Musings Of A New Southern Man

I was ready to watch the 1:30 p.m. political show known as the committee vote to send Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate. I figured it was a done deal. Final expected score: Republicans 11, Democrats at least one less depending on how many members opted to abstain. Funny thing happened on the way to that done deal. It was marvelous reality TV, much more enjoyable than Thursday's battle royal featuring testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh. We can thank Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona for Friday's surprise. Flake had an attack of conscience, or maybe he read the political winds better than his allies, and requested an investigation to last no more than one week. The focus of the investigation will be the other people identified by Dr. Ford as being at the site of the alleged sexual abuse by Judge Kavanaugh, then a teenager at a D.C. area prep school. It was the wise request. Imagine that in Congress. A major force behind the move ...

It was riveting reality TV. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh made impressive appearances in today's congressional hearing. There are culprits in this story, but I'll get to that later. Let me set some ground rules in this story. This is not a case of women who are sexually abused against the system. Yes, there are numerous cases of abuse that go unreported for a number of reasons, and often the system is to blame. But this case is simply a matter of whether Judge Kavanaugh abused Dr. Ford when they were teenagers. All the other cases of abuse must be put to the side as we weigh the truth of today's testimony. (By the way, I know the powerful impact of sexual abuse because I dealt with that issue within my own house. My wife was abused as a teenager, and she opened up about that incident through therapy, just as Dr. Ford did.) Dr. Ford was more than a credible witness. She was calm and believable. She stood up against her own fears of going public a...

I write today as I await the start of the Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh appearances before the congressional committee. There might be no other hearing in my life that I feel compelled to view. I will watch both major figures testify. So will millions of others. What will be more interesting to watch are the judgments of those viewers. I believe a vast majority of those people already have their minds made up as far as guilt or innocence on Kavanaugh's part. Why? Because we are a nation that is deeply divided to the point that truth rests on political leanings. The perception of events overpowers the reality of the situation. As The Rock Man says in Harry Nilsson's The Point: "You see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear." I will comment on the testimonies after they are finished, but for now I will concentrate on the deeply divided nation. To do that, I will use the public comments by two of my Facebook friends, both acquainta...

The temperature today was 93 and the humidity was about 70 percent at midmorning. It's the kind of day they warn you about when you move to the South. Just bear up under the conditions, veteran Southerners told me. I bear up nicely, at least on my best days. What makes this return to the Southern sweatbox is that we had three days of absolutely beautiful weather before this latest blast hit. I mean, it was chamber of commerce weather. Temperatures were in the low 80s, nighttime lows went to the low 60s, and the humidity was less than 50 percent. That's as good as it gets in August. We have an attic fan that goes unused during a large part of the summer because the humidity is so taxing. That attic fan was on in the morning for those three glorious days. Cool air swept through open doors and windows. We basked in the beauty of the day. I know my old Colorado friends would be running for their dehumidifiers if the humidity hit 45 percent, but this weather and Colorado's hav...

There is nothing particularly Southern in this post, although Southerners are as boxed in by this concept as folks from Up North or Out West. It regulates our existences. It marks where we are, have been, and will be. It might even determine who we are if we allow it that much power. Time. Deb and I have a calendar on a shelf in our great room. It has metal rectangles for every day, date, and month. We follow the passage of time in 24-hour increments. There is a minor ritual, usually in the early morning as one of us interrupts our coffee drinking, in which the proper metal rectangles are put in place. What happens when you do that daily ritual? The rush of time becomes apparent. The recent transition to August replaces the one for July, which takes the place of June, which seems as if it was only yesterday. 2018 becomes the latest little box in which we exist, just as 2017 is, and 1992, 1976, and so on. Time is no longer a tame friend but a relentless orderer of things, even a t...

I'd heard about this Southern hospitality long before I moved here. I pictured folks with wide smiles and thick drawls wishing me a nice day. (To get the proper drawl, hold on to the vowel for a lot longer, so it's niiiiiice day.) It didn't take long to find out being helpful isn't a chamber of commerce rumor. My wife went to Chick-fil-A to get midday meals for all the movers hauling items for us when we arrived in South Carolina. That entailed handling a couple of large bags and a few large soft drinks. It was a difficult load to carry. She wasn't left to bear that burden alone. A teenager employed by the fast food palace stepped up and asked whether she needed help. He then carried much of the load, and finished with a nice "thank you" before hustling back inside. That isn't an isolated incident. My son posted a photo on Facebook recently that showed a Chick-fil-A employee with his head under the hood to help a patron who couldn't get his car s...

I knew it was coming because the weather radar showed big areas of red and yellow nearby. That meant heavy rain (and possibly heavier rain) along with thunder and lightning. I walked out to our screen porch and pulled up a rocking chair so I could witness the show. It was tame when I arrived. The only sign of pending trouble was a darkening sky as thick clouds gathered. The actual storm started gently with a slight breeze that ruffled leaves on the stand of tall trees behind our home. I could imagine that breeze swaying palm trees on a tropical beach rather than sweet gums and poplars. That breeze turned into a solid wind. The bigger trees nearer our home simply had the upper branches moved, but the spindly young trees at the back of the lot started moving back and forth like a collection of drinking straws swaying to the music. The dark clouds huddled closer. The wind changed identity and became a small gale. The young trees were bending deeper toward the ground with each curren...