Blog Posts - Iowa Scribe

And part two of the Saturday Night Poetry Jam

8/7/2021

And part two of the Saturday night poetry jam, this one’s an oldie, too, and more fun ... about a puppy-dog who I once knew …

LITTLE MISS EVA
By James Grob

Little Miss Eva was a tiny pup
Smallest of the small
She could fit into a coffee cup
If she rolled into a ball
Miss Eva's pillow was a soft, cool lump
And always on the chair
She'd jump and jump and jump and jump
And couldn't get up there
But she'd jump and jump and jump again
Until she finally got it right
She would lay upon the pillow then
And sleep all through the night.

Little Miss Eva had the brownest eyes
And softest, white curled hair
Her tail was one of smaller size
But wagged a lot back there
Miss Eva liked to run around
And chase her doggy toys
Her favorite was a little clown
Who made a squeaky noise
She liked to hold it in her mouth
And shake it up and down
Then shake it north and shake it south
Then shake it all around.

Little Miss Eva would get quite upset
When the mailman came each day
You wouldn't think such a tiny pet
Would try to chase someone away
But Miss Eva snarled and growled and barked
And howled a little, too
Whenever she saw a mail truck parked
On her avenue
She'd peek at him through the little slot
Where he slid the letters in
And warned him that he'd better not
Come back to her house again.

Little Miss Eva liked to run a lot
Around the coffee table
She would make circles all around the spot
As fast as she was able
Faster and faster and faster she'd run
Around and round and round
Miss Eva thought it was so much fun
Her feet barely touched the ground
Until finally she would get tired, then
She would lay down on the floor
But when she caught her breath again
She would run around some more.

Little Miss Eva's favorite thing to do
Was to snuggle on the bed
With any snuggly person who
Would rub her little head
Miss Eva also liked it when
Someone gave her something yummy
Or scratched behind her ears and then
Tickled her little tummy
Miss Eva was a tiny pet
The smallest of the small
But among the dogs that I have met
She was happiest of them all.

The return of the Saturday Night Poetry Jam

8/7/2021

Bringing back the Saturday Night Poetry Jam on IowaScribe for tonight ... this one's an oldie about insomnia ... enjoy ...

Bed Time

By JAMES GROB

Eyes closed.
Affection fraction
Pain reaction
Soul without
Soul.

Eyes shielding light,
Darkness
Mind’s
Only friend.

Eyes open.
Nothing to
See
Nothing to
Hold
Nothing to
Hide …
With sleep.

Eyes move.
Rapidly.
Bad dreams
Silent screams
Waking
Alone.

Eyes water.
No one’s
Lonely
Until
Some one’s
Gone.

Lies of embarrassment are the easiest lies to tell

7/13/2021

Charles City Press, 7-13-21

I catch myself lying once in a while.

I don’t mean those harmless little lies, the ones that you tell to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. I don’t mean stories about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, the fun little lies we tell our children.

I catch myself lying out of embarrassment.

For most of my life, I’ve been a tobacco user. My preferred mode of operation has typically been smokeless tobacco — chew, as we call it. It’s a disgusting habit, and I do not recommend it. It’s also really hard to quit, at least for me.

I know this because I have quit hundreds of times. Sometimes it’s lasted months, sometimes it’s lasted hours. Always, I’ve started again. I’m a frequent failure when it comes to quitting things.

I have many health problems, and although my tobacco use doesn’t link directly to any of them, I know full well that it certainly hasn’t helped. The need to quit looms large in my life, and I receive help and support from my loved ones, including my wife.

And I’m proud to say that I’ve mostly quit. I do go entire seasons without purchasing a can of chew, and once nearly an entire year without it. Currently I’m on a lengthy no-tobacco stretch, I’m happy to say. Pray that it endures.

Occasionally my wife will ask me how my tobacco use is going, and often I tell her the truth, but sometimes I’ve lied to her. I’ll say something like, “oh, I haven’t bought a can of chew for weeks,” when the fact is, I actually bought one last week.

And I immediately hate myself. Why did I just lie to this person, the one person in the world who I never lie to? The one person in the world who I can trust with my deepest fears and anxieties. Why did I just lie to her?

The answer is simple — embarrassment. I know I’ve failed, and I’m disappointed in myself. I don’t want her to be disappointed in me, too. The actual facts embarrass me, so I change the facts.

So this is how I know why there was a big banner hanging across the front of a house in downtown Charles City, overlooking Central Park, during the Fourth of July Weekend celebration. The banner read “Trump Won.” The banner is a huge lie, literally in bold-face.

It’s there because the person who hung it is embarrassed. The actual facts are embarrassing, so the person is trying to change the facts.

Of course, Trump did not win the 2020 election. He lost, and he lost by a wide margin. He lost the popular vote — something he never won, not even in 2016 — and more importantly, he lost the electoral vote. More individuals voted against him than voted against any other sitting president in history.

Claims that there was something shady about the election, that it was somehow “rigged” against Trump, are lies. Not opinions, not other sides to the story — they are lies. You could put “Trump Won” in neon on a banner that covers the entire block, and have the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra play “God Bless America” in perpetuity, and it would not make it any more true.

Trump lost, and it’s embarrassing to a lot of Trump’s supporters, so they think that if their lies are big, bold and loud enough, the truth will somehow change. It won’t.

Most voters felt Trump was a failure as president, and most voters voted against him. For those who loved him, that’s tough to take, but had they been alert to the facts, they wouldn’t have been so shocked.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Trump lost, to anyone who was paying attention. He was by far the least popular president in modern history. During his entire term, his approval rating among American voters never once went above 50%, and was usually around 40% or lower. Most people didn’t like him, as a president or as a person. So most people voted against him. That’s not a shock.

He was impeached twice, he attacked both supporters and adversaries personally, in the most infantile terms, and yet, he could never take even the least bit of criticism. He built very little good will. He kept very few of his promises, and threw anyone who called him out on that under the bus.

His fault or not, he was president during the biggest employment collapse since the Great Depression. Many saw his lack of action to be at least partially responsible for more than half a million COVID-19 deaths. It would have taken an act of God for Trump to win re-election after that.

Even the thing his supporters liked the most about him — the idea that he was a straight-shooter who spoke the truth in plain language — became a liability. The more he talked, the more people realized he was lying — about nearly everything.

You don’t have to do all that much research to find the lies. Among the tens of thousands of documented falsehoods, the guy came right here to Iowa and said that wind turbines were unbearably loud (they are about as loud as the refrigerator in your kitchen) and they killed countless numbers of birds — including bald eagles (wind turbines kill about as many birds as Trump’s buildings do).

He also said that when the wind doesn’t blow, people can’t watch television (which only proves that he never paid attention in 7th-grade science class) and that wind turbines somehow cause cancer (which is so ridiculous a premise that it actually causes me pain to attempt to refute it, so I won’t.)

That’s four obvious lies, in two short paragraphs. If the guy at the end of the bar said those things, you’d laugh his sorry butt out of the tavern.

Because he is a (former) president, however, Trump’s serial lying can cause serious and irreparable damage, nationally and worldwide, and it sometimes has.

On his way out the door, for instance, those lies helped incite an insurrection. That’s never happened before, in this country. That had to be really embarrassing for his supporters — so embarrassing that they feel the need to pretend it never happened, or to rationalize it, with more lies.

Those who bend over backwards to help perpetuate those lies — like Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, and whoever put up the “Trump Won” banner overlooking Central Park — are all partially responsible for that damage.

But at least we know why they behave that way.

Their guy lost. Their guy failed. They’re embarrassed, because they believed in him. So they’re trying to change the facts.

No one likes to hurt, and nothing hurts more than the truth.

Stepping in for James Grob, come see

7/1/2021

Stunned to see my name pop up in my morning news feed ... thank you so much to Chris Baldus, editor at the Oelwein Daily Register, for saying nice things about me. When I speak of him, I shall speak well.

Stepping in for James Grob, come see

By CHRIS BALDUS, editor
Oelwein Daily Register

First, I want to say a few things about James Grob, former sports editor for the Oelwein Daily Register.

As a young man in the late 1990s, he returned to his hometown after a stint in New Ulm, Minnesota, to make the Register’s sports section “the best in the state of Iowa” as he told Oelwein Rotary on an April afternoon in 1999.

His sports section won awards in the annual Iowa Newspaper Association and Associated Press contest. More meaningful, however, were the cards, letters and thank you notes he received from kids, parents coaches and sports fans, he said in his farewell column in October 2000 as he headed to another job in Ottumwa. Seems he left a little frustrated he was not able to do more.

I gleaned all this only from a cursory search into the newspaper archives at the Oelwein Public Library. I only looked because we are now inextricably linked.

It can be a nomadic life in the newspaper business. I know. My family has tolerated my career that has taken us from Minnesota to Wisconsin to Idaho to Iowa, but that is beside the point.

These days, James is a reporter at a Charles City newspaper, and he and his wife, teacher Michelle Grob, have played key roles in revitalizing that city’s community theater troupe — The Stony Point Players.

Michelle Grob, who directed “The Wizard of Oz” in 2018 — with James in the cast — is directing “The Wedding Singer” this year. Stony Point Players presented “Spamalot” in 2019 and then had to take 2020 off because of the pandemic.

More than 40 people from sixth graders to Grandma Linda have turned out to put on this summer’s musical. They’ve been working on it since April.

James was set to return to the stage again this year, but had to step away. And this is where your erstwhile editor has stepped in.

Oh, I suppose I should add that my daughter, Rosie, is the play’s stage manager, which is how I was recruited. She also drew in two of my college-age children into the play as well. My son, Colton, gets to give the main character an inebriated peck on the cheek while my daughter, Anastasia gets to slug the guy. I’m so proud.

James was going to be a Ronald Reagan impersonator. Now I am. It might have been a role he was born to play. I’ve had to study SNL, squeeze my head into a strange wig and eat lots of jelly beans.

Regardless, opening night for the show was Wednesday, and if you are interested in seeing what the Grobs have done for Charles City’s community theater, there are two more shows left in the run — Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. in the North Grand Auditorium (their old middle school building).

And if you want to see my take on a dancing Reagan, I suppose you can come see that too.

Tickets are on sale at the door: $5 for students, $12 for adults.

--

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.communitynewspapergroup.com/oelwein_daily_register/stepping-in-for-james-grob-come-see/article_a0db4aba-b77d-58a7-8e88-9706c1f83da2.html

Take us all out to the ball game

6/16/2021

Charles City Press, 6-15-21

The best ice cream in the world is eaten out of a miniature baseball helmet at a ballpark.

This is a fact, and it is irrefutable.

Young Billy was actually too young to realize this Saturday at Target Field in Minneapolis, but his grandparents are hopeful that it will stick in his long-term memory somewhere, and there will be a time in his life when he will remember the delicious ice cream he once had at the Twins baseball game.

Actually, all four of the grandchildren were probably too young to appreciate their first ever trip to a Major League Baseball game, but that’s where they all found themselves, accompanied by two sets of parents and one set of grandparents on a warm summer night in mid-June, with the Twins some 14 games out of first place in the standings.

It was hardly Game Six of a World Series — there weren’t going to be any legends created, there wasn’t going to be any baseball history made.

But going to a baseball game isn’t always about the game itself, it’s the experience. There were treats — lots and lots of expensive but delectable treats — like the ice cream helmet, a giant tub of popcorn, soda and beer (for the grown ups) and hot dogs and boxes of candy and peanuts and even little certificates honoring the kids for attending their first-ever baseball game.

There were mascots — funny mascots, who did funny things. There was singing and even a little dancing, cheering and jeering. There was a wave, there was hand-clapping and chanting. Organ music mixed in with heavy rock. And there were foul balls, often headed our direction, along the third base line, near left field. A perfect spot for foul balls.

Grandpa promised young Billy that if one came close enough, Grandpa would surely catch it and give to him to keep. Grandpa would have, too, but the closest one was about 10 rows in front of us, so Grandpa never got the chance.

Grandpa also tried to teach young Billy how to razz the Astros batters, with the age-old “hum-batter-hey-batter-hum-batter SWING batter!” chant, but young Billy wasn’t interested in participating.

The college-aged kids seated in the row behind Grandpa surely enjoyed razzing the Astros batters with Grandpa, though, and enthusiastically joined in with the chant, although they added a few four-letter words that Grandpa — and especially Grandma — didn’t whole-heartedly approve of and hoped that young Billy didn’t pick up on.

The college kids humored the old man in front of them, and asked how many Twins games he’d been to, and if he’d seen any of the old legends play. Of course, they may have been making fun of me, but I’ve gotten too old to really give a damn about things like that, and happily shared my story.

I once saw the great Rod Carew play in the old Metropolitan Stadium, and he reached on a bunt single, stole second base, advanced to third on a ground out and scored on a sacrifice fly. In my mind, it happened yesterday — yes THE Rod Carew, the best hitter of the last 50 years.

I also once saw Mike Cubbage bat for the cycle. They had never heard of him.

I saw Frankie Viola pitch during the 1987 championship season, and saw Kent Hrbek and Gary Gaetti smack home runs. I saw Jack Morris pitch during the championship 1991 season, and Kirby Puckett hit a home run and steal a home run with a leap at the wall — just like he did in Game Six of the World Series later that year.

I’m not sure they believed me, but it was all true, and they at least pretended to be impressed. I was a sports writer for more than 20 years, I told them. “This isn’t my first trip to the ballpark,” I said.

And although each trip I’ve taken to the ballpark over the years has been unique, much is always the same at a baseball game — any baseball game, from a local Little League diamond to Wrigley Field.

As I looked around Saturday night, it struck me. Here I sit, among tens of thousands of people, and some of us are black, and some of us are white, and some of us are Latino, and some of us are 100 other things. There are liberals here, and there are conservatives. There are Republicans and Democrats and a whole bunch of “none of the above.”

Kids and adults. Boomers and GenXers and Millennials and NextGens and whatever else. Some gay people, some straight people, some “don’t-ask-don’t-tell.” Protestants and Catholics and Muslims and atheists and agnostics and maybe even a couple witch doctors. It is baseball, you know — there’s always some witchcraft at a baseball game.

And everyone was getting along. Everyone was smiling, most of us were laughing, no one was fighting. The handful of Astros fans were being treated “Minnesota nice” by the majority of Twins fans.

And I remembered that for a year, we couldn’t do this. The crowd noise was piped in. The foul balls landed in empty seats. The experience was lost, and it felt like it would never come back.

But it did come back. And for the first time in a long time, I could feel the collective joy of thousands of people, watching a meaningless game but loving every second of it, and loving being around each other, in spite of a million differences.

The “indivisible” part of America is on life support right now, it seems. The “united” part of the United States sometimes feels like a twisted joke. Were we ever really united, over anything? It feels like we’ve always been fighting.

I’m so very tired of fighting, aren’t you?

But hey — if tens of thousands of people can get along fine for three hours at ballgame, we can all get along fine in other places, too. We just have to decide that’s what we want to do.

Sometimes it takes a bloody revolution to light that fire.

But sometimes a scoop of ice cream in a little baseball helmet can do the trick.

Hum-batter-hey-batter-hum-batter-SWING-batter.

Kidney failure and prayer blankets

6/1/2021

Charles City Press, 6-1-21

I underestimated the power of a prayer blanket.

I spent most of the month of May in the hospital, I’m sorry to say. I was sick and got dehydrated and it caused my kidneys — which have always been two of my most reliable organs, along with my heart and lungs — to shut down and just stop working.

As you might suspect, this is not a good thing.

But smart doctors knew how to treat me, and strong nurses worked hard, and after a stint in intensive care and a couple days of care that was not as intensive, I was better and so were my kidneys.

Then things got worse, which things sometimes tend to do.

The same smart doctors who made my kidneys better had instructed me to go back on a particular medication I had been taking before. I even questioned as to whether or not that was a good idea, and they seemed to think my inquiry was cute. What did I know? After all, they’d studied hard for several years to become doctors, and they’d just made me better, so of course they were right.

As I came to find out, they couldn’t have been more wrong. Someone on my medical team didn’t do his or her homework in regard to my medication. If he or she had, he or she would have quickly realized that a couple doses of that medication would literally wreck my kidneys, which weren’t yet strong enough to handle that medicine.

I took the medicine, as instructed, and sure enough, I became way more sick than I’d been before. My kidneys were angry. I might as well have eaten hemlock and washed it down with a cool glass of arsenic. I’d literally poisoned myself.

One doctor who hadn’t been advised as to the medication I was taking was even more angry than my kidneys. Had he been advised, he would have kept me off that medicine, he told me. But no one bothered to ask him.

I’m not a litigious person and have no intention of taking anyone to court over the matter. It was just a dumb mistake — one that almost cost me my life — which landed me in intensive care for a few more days and in the hospital for a couple more weeks. I’m home now, and although I am miles away from normal, I’m much better.

And this is where the aforementioned prayer blanket comes in.

While enjoying my stay at the hospital, I received a visit from one of my church pastors, who brought me a beautiful blanket. She said it was a “prayer blanket,” and some ladies at church wanted me to have it.

Now, I was raised a Christian and still attend church, but I’ve never put much stock into the power of prayer and the miracles of Christ. I’m not saying they didn’t happen, I just think maybe Jesus knew some tricks, somehow had some advanced knowledge of science for the day, and so had a way of making it look like he was walking on water or curing lepers or casting out evil spirits.

Now, before you get mad at me and scream that I’m a blasphemer or some such thing, let me tell you that to me, the most important thing about Jesus was his message and his philosophy — far more important than any miracle he may or may not have pulled off. Do unto others, welcome strangers as you would neighbors, be kind to everyone, help those in need, don’t pass judgment until you have honestly judged yourself.

Don’t be a hypocrite. Love one another above all. Be honest. Forgive others.

I’ve always tried to live my life that way, and although I often fail, my heart is more full and my mind is more clear because I endeavor to live by those simple rules, the way Jesus did.

So in my miserable state, I was still grateful for my silly little prayer blanket. It was warm and comfortable. Someone out there cared about me, and it’s a good feeling to know that.

And I covered myself in the blanket and prayed. I thought, what the heck, worst thing that could happen is it doesn’t work, and I’m in the same state as I was before.

I prayed that my pain and sickness would ease, that my misery would subside.

And as they sometimes say in the Bible, “Lo and behold.” It worked.

Maybe it was just the medicine kicking in and the good work of my nurses paying off, and maybe it was the psychology of it all, and maybe it was all a big coincidence. But the fact is, I started feeling better at that exact moment.

I’m home now, and I keep the prayer blanket by my favorite chair, and cover myself with it from time to time.

I realize that there’s a good chance that the blanket’s effectiveness is all in my mind. I realize that it probably really isn’t helping me.

But it’s a nice, warm blanket. And it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Appreciate the teacher who made a difference

5/4/2021

Charles City Press, 5-4-21

My parents were teachers.

My sister is a teacher. My wife is a teacher. I have two aunts and two uncles who were teachers. My grandfather was a teacher. My great-grandfather was a teacher. Several of my cousins are teachers. Several of my aforementioned relatives married teachers. They’re raising kids now, and I’ll bet money that some of those kids are growing up to be teachers.

I am not a teacher, and that’s probably because of another teacher.

Mrs. Gallo taught advanced English and writing classes at Oelwein High School, my alma mater. She was also the advisor to our weekly student newspaper, the Husky Register, and I learned more about writing from her than I did from the combined efforts of all the professors and editors and publishers I’ve ever known.

She wasn’t the first person to encourage me to write, but she was the first person to encourage me to write right.

And I have, for my entire adult life. I’ve written articles, stories, plays, essays and other bits for publications large and small. My love for community journalism, however, started at the Husky Register.

At the Husky Register, we had high ethical standards, We did not cut corners. We owned up to mistakes. Mrs. Gallo wouldn’t have it any other way. Everyone on the staff reported and edited hard news the right way. Mrs. Gallo meant business, and she was tough.

Her toughness, however, was not what I remember the most. It was her kindness, her thoughtfulness, her smile. She cared that we learned, to be sure, but she cared about us, and we could tell.

And although only a few of us went on to become writers, those characteristics and work habits were instilled into us, and they’ve carried over into whatever occupations we’ve pursued. That’s teaching, and that’s what Marilyn Gallo did. If the rest of the world could have had just one semester with her, this would be a far better place.

We covered everything in the Husky Register, and sometimes we kids scooped the pros. Mrs. Gallo loved when we did that.

I was thinking about Mrs. Gallo because I read that the National PTA has designated this week as Teacher Appreciation Week, “a special time to honor the men and women who lend their passion and skills to educating children.”

There’s probably a Mrs. Gallo in your life. Send that teacher a thank-you this week, if you can.

I have been told that the Charles City School District is the third or fourth biggest employer in the county. The district’s employees are shopping in local stores, they’re eating at local restaurants, they’re buying cars from local dealers.

They’re honing special skills. They’re delivering athletic teams that compete and make us proud. They’re presenting plays and musicals and concerts for your enjoyment, they’re teaching young farmers how to give back to the community.

They’re raising their own kids and grandkids while they’re teaching yours.

The bottom line is, they make Charles City a better place to live — and they make your kids better people.

In this year of pandemic, no institutions in the nation have better risen to the unprecedented challenges than local school districts have. When other systems failed, largely due to a lack of leadership, school districts like Charles City stepped up and said “let’s find a way to do this.”

While many clever politicians and shrewd business leaders and highly-educated scientists and sharp-tongued pundits and other so-called experts failed us, teachers found a way to teach.

It’s taken a toll. Locally, teachers were working double or triple time at one point. They lost one of their own due to the pandemic. There have been sleepless nights. There have been students who can’t, or won’t, be engaged. There have been screaming parents, understandably upset at the situation, who directed their rage at teachers, because they didn’t know where else to direct it.

So let’s take a breath. Mrs. Gallo taught me that misdirected anger doesn’t do anyone any good, but well-directed appreciation does at least two people a lot of good. Let’s do that.

This past September, Mrs. Gallo passed away at the age of 94. She left this world peacefully, with her family by her side.

A bunch of us old scribes from the 1986 Husky Register staff composed a little tribute to her, and the local newspaper liked it and put it on the front page. Mrs. Gallo would’ve loved that. We scooped the pros one last time, for her.

She also would’ve marked the margins with red ink and told us how it was good, but could’ve been even better. That’s a teacher, there.

As an adult, I had many chances to express my appreciation to Mrs. Gallo for teaching me, and I’m happy to say that I did so.

And today, I wish I could do that, one more time.

The things you find on the side of the road

4/20/2021

Charles City Press, 4-20-21

I found a case of cold beer on the side of the road Saturday morning.

That’s my story, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

It was more than a case, actually, it was a 30-pack — unopened, untampered, cool and delicious — just sitting there. I would guess it was somewhere around $25 worth of beer. Who could have left it there? Obviously, there had been some kind of mistake.

Really, that’s my story. It’s amazing what you can sometimes find on the side of the road.

I had just left downtown Charles City, assigned to take a photo of nine Charles City kids. When I call them “kids,” it’s a comment on my advanced age, and not a comment on their lack of maturity. They are men and women, not children, but when you’ve crossed the half-century mark, everyone younger than you seems like a kid.

And they were kids, not too long ago. Our own Charles City kids, most of them born, raised and educated here. Saturday morning, they were young adults, standing together on a flatbed trailer downtown, on the side of the road. It was the 2021 version of a parade — those being honored just stand there, while others drive by, honk, wave, fly flags and yell “thank you.”

They are members of the Army National Guard who have recently returned from a year’s deployment in the Middle East.

Remember their names, thank them for their service — Austin Ferch, Mitchel Fox, Nick Jacobs, Dallas Nehls and Conor Sherman (CCHS Class of 2016); Dave Dejongoy and Jaden Foster (CCHS Class of 2017) and Marco Concepcion and Elizabeth White (CCHS Class of 2018.)

I met them, I talked with them a little, I joked with them, I took a few photos. There was no way they understood how happy I was to see them, alive, in one piece, smiling — safe home. I’m sure it seems strange that I felt that way. I’d never before met any one of them, didn’t know them personally. I don’t think I even know any of their parents or grandparents.

But I have known people who didn’t come home. And these kids reminded me of that.

On Aug. 2, 2005, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael A. Benson was riding in a gunner’s turret in Baghdad when a suicide bomber on the side of the road, driving a car that was carrying an improvised explosive device, attacked his three-vehicle convoy, resulting in his sustaining severe head wounds.

He was initially transferred from Iraq to a hospital in Germany where he was awarded a Purple Heart, and, while he did not immediately perish from his injuries, he died in a military hospital in Maryland on Aug. 10, 2005.

Mike was just 40 years old. He was in his final year of service. He was my cousin.

He enlisted in 1985, and during his two decades in the U.S. Army, he was awarded at least 23 medals, awards and decorations in recognition of his outstanding military service.

Mike also loved fast cars and spicy foods, and rooted passionately for Dale Earnhardt Jr., the Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins. When I was just 10 years old, he introduced me to good rock music, and got me hooked. I’ll always be grateful for that.

He had a deep belief in God and country. He was a good cousin, a good brother, a good husband and a good son.

I left those nine kids Saturday, struck by how much they reminded me of my cousin Mike, when he and I were kids. I never really got to know him as an adult, so I’ll always think of him as a kid.

I doubled back a few minutes later. I’ve always thought it was a good idea to double back for your friends, especially if you believe they’d do the same for you.

I doubled back, with my newly-found case of beer riding shotgun, and drove right back up to those young soldiers.

“I found this on the side of the road,” I said, as I set the 30-pack down on the flatbed. “I thought maybe you guys might know who it belongs too.”

Their smiles broadened and a few of them laughed, and that was exactly what my heart needed.

“I’m just going to leave this here and let you guys figure out what to do with it,” I said. I walked back to my car, without looking at them. I couldn’t look at them at that point. I was afraid if I looked into their eyes, I would see Mike.

I was buying them the beer I never got the chance to buy my cousin.

Or maybe, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael A. Benson, KIA 2005, was buying them a beer, through me. That’s what it felt like at the moment.

And I then I went home, opened the fridge, and even though it wasn’t quite noon yet, I had a cold one. I turned on some good rock music, and cranked it up, loud. I thought about Mike. I thought about those kids, all smiles, so happy to be home from the hot hell they’ve been cooking in for the last year.

I thanked God that they all were able to return home, and whispered a prayer for all the young men and women who never did. Then I had a second beer. I figured that would be enough, and it was.

They say if you drink alcohol before noon, you might have a problem.

Saturday morning, it was a good problem to have.

Baseball, America, and playing for the team

4/6/2021

Charles City Press, 4-6-21

When I was 9 years old, I truly sucked at baseball. In the summer of 1977, I had one base hit, all season.

That one base hit was a good one, though, and I’ll tell you about it in a minute. It rounds the bases in the memory diamond of my brain every time April rolls around and baseball season gets started.

Youth baseball in the town I grew up in was kind of messed up back in those days. You had a couple years of T-ball, a couple years of underhand slow-pitch ball, and then when you were 9 years old, you were playing fast pitch — and you were playing against kids who were 10, 11 and 12.

I mean, that’s really messed up. When you’re 9, 12-year-olds were pretty much men to you, and really intimidating. Our starting first baseman had a mustache, our center fielder had already spent a couple years in juvie for drug trafficking, and I’m pretty sure our relief pitcher worked the night shift at the local machine shop driving a forklift. Our shortstop played bass for Springsteen whenever Bruce went on tour.

It was a rough town.

I was scared of most of these kids, and that’s my excuse for sucking at baseball when I was 9, although there were other kids my age who were good enough to compete with the older kids. I just wasn’t.

In the field, I was a disaster waiting to happen. At the plate, I was able to take a few walks, and reached base a couple times on errors, because there were plenty of other disasters in the field like me. Usually, though, I struck out. Occasionally I made contact and popped out to an infielder.

Then there was the base hit. When you only have one, you remember it.

There were two outs and the bases were loaded, in a middle inning and my team was down one run. As I nervously started to walk up to the plate, one of my teammates — a 12-year-old who had been bullying me for years — grabbed me and looked me in the eyes and said the only encouraging thing he ever said to me.

“Dig in there and get a hit, Grob,” he said. “I know you can do it, you do it in practice all the time.”

I was terrified of this kid at the time, but I laugh about it now, because in six years I would be 6 inches taller than him and outweigh him by 100 pounds, and after picking on me every day throughout grade school, ever since he’s realized I became that much bigger than him, he’s somehow managed to completely avoid me for over 35 years.

I think he knows what’s coming to him.

Anyway, he told me to dig in and get a hit, so I did. On the first pitch, I ripped a line drive to right-center and knocked in two runs, and our team won the game, and I was rewarded with a lot of slaps on the back and head rubs from the big kids.

And moments like that are what make baseball truly America’s game. It’s a game where individual achievement is measured and rewarded, but the success of the team is the most important thing. You might hate your teammates, you might be scared to death of them, but you support each other for the good of the team.

There’s a famous monologue in the great movie “Field of Dreams” by the character played by James Earl Jones that sums it up better than I can.

“… The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. …”

So when it comes to Major League Baseball pulling the annual All-Star game out of Atlanta, due to Georgia’s voter suppression “can’t give people a drink of water law,” I totally understand that it’s upsetting to people when professional sports applies punitive political pressure to state governments via the threat of economic damage. I can see how it just doesn’t seem right.

This is not a new thing, though — the only reason Atlanta even has a pro baseball team is because in 1965, the city was forced to agree to allow black people to sit with the white folks in Fulton County Stadium, as a condition for the Milwaukee Braves to move there.

Atlanta was told, if you want a team — and all the money that comes with a team —you’re gonna have to integrate. We don’t care how powerful and influential your segregationist senators think they are.

Dig in there, Atlanta, and get a hit. We know you can do it.

And Atlanta said, “Never, Never, Never — well, OK, we’d like the cash.”

When you can’t persuade people with moral or ethical reasoning, you persuade them by threatening the fatness of their wallets. It’s not “cancel culture,” it’s just culture — in a capitalist society.

It’s what baseball and America are both all about.

We’re all in it for ourselves, sure, but we’re also in it for the team.

I need a shot of the forgiveness vaccine, too

3/23/2021

Charles City Press, 3-23-21

Hooray for me, I’m getting my shot.

Yesterday I received a call from the good folks at the county public health department, and they scheduled me in. My first shot is later this week, and my second shot will be about a month from now.

I hope you’re getting yours soon, too. Please do what you can. If you’re having trouble getting scheduled, find someone who can help you. The sooner we can end this, the better.

For over a year now, I’ve been writing columns and articles advising and urging the good readers of this periodical to keep a safe social distance, practice good hygiene and wear a mask when you’re out in public. You’re sick of hearing that. I’m sick of telling you.

The “practice good hygiene” part seemed pretty easy for most folks, which is good. There were a few smart butts who got mouthy about that, probably because they’re still mad at their moms for making them wash their hands before dinner when they were little kids. You’re always going to have a few smart butts, bless their hearts.

The keeping a social distance thing was actually the most painful, but most folks eventually abided. The most heartbreaking part of that was families and friends unable to get together, unable to talk in person, unable to hug. Every story I heard about that made me want to cry. You couldn’t give your mom a hug? You couldn’t shake your buddy’s hand? That hurts.

People missed family Thanksgivings and family Christmases. That’s just not cool, and never will be.

The social distance part where you don’t sit or stand right next to someone should have been a lot easier, but unfortunately it wasn’t at first. More than once I had to get a little huffy and clear some space at my local convenience store. Once a few people were told to back off, however, most of them got the gist of it.

Personally, I hope the backing off and getting the heck out of my space part of COVID mitigation is something that lasts well beyond the virus. I’ve never liked it when someone is in my space. It stimulates a deep-rooted urge to become violent, and awakens my worst human impulses.

What should have been the easiest part — wearing masks — ended up being the hardest, and that still makes absolutely no sense to me. Why on earth would you not put a mask on?

People insulted me, they threatened me, they called me names, they called my wife names, they called my kids names — all because I asked them to do what every informed, educated person was telling them to do. Prominent local business people actually tried to get me fired from my job because I asked them to wear a mask.

I’ve been fighting cancer for five years, folks. I’m a high risk of death from COVID. My parents are, too. Same for my nephew, who has Down syndrome. My list of loved ones at high risk goes on and on. Is it any wonder why I’m insisting you put a mask on? Is it any wonder why, when you deliberately choose to not wear a mask, I consider you a threat?

And yet, I’m somehow the bad guy for asking you to do what you know is the right thing to do. And then, I’m told I’m supposed to have thick skin and not take things like that personally.

I don’t always do what I’m told.

Save your stories about how masks don’t help. They are complete BS, and you know it.

The fact is, more than a half million people in this country who would not be dead are now dead, mostly because there were enough other people who did not practice good hygiene, did not socially distance and did not wear masks when they should have.

I personally knew some of those people who died. I also know some of the people responsible. I’m not going to investigate the super-spreader locations here in our community, but we all know where they are. Some people should be ashamed, but they never will be.

We are nearing the end now. My best guess is that by the end of the summer, COVID-19 won’t be a thing anymore, and I am grateful for that.

I’m a strong believer in forgiveness. I believe that “forgive and forget” is the best way to live.

Sometimes it’s not so easy to forgive and forget, though. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to just wear a damn mask.

Anyway, I’m getting my shot. I’m pretty happy about that. Hooray for me.