Thoughts of a Common Man

Seems we have more tragedy in Syria and that there has to be a response. A violent response. Read the story about that little lunatic Kim Jong Un supposedly executing his former girlfriend and the rest of her band. Lined 'em up and executed 'em. And lately I've been seeing a lot of posts on social media that really get under my skin. They go something like this: "How come Obama isn't angry about the murder....?" Wherever the murder of the day is. This anger is directed at Obama because he said that the Trayvon Martin murder was a senseless act and that perhaps Trayvon could've been his kid. Now when a white kid is murdered...Obama better release a statement? First off, it isn't a racial thing. Obama wasn't upset because Martin was black. He'd answer the same way no matter what murder scenario was presented to him. Do you really think he'd say, "Ah well, that's a white kid, no big deal?" So that'...

I don't know how I missed this story, but when I heard the audio of the Senator from Texas who beat his daughter, I was more than a little upset. Jay Thomas played the audio on his show on Wednesday afternoon and let me tell you, if you're gonna' Google it...it's heartbreaking. I won't even post the link. It was that crazy. The guy's name is William Adams. His daughter is Hillary. She suffers from cerebral palsy, first of all. Secondly, she was just a kid. The back-story is that she went on the Internet to illegally download music after she was told not to. Her disgusting mother (who's name I didn't catch) caught her back at the site downloading the music and the rush to punish her was on. We hear the voice of her charming father telling her that she is to bend over the bed and take the beating she so richly deserves. The kid knew it was coming. That's why she planted the camera. It had evidently happened before. The wailing child was ...

Matt hit the road back to school this past weekend. It's funny but I remember each trip back to start a new year. Year One: 1982 I got to Gannon without a friend in the world. I knew one guy who was going there, but I didn't like him much. He had played on the Eden basketball team. He gave me a finger in line for my first meal. We became good buddies. Still that first night I laid in bed and nearly cried. I missed my Mom. Thankfully I was drunk and I got to sleep fairly quickly. Year Two: 1983 We all returned a couple of days early. We drank a half-keg a beer the first night back and met the freshman girls as they unpacked their cars. Two days in and they all hated all of us. Thank God I'd had enough beer. The rejection wasn't so bad. Year Three: 1984 Our roommate had sublet our apartment to two very attractive girls. We had no idea. My mother dropped me off and eyed up the situation. "You can't stay here with two girls," Mom said. But I ...

We've had a weird schedule lately. The beautiful wife has been working a different shift that made it impossible to even be in the same room at the same time as I was asleep before her shift ended and gone before she got up in the morning. The boys have had the run of the joint with just one parent around. We've watched a lot of comedy shows in the late afternoons. Baseball always seems to be on as well. So on Saturday we headed out for breakfast. Just the two of us. And what did we discuss? Yeah, the kids. Except there was a twist. "I had a dream that I was pregnant," Kathy said. "With twin boys!" "You'd be on your own," I said. "And I didn't know if I was going to keep them," she said. "And I was afraid to tell you." "I'd be long gone," I said. Again I was sort of ignored. "Can you imagine having twin boys at our age?" My wife seemed to be enjoying the dream. "I...

At the risk of being looked up by an old friend, I spent the morning thinking of an old college buddy who never actually made it past sophomore year. Bert Doring. I have not heard one word about Bert since he left Gannon all those years ago, but I thought of him this morning as my beautiful wife and I shared breakfast and talked about Matt returning to school to start his junior year. Of course, we called Bert Doring...Dirt Boring...but he was anything other than boring. Bert's highlights: 1). I was shooting baskets behind the dorm with a group of people when I went for a pump fake and tore up ligaments in my ankle. I asked Bert to get me some help. He called an ambulance. As we rode to the hospital in the back of the ambulance Bert begged the guy to blare the siren (he did), and he held my hand and whispered, "You're gonna' be all right, Clifford!" at least 70 times. 2). Bert didn't have a lot of luck with the ladies, but when he finally spent...

My middle boy, Jake, is currently obsessed. He wants to learn how to drive. Then he wants a new car. Then he wants to fly around town, picking things up for the family, meeting his friends, driving all across the world. We are a tad skeptical. "I've seen him walk into walls," I said to Kathy. And of course, there's the feeling that we don't want them to grow up. We certainly know the dangers of being out in the big, bad world. But we know that he has to learn to fly on his own. Somehow. Last week I told him to get in the car. "Why?" "I'm taking you driving." He ran to the vehicle and went straight for the driver's side door. "No." I drove to an empty parking lot. He listened as I told him the basic truth. "People die driving every day," I said. "They drive drunk or they die texting. They die because they drive too fast or too careless. It's a responsibility. You have to be s...

Ten years. Time slips away, you know, but in grief it really doesn't. My friends John and Mary lost their daughter ten years ago, and it's strange how life makes it even bigger as time moves on. Now I feel for my friends John, Mary, and their daughters Emily and Melissa too. There were things I didn't know ten years ago...like Heather's beautiful sisters, and how we'd end up being comic foils for one another on social media. Of course, the Cataldo girls are smart, sarcastic beautiful girls now...Emily has a particularly quick wit and she loves making fun of the 'Cliff' character on Twitter. Who would've thought? And the thing that struck me when I saw the photo on one of their pages on Saturday was what I selfishly missed out on as well... ...Heather would've been right there mixing it up too! Life-long friends are often people we sort of take for granted as always being there. I met John when he was four years old. He always laughs ...