The Redskins Won! (And not because anybody's awful)

   Now, I'm a Redskin fan, forever.  I loved last night's victory and will get a few good-natured jabs in at some of my Cowboy-loving friends, but to say the "Cowboys suck?"  I'm a Redskin fan, not an ignorer of facts or the human equivalent of a foam finger.  

   The 'Skins played well (after a mediocre first 30 minutes or so) and got the win.  Now, it's time to build on that.  Suggesting that they won because Dallas is a bad football team?  I think Seattle (and five other gridiron squads) would argue that point. 

   Don't get me wrong, I'm all about singing "Hail to the Redskins!" at the top of my lungs and I'll probably wear a Redskins tie to work today, but the Redskins played and won last night, the Cowboys didn't give up the game.  Any Redskin fan (those who stayed up) who says they weren't watching that final Cowboy drive in overtime with held breath and a muted, "please don't let him get the first down!" is full of...well, you know.

   Is this going to quiet the trashtalk?  No, of course not.  The jingoistic football fan must talk trash about his team.  Even a Jaguars fan will talk smack when their team wins (that one or two times a season - in ten years or so when they go to the playoffs, somebody will throw THAT in my face), but I'm just letting you know where I stand.  And, again, I'm thrilled with the win, and I know some folks who I need to see today with my Redskin tie in full effect.  And that Redskin flag on my house?  Been up for awhile, no bandwagonning or fair weather fans here. 

   On a side note, it's about time Colt McCoy got some recognition.  He was one of the "big three" to come out of school at the same time as Bradford and Tebow.  He's the only one playing right now (yes, injuries are sidelining Bradford), and he's playing well.  

   It's early, and the wagon's got to get rolling.  Thanks for riding shotgun.  Let the trashtalking resume.

The following was originally published in the Central Virginian Newspaper - I Don't Know Why...

   There really are many things I don't know.  I don't mean obvious things, like cold fusion, and string theory, and why train crossing gates only drop down when I'm in a hurry.  I mean other things...things I'm sure other people know, but I just don't.

   Here's my first example...Did you know you get to pick what's on the other end of your silverware?  I know, right?  I was amazed the first time I was exposed to the myriad choices at a Farberware outlet (of course, I first had to overcome my disbelief that such a place even existed.  There were scrolled patterns, filigreed patterns, something called "Doric," which I thought was reserved only for columns on the façades of government buildings.  Then, if you pick a plain "flat" end (not the correct name, but I have no idea what to call it), you can get it monogrammed, or not.  Really?  Can I get a question mark furrowed into each piece of flatware?  That's much more fitting for me as far as this particular process is concerned.  Years after my trip to that outlet, I was sitting there in Bed, Bath, and Beyond looking at the sea of flatware patterns available to me when it dawned on me that my parents must have done the same thing I was doing, staring down flatware options.  And they...chose...poorly.   Skinny handle with what might be a piece of wheat, maybe, etched into the handle near its end and again at the head close to the bulge of the spoon or tines of the fork.  My dad let that happen?  Then a new thought crept over me; Dad didn't care...he'd have gone with plastic flatware.  He was ready to move on from whatever registering he and Mom were doing at the moment they got to flatware.  See, different; Mom was probably ready for the next item on the list and Dad was anxious to get on the roof of the parsonage where they were going to be living to check for leaks, or just to count shingles, at that point.  

   But, let's get back on track, shall we?  I don't now why candy corn is a thing.  Seriously, it has a consistency not far from that of an off-brand crayon and a taste...I'm not sure what the taste is...but neither candy nor corn seem to share characteristics with this infernal confection.  Yet, each year when somebody pours a bunch of this stuff into a shallow dish on a coffee table, I take a handful and shove it in my mouth and immediately chastize myself for doing the same thing I did last year as whatever I've just eaten dissolves into a puddle of dissapointment in my mouth.

   I don't know why I ever hear anyone say, "I didn't eat ANYTHING for lunch today."  Really?  Couldn't find anything, maybe?  It were you taken hostage by Al Quaeda from eleven to one-thirty?  I've been so busy at work that I've suddenly realized I missed lunch, but I don't then announce that to those in my general vicinity.  You ask me (and, by reading this, you have - in essence - asked me), the announcement that one failed to eat says far more about the speaker's intelligence than their dietary conventions.

   I have no idea why I walk differently when I'm trying on shoes than at any other time in my life.  It's not a model-on-the-runway kind of walk, either.  It's walk like I could break into a canter at any moment...I won't, because I'm cool like that...but I could.  Then, a day or so later, your feet hurt.  Why?  Because you aren't doing the "shoe-shopping-walk" all the live long day...because it's exhausting.

   There are, of course, thousands of things about which I know nothing, but I wanted to detail just a few, and I have.  The wagon's unloaded and rolling on r

From here?  I hope you and yours keep reading and keep smiling!

  

Got it, He Played Golf

   It's no secret that I'm a Conservative (not a Republican, nor a hater of those not like me, but a political Conservative).  I'm also no fan of the Affordable Care Act, which has allowed my MS medication to be anything but affordable (400% increase in my co-pay) and I feel like the current administration's defense strategy is little more than a carefully crafted Connect4 game plan.  Add to that the fact that our economy is a mess (and I feel like we're beyond blaming previous administrations, or else I think we should start examining FDR's New Deal to see if the Social Security system started out on the wrong foot eight decades ago) and I feel like the hope and change we were promised is just change, and not for the better.  

   Now, having said all that, you know where I stand politically.  As far as recent events, I am in firm grasp of the fact that President Obama went and played golf after his press conference about the murder of James Foley at the hands of ISIS terrorists in the Middle East.  I am aware that he also spoke about the events in Franklin, Missouri before hitting the links.  Do I agree with his behavior?  Doesn't matter, I'm not the President, I don't know how he clears his head or thinks best.  I only know myself.  I know that I often think best when fishing, in fact, after my mom passed, I spent most of an afternoon at a pond casting and reeling, not so much caring about catching a fish as much as immersing myself in processing the events of the last few days.

   Before you think I'm defending the President's behavior, I'm not.  Frankly, it's not my place to do so.  

   I want to talk about the media for a moment.  What I am frustrated by and want to address is the fact that every story I saw the anchors talk about this morning on Fox and Friends (a show I choose above and beyond any national morning show, by the way) ended with some version of, "and the President went to play golf."  Okay, sure, but in the age of instant contact, I get texts and calls while I'm anywhere allowing me to conduct business (or update my Facebook status) from the middle of the James River or in line at Starbucks.  You're telling me the President of the United States is out of touch if he's on the golf course?  I doubt it.  There's probably more secure communication apparatus around him than on the Death Star.  The suggestion that he's ignoring the business of our country is partisanship, and argues against the idea that we need a balanced media.  Remember when the liberal media went after Bush for vacationing during times of crisis?  Here we are watching Obama fall under the same criticism.

   Again, this is not a defense of a Obama or his policies.  My taxes are higher, my healthcare costs are higher, and the economic outlook is more bleak than it was even last year; but the media's job is to report the news, not his a president responds to it - or at least not to dedicate a whole morning to it.

   On rolls the wagon.  Thanks for riding shotgun!

On MH-17 and World Outrage...at Least in Word

   So, as I sit and watch several news outlets' continuing (continuous?) coverage of the tragic shoot down of MH-17, I was stunned to hear audio of a Ukranian Separatist talking to a Russian Army officer about their confirmation that the downed plane was civilian.  I guess any doubt that Russian forces were (at the very least) involved in a short-lived, misguided attempted cover up of the downing of the Malaysian jet is now squashed flat - at least until Putin says it was actors hired by the (legitimate) government of Ukrain to make it sound like Russia was complicit.

   You want to talk about acting?  Putin's news organization is more government-controlled than Pravda ever was (want proof? - the incident isn't even front page news in Russia), so don't believe an ounce of his rhetoric.  I wouldn't put it past him to hire actors to say they're they ones who shot down the plane and they're from Des Moines, Iowa.  I also expect them to claim responsibility for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.  

   Seriously, The only way to avoid this kind of tragedy in the Ukranian conflict?  End the conflict.  How do you end it?  Russia gets out.  The only way Russia gets out?  Replace Putin.  Someone less megalomaniacal, like Kim Jung Un seems like a more reasonable choice.

   Meanwhile, what a joy our country is to watch.  While I do say "hats off!" to Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., who flat out said Russia could end the war if they wanted, I'm rather disappointed in our president, who went to a fundraiser.  Guess that's better than having him mucking things up through hands-on diplomacy.  A reall show stopper for the United States State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki (the "P" is silent, as is her ability to rationally order facts and present them clearly).  She embarrassed (really she's an ongoing embarrassment to) our country and the U.S. State Department - even more than John Kerry.  Ms. Psaki, I didn't think you could do worse than your pre-schoolish Sharpie-on-construction-paper hash-tagged "#usforukraine" in March...thanks for proving me wrong by opening your press briefing with something other than this piece of news for the past TWO DAYS.  Somebody get her a Sharpie.

   I know that civilian airliners have been in the wrong place in armed conflicts before; and that the flight path of MH-17 was intentionally altered by its flight crew to conserve fuel and the alteration took it into the militarized zone.  Through the confluence of those factors, almost 300 people are dead; let us not lose site of that.  But now, it only gets worse.  Pro-Russian rebels are firing warning shots at U.N. investigators trying to find answers in a debris field stretching over nine miles.  This speaks to the mindset of the people who fired the missile (or at least armed the system that fired it).  It may have been an accidental shootdown, but the what's happening now is no accident; the separatists know what they're doing.  And that's the difference between a soldier and a terrorist.  A terrorist uses fear to get his or her way, which is what the armed thugs at the crash site did today.  And they're aligned with the Russian government.  What does that tell us about that government?

   Just food for thought as the wagon rolls on.  Thanks for riding shotgun.  And remember, that's just a figure of speech here, but for the Russian military and their Separatist cronies, they may take it literally.

A VERY Rainy Fishing Trip - One of the Best Ever

   Early this week, Channel 12 said today's chance of rain was 100%.  Yep, for SURE it was gonna rain.  Well, my daughter, Moriah, has been asking me about going fishing since the last time the weather comfortably allowed for it (October-ish) and we had really embraced the idea last weekend that we were going this weekend.  That said, I had several rods and reels packed when I picked her and her brother up and added theirs to the pile in my SUV as we headed for a friend's pond.

   Now, when we got there, it was raining, I mean RAINING, like Noah on a Tursday raining.  I had stopped and gotten some night crawlers for Mack to use (you ever take a six year-old fishing?  You're gonna want to get some worms) and he was thrilled just taking the top off the box to see if the worms were alive.  Much to his delight, they were.  Moriah stared at the rain drops pick-marking the surface of the pond and turned to me, "Let's get going, Dad.  I don't think we should wait it out; once we get started, it'll lessen up, or we'll get used to it.  That's how irony works, anyway."  My heart swelled with the kind of pride you can only understand as an obsessed parent whose child has embraced that very same obsession.  And, she used "irony" the right way.

   So, we tumble out of the Toyota into the rain and we start casting (well, Moriah starts casting, I've got a few minutes of baiting Mack's hook, explaining that the process is not fatal to worms, and then I blew his little formative mind by cutting the worm in half so we now had two sentient, active, squirming lumbricus terrestrii.  He looked at me as if I had opened a new door to the secrets of the universe; which, in essence, I guess I had).

   After the brief science lesson (which, by way, ended with me saying something akin to, "because they just do, I don't know why.") Mack and I joined Moriah.  We fished for a while, I pretty much just kept lines in the water and worms on Mack's hook while Moriah used her favorite spinnerbait.  A little while into it, Moriah called me and let me know she'd snagged that spinnerbait on some downed cat tails.  As I made my way over to her, I cast my Carolina Rig out and gave it a couple of reel and tugs before handing her my rod while I worked to free her lure (it ended up being too well-snagged, so we lost the lure - I need to replace that ASAP).  As I worked on her line, I heard her yell, "Daddy, you got something!"  

   I looked over and saw the line from the rod in Moriah's hands moving through the water.  "No, YOU'VE got something!  You're holding the rod!" I smiled, "Reel it in, Sweetheart!"

   She did, and it was a bass running about 2 pounds.  It was the only thing we caught that day (although Mack really got good at casting in the two hours we were there - going from just letting his line drop right next to the dock to casting out to the middle of the pond by the time we packed it in for the day).

   The best part was that I was the one who had to call it a day for us.  The kids would have stayed until we were soaked to the bone (we almost were anyway, though they had raincoats, thank goodness).  They want to go again soon, and I'll need to get some more worms for Mack, because he's going to release the ones he kept into the wild over the next few days.

   The wagon's going to roll on, but it's always ready to stop at a fishing hole, especially when the kids are on board.  Thanks for riding shotgun with us!

Miss Virginia Dogwood

This piece was originally published in the Central Virginian Newspaper on January 16, 2014

   On January 11, 2014 it rained in a way that causes one to post on Facebook how much it's raining while looking out the window for an old man in a gopher wood boat full of animals in pairs.  The temperature gamboled playfully between freezing and almost seventy degrees Fahrenheit.  In the midst of this climatological confusion, several dozen young ladies prepared themselves for the Miss Virginia Dogwood Pageant that would take place at the Louisa Arts Center.

   The weather was soon forgotten by both the contestants and the audience.  Talents were displayed, questions were asked and answered, and thank yous were offered.  Through it all was a reminder that the event, which is a qualifier for the Miss Virginia competition which, in turn, leads on to the Miss America pageant is more than what so many consider a beauty pageant.  That night, Delesia Watson was crowned as the new Miss Virginia Dogwood, the title of Miss Virginia's Outstanding Teen went to Carlehr Swanson, Haylee Landry was named Outstanding Pre-Teen, and the Little Miss title went to Adyn Douglas.  I have to tell you, that night was far more than a beauty contest; there was a pageant held at the Arts Center.

   Sure, when the businessmen in Atlantic City first conceived of the Miss America pageant in the 1920s, it was a marketing gimmick.  They needed to get people to their town, so they put together this contest where guys could see all these pretty (single) girls from all over the country.  The marketing ploy worked and the pageants, having done their job as a tourism booster, faded away until they were resurrected in the 1930s to combat the economic devastation of the Great Depression.  In the late 2000s the Miss America Pageants were moved to Las Vegas, but Miss America is back home in Atlantic City where it's no longer a marketing gimmick, but is an avenue for many young ladies to fund their education and also open doors in careers in the music and broadcasting industries.

   Now, why am I writing about this in the Chuck Wagon?  It's because I was given the opportunity to co-emcee the event with Rebecca Gogue, a former Miss Virginia Dogwood herself (I emceed the Miss Virginia Dogwood Pageant where she won the crown) who is pursuing a career in the recording industry.  During the event, I was simply awestruck at the talents, poise, and confidence of the young ladies on stage at the Louisa Arts Center that rainy Saturday night.  

   Look, you all know I have no problem talking (droning on and on) in front of a group...but singing?  Dancing?  Playing piano?  I'd rather shave a porcupine.  But these girls perform with a style and panache which is laudable and more than a little enviable!  I mean, I can't seem to master the words to Blinded By the Light in English while one of the contestants sang an operatic piece in German.  Yeah...it's just a beauty contest, sure. 

   Many of the girls who participate in these contests already have their undergraduate degrees and are pursuing post-collegiate degrees, (in fact, the current Miss Virginia is a doctoral candidate).  The scholarship money awarded from the pageant is often used to pay off student loans or pay for the board tests mandated to apply for many grad programs.  Sure, just a beauty contest, right?  Kind of like saying the Winter Olympics is just a snowball fight.

   Of course, there are those who will argue that the swimsuit portion of the pageant makes it all just about beauty being skin deep, but I think they're wrong there.  The swimsuit competition focuses on the need for balanced nutrition, for making healthy choices, and for being proud of the results of those choices.  It's not a meat-market, and shame on those who think that.  As my co-emcee, Rebecca Gogue put it, "It's about more than how you look in a bikini, it's about health - all areas of health, and about being comfortable in your own skin."

   When the crown was placed on the head of Miss Delesia Watson (Louisa's own!), all the rehearsal time, the rolling in and out of the Steinway piano, the calls and texts, the checks and double checks of entry forms and fees, the printing of programs, the pictures by Rick Myers (his photography is breath-taking, by the way), the selection of judges, the seating of auditors, the welcoming of M.C. Gravely (the Field Director for the Pageant), the setting of marks and levels for music, the practices and opening by Performing Arts 2000...it all culminated seamlessly in the moment when the crown was passed on by outgoing queen, Ashna Sharan (whose Bollywood-style dancing had wowed the audience earlier in the evening).  Just a beauty pageant?  No...no, I don't think so.

   For the young ladies who competed, for their parents and those who support them, for the judges and those of us who got a peek at the back stage chaos that become on-stage poetry, the event is truly one full of opportunity.  And, as Miss Virginia Oustanding Pre-Teen, Anna Graham told me, making opportunities out of what some see as obstacles is what the Miss Virginia organization does every day.  Powerful words from such a little girl.

   Honestly, I can't sit here and tell you that I wasn't once guilty of applying all the stereotypes to beauty pageants that are so often tossed around.  The girls are airheads, just eye-candy, pretty wrappers for empty packages.  But I have seen that those stereotypes (like most) are born of ignorance and a lack of appreciation for what goes on at these pageants.  These young ladies are dedicated, courageous, confident, and worthy of the titles they hold.  Think I'm wrong?  Okay, come to a pageant, then we'll talk.

   The wagon rolls ever onward.  Thanks for riding shotgun with me!

Pinball Wizardry

   In an age when the XBox One and PlayStation 4 seem to rule the landscape, places like Seattle's pinball museum is a must-see for many tourists (I kid you not).  Lest you think it's just "old folks" who go, a University of Washington law student from Chicago picked it as one of the places to take out-of-town visitors to show them a place he considers, "very Seattle."  And, before you think, "well, it is Seattle, you know?" these kinds of places have been popping up all over.  Las Vegas had the most well-known pinball museum, but there's another one right up in Baltimore (just a few hours north of this blogger's seat).  To get a more complete look at the article about the Seattle museum, visit hhttp://news.yahoo.com/seattle-pinball-museum-part-silver-ball-revival-074101866.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory. To check out the Baltimore pinball museum, well, you can only go online because the museum (the National Pinball Museum, mind you) is seeking a new building, but the site is: http://www.nationalpinballmuseum.org/homepage.html ..

   So, why the sudden nostalgia for pinball?  I mean, I have an app on my iPad that'll let me play pinball on about a half-dozen "machines" and, if I make some in app purchases, I'll literally double that number.  One of the first things I did on my first windows PC was find and play the pinball game.  If I can do all that, why do I care if there are real places with real machines?  Why?  Because of the feeling.

   Playing pinball on a computer is kind of like watching Wheel of Fortune.  You get the experience, but not the feel.  You get to see the puzzle solved, but you never spin the wheel.  

   Think about it, when you're at the controls of a pinball game, so much is translated to your hands.  Each thump of the bumpers being hit courses through the pressed metal of the machine to your fingers.  The metallic launch of a ball after it's been "captured" briefly by whatever mechanism the makers of the game built into it to allow the game to have some sort of plotline, truncated or derivative though it may be.  The chunk of a new ball being dropped into the straightaway in front of the plunger; that chunk being one of the most universally hopeful sounds to every man, woman, and child who has ever stood at the buttons controlling the paddles of a pinball machine.  That "chunk" is the onomatopoeia of hope, in many ways.  It says that no matter how badly that last ball was played, this could be the one that earns a free ball, breaks the high score, and earns you a place among the constellations as an immortal among pin-ballets.  And if it gutters out before you even flipper it once, the gods of pinball may see fit to offer you a do-over.  That never happened to me playing Tetris.

   The Who never wrote a song about a kid being a wizard at Atari or ColecoVision or at the controls of a Texas Instruments computer (yeah, they made home computers before focusing mostly on calculators and we had one at the Moss house - yep, we avoided buying a Betamax player, but had a TI-99/4A).  Before I travel too far down the road and we cover the Commodore 64 and the advent of the analog-pretending-to-be-digital "blip," allow me to get back to the human appreciation for the analog.

   We, as human beings like the convenience of the digital world, but need the contact of the analog (I am somehow made to think of Woody Allen's Sleeper here and the machine the similates...Uhm...you know).  Just as we need to hold hands, touch an arm, rub a shoulder; so also does the touch of the flipper control buttons and the impact of the bumpers and all the things described in the paragraphs above combine to provide that contact we so intrinsically need as human beings.

  Really, we need both physical and emotional contact.  If only our physical needs are met, that can prove as stunting or fatal as only meeting emotional needs.  I don't cite moribund studies about the same to back me up (though I found some online).  If your think about it, pinball does both.  The sounds and pixilated images that are part of the game appeal to our need for affirmation or feedback that transcends the physical, while the physical interaction we have with the game meets our need for contact. 

   "Chuck, you are really over analyzing this pinball thing.  It's just a game.  You play it, you're done.  That's it.  There's no interacting."  Oh yeah?  Why do Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all have feedback devices for their controllers?  Why has the video game platform revolutionized itself by becoming a way to do our outside activities inside?  Maybe I do over-analyze, but so do the people who put new games in your hand every day.  You want to talk about over-analysis?  How about the Call of Duty games where the CGI characters' bootlaces bounce when they run?  How many man hours did THAT take?

   Look, I'm not suggesting that a return to pinball is needed to allow mankind to recover part of its soul.  It is just a game, after all.  But, what a metaphor for life, right?

   I just realized this whole blog flies in the face of the movie Her.  Oh, well.  Sometimes Joaquin Phoenix and Spike Lee are just on a different side than I am.  How many times has THAT happened, right?

   Like a ball that has just caromed off a pinball flipper, the wagon rolls on.  Thanks for riding shotgun.  Next game's yours, if you want it.