Greetings!

Yes, finally......

It snowing again, a couple of inches already.  I'm anxious to get out there to shovel "my perfect driveway," as my neighbor said a couple of weeks ago.  I'm not sure if she was being complimentary or facetious.  Temperatures are going to plummet, I guess, if what we've had hasn't been low enough.  According to the forecasts, 8 of the next 10 nights will be in the single digits or below zero.  But, isn't that what we've had over the past month or more?

I know I've been running in this, although not as many miles.  Some of the decrease has been due to the weather, some to scheduling and circumstances.  But I think this winter has been harder on running than last year.  Although there hasn't been as much snow, what has fallen seems to be harder for running.  It freezes up on the roads more.  There are a lot more icy spots.  And the ruts, now frozen, are turning my ankles into hamburger.

The cold never bothers me.  I was out yesterday AM at 3 below zero.  And, at the end of the run, the last few miles, the wind picked up quite a bit.  That dreaded windchill had to be in the below teens (Is that how it's said?) or maybe twenty-below.  What is a bit bothersome is dressing appropriately.  I wear a mask, which I suppose means I can't enter any party store.  But I also have on layers.  Maybe I'm a wimp/whimp, but I usual wear 5 or 6 layers when it's near or below zero.  It seems to take forever to get dressed!  And after a few miles, the clothes get bulky, even the new-fangled fabric stuff.  But, with the condition of the road surfaces, I'm down to 40 miles a week and I've cut my daily runs a bit, too.  I've even cut my standard for a run; I must go at least 3 miles (instead of my old 5 miles) to consider it a run.  (That's just me, not anyone else.)

Lots of thinking, since I haven't been here in a while.  This supposedly "retired" guy is pretty busy all of the time.  One thought that has me considering quite a bit came from an essay I found (cleaning my junk in the loft) from Professor Henry Commager.  Professor Commager taught US History at Amherst when I was there.  He wrote about teaching history, specifically to my interest, teaching history without opinions or, I suppose, bias/prejudice.  He argued that teachers should just present the facts, what happened, without any of their own interpretation.  Hmmm......  First, I thought, what fun is that?  Second, is a teacher who is neutral, that is doesn't "take sides" in horrific episodes of history, actually becoming an accomplice to the horrors?  Does remaining "neutral" mean "not taking sides" or merely "presenting all sides?"  Third, what if students have already been introduced to "opinions" or "bias" and that has led to either the wrong or at least skewed conclusions of what really happened?  For example, I still read the Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was "merely," not my word certainly, a wartime exigency.  It didn't free any slave nor have any real effect on the abolition of slavery.  The EP was just a wartime measure to help prevent Britain and France from entering the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy.  Yes, I still read that.  It's in textbooks, in blogs, and the opinion of many (most?) teachers.  I heartily disagree.  There are a number of books which put that idea to rest.  (The idea that the EP didn't free a single slave, that it "freed" slave only in areas where the Union army couldn't "free" them seems to have originated or at least popularized by the great historian Richard Hofstadter.  Since it was the view of the great Hofstadter, who could disagree?)  One such book by Richard Striner is Father Abraham.  Yes, there was a reason blacks called Lincoln "Father Abraham," Biblical in its connotation surely.  And the number of emancipated slaves is in the 10s of 1000s, maybe as many as 70,000.  And how many ran away upon hearing of the EP?  How many ended up joining the Union army?  But I, in my enthusiasm/exuberance, digress.  The point is how to get students to at least consider the alternative view.  Now Professor Commager was a lion of American History.  Nothing he wrote or said should be easily dismissed.  He asked teachers to assume that, if they present the facts, students are intelligent enough to form their own proper conclusions.  Maybe......  But first impressions (e.g., the view of the EP) die hard, don't they?  Still, I've been happy to think about this.  Again, let me express my appreciation for my college teachers.

I was in an accident a week or so ago.  Some lady, fiddling with her cell phone (Grrrrrr!) rear-ended my car and it was totaled.  That, along with the headache of rescheduling and rearranging so two people can get three or more people around with one car, led me to thinking.  What is it with cell phones and all this gadgetry, esp while driving?  Is it "all about me?," that the safety of others can be so cavalierly disregarded so "I" can use my cell phone?  (I know, I know--I've considered that, too, and although this is an indictment, it's not a blanket indictment, I think.)  But that seems to be the growing case, doesn't it?  I'm reminded of the health care debate and something Hillary Clinton said about ObamaCare.  She said, and so did others closer to home, something like "Why should I have to work at a job, esp if it's one I don't like or not my dream job, just to provide health care for my family?"  OK, I've simplified that somewhat, but it seems to be the argument.  And talk about being "greedy!"  How juvenile a view!  Why should people have to work then at all?  For that matter, why should other people have to pay for yet other people's families?  (No, don't go there.  You don't know my charitable practices.)  Such self-centeredness (Is that a real word?), self-absorption?  Hey, it's your family!  If you didn't/don't want to take care of it, don't have one......  And silly me, back when we needed money (Teachers haven't always made the big bucks, you know.), esp thinking ahead to paying for college for the boys, I had five jobs at one time, at least I was drawing pay checks from five different sources.

The Brian/Bryan Williams (I don't think I ever heard of the guy before his lies were exposed a week or so ago; I don't watch much television.) story is also deeper.  Oh, it has to do with more than this, well, self-centered, self-absorbed guy.  I wonder how many other people make up things about themselves, to shine themselves in better light?  And why do they do that, lie to impress other people?  Why do they say they could have played professional ball, "except that......" or could have gone to such and such a prestigious college "except that.....?"  A lot of people do a lot of really good and impressive things without having to embellish/lie.  (Muhammad Ali one infamously said, "If you can do it, it ain't braggin'.")  And so many of the lies are so easily spotted.  I guess, with the culture we have created, everyone is pressured to be somebody.  It's not enough, as one of my college professors so wisely suggested, that "a conscientious life of raising a family and assisting in the local community," I guess.  To me, this is a fitting and honorable way to live, to borrow another Amherst phrase, "a life of consequence."

Out to shovel......