Stormy weather

AUBURN, Maine - Doom is upon us.

That's what our weathermen have been prophesying since the weekend. This could be the big one — the one to dwarf all other snowstorms this season and perhaps end civilization as we know it in New England.

Time to head to the grocery store and buy food!

Armageddon is on our doorstep and the slayer of this frozen tundra is dressed in white. We now look to the skies and cower in our warm homes as another Nor'easter bears down on Maine.

Farewell world!

OK, enough with all this melodrama over Old Man Winter's assault on Merry Ole New England.

It is going to snow. That's what happens here in the Pine Tree State. It is supposed to snow, and zero temperatures are par for the course in the hinterlands. Can't take it? If you don't mind the bugs, alligators and humidity, head to Florida to avoid winter's onslaught.

According to weather prognosticators, most of this state will receive anywhere from 12 to 24 inches of the white stuff. Ski country will celebrate and roll out the welcome wagon when the skies open up and blanket the slopes with white gold. Our neighbors to our south, particularly winter-weary Boston, do not appreciate Old Man Winter's generosity with snow.

No sir!

Bostonians have been exasperated from these weekly storms that have made their narrow streets nearly impassable as the murder rate of car batteries skyrocket from arctic fronts that come and go like the tides at Revere Beach.

But this is Maine where snowmobilers, skiers, snowshoers and ice fishermen embrace snowstorms like an old friend from high school. Mainers expect snowstorms to unload on them and simply dress warmer when a cold front slips down from Canada. It is a compromise that all reluctant Mainers understand when a beautiful fall gives way to an ugly winter.

Anyway, it is going to snow hard on Wednesday and children will rejoice when school has been cancelled thanks Old Man Winter's icy hands. Confidence is high that school will be a no-go on Wednesday.

Mainers will do what they usually do when a snowstorm approaches. They will have a snow shovel handy, their snowblowers ready to go and meet another Nor'easter head on with the tenacity of  Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 20th Maine when they faced the Rebels at Little Round Top at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863.

 

The poet in all of us

This was poem was written by a dedicated and intelligent seven-grader who just happens to be my son.

TheDoer

 

I am a doer

I wonder how to do new things

I hear the voices of people through history

I see pictures of the future

I want to do more always

 

I pretend to be someone

to see how it feels

I feel like an eagle, ready to dive

I touch something that is not there

I laugh at the bird,

as he does a little dance.

I worry for the things that cannot fend for themselves

 

I understand I cannot do everything

I say that people should not hate

I dream about things that happened before

I try to do more everyday

I hope that hate will be stopped

I am a doer 

September 1, 2009

Heard it all before

"“In politics stupidity is not a handicap."
                                                                                                             - Napoleon Bonaparte




We all heard about the Bottom Line during President Obama's inspiring State of the Union speech Tuesday night.


It is reassuring to see the president and the rest the nation's statesmen trying to get to the bottom of America's hair-raising recession.


It took them long enough.


We listened to how the president will work in harmony with Congress (add canned laughter here) to cut the deficit (this we gotta see), curb spending (Sure thing!) and create jobs (that's a good one).


Sounds good, Mr. President!, and oh, good luck!

You are at your finest at the podium, sir, and I appreciate your exuberance from a man who has the most arduous and thankless job in America, but at least you have a job, Mr. President. I am also fortunate to be employed.


While I admire your pluck and enjoy a profound speech from an eloquent speaker like yourself, I am betting weary citizens of this mismanaged nation, no longer listen or could care less about another politician pontificating.  


I am betting Congress hasn't looked outside a window, read a morning newspaper (sound out the words) or opened a letter from one of their constituents who lost a job and home. The last time I took a good look around my town, there were boarded-up buildings, a foreclosure sign on nearly every block, and now I see people holding signs, begging for work - or worse - food.


Thanks for the awesome speech, Mr. President, but unless the gang of 535 shows some signs of life and evidence of clear thinking on Capitol Hill, more disenfranchised Americans will consider writing in their cat or dog for senator or the next president of the United States.


Words are worthless when you don't have a job or a place to live. I still don't understand how anything in Washington comes to fruition when the nations' leaders can't find common ground and continually display the fine art of bickering. Turn on C-Span and painfully watch as politicians go through the motions. It is like watching grass grow - or the New England Patriots taking a nap in the playoffs.


The deficit - So all of you have been shouting about the evils of out-of-control spending. Where were you guys and gals when President Bush was nestled in the White House and spending wasn't such a big deal?


Wanna cut the deficit? Here's how!


Cut every, and I mean every Congressman's salary in half — except President' Obama's paycheck. Can't be done? Why not! We all have to bite the bullet. Why not you guys and gals on the Hill! Remember when (and this where you have to know your history) President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked the affluent to step up and take dollar-a-week government jobs when the country was mired war and suffering from a hangover from the Great Depression. So please don't make us wince with another empty speech on the House floor.


2. Make a graceful exit from Iraq and Afghanistan and return these fine men and women in uniform home.There is no way America can fight two wars, and then cut taxes. Sure, I love tax breaks, but how do we pay the braves guys and gals who are putting it all on the line around the globe. As far as I am concerned, our servicemen should be paid the $200,000 salary that Congressmen receive.


Here is my favorite — the economy and jobs.


What jobs! Our wise leaders and businessmen moved the well-paying jobs overseas so we can pay some poor schmuck 25 cents an hour to make dungarees that fall apart. If there is a really big war, we are in really big trouble because we don't have a manufacturing base. So what do we do when one of our adversaries goes ballistic? Call China and order our uniforms and tanks. Until the 17 million unemployed people find decent jobs, American businesses will continue to disappear and foreclosed homes will be as abundant as sand on a beach.


I am astounded by Republicans and some Democrats who have made repealing Obama's health-care plan their Holy Grail. People are out of work and can't feed their families. China has become this nation's landlord, and that doesn't sit well with many Americans. And our statesmen continue to lash out over a health-care plan that all Americans deserve. By the way, Congress is provided with Cadillac insurance courtesy of taxpayers.


What are the cures to this economic debacle? Well, there are allegedly 535 educated men and women sitting around in Washington D.C. trying to come up with an answer — between all the finger-pointing.


I know one thing is for certain: Another rousing speech won't help the guy out on the street looking for his next meal.

Snow kidding - school's out

AUBURN, Maine — Kids who live in a cold-weather states, where a Nor'easter can shut down dozens of communities and send working parents into a frenzy, know all about the benefits of a treasured Snow Day.

Snow Days are unofficial holidays that interrupt the hectic pace of trudging to school and passing in homework that students didn't complete the night before because their dog ate their textbook, the cat feasted on their gerbil and made them so distraught that they couldn't concentrate on algebra, or they got lost in an in-depth conversation about Justin Bieber's hair on Facebook. Snow Days are free get-out-of-school cards that come and go during Maine's harsh winters. Snow Days are cherished by all red-blooded kids who often call up on Mother Nature to deliver them from the clutches of a demanding teacher.

Snow Days give kids a reason to put those pathetic video games away — for a moment — and actually go outside and breath real air. Sure, it's cold out there, but hours of watching television and YouTube turns brains into slush. Racing down a snow-covered hill on skis, a snowboard or a sled at 90 miles per hour is more exhilarating than texting friends to complain about taking out the garbage, shoveling or listening to their parents warning them to clean up their rooms that resemble the inside of a Porta Potties — or they won't be allowed to watch a mind-numbing reality show featuring stupid people doing stupid things to themselves.

Up here in the hinterlands of nowhere, children put themselves on full alert whenever the weatherman mentions snow. Maine kids don't want to hear about snow measured in inches; they want feet of the white stuff, and they want it during the week. Weekend snowstorms take all the fun out of a blizzard and are looked upon as an annoyance by stressed students who are looking for a way out of class — unless you are a skier who eats and sleeps snow and enjoys being up on the mountain in white-out conditions.

For kids from the Boston area, a Snow Day meant open season on MBTA buses or snowball fights that left welts on their skin from a kid who had the arm of a Major League Baseball pitcher and delivered these icy-projectiles at the speed of sound. Rugged kids would manufacture and stockpile snowballs at a blizzard's pace. They would hide behind bushes waiting to ambush an unsuspecting bus transporting worn-out workers. The kids took cover and waited for the perfect moment to strike. A dozen thuds were heard when they peppered the bus with a massive strike of snowballs as stunned and angry passengers shook their fists behind frosty windows — or offered a middle finger to demonstrate their displeasure after we bushwhacked the bus. The kids laughed and congratulated themselves on their marksmanship. The bus driver gave us all dirty looks as he waved his finger and mouthed an obscenity during his inaudible admonition behind the bus's folding doors. When police cruisers started circling the block to round up the usual suspects, we reluctantly moved on to more exciting pursuits like building intricate snow forts or shoveling out the next neighbor for a few bucks  and head to the nearest five-and-dime store to spend our riches — on junk.

For my son and me, white powder means skiing, sledding and throwing snowballs at targets of opportunity. A wave of snowballs slamming into our picture window often draws the ire of my surprised wife. We have the privilege of spending an entire day with a son who enjoys frolicking in the Great Outdoors and still takes great pleasure in pelting his dad with snowballs. A Snow Day means Noah, our next-door neighbor, will knock on the door with his saucer in tow, hoping to use the small hill in our backyard to do some serious coasting and snowboarding before he gets bored and helps me shovel the driveway.

Snow Days are respites for teachers, who also look to Mother Nature to cut them some slack and give them a break from their students. That's why all Snow Days are heralded by adults and children who believe in the rejuvenating powers of these miracle snowstorms — and a day off from the classroom.

Back in the day

If you get lucky, Snow Days can turn into Snow Weeks. It happened nearly 32 years ago when Boston took it on a chin during the Blizzard of '78 on Feb. 6 — a day that will live in infamy for snow-struck Bostonians. This monster storm parked itself off the coast of Massachusetts for 36 hours and delivered about three feet of snow in just over a day, shutting down the Hub and surrounding communities.

That morning forecasters were predicting six to 12 inches as the storm closed in on helpless New England. But something strange was happening when forecasters started upping their snow totals throughout that quiet and cloudy day. I sat in my cellar as whiteout conditions appeared and listened to alarmed weathermen predicting 12 to 18 inches, then 24 to 30 inches. Neighbors stared at each other from their widows and watched as several homes disappeared in snow drifts on my street.

For students at Revere High, it was another Christmas vacation delivered by Old Man Winter. It was the gift that kept on giving for RHS seniors that snowy February. Driving was forbidden and neighbors were forced to help each other as panicked residents made food run after food run, fearing the end of the world was at hand.

The high school was used a Red Cross shelter for beach residents who were forced to evacuate when the abnormally high tides flooded beaches up and down the Massachusetts coastline. The city was patrolled my Massachusetts National guardsmen who carried M-16s to thwart lowlifes who were pillaging abandoned homes near the inundated beach. A tank rolled through streets buried in 15-foot snowdrifts as military helicopters delivering supplies were landing in the middle of Revere.

It was mayhem on a grand scale, but all of us enjoyed every minute of our impromptu and snow-filled vacation. It was white gold and all of us struck it rich when school was called off for days and days.

It was the ultimate Snow Day for students who witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime snow event in New England.

Cat-atonic

AUBURN, Maine — Goldfish are mesmerizing to watch, dogs are a handful and require constant affection, but cats — those sneaky and moody critters —have one thing going for them — autonomy.

These independent feline hairballs come and go as they please, and they don't like being told what do. They run on their own clock, and all cat owners better get used to their mood swings.

 

There is no way to control these fiercely independent animals. Get that idea out of your head. They like you, but do they really need you?

They play favorites with family members, too, which can lead to stress and divisiveness in the household.


If you are lucky, they will curl up with you when they want to give you the time of day. And yet, there is something to a cat's soothing purr, like a comforting whir of a fan in the dead of the night.

Just give them a place to eat and sleep and these bipolar, four-legged creatures will be back on your doorstep after a long day of carousing and killing mice or birds. They are good at thinning the herd around the backyard and don't mind letting their owners know it. 


Cats love to present their dead or live prey to their horrified owners to prove that they too are proud members of the Eco system.

And for some strange reason, water is their main enemy. Get a cat wet and you have one angry cat on your hands. Look out! They will scowl at you as they dry themselves off in some lonely corner of the house. A soaked cat means you will be ignored for hours, which can be a good thing.

I was never a cat person, although I found Cat Woman a sight to behold.

But cats, well, I didn't mind not having one around, and as for goldfish, these little fellows are fun and relaxing to watch, and they demand little of you because you matter little to them - except when you open the lid to the tank to feed them. 


Then they come around in schools when it is time for feeding. Having a dog is like raising child, and while a dog's love, companionship and devotion are unquestionable, their constant thirst for attention rivals that of a newborn.

Look, I am a friend to all animals, but I never thought about owning a feline - until I got married, and then I had to bend a little, aah, actually a lot. You do a lot of bending in a loving relationship. Finding common ground and compromise are imperative to any lasting union. Saying yes to your spouse means a quick end to any hostilities.

And remember, there is no last word in diplomacy when it comes to your spouse's request to purchase a moody feline.

We have had two cats over the last 20 years. One was uptight and the other is as cool as cucumber, especially when Tabby closes in for the kill. He is a stealthy assassin who has brought down large blue jays and once marched into our living room with a live chipmunk. 


It escaped our cat's clutches and sent the family scurrying around the house to chase the varmint out of our home.

Tabby, like all cats, can be playful and suddenly become downright evasive, but when Tabby likes to play, he can be amusing. But there is a soft side to Tabby. He knows he owns our hearts and is quite affectionate in his own mysterious way, but just don't ever, ever get him wet because he won't forget.

He holds grudges.

Tabby enjoys my wife's constant attention and seeks me out when nobody in the house is around to cater to him. The cat and I are both fine with that odd relationship.

It has taken me years to understand how these fearless felines operate, but our Tabby proves that cats are extraordinary creatures, which do give a damn and need human interaction - when cats feel like it, of course.

Burnin' Love

AUBURN, Maine - The 1905 red-hot wood stove has been working overtime while weathermen have been forecasting doom for the Northeast for the past seven days. 

This gives panicked New Englanders an opportunity to race to the grocery store to purchase food and scramble to find the local number to FEMA for a one-day event that will end life on the planet as we know it.

After all, the apocalypse is upon us as another ho-hum Nor'easter roars up the coast.

But this coast-hugging storm could also turn out to be a dud, too.

Ignoring the storm prognosticators has become a way of life for all sane citizens living in the hinterlands of the Pine Tree State.

But worrying about facing certain destruction from the latest coastal storm is fruitless, especially since my wood stove, a holdover from the Teddy Roosevelt administration, still provides heat and comfort. 

It is an iron monster capable of surviving a nuclear blast. The stove's warmth is a way to use less oil even though this cast-iron beast leaves a carbon footprint the size of Big Foot's feet. But rationing oil still remains an admirable goal. The price alone of this black gold is enough to make any homeowner shiver in these hard times. So for many of us, wood is our alternative energy source — for the moment.

So, let it snow and the cold wind blow!

I will watch New England's day of reckoning huddled around a small inferno, sipping coffee and listening to Mozart, Neil Young, Benny Goodman....well, you get the picture.

For the past five years, I learned how to burn things and light up a wood stove without burning my home down. There is a knack to building the perfect fire — and keeping it going for all eternity — or for at least for most of the winter. 

Mainers are experts when it comes to starting a wood-stove fire up here in cold country. There are tricks to heating a house without triggering a conflagration, and over time, I have become a well-trained arsonist who knows how to light 'em up with dry wood and proper kindling. There is technique involved here, and I have become an expert with fire as my Iron Hulk heats up the entire house from downstairs.

The glowing stove from another century takes the chill out of your bones and turns my unfinished basement into a sauna while winter's fury carries on.

Of course, I am always looking for consensus as a journalist, and that means asking wood-stove veterans to share some of their hot tips on burning wood. I learned from the best to keep the home fires lit without torching my home in the dead of winter.

The approaching storm did not send me scurrying to buy food or rent dozens of movies. We all know the power never goes out in a Nor'easter, our DVD players run on magic, and food never goes bad when the electricity disappears after branches snap wires across a state that has the most trees in the union.

Nah, that never happens!

I will just put another log in my fire-eating stove as another coastal snowstorm adds another blanket of fresh powder — and drink coffee, of course. 

A political party of none

  

Several days ago, members of the United States Congress, for some absurd reason, spent an hour and a half on the taxpayers' dime reading aloud the U.S. Constitution, and they screwed that up, too.

According to the Associated Press, our illustrious leadership omitted key paragraphs when they discovered two pages were stuck together, and "original sections that later were amended, including references to slaves, were left out of the recital."

In that hour and half, these guys should have been discussing solutions to joblessness, the wars in the Middle East, the housing debacle and the Great Equalizer - education. But both political parties decided to one-up themselves by brandishing their patriotism on the house floor instead of conducting the people's business and resuscitating a government buried in debt.

Thanks for the reading lesson, guys. It is comforting to know members of Congress can still sound out the words and have their priorities straight. This demonstration of political showmanship also indicated that perhaps Congress wasn't so sure what the Constitution contained until they read this unique document aloud.

Congress's needless reciting of the Constitution is a perfect example of why George Washington, our first president, and one of those rare Commanders in Chief with common sense, warned his countrymen about the pitfalls of political parties in his 1796 farewell address to the nation.

Just listen to Washington's priceless words that still hold water today:

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."

Mr. Washington's admonitions concerning political parties are not unfounded. Just take a look at the buffoonery that transpires in the hallowed halls of the nation's capitol on a daily basis. We have been mired in a recession that has blindsided the middle class and elevated the ranks of the poor since 2007. This is the nation that put the plane in the air, stopped Hitler cold, and made other countries envious of our industrial might for decades. But for the moment, corporate shills, who occupy those seats in Congress, look the other way as American companies create middle classes abroad, while a majority of U.S. citizens face a decline in their standard of living in a nation that was once considered the land of opportunity.

It should make us all shudder with frustration when politicians show more loyalty to their parties than to their constituency. We elected them to Congress and they should be beholden to us, not to a bunch of money-grubbing lobbyists or the RNC (Republican National Committee) and DNC (Democratic National Committee). 

Our leaders should be focused on the Greater Good. But apparently politicians enjoy battling back and forth over their party ideologies while the nation is caught in financial quicksand. Congress's first and foremost concern is the American people. Some where along the way, our leaders have forgotten the meaning of the preamble's opening words "We the people."

"Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

Washington was obviously ahead of his time when he stated that political parties "open the doors to foreign influence and corruption." Just take a hard look what is going on now around the planet. Thanks to this political in-fighting, nothing gets done or well-meaning bills are derailed for the sake of opposition by one party. We all suffer the consequences when well-educated man can't find common ground even though this nation's survival might be at stake.

We are all in dire need of a reality check.

So what are the options for the American voter who just lost a job and a house? Abandon both parties? That is certainly tempting when it comes to "who cares" is running for office.

Perhaps, it will require an independent candidate with no ties to any one ideology or party and will put citizens first and ignore the temptations of special interest money. This is truly a great nation born from a rebellion against tyranny and matured into a world power, but it up to us - informed voters - to elect responsible leaders who have credibility and the ability to compromise and bring about positive change in a country under financial duress and fighting terrorism throughout the globe.

A son who always shines

To a fine young man who makes me proud




When I lifted you from the crib

and pressed your delicate head next to my chin

I enjoyed the smell and touch of your smooth skin

Your wide eyes were always searching my soul

And still you have always made me feel whole

You are my infant son who occupies

a father's heart filled with love and hope

I never liked putting you back down

In fact, I would frown when you struggled
in my arms to touch the ground

And now, you no longer need me to carry you places

Your long limbs and strong back

will easily take you to these open and unexplored spaces

I will always miss the bliss of holding you tight to my chest

even though there times when there was no time for me to rest

And yet, although I was sleep deprived,

you always made me feel alive with your bright smile

And as the years pass, and my gray hair becomes sparse

Do me a favor and allow an old man to still hug you tight

So that I may savor those memories

of a child who showered me with delight

and pointed me toward the light

I

- Anthony Blasi

A woman of courage and peace

Sally Goodrich and I suddenly became linked together by the tragic death of an extraordinary and kind human being - her son, Peter Goodrich.

We only spoke twice about Peter, who was killed on the second plane that slammed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. But those two brief conversations over the phone told me all I needed to know about a remarkable and dedicated mother who had the courage and tenacity to go on living despite the shattering loss of her beloved son.

To this day, I don't know how Sally Goodrich found a reason to get out of bed each morning. Just after Peter's death, Sally was diagnosed with cancer, and now she was forced to fight off a life-threatening disease while coping with her overwhelming grief.

Some of us might have called it quits, close all the shades, shut out the living and allow grief and depression to consume us.

But despite her endless sorrow and nagging sickness, Sally found an outlet to remember and honor her cherished son. She and her husband, Donald, founded the Peter Goodrich Foundation, which raises money to build and fund schools in Afghanistan. 

Two weeks after Peter died on that warm Tuesday afternoon, a friend of mine, who works for Stars and Stripes, informed me that Peter was a passenger on the second plane that struck the towers.

At first, Peter's name didn't ring a bell. I was still numb after the terrorist attacks. As a sportswriter and editor for the Lewiston Sun Journal, I kept a filing cabinet with some of the stories I had written over the years. At the top the stack of papers were several articles I had done about the Bates College All-American track star.

I called Donald and spoke with him just two weeks after those heinous events in New York City. It was one of the most difficult interviews I had ever done as a reporter. I knew life would never be the same for the Goodriches or the nation.

I remember Peter as a kind and modest athlete who was setting records in the hammer throw at Bates College. When you spoke with Peter, you knew right away that he was raised by caring and educated parents who put their children first. He was tribute to Sally's and Donald's love and devotion to their children.

Several years later, I got a call from Sally at the Sun Journal. She politely asked if she could reprint the articles I wrote about Peter on the foundation's Web site. I spoke with my editor and Sally was given the OK to place my stories on the site.

We spoke for a few minutes when she told me "that out of all the stuff that has been written about Peter, I read your articles every day because of the quotes you used in the story."

I was silent for a few seconds. You never know if the stuff you write ever touches anyone's soul. And now those words I wrote long ago continued to comfort a mother who suffered the most devastating loss of all - the death of a child.

I thanked this courageous woman for her kind compliments. We would speak once more when her son was posthumously inducted into the Auburn-Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

It would be the last time we talked about Peter.

Sally Goodrich, who wouldn't allow her grief to rule her and courageously plunged right back into to life to make a difference in the world, died at her home in Vermont on Dec. 18, 2010. She was 65.

Thank you Sally for being fearless and an inspiration to all of us in a world that could benefit from more compassionate individuals like you.

Rest in peace.