behavior only makes it worse.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

Popular stuff quickly dies

2009-10-05T12:10:00.002-04:00

Too busy on a couple of major projects to spend time blogging, but I was thinking how fast a popular saying can become obsolete. When I was a kid back in the 1930s an oft-heard one was, "Now you're cooking with gas." It meant you were right up to date, really getting somewhere, moving ahead in the world. No more carrying coal or wood to feed a stove. Now you just turned a handle, struck a match, held it over the jets and up shot the flames. You were cooking with gas.

Life is easy today. People don't seem to realize that, but it's true. Back then you used a push mower to mow the lawn. You washed clothes on a washboard or, if you were really prosperous, with a washing machine that still required a lot of physical work. No clothes driers so you hung everything out on a clothesline to dry. On rainy Mondays they had to be hung in the basement. No wash-and-wear clothing so everything had to be ironed. Lucky women had a Hoover or Eureka but most used a broom and dustpan to clean the floor. They scrubbed floors on hands and knees. After every meal they washed and dried the dishes by hand.

In cool or cold weather you fired up the furnace and kept it going by heaping on coal at regular intervals. You carried out the ashes when they began to pile up. You emptied the water container under the ice box, but very carefully so you didn't end up making a mess.

There was much more, of course. The mother had the worst of it but there was plenty to do for the father and the kids. Keeping a house running smoothly meant hard work. Does anyone darn socks today? Does anyone alter clothes so someone else can wear them? Probably not too many.

Time to get back to work while I'm still cooking with gas.

www.dickstodghill.com

A quick look at the news

2009-09-30T10:22:00.007-04:00

More than 100,000 store employees in Ohio alone now are on Medicaid. No less than 15,000 of them work for Wal-Mart. Most of these Ohioans are employed by a company that does not provide health insurance but some opt out when their company does offer it. The Medicaid coverage is more comprehension than that from the insurance company.
So all these far-right folks in the party of No are howling about the cost of covering just about everyone and yet they are already paying to do just that. This must really gall Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly and all the other believers in the "kick 'em when they're down" approach to life.

* * *

Anyone who believes talking on a cell phone or texting while driving a car is just fine might rethink that idea. Last year 5,780 were killed when someone doing one or both of those things was distracted enough to cause a crash. It is a little surprising that only 16% of those responsible were under the age of 20. A higher figure would have seemed more likely.
For the sake of the innocent people on the streets and highways there should be a 20-year prison sentence without the possibility of parole for anyone caught either using a cell phone or texting while driving. That should end it.

* * *

Some words and terms are weak, others are strong. Tsunami sounds like a variety of Polish sausage. Tidal wave evokes a frightening image. In the namby-pamby world of today I guess it isn't politically correct to say anything that might scare someone or be seen as derogatory.
Tsunami brings to mind the French word for work, travail - pronounced something like tra-vee-aye. Germans say arbeiten. Tra-vee-aye sounds like a day at the beach. Arbeit or arbeiten sounds like something to be avoided.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

Guilty of being black

2009-09-27T13:48:00.010-04:00

There is a new book by D.T. Pollard that should make the bestseller list, but won't if a great many Americans have their way. The title is Obama Guilty of Being President While Black. Unfortunately it seems to be true.

Only this morning I read an online story about insurance companies dictating the way doctors provide health care. Why do we have to return to the doctor if we need more than one thing done? Because the insurance companies won't pay for more than one procedure per visit. When I go in for a monthly shot of energy juice I have to go back to have a simple skin cancer removed, a procedure that takes only a few minutes. It isn't the fault of the doctors. Like everyone, they like to be paid for their work.

How many times do we hear abut someone being denied an operation or some other treatment because an insurance company won't pay for it? In some cases that is a death sentence, yet right-wingers shout that this is what government run health care would do.

It's a sham and a shame. Having a black president proposing health care for all Americans has sent every fanatic into the streets protesting. Those in other countries, where universal health care is taken for granted, don't understand it. What does it say about us when some Americans are now moving to Mexico in order to be covered?

The insurance companies are against Obama's plan, of course. So are the big pharmaceutical companies and the Party of No. Right-wing talk show fanatics shout protests and at least one preacher says Obama should be killed. Republicans in Congress say it is too expensive, yet are all in favor of pouring more money down the Afghanistan rat hole.

Makes me wonder whatever happened to this country. Makes me wonder what kind of people live among us.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

The behavior of men and other animals

2009-09-26T13:15:00.007-04:00

A week or so ago I finished reading a book by a WWII German tank commander, Colonel Hans von Luck (left). Fittingly enough the 1989 book is titled Panzer Commander. Luck's luck was amazing. He survived battles from the invasion of Poland in 1939 to the final defense of Berlin in 1945. In between those dates he fought in France, Russia, North Africa and France a second time.

His is a fascinating story, yet for me the most memorable words were written by another German officer, Gerhard Bandomir. Regarding the huge Allied air raid on the German front line in Normandy he wrote: "Even a wild rabbit fled into our bunker, jumped into my arms, and drank quite petrified out of my coffee cup! He also chewed a hole in my sleeve."

Those words hit home for me. It's no secret that I feel great empathy for all the little creatures. They lead a hard life under the best of conditions. Predators, including humans, are always on the hunt for them. I have written many times about how upsetting it was for me to see how terrified all animals, large and small, were when a battle was taking place in their normally tranquil territory.
One sunny morning after a particularly vicious firefight in a barnyard I stood for a moment watching the tame rabbits in a pen. I did the same thing on other occasions. The rabbits showed no emotion, but were trembling uncontrollably. The exchange of gunfire hadn't bothered me; seeing the frightened rabbits did.
For a while I lay on my back in the warm sunlight thinking how horrible humans can be. Why were we doing this? The firefight had been exhilarating. Seeing innocent and helpless animals caught up in the slaughter for me was demoralizing.

While lying there I vowed I would never shoot at anything incapable of shooting back. Man against man is an even fight. Man against animal is not. That's one vow I have managed to keep all these years.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

Big surprise: women can't keep a secret

2009-09-24T10:17:00.010-04:00

Yes, it now is official. I have to admit that reading this news about women in the Irish Independent did not shake me out of my shoes. What man in his right mind ever believed a woman was capable of keeping a secret?
As far back as I can remember, and that means way back to 1928, they have been saying the fastest ways to spread news is telephone, telegraph or tell a woman.

Now a study of women 18 to 65 in Britain, or maybe it was Chile or one of those places, has revealed the maximum length of time one of them can keep a secret is 47 hours and 15 minutes. There is something in their genes or whatever that gives them this uncontrollable urge to spill the beans. The study was financed by a wine merchant and sure enough, a couple of glasses of spirits really helps loosen their tongues. This, too, did not come as a surprise. I believe it was Ogden Nash who said "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker." I'm not sure, though, that Ogden was talking about revealing secrets.

* * *

The worst combination of words in the English language is "you deserve." It's heard over and over on TV commercials and nearly always refers to someone who has gotten into a financial mess through foolishness. This person has run up $5,000 or more in credit card debt and can't make the payments, but is told "you deserve" to have it wiped off the books. As often as not this is the same person who screams about having to pay taxes but thinks nothing of paying exorbitant interest. What do they deserve? Nothing.
In today's world of "come on" offers, schools should provide graphic examples of what buying on credit means. Kids should be taught what paying interest does to a pay check. They should learn how much money the borrower spends without getting anything in return other than instant gratification.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

You got a bad break? Maybe it's a good one

2009-09-20T10:29:00.005-04:00

You never can be sure about the breaks in life and sometimes you have to wait for your big chance and then grab it. I was reminded of that yesterday while trying to find the news on TV and instead saw half a minute of Notre Dame football. Things were not going well for the Irish and that fired a memory of a time 32 years ago when it was the same way. I was covering a game at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana and the way Purdue was manhandling the visitors it seemed like they should have stayed home in South Bend. Notre Dame was sluggish so the starting quarterback was replaced by the second-stringer, a young man named Gary Forystek. The Irish showed a bit more life, but not much. Then some law of physics must have entered the picture when Forystek was hit and brought down. You could hear the cracking of bones all the way up in the enclosed press box. Half an hour went by while the doctors of both schools worked on the unconscious Forystek. They finally got him onto a backboard, an ambulance drove onto the field and he was taken away, his career ended and almost his life.

No one would be singing The Victory March that day. What though the odds be great or small - well they don't get much greater than ten points behind, a lifeless offense, just over ten minutes left on the clock and then a third-string quarterback trotting onto the field. A couple of wags in the press box cracked wise about his unusual name and how far the Irish search for help had gone.

Then a funny thing happened. That third-stringer began firing laser-like passes. His presence seemed to have lit a fire under the entire team. He passed for a touchdown, an inspired defense stopped Purdue in its tracks, Notre Dame had the ball again and marched down the field for another TD. The Victory March was heard after all.

With that former third-stringer leading the way the Irish won the rest of their games and then trounced top-rated Texas in a bowl game. A couple of years later he was in the NFL and kept right on winning. He led his team to four Super Bowl championships and today his bust is in the pro football Hall of Fame in Canton.

Oh yes, the name they were laughing about in the press box that day in 1977 was Joe Montana.

So it was a bad break - a broken back among those broken bones - for Gary Forystek but a good one for Notre Dame and that third-stringer who stood on the sidelines waiting for his chance. When it came he was ready.

www.dickstodghill.com

Kilroy was here

2009-09-16T08:01:00.003-04:00

What better way to start the 500th Stodghill Says So blog than to find that Kilroy was here? Young people may not have heard about Kilroy, the greatest of all world travelers, but should they happen to journey to the moon they will find his face and simple message scratched in the dirt.

So who was Kilroy? The latest edition of The Ivy Leaves, the magazine of the 4th Infantry Division Association, tells us he was a checker at a Quincy, Massachusetts shipyard during World War II. It was his job to mark the rivets that had been completed, but the riveters were on piecework so they'd erase the marks and get paid twice. James Kilroy put an end to that by writing, "Kilroy was here" at every place he checked. Then he began adding the little man with big eyes, a long nose and a single hair peering over a fence so the riveters would know they were being watched.

It wasn't long before those ships were transporting sailors, soldiers and marines to the farthest corners of the globe. They were fascinated by the whimsical little figure and his message and decided to take him along on their adventures. Soon it was all but impossible for a serviceman to go anywhere without finding that Kilroy had been there ahead of him.

It sometimes reached the point of being ridiculous. An underwater demolition team sneaked ashore on a Japanese occupied island to find enemy soldiers painting over a "Kilroy was here" sign. I have been among the very first Americans to reach certain places only to discover that Kilroy had been there ahead of us. Mischievous German soldiers had to have been responsible.

So it seems only fitting that on this half-century blog, Kilroy was here. He's been everywhere else so why not?

www.dickstodghill.com

Tell Me Why

2009-09-15T10:12:00.004-04:00

The head man at the renowned Cleveland Clinic has had to apologize for saying if he had his way he wouldn't hire any more fat people. The fat people are up in arms, crying "Discrimination!"

The governor of Ohio has had to backtrack on lowering the age limit for playing slot machines from 21 to 18. Shouts of "Too young, too immature, too lacking in judgment" have drowned him out.

But hold on a minute. Haven't they been saying that being obese is becoming a leading cause of premature death? Shouldn't people working in the field of health care be setting an example? Apparently not from the looks of employees at any hospital. Is this another case of "Do as I say, not as I do?"

About those slot machines: Why is it legal to play them at horse tracks and proposed gambling casinos in Ohio but not at an American Legion or VFW post? Whose back is being scratched, who is being handed that under-the-table money here? You can bet your sweet ass it's all about somebody's money.

And we're back to that question of why it is just fine to send 18-, 19- and 20- year-olds to Iraq or Afghanistan to get their butts shot off but god forbid the idea of letting them play slot machines.
What exactly does that mean? Why it means that the fate and safety of the nation depends upon people too young, too immature and too lacking in judgment to slip half a buck in a slot machine or drink a beer while doing so. Maybe it also means that veterans never grow up, remain too immature and lacking in judgment to allow slots in their clubs. Surely it couldn't mean that no one would be getting a rakeoff, could it?

Take a step back and look around at the state of the country. See what greed and selfishness has done. Think about those right wingers who say healthcare for all would be too expensive but it's OK to spend more than its cost on wars in remote lands. Oh wait, I forgot. Despite what they tell us about Iraq, it's all about oil. In other words money. Isn't that what life is all about today?

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Odd People and Events

2009-09-14T10:05:00.004-04:00

I've always enjoyed the companionship of oddball characters because there are times when spending an hour or so with normal people can be boring.
Take my old friend Gerry for example. You might say that Gerry was uninhibited. One night after visiting a tavern or two he was driving home when hit by a sudden urge. He stopped at the house of perfect strangers, knocked on the door and asked if he might use their bathroom. They weren't too keen on the idea but decided to let him in. After fifteen minutes or so they began to feel a little uneasy so the man went upstairs to see what was going on.
Gerry was taking a bath.

***

I have never been odd myself, of course, but I have been present when people did some odd things. This happened quite often when I worked for Pinkerton's. Late one afternoon my friend John, who had shared some unusual happenings with me, was handed a routine assignment so I decided to ride along with him. When a woman answered his knocking on the door of a house, John flashed one of the various business cards that private eyes collect to use at proper times. He was slow in doing so and the woman grabbed the card from his hand.
We were sitting on a living room couch while John asked a few pertinent but deceptive questions. Then the husband arrived home. The woman said, "Honey, this is mister. . .uh, I forget your name."

So did John. He mumbled something and then we beat a hasty retreat. When we were back in the car I burst out laughing. John didn't think it was funny. He said, "That was one of my best cards and that dame kept it."

***

I was ready to head home after a long day when the manager called me into his office and said, "Go out to the airport. You're supposed to be arriving on a ten o'clock flight from Detroit. When it arrives, call the ____ hotel and have their van pick you up. When you get to your room ask the bellhop if he can bring you a bottle of whiskey. Then ask if he can send up a woman."

I said, "Look, I know what to do if he brings me the whiskey but what do I do if he sends up a woman?"

The manager leaned back in his chair, laughing. "Well, if you don't know by now it's probably too late to learn."

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

A Man Should Never Have to Pay

2009-09-12T11:12:00.007-04:00

I'm in the midst of updating a book on football at the local high school so I went to a game last night. I got in free, of course, because I have a deep and abiding hatred of paying to watch anything. I did spend a dime to see my first football game at the same field back in 1936. After that I made a point of finding a fence to climb over or crawl under, anything at all to avoid parting with cash.

As I grew older this seemed a less than dignified way of gaining entry so at the age of 21 I became a sportswriter. This not only got me in free but allowed me to sit in a warm, dry press box on rainy or snowy nights. This caused a bit of friction after Jackie and I were married. She always wanted to go along but had to sit out in the grandstand. Not too bad an arrangement at home games but after leaving the press box at Kokomo or Logansport on a rainy night and finding her dripping wet with an hour or more drive ahead of us showed her in neither her best light nor gracious mood.

Not that being a sportswriter didn't have its down side. When the game ended and others headed for a sandwich at a drive-in or a bit of refreshment at their favorite watering hole, the sportswriter had to go to work. As often as not this was after a long drive home. Being conscientious, or perhaps it was egotistical, I wanted my game story to be better than any other on the sports page. This sometimes meant toiling until one or two in the morning and having to be at my desk again five or six hours later. Still it was better than paying to get in.

Now I get in free at every stadium in the area. That's because I'm old. They just wave octogenarians by at the gate. I'm not sure if this is out of kindness and respect or because they are afraid one of us might drop dead on the spot and hold up others in line. Whatever, I got in free last night but Jackie refused to accompany me unless I took my rollator. A man has his dignity so I will not show up at a football game with a rollator. Having to slip a nitroglycerin tablet under my tongue on the way home was OK because nobody saw me do that. In many ways life was easier as a sportswriter.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

This and That

2009-09-08T10:51:00.011-04:00

Love those unintentional, humorous things you sometimes find in newspapers. In reporting a high school football game involving the Bulldogs a headline writer shortened it to Dogs for the sake of brevity. The team seemed to have a few problems in its opener so the coach of the Dogs said, "We had some snapping issues."
OK, I thought it was funny.

* * *

Far be it from me to beat my own drum, but like they say, "If you don't beat it yourself, nobody will beat it for you." With that sage bit of advice in mind I will quote a comment by James Lincoln Warren, highly-regarded writer of mystery short stories and founder of Criminal Brief (http://www.criminalbrief.com/). I had written something about a story by Alexander Pushkin and this is a portion of JLW's response:

"Allow me to plug the November issue of Alfred Hitchcock, the lead story of which, 'Deathtown', you wrote.
"It is a fabulous story, evocative and tough. Hammettesque. I especially loved your discount femme fatale. To give our readers a brief taste, let me quote the opening sentence:
"'I had forty-seven cents in my pocket when the gas gauge hit empty and I coasted to a stop in front of a roadside diner on the outskirts of a gritty place called Dealtown.'

"How can you go wrong with an opening like that?"

* * *

Wow! Coming from JLW, that's a supreme compliment.
Some people may be unaware that James Lincoln Warren also founded the Professional Hack Authors RecogniTion Society, whose acronym is PHARTS.

There are several classifications of membership and I am proud to bear the title OLD PHART. I consider this among my prized honors. The others include. . .well, give me a moment and something may come to mind.

www.dickstodghill.com

How to win friends and influence people

2009-09-07T12:42:00.005-04:00

What were they thinking? Did the American soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division feel it was OK to invade a hospital, tie up staff, kick in doors, force patients to get out of bed, walk into a ward where female patients were being treated? The latter act was a blatant disregard for local customs. Who ordered this? Is the military taking disciplinary action?

The hospital in Afghanistan is run by a Swedish charitable organization. As they left, the soldiers told the staff to report to them if any members of the Taliban showed up for treatment. The American military would decide if they should be cared for or not. The staff refused. They care for all.

What? We now decide whether or not to treat enemy wounded? We say no, let them suffer? No army from a civilized nation has behaved that way during my lifetime and long before that. How many times have I seen a white flag waved so both sides could pick up their wounded? How many times have I seen an American aid man treat an enemy soldier before litter bearers carried him back to the battalion aid station? We don't do that any more? Instead we invade hospitals?

There is no excuse for such uncivilized behavior. Conditions don't matter, the practices of the enemy don't matter. You represent a civilized nation so you behave in a civilized manner even if you have no personal feelings of humanity toward your fellow man.

Why are we even in Afghanistan? Wasn't it to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden? That was eight years ago.

Or am I wrong about all this? Has the nation changed so much that we don't want to provide health care for our less fortunate but are willing to spend billions on wars in remote countries? What happened? How did America become this way?

In Germany's Hurtgen Forest there is a small monument erected by men in another regiment of my division. It is in honor of an enemy lieutenant. He walked into what he knew was a minefield to try to aid a wounded American. He died in the attempt. Was that an old-fashioned way to look upon an enemy? I hope not.

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Maisie Comes to Live with Us

2009-09-05T14:08:00.004-04:00

Thursday afternoon was a stressful time for little Maisie. She was picked up rather unceremoniously and lifted from her familiar surroundings in the pet shop, placed in a small hamster travel cage and driven to her new home with us. She wasn't at all pleased about this because if there is one thing hamsters hate it's change. If something was in a certain place yesterday it should be in the same place today. If it isn't, that's cause for concern and calls for some serious investigation before the change is accepted.

Maisie, an everyday golden hamster, checked everything out on the two lower floors of her cage but stopped right there when she found a wheel. She hadn't had one at the pet shop, yet knew at first glance that this was a place for running. It took only a minute for us to see that when it comes to running, Maisie is made of championship material. She felt certain she was running back to the pet shop and would stop every 15 or 20 seconds to check how far she had gone. Not far at all so she went right back to it.

Daylight hours are for sleeping in the hamster world, but Maisie was awake and overly excited far into the night. She was awake bright and early Friday morning and feeling far more comfortable in her new home. She had already learned that the kitchen is the place Jackie goes to when it's time for a hamster treat. She just stands alert and unmoving, her eyes fixed in that direction, because like all the hamsters that have come before her she can't think of a single reason why Jackie would be in the kitchen if it wasn't to get a tiny piece of lettuce, a sliver of carrot or some other tasty morsel for her.
After getting what she hoped for, Maisie settled down and slept all day. There was a problem, though. The place she chose for a bed was actually her potty. To her it seemed like a fine place, dark and safe from monsters and other scary creatures. Today, much to our relief, she decided the little house in a corner of her cage was an even nicer place to sleep.

Last night she rolled around the living room in her clear plastic ball. This morning she ventured down the hall to the bedroom and office. Now she has explored everything, including the top two floors of her cage. She already knows that Jackie is her best friend, the one who cares for her and provides those special treats. She seems to have accepted that I go with the territory so she'll tolerate my presence, but the radio confuses her. She hears music and people talking but can't figure out where they are. Last evening the television interested her so she sat up straight and watched until two men began fighting. She jerked her head back, not liking that a bit, and then found something more peaceful to occupy her interest.

So it appears that Maisie is going to like it here. She'd better because she cost nine bucks and shortly after we brought her home Jackie went out and spent $68 on toys and other stuff for her. That's on top of a couple of hundred dollars worth of cages, playpens and other hamster items that were here before her arrival. But as Jackie would say, "She's worth it." So were all the tiny ones that came before her: Sadie and Joey and Zoe and Mr. Zip-Zip and Sophie and eleven more when we were in Muncie. Maisie doesn't know she's Number Sixteen and probably wouldn't care if she did. In her mind she's Number One.

A Sad Commentary on the 21st Century

2009-09-04T12:52:00.004-04:00

I called the VA this morning to make my semi-annual appointment with one of the nation's finest primary care doctors. Wait a moment, I was told, because there was a new menu and I had to hear it all before pressing a button. One of the new features is "Press 8 if you feel suicidal or homicidal."
Sad, isn't it? It puzzles me because in earlier conflicts during my lifetime the risk of being killed or maimed was far greater and living conditions were far worse. It doesn't matter if I get it or not, that's just the way it is today.

***

There is hope, although it's not exactly visible on the horizon. Men are doomed. At least that's what a new survey reveals and it's all because of chromosomes or something like that. Males are losing them at a rapid pace, they say. Not too rapid, apparently, as the end won't come for a few million years. Or maybe it's a few billions years, but either way it doesn't much matter to those of us living today.

***

Now here's a bit of really good news. Teetotallers are social misfits. Along with being short on social skills they have higher levels of depression and anxiety than the rest of us and have more mental problems than even the heaviest drinkers.

That doesn't surprise me even a little but there's another study I am in complete disagreement with. It says that "beer goggles," meaning, I think, staring at frails through the bottom of a beer bottle, makes them less attractive. Admittedly I have polished off a few beers in my time but never, not even once, have I looked over the babes at the bar through the bottom of the empty bottle. I guess what they mean is that after downing a few drinks a man finds women unappealing. Having studied the actions of men in bars at close range, not in a laboratory, I can say without fear of contradiction that anyone who believes such a thing is full of something less tasty than beer.

This conclusion, I want to make perfectly clear, comes from watching the actions of other men, not myself.

http://www.dickstodghill.com/

Dining in Bergen op Zoom

2009-09-02T12:25:00.008-04:00

We had strawberries for lunch and that started me thinking about the little Dutch town of Bergen op Zoom. We spent a pleasant evening and night there in 1985, but it wasn't easy.
Jackie was upset because we crossed the border from Belgium on a back road without guards so she felt we broke the law and would be jailed as illegal aliens. Then a short time later when we arrived at Bergen op Zoom we couldn't get into town. We weren't barred or anything like that, it's just that there's a wall around it as it has been the scene of numerous battles and sieges.
There are houses ouside the wall and people were out working in their yards or just relaxing at the end of the day. As we made our third complete circuit of the city without finding a way in some of them were laughing and waving when we went by. Three times around was enough for me so I parked the car and set out on foor to find a way in. I succeeded so we finally arrived at our hotel.
After getting settled in we went down for dinner, which was being served outside in a area enclosed by a low wrought-iron fence and overlooking the square. I decided the stress had sent Jackie around the bend because she ordered sea eel. She said it was good and maybe it was because she ate all of it. I stuck to something more mundane but had strawberries and peppercorns for dessert. Americans would never dream of blending the two. The Dutch are a bit smarter because one taste compliments the other and it was delicious.
Before we started out in the morning I was a bit stressed myself. Jackie had insisted that the one thing she had to see in Europe was a genuine Dutch windmill, the huge kind people live in. I asked the hotel employees and not one of them had a clue as to where we might find one. So we set off on the road to Breda and hadn't gone more than a few miles before we came to one after another of those windmills. I guess it was a case of not noticing the everyday things around you.

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