The Common Sense Fix

We are at a crucial time in our country's financial history. Congress defeated the $700 billion bailout plan on Monday. However, they are revising it and trying to push it through again. I'm supporting an alternative plan that will keep our nation from going even deeper in debt, and I've been on TV and radio all week telling people about it. We need everyone's help! Follow the instructions below. Together we can change history.

1. Pray for them to resist a spirit of FEAR and to embrace WISDOM. Even if you don't like them or agree with them, pray for them and tell them you are praying for them. There is a spirit over this problem that must be broken. Also, most of the media personalities are afraid as well and that is affecting their reporting. Pray for fear to be removed from them; they are making this worse.

2. Send The Common Sense Fix to your Representatives and Senators and tell them how you expect them to vote, and that if they put this nation in $700 billion of debt, that you will vote them out. It's their job to listen to us! (Whichever presidential candidate or political party that champions this plan from their leadership down will likely become the next president. That is because this plan fixes the crisis while going along with the wishes of the vast majority of Americans.) First, read this blog. Next, copy the plan . Send it to your Senators and representatives by copying and pasting the text in whole. *Note: If their websites are down, that means we're making a difference! Keep refreshing the page until you get through. You can also go through Congress.org, though we don't endorse this site.

3. Forward this message to everyone in your address book and tell them to urgently follow these 3 steps TODAY. The more people we have supporting this and contacting their elected leaders, the more likely we can turn our economy around!

Now is the time to buckle down, quit pissing around and fix this economy. And YOU have your part to do. Please send this plan to those who hold your future in their hands because you have their futures in yours.

Years of bad decisions and stupid mistakes have created an economic nightmare in this country,but $700 billion in new debt is not the answer. As a tax-paying American citizen, I will not support any congressperson who votes to implement such a policy. Instead, I submit the following threestep Common Sense Plan.

1. I. INSURANCE
   a. Insure the subprime bonds/mortgages with an underlying FHA-type insurance. Government-insured and backed loans would have an instant market all over the world, creating immediate and needed liquidity.
   b. In order for a company to accept the government-backed insurance, they must do two things:
   
   1. Rewrite any mortgage that is more than three months delinquent to a 6% fixed-rate mortgage.
   
   
   a. Roll all back payments with no late fees or legal costs into the balance. This brings homeowners current and allows them a chance to keep their homes.
   b. Cancel all prepayment penalties to encourage refinancing or the sale of the property to pay off the bad loan. In the event of foreclosure or short sale, the borrower will not be held liablefor any deficit balance. FHA does this now, and that encourages mortgage companies to go the extra mile while working with the borrower—again limiting foreclosures and ruined lives.
   
   
   2. Cancel ALL golden parachutes of EXISTING and FUTURE CEOs and executive team members as long as the company holds these government-insured bonds/mortgages. This keeps underperforming executives from being paid when they don’t do their jobs.
   
   c. This backstop will cost less than $50 billion—a small fraction of the current proposal.
   


2. II. MARK TO MARKET
   a. Remove mark to market accounting rules for two years on only subprime Tier III bonds/mortgages. This keeps companies from being forced to artificially mark down bonds/mortgages below the value of the underlying mortgages and real estate.
   b. This move creates patience in the market and has an immediate stabilizing effect on failing and ailing banks—and it costs the taxpayer nothing.



3. III. CAPITAL GAINS TAX
   a. Remove the capital gains tax completely. Investors will flood the real estate and stock market in search of tax-free profits, creating tremendous—and immediate—liquidity in the markets. Again, this costs the taxpayer nothing.
   b. This move will be seen as a lightning rod politically because many will say it is helping the rich. The truth is the rich will benefit, but it will be their money that stimulates the economy. This will enable all Americans to have more stable jobs and retirement investments that go up instead of down.

This is not a time for envy, and it’s not a time for politics. It’s time for all of us, as Americans, to stand up, speak out, and fix this mess.

I hope you take the time to be heard.

Linear Accelerator

For every weekday during the last two months, Dad has risen each morning to trek to The CR Wood Cancer Center in the Glens Falls Hospital, Glens Falls, New York to lie beneath a monstrous machine called a dual high energy linear accelerator to bombard cancers cells located in his prostate.

It was just a year ago I was in New Hampshire for Jerry and Jesse’s wedding. I learned that Dad’s biopsy returned not looking so good. Cancer. And while most men if they live long enough will get prostate cancer, Dad had an aggressive form the cancer. The initial bone scan seemed to indicate the cancer had already spread. As vividly as yesterday, I recall where and when I learned that further review of the scan and x-ray revealed arthritis and old WWII wounds, not the disease. Fortunately, although I was in a very public place surrounded by sailors of all things, I found a seat behind me were I could collapse in joy, tears and prayer. Still I knew there was a battle to fight which Dad and family were up to.

In those early days of diagnoses, Mike, Robin and Jennifer took turns accompanying our father to the doctors' and researching data. Men whom I have known for years came forward to tell me of their treatments. I had no idea! Dad immediately went on hormones while the family sifted through second opinions. Treatment options ranged from doing nothing, seed implants, even surgery. Dad wanted to hit the cancer with everything he could. In the late winter and early spring his PSA levels had dropped, a sign that the hormones were working. He elected radiation, determined to rid himself of the cancer and the hotflashes they caused. I had no sympathy.

The word radiation has always striked a bit of fear. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Godzilla, bad black and white alien movies and images of Navajos digging in the mesas of Utah for Uranium come to mind.

I can’t really recall the specifics of why the treatment didn’t start earlier than forty-four weekdays ago. Something to do with the math. Calcuations one doctor did, confirmed by another and redone by a third. They wouldn't be rushed. They knew the seriousness of the prcedures. (If only Congress could operator this way.)

I wanted to get back to Hawaii in early September, but I didn’t want Dad to face the daily routine alone, especially when potential side effects could leave him fatigued beyond his extraordinary energy of 84 years. So I took a job at the track to kill some time, earn some money and be available each morning to accompany him to his appointment with the “radiation machine.”

Except every Monday during consultation with the doctor Dad seemed perfectly “normal”. He had gone kayaking or he chopped down another tree or he walked around Moreau Lake when he wasn’t moving the yard. Neither one of us could pull a chin up on the monkey bars in SPA Park, so I had to laugh whenever he complained about being tired and loosing some strength.

The only side effect he experienced was some bowel problems. In his one bathroom house Dad chased me out of the facilities enough mornings that I postponed taking a shower until he left for his “shot” as he called the dose of radiation.

Well, tomorrow is the last shot. The routine of lying on his back while he counts the machine’s cycle and listens to the changing positions comes to an end. In a few weeks he’ll have the PSA level rechecked. And before November, the doctors and Dad will confer to see if he really need to take the next scheduled hormone shot. Dr. Alex Frank says, "Good have a good life." Let's do.

Fossils in the Making

Pee-U

“E-gads Dad! What the hell is that?”

“I thought something smelled queer”, he replied.

Queer? “Something died.” I gagged falling out of the RV. We had an appointment for its annual inspection. I was suppose to drive it into Saratoga, but I could hardly manage to keep breakfast in my belly. The intensity of the odor brought images of animals the size of elk, moose or bear, but I knew the suspects were either chipmunks or mice. Maybe a squirrel?

Dad went to retrieve a flashlight. Inside the darken cavern of the 1986 Toyota Sunrader I began to fling cupboard doors open in search of the foul carcass. The smell intensified in the over-cab bunk. Under the mattress tucked into a corner under the window, I found the stinker. My eyes squinted in disgust as I wrapped an anti-static dryer sheet around the matted gray body of a field mouse. An imaginary fur ball tainted with the smell of rotting flesh grew in the back of my throat.

There is a reason why death’s smell is so offensive. In days of old it was suppose to scare the heck out of us. A grave warning to stay far, far away. Disease lingered close by and it was best to give a wide berth to the mystery surrounding the stench. It is no wonder why the Hindus flavored their meat with curry.

The trip to Saratoga made my head swim. Windows wide open, air cranked to the max all to loosen the embedded smell from the cab. It didn’t work and I felt a queezy as I pulled into Kost. Too bad for the mechanic who had to smell the interior.

Once back home I searched for more culprits. Finding none, I cleaned up the mess where the dead mouse laid down with a belly full of rat poison Dad has laced the RV with. Now I have to wait for the Resolve and Fabreeze to dry and see what lingers in the air.

Yes, I have been doing other things than watching the foolishness of Congress.

Strike Two

I can’t imagine the flurry of emails to my Congressman Zack Wamp (R-TN) has made the difference, but I’m pleased that the House shot down the bill to bailout the mortgage companies, banks and investment firms with money I don’t have. Late this morning I fired another email to Honorable Wamp, just before the vote went down. I urged him to go back to the drawing board and take the crap like directing money to the labor unions out of the bill.

Last night I downloaded the 107 page document house committee had been hammering out. My, my, my. It had grown from the original three pages to 40 plus pages on Friday to the bill that was struck down faster than lightening can even rip through the sky.

I’m afraid Congress will not get it right. If they do, I’m more afraid they wouldn’t recognize the solution. Nor would they have the balls to pass it. We need a true leader to step forward, cut the bullshit, the kingdom making and present the real solution to the problem. If they can put their eyes on the ball and not look out for special interests, maybe, just maybe, Americans might trust Congress to get it right. But that is hard to do when you come to bat with a 9% approval rating.

So now we will watch the economy crumble. Do I want to see it? Hell no. But I think I can recover from an emotional reaction to this lack of confidence far quicker than a falsely made promise from Congress.

Screwed

Did you wake up this morning not feeling so good about something? Harbored deep inside a feeling that something wasn’t fair? You played by the rules. You flossed your teeth every before going to bed, not just the week before your dental cleaning. You bought Girl Scout cookies not because you liked them, but because you supported the cause. You picked turtles out of the road so they wouldn’t get crushed. And you when a homeless man asked you for spare change, instead of sticking him with an Obama campaign pin, you handed him the two carryout boxes full of leftovers from the Italian restaurant that you planned to eat for dinner the following night.

And when it came to paying your bills, you never bought anything on a credit card you couldn’t payoff at the next billing cycle. And every month you paid the mortgage, on time and in full, on the house you intended to live in, patiently expecting the value to increase over the life of the mortgage, not greedily expecting it to balloon by the end of the week.

What happens to you in the proposed bailout? You watched the value of your home tick southward as foreclosed signs popped up on the neighbors' lawns like mushrooms after a fall rain. Yet every month you signed the check to pay the loan you took out after putting a hard saved twenty percent down. You are the good guy about to be left on the curb with the recyclables. Feeling green huh?

Okay, you hate the banks, the mortgage companies, the investors who stole your American Dream. You don’t want to see these predators walk scot-free. “Make them pay,” you think. But you know too well that what is being saved, is the “way of life”, that economy that let you down when you played by the rules.

Is that worth saving?

Dave Ramsey on The Bailout

How We Can Clean Up A Lot of the Economic Problems

Remember Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, and other companies had artificially put assets on the books? They'd say something was worth $10M when they bought it, but eventually it decreased in value, and they never updated the value in the books. That was part of the fraud. Under current laws at that time, they were all convicted and put in jail for fraud.

Then we got all mad and made all these new laws that are coming out the wazoo called sarbanes oxley. It's a huge, massive law but the idea is that we were going to mandate ethics to corporate America because apparently they didn't have any, according to the Enron failure. It's now a total pain in the butt to execute it in a publicly traded company.

It didn't work because you can't cause ethics to happen. However, it does make each company each day restate what their assets are worth if sold on the market. This accounting procedure is mark to market accounting--you need to remember that. It's a good concept and keeps companies from having loaded balance sheets.

How This Affects Us Today

However, it's part of what's caused this in the news now. Merrill Lynch was sitting with $30 billion tied up in sub-prime loans with houses. Stupid! They get what they deserve for doing that, and I'm with you on that. Those houses didn't become worthless all of a sudden because those people couldn't sell their bonds. Since they couldn't sell them, they basically gave them away for 22 cents on the dollar. Now do you think all those houses lost 80% of their value underneath that deal? No, they didn't, so they gave them away for 22 cents on the dollar (about $6 billion total) because there was no market for them. Nobody wants to buy sub-prime bonds because they suck. They're junk bonds. But at 22 cents on the dollar, it's a bargain because even if you foreclosed on every one of the houses in there, you'd probably get $20 billion back out of $30 billion, and so the company that bought those for $6 billion got a deal! But there's no market for them. That's where these companies are stuck. They can't sell this stuff, but accounting-wise, they've had to mark it down to market and it's frozen the marketplace.

Economist Wesbury is saying that if we change that one rule and don't force them to mark down to market value and just let them hold on to all the stuff, and say just on sub-primes for this period of time you can change that rule -- a temporary change -- that'll free the market up. It's seized right now; it's frozen. This will thaw it out and get it going again. He says that'll solve 60% of the problem ... and I think he's right.

That one accounting rule is what made Merrill Lynch sell out. That one accounting rule is what's driving other ones into the dirt. Would you rather let them change their accounting rule or loan them $700 billion for us to buyout their bad paper?

I'd rather them work their own crap out than change the accounting rule.

I don't like giving them any money or any help with my tax dollars. But I'd rather see that than see the whole thing turn completely upside down in a fruit basket turnover than have a whole meltdown or something and freak out here in the middle of the election season. Why don't we just take the FHA insurance program and extend it across these sub-primes? What that means is that you and I are guaranteeing the lender that they're not going to lose as much or any money on those mortgages. Now I don't like guaranteeing them, but I like it better than buying them. In other words, instead of $700 billion in tax-payer debt going out there to bail out these companies, just extend the insurance out. You could probably do that for less than $40 billion. It's like a 95% savings!

If the government insured those mortgages, they would then be marketable. And could sell them. And the companies would stay afloat. And we, the people, don't have to get into the mortgage business. Now we're going to get in there a little bit because of the insurance on those getting foreclosed on. But foreclosures aren't causing this. This is being caused because these companies are frozen and seized up. We've got to let some of the steam come off and put some oil in there to get this thing moving again. We can do that without going into debt $700 billion.

Here's Your Plan

Call your Congressman. Call your Senator. Tell them to change the mark-to-market accounting law and to extend insurance but extend no loans. If they extend loans - if they borrow the money on the national debt in order for us to all go into the mortgage business a trillion dollars - you're going to fire their butts and send them home.

I've talked with several people today, and it's on the tables in Washington, but it's not something you're going to see on TV. If you'll let your Congressmen know you know about this and that you'll vote against them if they don't vote to change the mark-to-market law and you'll contribute your money to make sure they never serve in office again. That's what you need to tell them early and often.

If you're pissed, this is the time to step up and do something about it, America! You can stop this! It's being railroaded down your throat, but you can stop them if you call them in mass starting now. READY ... SET ... GO!

Contact State Rep

Contact Senators

Thanks Dave Ramsey.

Sarah Palin

Am I too slow to capture a good business opportunity in bad economic times? How come no one is producing pigs with lips that can be used as a stamp? A seal of approval sort of speak, in Palin Red. Lipstick sold separately by Revlon. Palin, Palin, Palin

..........

First Days of Fall

There wasn’t anything that seemed out of place, a little different, out of the ordinary, or just odd. The same hush drifted between the stacks of books, quiet rustling of newspaper occasionally reminded me that someone else was close by, hard heeled shoes echoed on the tiled lobby floor and the soft ding announced the arrival of the elevator, main floor, home of Higher Grounds Café. Kim, the owner, worked behind the counter arranging a small platoon of canisters filled with Green Mountain coffees. Sweet vanilla roast stirred a memory of early summer when I religiously stood each morning at the door of the Saratoga Library. The angle of the morning sun was about the same as it had been then, but the feeling was different. The second day of fall. Forget summer, where has the year gone?


I’m filled with guilt. I pissed away the year using one excuse after another not to write. Would a real writer do such a thing if she intended on making a living putting thoughts on paper, arranging sentences, devising plot, and molding characters?

Sitting in Dunkin Donuts with my brother, Mike, and my father we talked about my book. The conversation, although brief, made me realize how much of my Great Mexican Novel, The Kayak, has been developed. I just got to get it down on paper and quit worrying about how good or bad it might be. It can’t be either unless it is written.

I came to the library to escape from my newest project, a little cedar box I picked up in Vermont last weekend. The twelve dollar box was a toy box made in San Francisco, CA. Maybe it was once filled with blocks or trains. Given the two Allied Van inventory stickers on the back side, the previous owner moved it at least twice, before the box finally landed in a combination junkyard-antique shop outside of Woodstock.
I’ve been by the place several times on the way to Robin’s cabin in Littleton, New Hampshire. It was Sunday evening when I noticed the old garage still opened after most vendors rolled up the quaint sidewalks of this New England town. My brother asked me if I would like to stop. I couldn’t help but say yes and I found the dusty cedar box in need of a new finish.

The last weekend of summer was cool but sunny making a perfect day for the Littleton Arts Festival. However poor organization, advertising and current economic conditions turned out a small number of exhibitors and even fewer buyers. Jennifer and Darryl
set out a booth just beyond the ramp to the cover bridge. A shroud of vapors hung over the river like lost souls searching for their resting place before day’s break sent a sparkling ray into the shallow waters.

Summer rains have kept the maples’ colors at bay. A splash of red on the sumac, faint yellow on the beech and poplar touched on the edges of ponds and fields, but the North Country has yet to paint the mountains in brilliance. The older trees held to their green foliage, while the younger gave way to a new pallet as once long days receded in the place where mountains tuck the sun in by 4 PM on the winter solstice.

In fourteen days, I’ll have Pacific breezes between my toes and a new desk to sit at.

Once upon a time…

Darn It

It is one thing to have your portfolio and the value of your real estate investments drop. Over time, they will recover. And I have time. But when two months are spent chasing a tenant for rent and utilities and drastic measures are taken to get her attention - utilities cut off and a detention warrant is served to haul her butt into civil court – the relief of seeing a check deposited into the bank is sweet, until a few days later it bounces, just a day after the warrant was cancelled. I wonder if I got sucker written across my forehead.

The long term investments are important, but day to day living is tough when $1428.25 slips out of the account. It doesn’t matter if I had been slinging a paint brush for eight hours.

Matters like this make me wonder if I should liquidate sell the apartments, the condo, the portfolio and skip town to Micronesia. It's just a simple life I want.

Day Labor

It is not in my personality to get bogged down in the details of things. My creativity leans more toward big picture, pie in the sky, “what would it be like if” concepts. Details get in the way. Sure when I have to I can muddle through the minutia with the best of them, but I’d rather dream and let others deal with reality and execution.

Maybe it is because I like cats. Equipped with a rough tongue, they strip the last remaining fibers of meat, patiently licking the bones of their kill. Nothing goes to waste. (And you thought the tongue was for grooming.)

When it comes to household maintenance projects, I like sanding, the craft of slowly removing the layers of paint off to the bare wood, or at least to a smooth surface that lies below. Like water running over a rock, the erosion is slow and deliberate, the results a surface of perfection. I should not have the patience of it.

In my sister's house the previous owner hired some moron, who should be shot, to paint the enamel surface on all the trim. On went a layer of latex paint without properly preparation. The paint blistered and peeled like a Minnesotan who fell asleep on Daytona Beach during Bike Week. The good news was it took nothing more than a sharp edged blade after the surface was sprayed with a bit of water to remove the botched mess. And two days.

To prep the seven doorways, bathroom window, and hallway trim for primer, I spent the day laboring with 120 and 240 grit sandpaper. Sound electrical? Boy, my tips fingers are sooo sore. The good news is I get to spend the next couple of days cutting the edges with a paint brush. Well, maybe not so good news.

Deep into September

Seems like yesterday I was comparing the handicappers’ picks with the last minute view of the horses' feet. Would I go with a long shot, a modest favorite or a sure thing, which everyone knows is anything but? It took a few days to understand that picking horses to entertain and enlighten patrons so inclined to ask a security guard, is different than selecting the ponies because…well, I don’t know why. But, I soon lost interest in reading the racing sheets on Belmont in the newspaper. A few familiar names - the jockeys and the horses couldn't keep my attention to the results. A couple of times I pretended to place a six dollar bet across the board on each race and the best I could do was lose seventy-five cents after nine races. It wasn’t worth the effort.

I needed a better way to add to my Hawaiian kitty, which is now zero because I paid my taxes. I trudged across Massachusetts to scrap paint at my sister’s house. She offered $12.00 an hour and I jumped all over it, knowing it would be twelve in my pocket, nothing to Uncle Sam and whomever the uncles are in The Bay State and back in New York. I did expect to pay $50.00 in gas, and began to fret the decision to drive three hours when Ike spiked gas prices. Fortunately, gas is cheaper in Worcester than Saratoga, so the modest bump in price didn't explode my financal planning.

Now we’re negotiating in pottery. She’s got some pretty awesome stuff lying around the living room floor, pre-staging for the art show in Littleton, New Hampshire next weekend. Some stuff would go well as accent in my Hawaii condo. I’d rather commission for sconces, but she is an artist making what inspires her with little regard of for making a sale.

For more examples of her work, check out her website at Luna House

Forget Not

Our failure to remember, pretending to hide the pain and our denial of the enemy becomes our enemy’s success. There was a day that the world stopped. People wept. And we did not understand what we lost.

Life changed.

Our future is lost if we don’t keep our past close to our hearts.

Forget not those we lost, the heroes and the tragedy. Forget not those who want to rob us of our freedom. Forget not those who will not protect it.

Let's finish the fight.

Photolog

The Price of Light Sweet Crude

I’m learning new tricks. Okay, not really tricks, but the learning curve has twisted me so tightly I could kiss my own rear end. A new email system. After nearly eight years of opening an ATT home page, I said no more to the ridiculous price increases. Years ago, a $4.95 access fee enticed me to sign up. Cheaper than AOL, and MSN, two emerging giants in the World Wide Web browsing game. Ah, those were the days, running around the country and plugging the computer into the phone jack when you checked into the Red Roof Inn in St. Albans West “by God” Virginia.

Over the years the price rose faster than the Saudis can pump a barrel of light sweet crude out of the desert. Remember when crude was $22.00 a barrel? Probably not, but now ATT wants $21.95 for dial up access. Sorry guys, once I figured out how to archive all my emails from days gone by I whipped out the white hanky. Not to surrender, but to wave bye-bye.

Being down in the weather paid off. I didn’t feel like doing anything else and Hanna was holding a wet towel over NY, so I sat in the living room for the day, downloaded old email, imported and exported my web addresses (do you know how many names I didn’t recognize?) and decided to make a new home at GMail.

Gmail doesn’t stand for government mail. It’s the ubiquitous Google gang, who just turned 10 years old. Ah, remember the days before Google? About the same time oil was $22.00 a barrel.

It’s free. You get what you pay for. So far today I’ve encountered “system problems” in sending email to a couple of old friends who quickly responded to my notice that I had changed my email address. But I've discovered the feature in the address book. I can post a photo with the address. Now, I shouldn't be so puzzled when I encounter an address like sevejl@. There's Jim's smiling face to remind me, "Oh yes, one of those track cronies." (Okay, I knew your sister would get a kick out of this.)

If you didn’t receive that notice it could be one of three reasons. 1. I don’t know you. 2. You have another email address for me. 3. AOL bounced all messages back to me. Your mail box is apparently full. So they say.

If you like to be included on the list of two hundred and forty two, just drop me a line. And a photo! A picture could be worth the price of a barrel of Sweet Crude.

Ugh!

It must be withdrawal. I've got no projects in front of me (okay, I could be writing), with the exception of my sister's offer to pay me twelve bucks an hour to complete some chores that involve a paint brush, a screw driver and a hammer. About a week’s worth of work. Sounds very tempting.

First things first. I need to recover. My immune system held through the six week meet at Saratoga and didn’t cost me the whopping $100 bonus for “perfect” attendance. From out of nowhere, at least nowhere I can pin point, a cold swooped down on poor little old me. The night Sarah Palin was to give her address to the Republican Convention my throat felt like I swallowed a carrot scrapper. Nevertheless, I managed to make my presentation to the Wilton Heritage Society. I did a good job, but I wasn’t no Sarah Palin. The Heritage Society later mailed me a check for $25.00, which I will graciously return to their coffers.

It didn’t take long for the track to begin its move south to Belmont. Even as I signed out on the last day, boxes and crates of “what nots” began filling the musty hallways. When I picked up my paycheck on Thursday the betting machines were gone and the statues of jockeys disappeared. The place looked like a ghost town, wind swirls and all. There were a few horses exercising on the Oklahoma Track. I thought of Parker Buckley’s family. Their loss. Robbed of a father, a husband. And all along I thought I had been robbed of a summer. There is some perceptive.

As soon as I kick this bug that has left my skin achy and my head feeling like a stuffed cabbage at a St Patrick’s Day feast, I’ll get back to serious running and writing. Right now I’ll settle for breathing threw my eyeballs.

Hurricane Hanna has dumped a day long drizzle on Upstate New York. The trees seem to wear a cloak of leaves, branches pulled up to their ears, waiting for the weather to clear. In the back yard the maple tree bows under the weight of a thousand rain drops.

The elms continue to be slaughter by the bark beetle. Since Mom died two years ago, we have lost six to the pest. She would have been heart broken. I’m doing what I can to insure someone can enjoy a tree in the future. Before the rain, I transplanted a young tulip tree that had been growing in the holly bushes beneath the garage window. Its trunk twisted in its attempt to reach the sky. I dug a deep hole near the old elm tree stump and said a little prayer for the foot high tree. Its father, a tree Mom thought would never survive, towers the maples near the road. It’s hardly a native species to New York.

The old butternut trees have begun to drop their nuts which leave dark black grease spots on the road after being squished by a car tire. I’ve gathered a couple dozen of the sticky green nuts and will try to germinate the seeds. That means having a moist bag of nuts in the bottom of the refrigerator for 120 days. It takes a long time to grow a tree this way, but if you never start, they never grow. If you need any inspiration to grow a tree, remember the seedling Robin brought home from the woods. I hope I have the problem of where to plant the seedlings come spring.

Here's the little Japanese red maple that I plucked from Congress park this spring before the lawn movers and weedwhackers hacked it to fodder. I transplanted it in Dad's yard just before we headed off to Europe. It lost a leaf and grew a few others. Survived its first summer.

Aloha

Five races left. The paddock staff started counting down thirty-three races ago.

One of the regular patrons gave leis to the security guards and some of her friends.














My two home boys, Chrystopher and Jay.
















Jim kept the riffraff out of the paddock. Anyone who thought they were somebody tried to get a pass into the grassy area beneath the trees where the horses are saddled and jockeys get their last minute instructions from the trainer.

Jim let Dad in where he got to see McLaughlin saddle one of his horses. Dad placed a two dollar bet on Stream of Gold and later took photos of the horse in the winner circle. A memorable day for Dad and me.

Jim also put the fear of God into any can pickers who tried to collect aluminum cans before the end of the eight race.


Grace is a rapper who works six months out of the year at the track. Soft-spoken kid with a big heart and smart head.














And then there were no more races. Most of the horses had already been shipped out to other tracks when this guy was running in the eleventh race. Just before I got into the car to drive away I turned back toward the barns and spotted him. With my telephoto I waited for him to come back around and when he did, he looked right at me.

Aloha!

Baby Sitting

It’s the last day at the track. I’ve gotten swept up on betting on the horses. I have a tip on a horse running in two weeks down at Monmouth. A horse purchased for twenty grand named Groovy Kid. His owner has been sitting in a lawn chair and drinking with a bunch of his buddies for the entire meet. A better tip comes from inside the paddock when the back stretch gang placed serious money on a horse named Hello Broadway. The two year old finished in a strong rally to win and is said to be headed to the Kentucky Derby.

The Belmont staff departs tomorrow. The Saratoga staff pretty much hit the trail last week when 70 security guards didn’t show up for work. Yesterday, I had an all rookie crew. One came with an attitude. Twice he didn’t pull the chain and when he didn’t even go to the gate I told him to go pull the chain. If this had been the regular staff I would have hopped down there and pulled it. But I smell attitude all over this kid and I wasn’t going to be snookered into his responsibility.

“Are you telling me?” Curtis snarled.

“Yes, in this case, I am.” I sharply enuciated each word. I knew damn well that this ticked him off. The kid had no tolerance for being told what to do.

He laughed defiantly dismissing me as nothing more than just another security guard. “You can't tell me what to do.”

“If you are telling me you won’t pull the gate, then I’m going up stairs to tell the sergeant I don’t need you.”

Curtis glared. The big black kid didn’t intimate me one bit. Something inside me clicked. I knew to difuse the situation, but I wasn't going to let the kid get away with it. On his own he’d walk right into insubordination. I jumped all over it.

“Are you telling me you aren’t going to pull the gate?” I repeated. He flinched.

“The sergeant told me to stand by that gate.” He pointed to one of the four gates on the bridal path. Mr. Smores had pulled the gate while Curtis took a break and had not relinquished it upon his return. Oh brother.

“You mean to tell me that is the only gate you are going to pull?”

“That is the one the sergeant told me to stand by.”

I rolled my eyes.“Well if that is the only gate you are capable of handling, and you’re incapable of pulling any others, I’ll see if I can accommodate your inabilities.” The other guards laughed and the regular patrons who have been camped out at the gates for the past several weeks smirked. I sighed.

Poor Mr. Smores stood in the middle of the path holding the chain, wondering what he had done wrong. I walked over and took the chain from his hands. For the benefit of the audience I asked, “Do you think you might be able to handle the other gate without any problems, seeing how Curtis here is a bit confused on how the other gate operates? He isn’t versatile enough to manage the other gate. It could be a right – left thing. I’m not sure.”

Now Mr. Smores wasn’t exactly a rocket scientist either. Suddenly I found myself explaining to him how to pull the gate on the opposite side of the path. For one brief second I panicked, but the old guy caught on after he figured out that the loop in the chain left it too short to span the path. Must unhook loop. And for Curtis, he finally realized that hanging the chain across the horse path in front of the metal gate that separates the clubhouse from general admission was too much extra work. He quit doing that without me having to tell him. Heaven forbid.

Once my babysitting chores were finished, I went to the ladies room to cool off and found a 94 year old women in need of medical attention. She was lucky Curtis didn't find her.