How About Doughboy 2.0?

The Ironman 70.3 is happening this weekend here in Coeur D' Alene and I have a couple of questions.  First of all, what's with the 70.3?  This event is supposed to be a "half" Ironman event, so where does the 70.3 come from?  More important than that is why for the love of pastry would anyone want to put themselves through a vomit inducing regime for the pitiful reward of being able to declare that you finished without calling an ambulance?

I watch as these idiots punish themselves from the comfort of my front deck as they haul their anorexic bodies through the 1.6 mile swim that will begin this masochistic madness on Sunday morning.  I note with no small degree of smugness that none of these clowns are smiling while practicing. The bike ride is 56 miles followed by a run considerably longer than the trip to the fridge I'll be making for a cold one.  It makes me want to urp just thinking about it.

The big question, of course, is: WHY?  Why punish yourself doing stuff that's no fun when you can challenge yourself with things like a pie eating contest or a massive beer chug?  I would suggest that instead of this Ironman B.S. that my hometown should think LARGE and FUN with something we might call The Doughboy 2.0 or The Fat Boy 500.  (The numbers have no significance as I have no mathematical skills.  You'll have to admit they are very cool sounding names.)  Sponsorship should not be a problem.  Dunkin' Donuts, Mickey's Malt Liquor, Aunt Jemima, Stay Puft Marshmallows, and Burger King come to mind as I'm spit balling this baby.  Local pie shops too would be lining up to be part of the fatso fest.  Trust me.  I may be a moron but I'm a genius when it comes to bonehead ideas that serve no purpose.

This event will be HUGE!  A town full of people eating like they were going to "the chair" is certain to be a TON more fun than a bunch of serious and humorless millennials running around like democrats on Nancy Pelosi appreciation day.  It's time to get aboard the all new Tubby Trolley for the Fat Boy 500!  (I'm hoping to get several 500 lb. participants.)

WARNING:  Any contestants found guilty of attempting to bulk up by sitting on the air hose down at the Chevron station will be immediately disqualified and made to sit through an entire performance of  the musical CATS.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe it's time for pie.

"Take that Donald!"

The First Day of Summer??

It may be summer in most of the country but here in the inland Northwest it's Juneuary.

What the heck is going on?!  Just a couple of days ago temperatures were in the 80's, kids were out of school, the beaches were loaded and the top was down permanently (I thought) on my car.  Granted, the last day of spring was pretty breezy and it did hail in the evening but waking to gray skies and a reading of 47 degrees on my thermometer had me wondering how many shopping days are left until Christmas.  

Isn't it bad enough that we barely got done wishing everybody we know a "happy new year" only to grasp the very real fact that a brand spanking "new" 2019 is now half shot?  I want summer back!  If the forecasters can be believed, hammock and beach ball weather should return to these parts no later than this Sunday.    I wonder if it's possible for them to tack a couple of extra warm days onto October as a show of good faith?

Two days ago a very large butterfly landed on my deck and lingered for what seemed to be a considerable amount of time.  At first I thought it was injured or was resting up after some big winged insect adventure.  Eventually he/she, it flew away to no doubt become lunch or dinner for a fat trout or seagull.  Later I began to wonder if the creature had been trying to impart a message from some long dead friend or relative newly reincarnated as a flying bug here in the Idaho panhandle.

Of course that was silly.  By now it should be etched on my frontal lobe that in the wilds of the north woods only the bears, moose and beavers talk.  Unicorns can also converse, but they're big B.S.ers.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to find my thermal swim trunks.

"For God sake put the top up on your car and order some more firewood NOW you moron!"

Thanks Girls!

This is a re-post from 2015 

To my daughters on Fathers' Day,

You kids made it easy.  Though I probably wasn't Father of the Year material, with more than a little luck we all made it.  Your mother didn't kill me and both of you girls became successful in your chosen professions and life in general.  All of this in spite of my untutored and, shall we say, unconventional parental guidance.

Hey, in my defense, your mom and I didn't know what we were doing!  Practically children when we married, the two of us hauled you into the world before our union had lost that new car smell.  We were complete novices and in hindsight it's probably close to a miracle that we (okay, I) didn't mess you up monumentally.  You really were troopers through it all, far more flexible than boys would have been.  All the moving that came with the radio business, the odd family hours we kept because daddy had to get up at 3 AM, and the multitude of "interesting" friends who always seemed to be around didn't bother you at all.  Well, at least you didn't let on.  You both made the best of an often chaotic existence and I'm proud of you for it.

Maybe if we had waited and been more mature parents with traditional occupations your formative years would have been a little easier.  Who am I kidding?!  That would have been leagues less difficult but, I dare say, not nearly as much fun.  Perhaps it's just selective memory but I do think there was an abundance of laughter in our house when you were both little.  The thought of returning home to you every evening became my safe harbor in a life dependent on a check from one of the most insecure professions on the planet.  You kept me sane. Granted, sanity is relative when it comes to Dad but you catch my drift.

So, on this Fathers' Day weekend I thank both of my lovely daughters for being such good kids and for making me look as if I had a clue.  Growing up I had no sisters but you two helped to fill some of the massive gaps in my understanding of the fair sex.  Your mom knew that I still had a long way to go but with your help in another hundred years or so I'm certain to be a regular on Oprah.  Well, at least I'll weigh as much.

I'll close by saying that even though we're miles apart you can always rely on old Dad for the sage advice you've come to depend on through the years: "Better ask your mom."  For sure that's a long distance call these days but I know you know she's still listening.

That's it. Thanks for making me a proud father and grandfather on this Sunday but also  every other day of the year.  Now, who wants to pull daddy's finger?

June 6, 1944

In spite of rough weather on the sixth of June 1944 Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, was counting on there being a narrow window of tamer waves and diminishing winds that would allow the invasion of Normandy to begin.  Code named Operation Overlord, this massive undertaking to liberate Western Europe from the horror of Hitler and his Nazis, would involve more than 5,000 ships and 156,000 troops delivered to the French coastline via the ingenious landing craft the "Higgins Boat" designed  by American patriot Andrew Higgins .  Though General Eisenhower had been warned that casualties could be as high as 75% among the combined U.S, U.K. and Canadian forces he knew that there would be no better time to surprise the Axis powers.  Fortunately the casualty count came nowhere near the feared 75% but 4,414 of the men who came ashore on June 6 paid for the rescue of the free world with their lives.

As I watched the ceremonies broadcast from those once bloody beaches I'm struck by the fact that less than 4% of U.S. WW II veterans are alive today.  Of those still with us all are now in their nineties and will soon join their missing brothers in arms.  It's sad to contemplate a world without the Greatest Generation.  Perhaps tempered by coming of age during the Depression, the men and women who saved Europe and the globe from Hitler and the Empire of Japan can never truly be thanked or repaid for their selfless commitment to something bigger than themselves.

The question that haunts me is this:  Could we do it again?  Is it possible only seventy-five years hence for America and the rest of the free world to come together to defeat an enemy bent on destroying our way of life?  Some days, when I'm sure that the answer is affirmative, I'll be confronted with some appalling tidbit of information pointing out how little younger Americans know about the greatest conflict in world history which resulted in approximately 70-85 million lost lives including over 400,000 United States citizens.   Young men, many still in their teens, volunteered by the thousands to do the right thing for their country and mankind less than a century ago.  Women too volunteered for duty both at home and overseas.

 Could we do it again?  In an age of safe spaces, trigger warnings, PC speech and not much history being taught in our schools, you have to wonder.  Today, especially, I'd like to think we could muster the stamina and courage to do whatever is required to save our republic and other freedom loving countries from the always plentiful supply of soulless tyrants and madmen.  We owe it to ourselves and to the boys, forever young, who now lie in neat rows below the crosses on the bluffs above the beach at Normandy.