They say it's your birthday

Our pride and joy. Happy birthday, big guy!

AUBURN, Maine - He turned 15 today and I am proud to say Anthony has surpassed me in nearly every way when I was his age.

He is wiser and smarter  — and we are not the least bit envious of him.  He is not a follower and marches to his own drum. He thrives on our unconditional love, and he  still doesn't mind having us around, although that will soon change.

He is growing up in central Maine and I was raised in the Greater Boston area, and they are worlds apart when it comes to the fast pace of life.

We both like to think we had something to do with Anthony's solid upbringing, and we don't take each other for granted. But we never take all the credit for his performance in the classroom and his wise choices when it comes to friends and doing the right thing. He has made those decisions on his own, but he also realizes we are his first phone call when life goes awry.

I have often told him this: 

"I am not your friend. I am your father, and I am better than any friend you will ever have. I am not cool and I will always hate your music because I am older. When it comes to sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, we are open 24 hours a day and the coffee is free — so come on in and talk to us."

If you are any kind of a parent, you want your one-and-only son to excel in this unstable world. We have always put his needs and interests first — and that is the only way it works in this please-and-thank-you family.

If you are an adult who doesn't share this philosophy about nurturing children, then do us all a favor and don't bring a kid into this world. Society doesn't need another horror story about a neglected child whose parents put themselves first.

That's why parenting is the best job in the world and why I enjoy holding the job title of "dad." But this family could not function without dear-old mom - Terri - who is the go-to person when it comes to compassion and understanding. 

Anthony is smart, but I have cautioned him about arrogance and indifference. He understands life is fickle and has a way of knocking you down no matter how many degrees you have earned in this brief lifetime.

He has been warned about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, knowing I have a zero tolerance for narcotics or the town drunk. He is aware that we have never used drugs and drink very little. I was a bartender for years, and I can tell you from experience there is no good drunk.

Anthony now stands at 6-foot-1 and weighs 160 pounds. He is a damn monster who consumes milk by the gallon. I can no longer offer him one hamburger when we cook on the grill. He is good for two or three burgers.

He is not sports fanatic, but he knows nearly every warship since the 1700s. He is a writer, poet and history fanatic who doesn't mind watching "All The President's Men" for the umpteenth time with his dad. He is a skier and swimmer who loves hiking with his parents. In the summer, Maine's pristine's beaches and lakes are his playground. In the winter, he heads to the mountains with his skis.

He campaigned for President Obama when he was 12 years old, speaking with angry voters over the phone

He is heading for the high school, and I worry about him even though he is smarter than his old man.  I always worry about him and my wife. You do that when you are fortunate to be a member of a loving family.

I am apprehensive about the future, but I am looking forward to the next 15 years of my son's life — and I am sure my wife feels the same.

Happy birthday, son! You are a fine young man.

A day at the beach

Terri crosses

 another bridge with son, Anthony, in Brunswick.

Beachgoers take cover from the hot at Old Orchard Beach.

OLD ORCHARD, Maine - It wasn't the warm water, beautiful women, comfort food or the scorching sun that made Monday's family outing at a crowded Old Orchard Beach on July 4 so spectacular.

What made this such a banner day for the Blasis, besides celebrating the nation's birthday with thousands of tanned beachgoers, was watching my courageous wife swim again.

Anthony knows how to keep his cool at OOB.

It was worth the 20-minute drive around side streets and a fusillade of obscenities to find a vacant parking spot to avoid paying $20 to leave the car with the local shyster. I can't justify parting with 20 bucks when a quarter-of-a-mile walk from the car to the beach works for my pocketbook. I can cope with huge crowds, long lines and put up with messy public restrooms, but handing over $20 because I don't want to walk a few blocks is insanity.

While other men might have been checking out other women, I couldn't keep my eyes off my wife as she tackled wave after wave. 

Just seeing Terri swim without pain or fear was a damn miracle. 

Beachgoers avoid the heat and stay in the water at OOB.

Last year, my wife was recovering from six hours of life-saving back surgery - with no guarantees. The risks were high and we were still dealing with the death of my mother and the slow onset of my father's Alzheimer's disease.

For nearly four months before her surgery, Terri needed a cane or a walker to limp through the day. She missed six months of work. Her pain was endless as her failing back made it impossible for her to enjoy life. This is a woman who walks, swims, hikes and lifts weights. She is a ball of fire, but she was about to burn up as her conditioned worsened.

Eleven days after my mother's death and on her birthday - she would have been 74 on April 19, 2010 - Terri under went nearly six hours of back surgery for a disk that was about to sever her spinal cord in her neck. But there was more to this complicated procedure. Doctors also had to correct spinal stenosis in her lower back.

According to the Mayo Clinic's Web site: "Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of one or more areas in your spine — most often in your neck or lower back. This narrowing can put pressure on the spinal cord or spinal nerves at the level of compression."

Terri was terrified and my son and I were apprehensive about the entire operation.

We were fortunate to find a gifted neurosurgeon - Dr. Guillermo J. Candia, who works at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. He is a dedicated doctor who is forthright and doesn't take the long way around the barn when explaining the pluses and minuses of any operation.

Anyone who has endured the high anxiety of sitting in the waiting room when a loved one is under the knife knows that hours seem like days. And when you see a nurse racing the down the hallway with a crash cart, you leap to your feet and pray it is not your wife who needs a jump start to keep her from leaving this world.

Well, the operation was a success and Terri survived thanks to the capable hands of Dr. Candia, who gave us back our lives and Terri's health. 

Back on the beach

The sweltering heat brought huge crowds at Old Orchard Beach. The traffic was mind-numbing, but the water was warm and clear and bright sun lit up this pristine beach and all its beautiful people.

Terri couldn't stand sitting in the hot sun and headed for the water despite a strong undertow and huge waves.

She wasted little time diving into the strong waves and came up smiling each time she surfaced. She handled OOB's powerful surf with ease, and that was a milestone for her.

A year ago she was using my late mother's walker to inch around the block, but on July 4, 2011, Terri Blasi didn't miss a step or a stroke when she splashed down at OOB and made her own waves.

Woodstock

Cut-and-dried wood awaits to be stacked

AUBURN, Maine — For those of you who swing a maul, wield an axe or mastered the use of a dangerous gas-powered chainsaw for a living, I have nothing but respect for all woodsmen, arborists, landscapers and the average Joe who heats his home in the winter with wood.

Making another delivery

I also depend on wood to keep warm during Maine's ferocious winters. Heating your home with wood is hard work and right up there with digging ditches, but the last thing I want to do is hand over more money to greedy gas and oil companies, which delight in robbing its customers.

Making use of the sawdust

I understand there are risks when it comes to heating with wood, and there is the feeling of guilt to being a contributor to air pollution.

Wait, there's more!

But for many of us, fossil fuels are too expensive to use on a regular basis. My thermostat remained at a balmy 62 degrees when the wood ran out last winter. We kept our bedroom at 58 degrees and simply added more blankets as our home was transformed into an igloo after another fierce winter storm. We take six-minute showers, wash our clothes and rinse our dishes in cold water. We live like owls in the dark and turn off every light off when no one is in a room. We recycle everything, including the leaves in my backyard in the fall.

The dread of listening to our furnace bellowing in the basement as it burns oil and a hole in our wallets has forced us to lower our consumption of costly oil and rely more on our warm and fuzzy wood stove.

Last week, my next-door neighbor, Don, told me he was taking down two ash trees in his yard and generously offered me the wood free of charge. Don is one of the most easy-going souls on the planet and is a master at do-it-yourself projects. He's got talent and possesses the common sense of Thomas Paine, and I am damn lucky he lives across the street.

For the last two weeks, I lugged nearly 4,000 pounds of wood from his backyard to mine thanks to Don's heavy-duty yard cart with the big spoked wheels. This task was not for the weak at heart, someone with a bad back or an aversion to manual labor. To sweeten the deal, Don also offered me a two-year-old cord of cut-and-split wood to make room for his new storage area.

I was sold on on his offer, but I also knew this was a project that would demand a strong back. And when Dan, another outstanding neighbor, offered to lend a helping hand with the heavy stuff on a smoldering summer day, I knew I was lucky to live next to such fine men.

Back and forth I went as I delivered 200-pounds of wood in each cart. Days later, I was still trying to straighten out my 6-foot-3 frame as my back muscles became rigid and sore.

Two weeks later and my driveway is littered with ash and elm, which now has to be cut and split. I mulled buying a chainsaw, which I have never used in my life despite being an avid gardener and landscaper. But Bruce, another friend, volunteered his wood-eating chainsaw. We agreed that he would cut up the big stuff and I would handle the small fry with my trusty bow saw, which runs on human sweat. I am also using Bruce's maul until I purchase one.

Watching Bruce use his chainsaw and seeing how quickly he cut threw each large trunk was like watching a surgeon make incisions with a sharp knife. I knew I was in the presence of greatness as his chainsaw chewed up the large pieces without incident. I had a hard time keeping up as I heaved the large hunks of wood out of his way as Bruce buzzed along with his reliable and loud saw.

Now I am left with the small stuff. I am building a reliable sawhorse. Dan showed me how he constructed his sawhorse, and I thought it was a great design and sturdy enough for me to dice up the rest of the wood.

I also received some sage advice from Randy, who cut wood as young boy to help heat a house us filled with eight siblings. He shared with me his tips on splitting wood and how to handle a chainsaw. It was all good advice from a good friend.

For the next month, I will be cutting, splitting and stocking wood to keep Old Man Winter at bay and the oil companies out of my pocketbook.


I am now in the swing of things as I learn the fine art of splitting wood, and it really is an art. I am a big man with a strong back, but there is a technique to cracking open stubborn wood. Brawn and might helps when you bring the 10-pound maul down on a log, but it is always about technique, and there is nothing like watching the maul pass through a log on your first swing.

But was all this back-breaking work and sweat during the hot summer worth it?

Talk to me in January when winter has its icy paws all over Maine.

Goodfellows52: Garden Party

Goodfellows52: Garden Party: " AUBURN, Maine — I'd rather reach for a rake or a shovel than a weapon when life goes awry. People are killing each other over the lames..."

Garden Party

 AUBURN, Maine — I'd rather reach for a rake or a shovel than a weapon when life goes awry.

People are killing each other over the lamest excuses, but I spend hours growing a garden and watching my son mature into a fine young man each summer.

When I am angry, I get down and dirty with a hoe, worms, spiders, and a handful of seeds. I experience paradise when I tune into a Boston Red Sox game on the radio while I weed the garden. Life doesn't get any better on a warm summer day - especially when Boston is beating up the Yankees.

Growing vegetables is no longer a pastime. It has become a necessity thanks to rising fuel prices and shrinking natural resources. Buying food means taking out a short-term loan every week, and if you are trying to eat healthy, I hope your wallet is filled with cash. And if you don't munch on the right foods, doctors don't mind taking your money as you battle obesity.

The world is upside down, our leaders no longer lead, and people ignore each other as they bang out useless texts on their overused cell phones.

We've gone to hell in a hand basket, but there has been one constant through the years - gardening. The nation is ruled by it like an army of empty stomachs.

The garden is my refuge. All this patch of earth demands is water, natural fertilizer and a great deal of tender loving care. And what do you get from all this dirt? Big, beautiful vegetables free of chemicals. If you have a big yard, dig up a slice of it and plant vegetables. Life will be easier at the cash register and your health will only improve.

And your pallet and stomach will thank you for it.

While May was a cruel month thanks to eight days of cold rain, summer turned the corner when June arrived. I planted the last day of May, which is traditional in central Maine. The ground is no longer cold, the sun is stronger and there is less of threat of a late frost - a garden's arch-enemy. It's been known to happen here in the hinterlands.

I watch this annual experiment in my backyard take root as the warm sun strengthens my yearlings. I add natural fertilizer around each plant to give my vegetables a boost - and then I cross my fingers and think of one the greatest gardeners in the world - my grandfather - who arrived in the United States in 1904 from the old country - Italy. His tomatoes were second to none and my grandmother made an excellent pasta sauce out of the fruits of his labor.

It is late June and I am already consuming freshly grown lettuce. I planted 18 heads of the green stuff and it is doing well. I have two apple and cherry trees blooming and raspberries, blue berries, and grapes are ripening on the vine.

The lettuce is way out in front, but now my other vegetables are catching up as July makes its warm and welcomed approach. My cucumbers (I had one casualty) are crawling along the ground and my tomatoes (one KIA) are inching up through their iron cages. My zucchini and summer squash are blooming and it won't be long before they see the inside of my skillet. Broccoli is a picture of health and my carrots (I planted them by seed) have burst through the soil. I am now waiting on my melons and cauliflower to make an appearance.

I eagerly await for all my vegetables to come to fruition because you can't buy produce that is pesticide free - and there are vegetable casseroles to be made in my kitchen.

So stay away from the dollar menu and burn off a few pounds raising a garden. Your digestive track will be grateful and you keep doctors at arms length.

Goodfellows52: Modern Marvels

Goodfellows52: Modern Marvels: "SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — For these young engineers, thinking outside the box is mandatory. These cars do not come in a model kit box. There a..."

Goodfellows52: Winds of time

Goodfellows52: Winds of time: "AUBURN, Maine — The problem with living a long life is that you lose people along the way, and when they leave, you are only left with pow..."

Winds of time

AUBURN, Maine — The problem with living a long life is that you lose people along the way, and when they leave, you are only left with powerful memories and their sentimental things that eventually become yours.

I am bringing this old windmill back to life. I wish I could do the same for my mother, Louise.

I am restoring it to honor a mother who meant to so much to her family.

I took the windmill back to Maine months after her death. It fell in disrepair and was rotting away in her cellar, and I was no longer around to repair it and place it on on their front lawn every spring.

Nobody wanted the dusty old thing, but I wanted to spare the windmill a fate from wasting away in the cellar. My mother and I both loved the bulky ornament. It wasn't anything fancy, but someone in her family made it, and that made it special to her. 

I am resurrecting this windmill out of love, and I wish I could do the same for Louise, who rests under manicured grass and shade provided by three healthy trees at Puritan Lawn Cemetery in Peabody, Mass.

She would love to see me give the neglected windmill a new lease on life. I would like to see her apart of my world again.

My father is not interested in woodworking and wanted no part of it as the windmill's three pieces sat in a remote corner of their damp cellar. So this wooden creation was left abandoned as spiders made a home out it and dampness ruined part of the wood.

She loved this unique lawn ornament because it was designed and built by her Uncle Ted Davis, a true gentleman from Pennsylvania. I only met him once, and I often thought of him as a kind man.

Every spring, she asked me to drag it out of the basement and drive the windmill's two stakes deep into the cold ground and station the wooden structure in the middle of the front lawn.

She was proud it and I was proud of Uncle Ted's design.

It was a tradition that lasted until I began attending college and my thoughts turned to textbooks, sports and girls. We both ended up forgetting about the windmill as life took its twists and turns and my parents became surrounded by loving grandchildren.

For some reason, the windmill wasn't that important to us until her death.

Last May, I packed up some of her treasures, and one of them was the windmill. I was numb as I rummaged through our dead parent's belongings for the first time. It was an unpleasant task and I felt like I as intruding on her personal life.

I didn't have much time to restore it last summer, and I kind of ignored it after carefully repairing one of its broken blades. But this year, my wife demanded that I get it ready for July 4th, and while the passing of time has not removed the nagging grief since her death, I began cleaning it and then painting it.

I painted the mid section a fire-engine red and applied white paint to the blades and the ladder that is attached to the structure with a hinge. I added a coat of blue to the sturdy base of the windmill, giving the restored ornament a "red, white, and blue" patriotic feeling to it.

I know Louise would approve of my work.

Over the years, I think it was overlooked as her four children were busy raising their children. I would see the windmill sitting in that lonely corner whenever I visited her in Revere.

So now the windmill has found a new home about 681 miles from where it originated - Waterford, Pennsylvania.

The 40-year-old windmill will sit in a flower bled in my manicured backyard and remind me of a woman who spent her youth wandering around her relatives' farms in the Keystone State during the Great Depression.

Modern Marvels

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. —  For these young engineers, thinking outside the box is mandatory. These cars do not come in a model kit box. There are no directions.

Students start from scratch, and they must come up with a game plan to construct their own unique solar-powered cars, which are also built for speed. Creativity is definitely a perquisite — along with patience and dedication.

Watching these students learning how to think on their feet and make things work when all goes wrong is astounding.

Even though money is tight, gas remains criminally high, and time is always at a premium, a sour economy didn't stop this family from traveling four hours to proudly watch our son, Anthony, compete in the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association's Junior Solar Sprint Competition at the High School of Commerce on a cloudy Sunday.

 

It was nearly a 500-mile round trip after leaving Auburn, Maine, but watching Auburn Middle School's two three- and four-man teams compete in this grueling, seven-hour event was worth the price of filling my gas tank twice as AMS's finest competed against their exceptional peers from all over the Northeast.

 

The designs were creative and eye-opening, and you could tell students put a lot of hard work into perfecting their solar-powered cars. Besides being judged on technical merit, innovation, craftsmanship, artistic merit, best reuse of material, best compartment, team spirit and sportsmanship, these cars were also engineered for speed.

 

Building sun-powered cars requires using a variety of lightweight materials, a soda can and a solar panel, to get the cars to run on a track. These teams gave up two afternoons a week during the school year to make their creations come to fruition.

 

The solar-power car teams from Auburn Middle School began their journeys to Springfield, Mass., from Owls Head, Maine, where two teams qualified to compete in the Northeast competition. AMS students went head to head against other Maine schools at the Owls Head Transportation Museum.

But every solar-powered team needs a dedicated teacher who has the ability to inspire his teams to create a sun-driven model car out of limited materials.

Jim Rowe is that kind of teacher who knows how to keep his students motivated. He has that special gift and infinite patience to point them in the right direction.

Rowe has been coaching aspiring engineers for over a decade, and it never gets old for this talented teacher. His students thrive under his direction. Under his tutelage last year, the Sun Ship, which was designed by my son and Damian Yoder, won for Artistic Merit at the Northeast competition and was the fastest car at Owls Head.

Last Sunday in Springfield, the AMS teams finished in the top 25 percent in speed even though Auburn Middle School did not receive an award, But kudos to the team of Anthony Blasi, Damien Yoder, and Cole Taylor for their "When Pigs Fly" creation, and to the team of Ben Knoblach, Erza Thomas, Jarod Cloutier and Harley Lombard for their car - "Cool Running."

"First I want to congratulate and thank you all for a successful year," said Rowe in an e-mail to his students and parents. "Although the teams did not win awards in Springfield, they did very well, from my experiences, finishing in the top 25 out of 108 for speed and doing very well in artistic merit and craftsmanship.

  "I was very pleased and proud to have so many parents in attendance. The most I have ever had the honor of participating with. It has been an honor to work with your children.  It truly has."

All six students found common ground to work together and make this competition a success as well as build confidence and pride in themselves. And, of course, Jim Rowe's input obviously had a lot to do AMS' strong showing in the competition.

For more information about solar powered cars competitions, check out www.nesea.org and www.meepnews.org.

A city's oasis

"Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean."

- Naturalist John Muir  

LEWISTON, Maine — Call it a slice of heaven or a lush oasis which sits quietly in the middle of an old Maine mill city.
 

This fertile tract of land is walled off by huge pine trees and tall grass. Streams, ponds and hiking trails run up and down Thorncrag Nature Sanctuary.  

It's tallest point is 510 feet. The sanctuary is managed by the Stanton Bird Club, which was founded in 1919 and began receiving donated parcels of land over the last 90 years. The "Crag" once belonged to the Thorne family in the 1800s before eventually becoming a wildlife habitat.
 

The sprawling city surrounds this 357-acre wildlife preserve, but when you begin walking the trails and become enveloped in its magnificent greenery and soothing solitude, you forget that you are in the heart of Lewiston. The city's noises fade away as you venture deeper into the forest and head for the top where an open meadow greets all hikers — and it is all free of charge.
 

Making you way up solid walking trails and narrow paths is not a difficult climb. Old landmarks, which can be traced back to the 1800s, line some of the obscure trails. This habitat is also used for snowshoeing and cross country skiing during Maine's endless winters.
 

Anthony and I started at the Montello gate and briskly walked up the steep blue trail, which is marked by spray painted trees every 50 to 100 yards. It is a half-mile walk to Anthony's Fireplace, which sits on a small open field. 

I was carrying a full pack with water, food, bug spray, binoculars and a camera when we stopped to take a breather at a unique bench called Kavanaugh Bench before we continued our trek to a large pond, which is teaming with frogs' eggs at this time of year. The murky pond supports a variety of wildlife. It is an eye-opening event when the frogs take over the pond later in the summer and disrupt Thorncrag's silence with their croaking.
 

We followed a narrow path that circles the pond and trudged up a shady steep hill toward Anthony's fireplace. The huge fireplace is surrounded by large stone benches. It is a quiet area to rest and down water and a quick snack. About a couple hundred yards away on the yellow trail, we pass Miller's Fireplace and Gordon's Ledge and park ourselves at Landry Memorial Bench, which is the summit at Thorncrag. We reach for the binoculars and peer through a narrow clearing of trees where we see a snow-capped Mt. Washington looming in the distance on a clear day.

We packed up our grub and water and headed down the sometimes difficult trail toward Whale Rock, which is giant boulder that resembles a whale. When we finally made our way down the hill without losing our footing, we decided to visit Whale Rock another time and turned west. Anthony and I carefully walked through a washed out path of protruding rocks and meandering small streams. We stopped to listen to the running streams and birds interrupt the forest's tranquility.

We moved gingerly through the rocky terrain and found the trail up to the meadow a safer climb. 

We halted our advance at a wooden park bench and munched on more snacks, but the black flies and mosquitoes were out to get us. We moved on past the Farmstead Foundation and took the orange trail to the other side of Thorncrag before turning onto the red trail where we passed Cellar Hole and Springhouse Foundation on this day in May.  

The entire two-mile hike took about two hours after making numerous stops along the way to refresh ourselves.

We often take advantage of this oasis, which is 15 minutes from our home in Auburn. It is a convenient way to visit Mother Nature on hot summer days without spending an hour on the road. 

For more information, checkout www.stantonbirdclub.org.

Essential personnel

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." 

~Mignon McLaughlin

Dear Terri,

Happy Mother's Day!

I am fortunate that you remain by my side. We have lost so many people the last few impossible years, and we will never get them back.

Anyway, you know I love you, and thanks for seeing me through the darkest moments in my life. Remember, I would stand up for you until I dropped.

You are a special person who has experienced her own journey into the abyss, but I think we found a way out of that deep, awful hole together despite those tumultuous periods in our lives. We have turned out to be wonderful parents who created this extraordinary son.

I am grateful to you for keeping me from falling into this muddy pond of grief. There has been a lot of sorrow the past two years.

Mother's Day will now serve as a day of remembrance for our mothers who both passed away last year. But I will also look upon this special day as a way to honor a special person and remarkable mother.

I am still baffled at how you put up with me. Living with me is like being on board a runaway freight train barreling down the tracks without a conductor. And yet, you found a way to tolerate a man whose passion for life can be quite overwhelming.

I am also impressed with your courage for undergoing life-saving back surgery last year, knowing all along that nothing is guaranteed when you face the surgeon's knife. Those four months, which were filled with uncertainty, foreboding and sadness, put an enormous strain on both of us. Thanks to our steel anchor — Anthony — we discovered a way out of that maze of sorrow and apprehension.

After 21 years of marriage, I think we both have come to appreciate and truly understand the phrase: "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health."

Happy Mother's Day, Terri. And thanks for making my life richer and more exciting. I appreciate it.

Your husband Tony

And justice for all

AUBURN, Maine - Killing Osama bin Laden wasn't the only objective of putting 25 courageous U.S. Navy SEALs in harm's way during an incursion at a fortified home in Abottobad on Monday.


It was justice, and it finally caught up with this murderer who had been on the run for a decade.


Reveling in his death is almost pointless. I  am relieved and delighted that justice was carried out swiftly and judiciously and those 25 brave souls came home without a scratch.


His death is certainly not the end to Al-Qaeda's violence. Unfortunately, there are other fanatics on deck, waiting for the opportunity to commit endless acts of terrorism.


Although justice was delivered by bullets, this raid was necessary to terminate one man who waged an endless campaign of terrorism and murdered thousands of law-abiding, devout Muslims.


I do understand that bin Laden's violent end will not bring Peter Goodrich, a Bates College All-American who was murdered on 911, back from eternity, and nor will it be a comfort to Sally Goodrich, who passed away last December after a long battle with cancer.


The Goodrichs are decent human beings who do not believe in the eye-for-an-eye thing. I am sure bin Laden's death brings no closure to the Goodrich family.


I am grateful to the Navy SEALs' extraordinary 40-minute battle to take down bin Laden despite the enormous risk of losing their own lives. These servicemen were not only in danger of being killed but they had to scurry back across the boarder to avoid the Pakistani air force.


This risky operation was also a difficult call for President Obama, who could have easily ordered an a B-2 air strike and obliterate the compound. But he understood it might be impossible to identify bin Laden's body with all the collateral damage done by the bombing.


Anyway, nice call, Mr. President, and for having the temerity to give the order to shoot to kill.


The last thing this nation, which has endured several wars and a sour economy, needed was giving Osama his day in court. Allowing Osama a court date would be like having Hitler testify at Nuremberg and listen to his ranting and ravings.


A trial would have allowed this despot to spew his hatred and enrage the American public. It would have cost this country millions to try this killer and then make him a martyr when we executed him.


I believe Americans would have little patience for bin Laden's presence on American shores.


And burying bin Laden at sea was also the right move after no country wanted his corpse. I can see why such nations as Saudi Arabia didn't want to be responsible for his burial. I'll bet his body would have incited unrest no matter where bin Laden was laid to rest.


Again, congratulations to President Obama and the Navy SEALs for a job well done.