by Larry Campbell | Apr 28, 2016 | Guest Voices |
Top Ten President Trump First Term Accomplishments
- Convinces the Department of the Interior to declare his hair a native wildlife habitat.
- Declares that since she is just so bubbly and social, Sarah Palin would be the Secretary of the new Department of Twitter.
- While updating his Facebook status, he unfriends the countries of Mexico, China, and North Korea.
- Has a large TRUMP neon sign installed atop the White House.
- Commissions Ted Nugent to scour Webster’s Dictionary to find additional crude, vulgar words that can be used to describe women that threaten bros like Donald and Ted.
- Due to a downturn in the economy is only able to build a wall around Megan Kelly.
4. Citing security concerns, has Ted Cruz deported to his homeland of Canada. Canada immediately declares war on the U. S.
- Signs a contract with SteamMasters to have them coordinate the carpet bombing program.
- Vows to cooperate with Congress because he loves the poorly educated.
- Instead of deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, he has them housed (8 to a room) in his unused hotel rooms. Gives them the “Friends of Trump” room rate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Terry Goodman spent his entire teaching career working with future math teachers at University of Central Missouri (previously Central Missouri State), and officially retired in 2011, after which he returned to his home state of Texas. (His comment was that the move raised the average IQ of both states!) Terry and I collaborated on MANY projects in mathematics education over the years – he was a terrific (and highly organized!) colleague and he remains a close friend! His wife and mine get along famously (too well!) and the four of us have gone on more than one vacation together! We miss him here in Missouri!
by Larry Campbell | Mar 31, 2016 | Guest Voices |
Taking Big Steps – Jerry Johnson
I was raised on a farm near a small-town named Kerkhoven, located in the rural heart of Minnesota. Approximately 40 miles south of the Lake Wobegon area, this town of population 300 was my world. It took some big personal steps to go beyond it.
A first step beyond was prompted by my Senior Class Trip in 1966. Most schools and students do something exotic, and perhaps we did as well. Our graduating class of 35+ students got on a bus and trekked 110 miles east to a shopping center in south Minneapolis. Our sole goal was to not only experience a shopping center, but to also see and ride an escalator. What a trip…up and down between three floors with no effort!
Smitten by the options in a larger city, my next big step was going away to Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Actually, this was a bigger step than I realized, but was comforted by the fact that most of my classmates were also from small rural towns in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. My roommate was Bruce Johnson, a recruited basketball player from Wisconsin. On a dare, in the first week of classes, he and I ran for the position of Vice-President and President of the Freshman Class, respectively. Neither one of us had held any political office in our respective high schools. Our entire campaign was based on handing out Johnson & Johnson Band-Aids to other freshman. We won by a landslide, and my new world had just expanded further.
A third step occurred after getting my mathematics degree at Augsburg College—moving to Los Angeles in 1970 to be a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology. In fact, this was a huge step. Life in Los Angeles and at Cal Tech was far different from my life in Minneapolis and at Augsburg College…and it had no intersection with the world in a small town named Kerkhoven.
Leaving Minnesota for California, I glibly promised friends that I would get on television’s The Dating Game. At that time, the show was a big hit amongst college students, and an even bigger promised step. In the late fall, I applied at the television studio office. After a two week wait, I was called in for a sequence of interviews and practice shows in a “Dating Show” context. About thirty—male and female—had been called in for this round. Two weeks later, I got the special call. I was to be on The Dating Game in the spring!
The show, taped in February of 1971, was an interesting process, as six half-hour shows were taped that afternoon. I could bring three friends, seated in the audience. All of the contestants were cloistered in two bunkers, separated by sex. One television monitor showed the taping process as they called up three “bachelors” at a time. It was a long wait, as I was in the final show being taped.
The show began with us first meeting the host Jim Lange (who passed away in 2014). Then we heard the voice of our female questioner, who we could not see nor could she see us. I was competing against two students from USC and UCLA. I was Bachelor Number Two, if you are familiar with the show format. Much of the show is now a blur,
but I remember one question asked by the female questioner (and decider of our fate): “Bachelor Number Two, if I was a road sign, what would it say?” My first reaction was to blurt out “Curves Ahead” but rejected that as perhaps too provocative, especially for a rural farm boy from Minnesota. So, I replied: “Soft Shoulders Ahead.” The audience applauded and I felt great.
Once the interview process was over (twenty minutes of anxiety for me!), the female questioner had to pick one Bachelor for a weekend date and state her reasoning. She picked Bachelor Number Three, the USC student. Her reason—because she liked his answer of “soft shoulders” to the “road sign” question. I was appalled…actually an understatement! I wanted to yell out: “That was my answer!” But I did nothing of the sort.
Next, the two losing bachelors stepped around the screen to meet the girl who had not selected us. On seeing the girl, I was relieved as she was not someone I was immediately attracted to, perhaps due to a quick defense mechanism on my part. My consolation gift— a men’s hair dryer, which I used until it broke. The trip I missed out on with the girl was a weekend in San Diego.
But the story does not end here. The show was scheduled to be aired on a midweek afternoon in early May of 1971. My hometown of Kerkhoven was in a tizzy…one of their own was going to be on television…on The Dating Game no less! The entire K-12 Kerkhoven School closed at noon and the few town stores shut down, allowing everyone to be home to watch the show, including my parents and younger siblings. Due to a signed contract, I could not reveal the results.
In June, after the showing, I returned home to Kerkhoven for a family visit. Everywhere I went, people asked for my autograph. My father had the best reaction however, stating he was glad I lost as he just didn’t get the feeling that the “girl questioner” was the right mate for me. Unfortunately, I have no video tape of the show, but I do have an audio tape of it and my older brother took a few pictures off the television screen.
This is what life is about, reflecting on the big steps we have taken. When I wake up tomorrow, I will remember another connected sequence of steps. Aren’t memories great?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I have known Jerry – and his wife Millie – Johnson for decades. Jerry and Millie were mathematics educators at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA for almost as long as I’ve known them. (Both are officially retired now.) I worked with Jerry on several projects over the years – he’s got a great sense of humor and a variety of interests (of which we’ve just scratched the surface)!!
As a side note, the Johnsons live just outside of Bellingham on Lake Samish, now the subject of at least FOUR or FIVE of my shared photos over the past years. I was visiting the Johnsons when the shots were taken!
To re-read Jerry’s first Guest Voice, from March 2015, see Cookbook Olio.
by Larry Campbell | Feb 13, 2016 | Guest Voices |
A Man’s Guide to Shopping at Wal-Mart
- When arriving at the Wal-Mart parking lot, you should always be prepared to remove a shopping cart from the space you attempt to enter. In a perfect world, it should be legal for you to find the person who left the cart there and punch him or her in the throat.
- When you enter the store you are likely to be greeted by an excessively happy senior adult (the greeter). No matter how grumpy you may be, smile and say hello to the greeter. After all, when you are a senior adult, your wife may get tired of having you around the house and insist that you, too, become a Wal-Mart greeter.
- If your shopping “list” has more than one item on it, rest assured that at least two of the items on the list will be on opposite walls of the store. While this can be frustrating, you can use this as an opportunity to get in your recommended 10,000 steps for the day. A useful formula to help you estimate how far you must travel to secure all the items on your list is Total Distance = 500 x n, where n is the number of items on your list. If your wife is with you, you can adjust this basic formula to Total Distance = 5000 x n.
- You should never, under any circumstances shop at Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon. In some states, a man shopping at Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon is enough evidence for his wife to have him committed to a secure mental facility.
- When your wife sends you to Wal-Mart with a very detailed, specific shopping list and accompanying instructions, you will not be able to find all of the items – you will need additional help. You have three possible resources for this assistance. You can call your wife and ask her for further instructions/directions. The longer you have been married, the less humiliating this will be for you (she already knows she married a moron). You can ask a friendly, courteous Wal-Mart associate for help. Before doing so, however, you may want to make sure that Wal-Mart does not allow said associate to carry a licensed hand gun. Or, you can go to the Customer Service desk and ask them to give you a handy map or GPS app that you can use to find what you are looking for. Please note that the map or app will only be relevant for a maximum of 30 days at which time the store manager will decide to completely reorganize the entire store.
6. While you may only be at Wal-Mart to shop, you should be aware that others will be there to shop, see the sights, and be entertained (sort of like going to Disneyworld). If you are following such “shoppers” be prepared for sudden stops (for no apparent reason) and long periods of fascination with a variety of Wal-Mart displays (often accompanied with prolonged “oohs” and “aahs”). Some of the more popular sight- seeing venues are aisles containing truck accessories, Wal-Mart designer clothes, Blue Bell ice cream, guns of various types, liquor, and the aisle with Christmas decorations (this display is scheduled to be up around July 4th of this year).
7. If you have more than 72 items in your cart, you should not use the 20 items or less cashier line. You will be ridiculed for not knowing how to read and/or how to count.
8. If you have trouble operating a pickle jar, never attempt to use the Self Check-Out line. If you fail there three times or more, you will only prove that you are not smarter than a 5th grader.
9. As much as you might want to, you should never use a cattle prod to “encourage” the shopper in front of you to move along (this is a form of aisle rage). This use of cattle prods is illegal in the United States except in certain areas of Texas where using a cattle prod on a person is considered just one way to say, “Howdy, pardner!”
10. Be prepared to see people wearing clothes that are completely inappropriate for their age, size, and/or gender. Warning – some of these images you will never be able to get out of your head.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Terry Goodman spent his entire teaching career working with future math teachers at University of Central Missouri (previously Central Missouri State), and officially retired in 2011, after which he returned to his home state of Texas. (His comment was that the move raised the average IQ of both states!) Terry and I collaborated on MANY projects in mathematics education over the years – he was a terrific (and highly organized!) colleague and he remains a close friend! His wife and mine get along famously (too well!) and the four of us have gone on more than one vacation together! We miss him here in Missouri!
by Larry Campbell | Jan 28, 2016 | Guest Voices |
What I Miss
4 AM……I have been home a week and already I am aware of what I miss when I am not out walking and why it calls to me:
* The weight of my pack first thing in the morning, that appendage which becomes a physical part of my being…..if missing I am off balance
* Early morning, lying in bed, stretches….moments convincing the body it does in fact want to rise and walk a new day…. See new sights….take in the smells of the earth
* Bells, tolling in symphony or clanging in simplicity…..I miss the bells…I will always miss the bells
* The smell of wet earth…turned fields, moss covered rock walls along the path…musty, rich earth
* A glass of chilled Tuscan wine at the end of a long hard day…soothing ….earned
* The thrill and deep sense of gratitude for an extra pillow on the bed
* A violet butterfly circling as I walk, tempting me to ask ” Who are you? What do you want me to see?”
* Plates of steaming pasta….simple, no elegant sauces or presentations…..fresh vine ripened tomato and basil; rich thick cream with chunks of crispy ham; pasta tossed in infused garlic oil……simple, basic…filling
* Monitoring the sun to gauge time… testing my abilities against a worn beaten Timex
* Dodging the rain under the protection of an olive grove….. Dining on wild boar sausage bites and tangy wedges of Parmesan as the cloudburst passes
* Boots off, toes airing mid day, in the shadows of a medieval villa or castle fortress
* Quiet……walking in quiet….. deep in thought…time passing yet totally still….Altered dimensions
I walk to discover….places, people, culture at the very core and essence of a land. I walk and I discover more of me….each and every time. I find more of the woman I am and was meant to be.
I walk to share with those who cannot and, hopefully, tempt those who can to do the same.
I walk because I am meant to walk.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kate Elliott and I attended the same Writer’s Workshop in Chicago in March, but we didn’t cross paths there. We first ‘met’ when I shared information with these writers about my Guest Voice feature. I wish now we had gotten to visit in Chicago! I’m fascinated by her story – and her stories. She spent over 30 years in hospitality management before discovering long distance walking in her mid-fifties. The story above arises from her walk on the Via Francigena in Italy in 2015. You may learn more about Kate and read her blogs at Www.walkingwomanwalkingwithkate.blogspot.com.
by Larry Campbell | Jan 1, 2016 | Guest Voices |
A New Year’s Resolution
It was the best New Year’s resolution I ever made.
In 2012, I made a New Year’s resolution to visit a branch of my family tree that had long been missed. At the time I had not seen my uncle Don and aunt Jean since my wedding nearly twenty years before, and the path my life had taken since that day had me somewhat ashamed to do so. When I asked my uncle to walk me down the aisle to my new husband, he accepted the invitation with happiness as he stepped into the role for his brother, my father. He and aunt Jean could not have been more lovely as they traveled 500 miles to attend my little wedding in a small church in rural Arkansas.
I practically floated that day, surrounded by my family and looking forward to the future.
Only four years later, though, the excitement of that day was only a fleeting memory as I signed divorce papers and walked out of the life I had so happily walked into. I remember the first several months after my divorce, when I would sit in the dark of the evening and wonder how I would tell my aunt and uncle the news, and secretly hoping my mother already had. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that I had asked them to travel all those miles to a wedding that did not last until the traditional anniversary gift of wood.
Those few months that I delayed calling them, soon moved into a year, and another year, and another, until it reached a point where I was more ashamed of not contacting them in so long than I was about the demise of my marriage. As the year 2012 dawned, I made one resolution: go see them. Period.
Admittedly, I took the coward’s approach to my first contact by writing an email, which, if not answered, would never be clear on whether the reason was deliberately non-responsive due to the recipient’s complete disappointment in me or whether the tubes and wires of cyberspace had claimed my email as victim, undelivered.
But my sweet aunt Jean answered. She answered my request to visit with the delightful exuberance of someone who just found $20 from the previous year in the pocket of a winter coat they just pulled from the closet. My years of self-imposed exile were melted away, and the re-connection began.
To put off going to see someone you love is folly. Go today. Go this week. Book your ticket tonight. Go see them. Tell them they mattered. — Jean Ellen Whatley
Since that moment in January 2012, when my email inbox glowed with the love of Jean, my journey to become my best self began. You see, Jean was the catalyst. Her clear blue eyes framed by curls of silver hair have the power to instantly put a person at ease. In her presence, I felt calm for the first time in years, because she knew me. She knew me without even telling her anything about the years we missed by being apart. I didn’t have to hide with her; she loved me anyway. With that, I have been able to see my life with fresh potential.
That is Jean: her amiable demeanor infuses anyone near her with the desire to be better. She keeps us on the right path without judging our steps. She makes us better without lecturing. She illuminates a room without the need for Mr. Edison’s inventions. When she hugs you, you know you are loved. She’s the kind of person that makes you feel better just by being near her.
And when she left on New Year’s Eve, she left like a lady, quietly stepping away into the night, where she took her place among the stars.
It was the best New Year’s resolution I ever made.
Don & Jean Herrman – 2012
Jean Herrmann passed away in the early hours of Dec 31, 2015, just four days shy of her 86th birthday. She and Don were married 62 years.
About The Author
Rita Herrmann’s days are – as she puts it, “. . . spent in the corporate world of the financial industry with dozens of hours a week knee-deep in spreadsheets . . ” Outside of her spreadsheets, her life is much simpler, and she finds her solace in writing, which she re-discovered after some life-changing events a few years back. You can learn more about her, and read more of her blogs at www.RitaHerrmann.com
by Larry Campbell | Oct 29, 2015 | Guest Voices |
On Returning To Liberty for a 45th Reunion
How wonderful it was to return to a prosperous and vibrant Liberty for my high school class’ 45th Reunion. I never recall Liberty being so green and lush or an August in Liberty being so mild. Old landmarks still survive – the Square with Whiteside Jewelers, D’Agee Florist, Brants, The Jesse James Museum; Mace’s Shoe Repair; along with the venerable Tribune; the nearby churches; the Statute of Liberty reproduction in front of the elementary school; the old courthouse and William Jewell , – New businesses thrive – a popular Mexican restaurant where a hardware store used to be; an upscale restaurant and bar (with sadly indifferent service) on the north side of the square where an abstract company had been, wine-tasting events at cocktail hour in an old bank building now a gift shop; a bunch of cool antique shops and many more gift shops where grocery stores, law offices and drug stores used to be –then there’s the neat Corbin Theater in a space that was Rexall Drugs; a little ice cream parlor; a coffee shop— and the fantastic Farmers’ Market on Saturday run (we’re told) by a sixteen year old. In 1964 when we graduated there was no farmers’ market on Saturday morning around the square – in fact the farmers themselves had quit coming into town on Saturday. Congratulations Historic Liberty you’re fighting a battle that we – as the ’64 graduating class of Liberty – hope will prove a winner. And now a second high school next year! Unheard of!! And how many elementary schools-five?
Sadly many of us felt development has taken a big bite out of the town we remember. How awful is that drive from I-35 along Route 152 into Liberty! – What are there? One hundred fast food joints? Did someone really travel from Florida to get fifty-two free meals at a new Chick-Fill-A? And those beautiful oak trees on the site that was the Clayview Country Club– what demented soul cut them down and put up a CVS drug chain store? Certainly not a 1964 Liberty High graduate who at seventeen or eighteen trudged up to that old high school on the hill carrying an arm full of books – proud of the new gym that had been completed a few years before and fighting the dust and noise of a new classroom addition that would not be completed until after they graduated. And certainly not someone who loves this town as does the vast majority of my ‘64 graduating class.
Our class gathered on a beautiful cool clear summer night on August 21st for dinner and to hear Liberty’s own Lori Tucker (Loretta Houston class of ‘64) sing a set of jazz standards accompanied by her husband and a keyboardist. What fun it was to watch through much older eyes a community breathe in and out on that August weekend – when big issues of the day seemed to pause for a moment allowing this small group of Liberty natives a chance to recall football games and band practices, phys ed classes and debate team trips, high school proms and math teachers, little league baseball games and girl scout camp and to allow a time to appreciate the new and the old, the good and the bad of a community that was so much a part of our lives and that formed each of us in a thousand different ways. It was a summer night to enjoy for a very few hours a group of people that knew each other when we were really at a quite vulnerable time of our lives. – A wonderful odd mixture of people who shared with each other the life experiences of a small Midwestern community and that belonged to a high school organization that no one else can ever join. A class that survived the sixties to tell about it and who watched a somewhat sleepy community of some eight to ten thousand grow into a major suburban Kansas City powerhouse. A class that continues to look to the future but a class that still enjoys every few years stepping back and inhaling the nostalgia of having grown up in such a fine city.
About The Author
Joe Roberts is native of Liberty, Missouri. He graduated with a BA degree from the University Of Missouri and a JD degree from George Washington University in Washington, DC. He retired from the Virginia civil litigation firm of Brandt, Jennings, Roberts, Davis and Snee in 2002 after almost 30 years of practice, after which he served as a counselor for the Virginia Insurance Advocacy program and as a volunteer for the Virginia Guardianship Association and the Arlington County Agency on Aging. He now works as an estate planning attorney for The Collins Firm in McLean, Virginia. He is married with two children and two grandchildren and resides in Arlington, Virginia.
