The Commissary is one of the real bennies of being active duty or retired military. The PX is OK, but you can probably get just as good a price at Costco or Walmart. But nothing beats the Commissary. My wife, Carole, is an expert at price comparison. When they say re-up for the bennies, they are talking about medical care, retirement and the Commissary.
But, why would any sane retired person go to the Commissary on a Saturday? Well, we were already out and it seemed like a good idea until we saw the parking lot. But we were there. I generally drop Carole off and stay in the car for 30-40 minutes and read (or sleep). Neither is overrated. When I did go in, she was still in produce. Bad sign.
I have spoken of my quirks with green visors and pens. Well, Carole’s quirk is making sure she has enough food in the house. She has six of everything. If she gets down to three, she runs out and gets three more. We never run out of anything. We do throw stuff away because it expired years ago. The good news is that the 12 cases of Coke we have in the garage have no expiration date.
I have my own Commissary list. Two items: dental floss and chap stick. Were we out of the items? Oh contraire. Carole has a drawer for dental floss and one for Chap Stick (small drawers). I went through the dental floss drawer and found three mint waxed and one mint woven. I don’t mind the mint. It’s not high on my priority list when I am flossing. I just want to get it over. The woven stuff gets stuck in my teeth. I also have a picture in my mind of the wax attaching to my teeth and negotiating a deal with gingivitis.
Johnson & Johnson’s Reach makes an unwaxed, unflavored floss. That’s what I wanted. When I found the floss area, there was a woman standing in my way. I was in no hurry. I didn’t want to “crowd her space.” However, she took too long in terms of floss buying time. I wished I would have brought in my book. She finally made her decision and left and I grabbed my floss and moved on to the Chap Stick area.
I mentioned the Chap Stick drawer. Carole has medicated Chap Stick, skin-care Chap Stick and cherry and strawberry Chap Stick. I had previously taken the moisturized Chap Stick and was running low. That was what I wanted. I found it. It said, “moisturizer,” “skin protectant/sunscreen SPF 15.” Sounded great. Then I noticed it said, “Limited Edition Design!” Limited edition design? Chap Stick? It blew my mind. And I had been questioning the relevancy of flavored floss.
I couldn’t find out how limited the edition was, but I bought it anyway. Eat your heart out.
All posts by pajarice
A Christmas with No Tree?
I don’t ever remember a Christmas without a Christmas Tree. But things weren’t working out this year. First, we were hoping that our son and his family would come up from Roanoke. That would have been great, but they couldn’t work it out. So, no visitors to prepare for. Second, it was early December and we were leaving on a cruise from December 10 to 21. Not much time to put up a tree and decorate. And for what? An empty house?
I remember one year when we were stationed in Germany and all hell broke out right before Christmas. There were all kinds of criminal investigations being conducted in the 4th Armored Division and I was ordered to go to Nuernberg and represent these alleged wrongdoers. That meant that I would spend the week before Christmas 100 miles away from Cooke Barracks where we lived.
I went home and told Carole to pack up the kids, because if we wanted to spend Christmas together, it was going to be in Nuernberg. It turned out to be a memorable Christmas. In Nuernberg, we discovered the Christkindlmarkt with its excitement, bratwuerst and massive crowds. The thought of being crushed definitely crossed our minds. You only moved in the direction the crowd was moving. And, choke points lived up to their name.
The good news is we made it home on the 23d of December. Now, I had to find a tree. Christmas trees are not foreign to Germany, but on the day before Christmas, the selection was almost nonexistent. What I brought home, in the most generic sense, constituted a Christmas tree. It was four feet tall and eight feet wide. There weren’t many branches (Carole says there were six, I say at least twice that many), but at least they were long. It was an ugly tree, but once the presents were placed underneath it, no one noticed.
When I was growing up, we had a tree that rotated. Oh yea? It was a big deal. Keep in mind we are talking about the late 1940’s. I don’t know how Dad did it, but he hooked up a washing machine motor and the stand rotated slowly. No, it did not agitate.
The stand was about two feet high and covered like a round table top. Since the rotating stand was tall, the tree could only be about five feet tall. But it had to be full on all sides. If a tree just stands there, you can put the bad side to the wall. That’s what walls are for. But a rotating tree can’t have a bad side. So Dad would drill holes in the trunk of the tree and stick in extra branches. These would be tied up with black thread. It was an arduous process.
One of the advantages to decorating a rotating tree in you can stand in one spot and put the ornaments on. It was mandated that we had to put the tinsel on one strand at a time. What a pain. I think that is why when our generation grew up, we did away with tinsel.
When the kids were young, we would find a place where we could select our tree and cut it. One day a year was dedicated to cutting our tree. For some reason, it was always exciting. There was a certain risk/reward aspect to it. Would we find the right tree? Could we get it home without it falling off the car or damaging the car? We paid by the foot. The taller the tree, the more expensive. Then, when we got the thing home, we would realize it was too tall and cut off about two feet or $20.
So was this going to be the year with no tree? No way! Our tree was packed away in two oversize boxes in the basement. It was just a matter of lugging them upstairs and figuring out which one goes on top of the other. After two consecutive years of putting the wrong piece on the bottom, I had idiot proofed them with markings so there would be no threepeat.
We have three enormous boxes of ornaments. They won’t all fit on the tree. But it is a joy to dig out the ornaments. They have been accumulated through many years in many countries. Many are like old friends; like the Rathaus in Frankfurt and the many Mickey Mouses from Disney World. I must have a half-a-dozen nutcrackers and chimney sweeps. They have been waiting all year to say Hello.
So I finished decorating the tree, then we packed our bags and flew down to Miami to meet our cruise. When we got back on the 21st, the tree was waiting for us. I probably need to start thinking about taking it down.
What’s in a John Handcock or a John Henry?
When we are born, we are given a name. We are not in a position to consult on the matter. We are concentrating on more fundamental issues. And, most of us have that name the rest of our lives.
I envy those people who step forward and change their name. I wouldn’t ever do that. But, wouldn’t it be great to be a Rock or a Brick? Solid. I don’t know about Rock Rice. Maybe Rockland Rice and I could go by Rock.
My birth certificate reads “Jack Paul Rice.” Then there’s an addendum that says “Paul Jack Rice.” Hand written on the addendum after the word “Jack” is the word “son.” If I were the oldest child, I would wonder about my legitimacy (not that that matters anymore). I decided that the answer is that you don’t wake a mother up after child birth and ask for a name.
It had been decided that I would be called Jack. And that worked out reasonably well. There was a time in Kindergarten when upperclassmen (1st and 2nd graders) would tease me at recess with chants of “Jacky Rice eats mice.” Except for a couple bloody noses, I survived those episodes.
Until I got to college, very few people even knew my name was Paul Jackson Rice. In college, a number of my friends called me “PJ.” I liked that. It wasn’t Rock, but it had a friendly ring. “Hey PJ, what’s happening.” I didn’t hang around with a very intellectual group. We were mostly jocks and we concentrated on living up to our image.
It wasn’t until I got in the military that my name became a nuisance. The Army had what they called a signature block. First name, middle initial, last name. There was no variance. “Sarge, what about “P. J. Rice?” “What, you don’t have a first name?” So for all 28 years of my military career, I was Paul J. Rice.
When I joined the Army, you could read my signature. But over the years, it flattened out. The “Paul” is still somewhat legible, but the “J” has folded into the “l” in “Paul,” and the rest has ended up in a straight line. I am not proud of this, but what are you going to do?
When I was the Commandant of the JAG School from 1985 to 1988, I signed over 10,000 diplomas and not one of them is readable. A few hundred of them were for master of laws degrees and probably are hanging on someone’s wall. A visitor may ask, “Whose signature is that?” And the degree holder will say, “Beats the hell out of me.”
The only advantage in not using your first name is when the telephone rings and a friendly voice on the other end says, “Paul, how are you?” You know immediately that the person doesn’t know you and is probably trying to sell you something.
When I retired from the Army, I became Chief Counsel at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Administrator was named Jerry Curry and our director of government affairs was Jamie Fish. The Agency was being run by Curry, Fish and Rice.
At NHTSA, I was permitted to change my signature block to whatever I wanted. “P. Jackson Rice” did nothing for me. I finally decided on Paul Jackson Rice. The good new was that I didn’t have to change my signature. I just made the straight line a little longer. Since I am a stickler for details, I want you to know that even though you could not see the “i” in “Rice,” I always dotted it.
Any One for Tea?
I quit drinking coffee about 30 years ago. I don’t think I ever really liked coffee. It was just a right of passage. When you grow up, you get to drink coffee. Since I didn’t like the taste, I used to heap sugar in the cup. Two or three teaspoons of sugar and it tasted OK, but they had to be heaping teaspoons.
Well, I was at a Rotary meeting in Junction City, Kansas. It was time to get some coffee so we could stay awake during the speaker. I asked a retired general sitting across from me if he would like a cup. For the next five minutes, I was regaled with his story about how coffee made his hand shake. He quit drinking coffee and his hand stopped shaking. You just got the short, less dramatic, version. The story made quite an impact on me. In fact, I was having trouble heaping sugar into my cup because my hand was shaking.
I know that none of this makes sense, but there it is. Was I just reacting to a thought that had been embedded in my thick skull? I just don’t know. And, of course, when I stopped drinking coffee, my hand stopped shaking. So no more coffee. That meant I could never be the lead character in a fictional crime novel.
So, just like that, I became a tea drinker. Some of my friends said, “But, tea has caffeine too.” It didn’t matter because my hand no longer shook.
The good news, from a health standpoint, was that I was getting rid of those 9-15 heaping spoons full of sugar. I could artificially sweeten my tea and be perfectly happy.
My choice back then was the pink stuff (Sweet’n Low) or the blue stuff (Equal). I was disturbed by the label on the pink stuff. All those lab rats getting cancer from overdosing on saccharin. And Sweet’n Low contained saccharin. I didn’t know if they were feeding it to the rats or shooting it between their toes, but it was still disturbing. The main reason I selected Equal was that the pink stuff had a sickly sweet taste. I’m big on sweet, but not sickly sweet.
For years, I just drank Lipton tea. It consists of black tea, orange pekoe and had become a friend. When I would go into an upscale restaurant and ask for hot tea, the waiter would appear at the table with a large mahogany box and flip it open with a flair. I would look inside but see nothing that looked familiar. I used to ask if they had Lipton tea (later I would ask for orange pekoe). The waiter would look insulted and I would become indignant. Then, Carole would grab my leg and all would become calm. I would pick out some celestial herbal crap and smile.
Now, Splenda is everwhere. So my choice for sweetener is pink, blue or yellow. I felt like Goldilocks in the house of the three bears. This one it too sweet; this one is not sweet enough; and this one is just right.
When I am fixing my tea at home and trying to tear open the sweetener, it still spills all over the counter. But it has nothing to do with a shaking hand. I’m just sloppy.
I quit drinking coffee about 30 years ago. I don’t think I ever really liked coffee. It was just a right of passage. When you grow up, you get to drink coffee. Since I didn’t like the taste, I used to heap sugar in the cup. Two or three teaspoons of sugar and it tasted OK, but they had to be heaping teaspoons.
Well, I was at a Rotary meeting in Junction City, Kansas. It was time to get some coffee so we could stay awake during the speaker. I asked a retired general sitting across from me if he would like a cup. For the next five minutes, I was regaled with his story about how coffee made his hand shake. He quit drinking coffee and his hand stopped shaking. You just got the short, less dramatic, version. The story made quite an impact on me. In fact, I was having trouble heaping sugar into my cup because my hand was shaking.
I know that none of this makes sense, but there it is. Was I just reacting to a thought that had been embedded in my thick skull? I just don’t know. And, of course, when I stopped drinking coffee, my hand stopped shaking. So no more coffee. That meant I could never be the lead character in a fictional crime novel.
So, just like that, I became a tea drinker. Some of my friends said, “But, tea has caffeine too.” It didn’t matter because my hand no longer shook.
The good news, from a health standpoint, was that I was getting rid of those 9-15 heaping spoons full of sugar. I could artificially sweeten my tea and be perfectly happy.
My choice back then was the pink stuff (Sweet’n Low) or the blue stuff (Equal). I was disturbed by the label on the pink stuff. All those lab rats getting cancer from overdosing on saccharin. And Sweet’n Low contained saccharin. I didn’t know if they were feeding it to the rats or shooting it between their toes, but it was still disturbing. The main reason I selected Equal was that the pink stuff had a sickly sweet taste. I’m big on sweet, but not sickly sweet.
For years, I just drank Lipton tea. It consists of black tea, orange pekoe and had become a friend. When I would go into an upscale restaurant and ask for hot tea, the waiter would appear at the table with a large mahogany box and flip it open with a flair. I would look inside but see nothing that looked familiar. I used to ask if they had Lipton tea (later I would ask for orange pekoe). The waiter would look insulted and I would become indignant. Then, Carole would grab my leg and all would become calm. I would pick out some celestial herbal crap and smile.
Now, Splenda is everwhere. So my choice for sweetener is pink, blue or yellow. I felt like Goldilocks in the house of the three bears. This one it too sweet; this one is not sweet enough; and this one is just right.
When I am fixing my tea at home and trying to tear open the sweetener, it still spills all over the counter. But it has nothing to do with a shaking hand. I’m just sloppy.
Becoming a Pentagonian
It wasn’t that I was avoiding the Pentagon. I was really trying to avoid Washington D.C. And that was a financial issue. Life was expensive in DC and with a wife and three children, I was trying to be assigned to places I could afford. How’s that for career management?
Well, in my 13th year, as I finished up Command and General Staff College (C&GSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I had run out of options. I had been told earlier that a three year instructor’s tour at the JAG School in Charlottesville, VA, would be the same as a Pentagon tour. When I parroted back to the assignment people what I previously had been told, they advised me that it was no longer applicable. I would have asked what that meant, but I knew.
There were so many C&GSC students being assigned to Washington that the realtors came out to Fort Leavenworth to “help” us. That worked out well. We hooked up with Gloria Bothwell who 35 years later is still a dear friend. Among the three of us, we selected a home in West Springfield that we loved, but could not afford. $72,500 in 1975 was mountain top for us. The owners wanted $73,000 and we insisted on a $500 reduction. Even today, when I think about almost losing that house over $500, I break out in a cold sweat. What’s $500 over a 30 year loan?
I was to be assigned to the Administrative Law Division of the Office of The Judge Advocate General (OTJAG). That didn’t mean much to me. The assignment officer told me that General Williams had selected me for the assignment. I knew that General Williams was referred to as “Big Daddy”, but none of it meant much to me. A previous assignment officer had told me that a tour at the JAG School counted for a DC tour.
In my first assignment in the Army, at Fort Hood, Texas, I worked for a Major Bill Neinast. Now, as I was wrapping up C&GSC, and getting ready to move, I received a phone call from Colonel Neinast advising me that he was taking over the Litigation Division at OTJAG. He said that he would like me to be one of his branch chiefs. At that time, there was no branch chief slot available in Admin Law. Neinast told me to give assignments (PP&TO) a call and tell them I would like to be assigned to the Litigation Division.
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Fontenella had been my boss at the JAG School and he was finishing up three years in the Pentagon as Chief of Labor Law. I called him to see what he thought. He told me very firmly and clearly that I was not to fiddle with my assignment. “Go to Admin Law, do not pass go, and do not call PP&TO.” It was great advice. I suspect that one call to PP&TO at that time may not only have been considered stupid, but would have raised questions about whether I was the type of officer they wanted in OTJAG. If that sounds Byzantine, it is.
So Major Rice started to work in the Admin Law Division at OTJAG. I was an action officer (worker bee), but there were some clues that might lead one to conclude that I would shortly be the branch chief of the General Law Branch. For instance, I was sitting at the branch chief’s desk. There was no Admin Law deputy and Lieutenant Colonel Bill McKay, the General Law Branch chief, was sitting at the deputy’s desk. All the other action officers were captains and I was a major when I left Germany, when I left Northwestern University, when I left Vietnam, when I left the JAG School and when I left C&GSC. I had been a major so long I have forgotten my first name.
All of the above signals did not register with a young, tactless captain, also in the General Law Branch. On a bus trip home, after work, he counseled me on how to get along in the office. I was listening intently. I need to explain that Admin Law was, to a great extent, the legal advisor to the Army Staff . We spend all our waking hours preparing opinions advising them. My young captain explained to me that if I turned in my draft opinions early, McKay would mark them up and send them back for a rework. But, if you waited until the last minute and submitted the draft, McKay would have to make the changes himself, because there would not be time for a rework. I listened to him wide eyed. He also told me to relax, because I looked a little up tight. He was right.
When the young naive captain was told he wasn’t working out, he requested an assignment to California. We found him a post in the desert where they hadn’t had a JAG in two years. We figured if they had gotten along without a JAG for two years, he would do just fine.
So, I had become a Pentagonian. I was a branch chief, in a five- man car pool, and just barely making my house payments.
I had not been there too long when Brigadier General Joe Tenhet came across the hall and asked me when I was going to be promoted to lieutenant colonel. I told him I was in the present zone for consideration, but didn’t know if I would be selected. He told me that it was a lot more difficult to get my present assignment than to be promoted to lieutenant colonel. After he left I decided to relax and not be so up tight.
Christmas Twenty-Ten
It’s that magical time of year when I sit down and write my silly Christmas poem. I love doing it and I hope you enjoy reading it. And a very Merry Christmas to you.
Christmas Twenty-Ten
There are things you can count on, and things that make you bristle,
There are things like death and taxes, and, of course, my Christmas missile.
The market had its ups and downs, with unemployment, pantries go bare,
But at least our south-of-the-border friends now have Obamacare.
We cruised to begin the year; we’re cruising at the end,
We floated through the Panama Canal, but what was around the bend?
As we pulled into Fort Lauderdale, the word was not so sweet,
The snow was coming to our home, not in inches, but in feet.
We had to act quickly, years in the military helped,
We jumped a flight, brought Nikki home, before she even yelped.
RAJA in Indy, Suter’s at the lake,
Concentrating on seeing friends, that was our major take.
We visited the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park,
Slipped it tween the Holdaway’s and Baker’s, it became quite a lark.
Visited the O’Roark’s on a way to an occasion,
High school baseball reunion, I say with hesitation.
All East Side Flyers, we talked of games and hits,
But after fifty years, we didn’t bring our mitts.
We spent Thanksgiving with Paul and Sandy, Josh is now a Hokie,
Jack is growing like a weed, but his school behavior is a little smoky.
How could this happen? How could this be?
I guess that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Paul has to commute all the way to Bland,
The trips not always smooth, the way that he planned.
He’s been hit by a sheet of ice, flying off of a truck,
And run down on the highway, by a good size buck
(Paul fared better that the deer).
Missy had an operation, repairs to her neck,
She needs to get better, after the terrible wreck.
Her spirits remain high, always makes the best,
And starting next fall, she’ll have an empty nest.
Tyler’s at Central Florida, cheering for the Knights,
Kristin’s a high school senior, reaching for new heights.
Terry’s job is in Ocala, an hour and a half away,
He likes what he’s doing, not to mention better pay.
Out in Arizona, down in Prescott Valley
Becky’s got her Masters, that’s quite a tally.
Eddie sold the taxi business, now what’s in sight,
Brandon transferred to NAU, J-School seems just right.
Grant’s a computer guy; he’s hooked on with Go Daddy,
Answering difficult questions, which make some folks go batty.
Mary and Blanche are hanging in there, at 95 and 93,
We’re thankful to still have them, we’re lucky as could be.
Carole enjoys finding recipes; her knees are working fine,
But, she gets exhausted easy; it’s hard to stand in line.
Jack tries to be helpful, when he’s not playing golf,
But there’s more time when he’s playing, than times when he’s off.
A Crystal Cruise is coming up to visit tropical isles,
Carole needs some pampering; she’ll get it with her wiles.
But we’ll be home for Christmas, and we’ll be thinking of you,
Much love and blessings for Christmas, and through the whole year too.
Merry Christmas
and
A Happy New Year
The Judge Says – Using the Lawyer as the Goat
One of my pet peeves is people who don’t want to tell their boss no, so they ask their friendly lawyer for an opinion. Then when the lawyer tells them what they already knew, they run to their boss and say, “The judge says you can’t do it.”
March 13, 1981
“Hey Judge, Colonel Flapper wants to use unit funds to purchase that gear we were talking about. Could you take a look at paragraph 7-2a of Army Regulation blankety-blank. I don’t think the regulation lets us do that.”
“I agree,” sayeth the Judge. “Thanks Judge.”
“Hey Colonel Flapper, I just talked to the JAG about using unit funds and he won’t let us. Says it violates some regulation.” “Damn, I wanted that gear. You can always count on the lawyers to get in the way.”
Please excuse my mild paranoia, but I am convinced that the above is in my job description. At my previous assignment, in a funny shaped building, I would receive correspondence that would ask, “Does para 4-3 prohibit us from doing this?” I would pull out the regs and sure enough, para 4-3 would say, you can’t do it. Then I would call the turkey who sent me the request and ask him why the dumb question? The answer goes something like this. “The boss really wants to do it and I don’t think he will believe me if I tell him that he can’t. But if you put it in writing, he’ll understand. Sure he’ll understand. He never had any doubt. It’s those damn lawyers again.
We don’t like to tell commanders no. We would rather have them tell us what they would like to do and then let us try to figure out how they can do it legally. But it is also our responsibility to keep our clients out of trouble. When we see that there is a danger in what is proposed, then we have to stand up and be counted. That comes with the territory.
But the type of responsibility I am talking about isn’t limited to lawyers. We have all kinds of soldiers who are experts at what they do. The best. Each one of you who knows your job should let your boss know when you see something is wrong. I’m not saying a soldier shouldn’t do what he/she is told. What I’m saying is that if you see something wrong, something that doesn’t make sense, something that is dumb, let your boss know. We ought to take advantage of everything we know and make it work for the organization.
The Fort Belvoir Golf Course Struggle (Part 2)
In May of last year, I wrote an article entitled, “Fort Belvoir is Gobbling Up Golf Courses.” This dealt with the Army’s decision to site the Army Museum (NMUSA) on the front nine of the Gunston Golf Course.
The Army published a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) back in October 2008. I don’t want to get too technical, but the Army is required to assess the environmental impact before they start big projects like the museum. The Environmental Assessment covers more than just soil, plants and animals. The Army must also look at the socioeconomic impact and how it will impact on the morale and welfare of the troops and dependents. Their conclusion that 27 holes rather than 36 holes for the golfing community at Fort Belvoir would be plenty was void of evaluation and reasoning. And, guess what? After we (Concerned MWR Patrons) submitted our comments, the Army withdrew their draft EA and went back to the drawing board.
It has been two years since the original draft EA. Last month the Army tried again in a new and improved draft EA. This time it includes reconfiguring the golf courses to keep 36 holes. It also states that the Army Historical Foundation (AHF) (the group building the museum) will pay to reconfigure the golf courses. Now that’s progress.
We are moving in the right direction, but we aren’t there yet. Unfortunately, the draft EA is internally inconsistent. In one place it stated the golf courses will be reconfigured first (“The Army anticipates that reconfiguration of the North Post Golf Course golf holes would start in advance of the museum construction.”). In another place, it states the new holes will come last (“the Army would construct new holes and redesign the North Post Golf Corse to return to 36 holes in a timely manner following the construction of the NMUSA.”). What’s going on? Too many cooks in the kitchen?
If none of this is making any sense, I would recommend that you stop reading. It is just going to get worse.
The requirement to reconfigure the golf courses is called a “mitigating measure.” If the Army can mitigate the problems created by museum construction, such as tearing up the golf courses, then they can preclude any significant impact on the environment and will not have to prepare on Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Preparing an EIS is a pain and the Army doesn’t want to go there.
Federal environmental regulations prohibit doing mitigating measures after the fact (32 CFR Part 651.15 (c)). So the language “in a timely manner following the construction of the NMUSA” is a joke. Mitigation after the fact is no mitigation at all. The Army ought to know this. If we can read the Federal regulations, so can they.
My biggest concern is that the Army starts construction, tears up the Gunston front nine and then, because of lack of funds, the project just drags on. This is not idle speculation. Hopefully Congress won’t appropriate any MCA funds until the AHF has the money to finish the job.
The regulations also require the Army to keep “interested parties” informed as to what is going on. On this matter, they have a long list of interested parties. Guess who is not on the list? That’s right, the Concerned MWR Patrons. We have asked to be put on the list. We clearly fall under the definition of an interested party. They just won’t do it. I know we have been a thorn in their side, but it is a self-inflicted wound. In the words of my wife, they should “get over it.” If they can’t figure out that we are an interested party, then I can certainly understand why they can’t seem to get anything else right. I just hope I am not writing about the litigation of this matter two years from now in Part 3.
Newsflash – The Concerned MWR Patrons have submitted their comments to the Army and you can find them at www.concernedmwrpatrons.org.
Brett Farve to Play this Weekend!
In a surprising change of events, it appears that Brett Farve will play this Sunday against the New England Patriots. Earlier it had been announced that Brett had fractured his left ankle in the game against Green Bay. If Brett did not start, his 291-game starting streak would come to an end.
It was determined by the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, that a halt to the streak would not be in the best interest of the National Football League. Consequently, Goodell is implementing the “walker” rule for Farve. This means that he will be able to have the assistance of a walker while he is on the field. Goodell stated, “Many elderly people use walkers and they are generally accepted in our society.” Goodell explained that Farve using a walker also has its disadvantages. First, Farve will not be able to take snaps under the center. And, the center will have to snap the ball higher so that it travels over the walker.
Viking coach, Brad Childress, recognizes that a walker might get busted. “It’s a violent game.” So he has a number of backup walkers ready to go just in case. Goodell added that it will be a penalty for any defensive player to specifically target the walker. That will constitute an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and cost the defense 15 yards and an automatic first down.
Farve says he is good with the new rules. It has been rumored that he has already emailed a picture of his walker to Jenn Sterger. Farve said that he had texted her, but that he had not sent a picture. Sterger has an attorney and will not comment.
Farve thanked Commissioner Goodell for the new rule. Farve said it was important that he keep playing because an idle mind is the Devil’s workshop.
Golf Digest’s Mystification and Bewilderment
In this October’s issue of Golf Digest, they have 30 pages addressing “Why you can’t putt.” It was hyped as “the ultimate guide to make you great on the greens.” I knew it was nonsense, but it got my attention.
I don’t know about golf magazines. Sure, I subscribe, but do they help my game? I don’t think it helps me to learn what clubs some pro has in his bag. I am certain that if all his clubs are TaylorMade, then they are paying him to play with their clubs. I don’t object to the system. In fact, I would play with Walmart clubs if they would pay me.
The 30 pages on putting turned out to be a series of articles. One was an extensive study of the brain. It included colored pictures of the brains of players putting. Players with their brains colored red were not doing as well as players with brains colored blue. Red indicated the player was thinking of missing the putt or concentrating too much on mechanics. Blue indicated focus on the target or “feel.” I’ve decided my new mantra on the putting green will be, “think blue, think blue.”
One helpful hint was, if you are standing on your tip toes, your putter may be too long. Another is, if you are leaving your putts short, you may not be hitting them on the center of the club, which is referred to as the “sweet spot” (or you may not be hitting the ball hard enough). Their answer is to get a larger putter that has a weighted outside frame. My answer is to hit the ball on the sweet spot. I can see the need for more forgiving irons when taking a full swing, but for putting? You seldom take the putter back 12 inches.
I’m not too swift, so some of this stuff just went over my head. On reading greens (something I would like to do better), I’m supposed to find the “zero line.” I think that is something like the green’s Continental Divide. On one side of the line, everything flows to the Atlantic, and on the other side, the Pacific. I figured out that if you are on the Pacific side, the ball will break to the left. Atlantic side – right. I wish I had known this sooner. I think this new found knowledge, coupled with a blue brain, may take some of the challenge out of the game.
There’s an article by Mike Shannon, entitled “How to roll every putt on line.” No, it’s not the Mike Shannon I knew at Mizzou back in 1958. He went on to play third base for the St. Louis Cardinals and now broadcasts their games. The golf-instructing Mike says that 35% of golfers see a straight line when they putt and 65% see a curved line. I guess my problem is that I don’t know which group I am in. I think I will go with the curved lines. That way I have a 65% chance of being right. OK, are you ready for my system? I look at the hole and decide if I putt the ball directly at the hole how many inches will I miss on the low side. Then, I putt that number of inches above the hole. If I miss, I blame it on the speed of the green.
One of the really helpful bits of information was that if you really want to be a great putter, you need to start before you are ten years old. And, you need to seriously putt for at least two hours every day. There goes the piano lessons. So what comes next? What do I have to do to be a better than average putter?
There was an article that stated that men were better putters than women. They threw in a lot of statistics so they wouldn’t sound sexist. It didn’t work. But they do have the valid point that men seem to have more competition and are playing for more money. Then along comes Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist. He states, and I quote, “Throughout evolutionary history, women have been attracted to winners of competitions. A man believes that if he wins, he’s going to get laid.” So this is the reason men play better than women? Doctor K., how you think and talk. I am wondering why there is a need for an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics. I’ll bet Dr K. really felt smug when Tiger was exposed. “See, see!”
The bottom line is that the articles have made me a better putter. Not because of anything written, but because I became curious about the other Mike Shannon. It turns out Mike is quite a putting instructor and has a number of putting videos on golfersmd.com. His instruction is great and the price is right. The irony is that if his name had been anything other than Mike Shannon, I wouldn’t have looked him up. I certainly didn’t look up weird Doctor Kanazawa.