Rant #3,671: I'm On the Outside Looking In

What has happened to our country?

And by the way, the Republicans and the Democrats are unified in finding new ways to destroy the United States of America.

But today, after the Democratic fillibuster--or whatever that idiotic display was--let's focus on the Republicans, and squarely on our president, Donald Trump.

I posted this on Facebook yesterday, and it pretty much speaks for itself.

"There go my wife and my retirement savings.

These tariffs are killing the stock market, and taking away everything the two of us worked hsrd for for decades.

Tough times for people like us, at least short term, until the market rejiggers itself. Who knows when that will be, if ever.

But everything we have gained, we have now lost.

There are only so many hard times we can endure.

The idea is a good one--to boost U.S. manufacturing--but this is NOT the way to do it, on the backs of people like us.

Are you listening, Mr. President?"

Disgraceful. Totally disgraceful.

And I wasn't quite done yet.

"The Dow dropped 1,200 points. Last month, my wife and I lost quite a bit of money in the market, and now this. We aren't wealthy, so it is a huge hit for us."

It was the worst day in five years, and whatever "gains" our country experiences, if any, will take years to realize.

And I had plenty more to say.

"The president said on his social media site, "The operation is over. The patient lived, and is healing. The prognosis is that the patient will be far stronger, bigger, better, and more resilient than ever before.'"

Time shall tell, but right now, my wife and I aren't too happy."

And I summed it all up with this last missive.

"They are great fears. We are barely managing as it is. We have cut lots of corners to even get to that point, but there are just so many corners you can cut before there is absolutely nothing to cut anymore.

And where are we with the president's pledge to rescind Social Security taxes?

The honeymoon, I'm afraid, is over."

Wall Street is one thing, but all of this stuff is hurting the general population on Main Street.

Whatever buying power we have is totally negated when everything costs so much more than it did a year ago.

And you just know that the cost of all of these tarrifs is going to be passed down to you and I, the general consumer who can't afford much anymore with what little money we have.

Yes, I do get a pittance from Social Security, but let's be honest about my salary; I am making maybe one-third of what I should be making at this point in time from my remote job compared to if I was working full time.

Both my wife and I are supposedly retirees, me not by choice. My wife is forced to work, I am forced to work, and we are probably going to have to work until we expire.

My son can't find a job doing anything, and what is a family like us supposed to do?

Again, what the president wants to do is not a bad idea, but what he is doing to reach his goal is destroying our international friendships, making us appear to be tyrannical, and is destroying the backbone of ths country--

The middle class.

If this type of direction goes on any longer, that class will not exist anymore--

There will be the "haves" and the "have nots," and most people will be in the latter category.

And that's just not right.

Have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,670: Some Like It Hot

It's Earth Month!

Everyone complains about the weather, and I certainly do.

It is certainly the craziest during the spring, when temperatures can range from the high 20s to the low 80s overnight.

We had a day like that last week, when one day, it was in the 80s and the next day was in the 30s.

People went from shorts and then right back to winter jackets in one fell swoop.

Yesterday, it was in the 40s, and as busy as I was, I still felt it, having the heat on in the car for at least part of the time that I drove from here to there.

Mother Nature has it all on us, and we can't control the weather--

We can just experience it, and do the best that we can.

Some people believe that moving south is the solution, but that isn't necessarily true.

And if it isn't the weather, you have hurricanes and other weather disturbances in Florida and other southern states to contend with.

For me, the south is a nice place to visit, but I don't know if it is a place where I want to live full time.

There are plusses, and there are certainly minuses when you compare the north with the south.

On a post that spoke about the crazy weather we have experienced in the winter and the spring this year, some of the posters put up that they want to move south to experience more warmth.

Yes, I have been in Florida and Georgia many times since 1975, and yes, during those 50 years, I have enjoyed the heat like anyone would.

But the first time I went to Florida, in 1975 or so, I did not feel the heat at all.

Here is what I wrote:

"My first trip to Florida was in 1975, and that was the Spring Break where for the first time, temperatures in Miami Beach reached only 32 degrees.

My friends and I were in a room with air conditioning that you could not shut off, and we put towels over the air conditioning and slept in our winter jackets.

All the coconuts froze up, so you couldn't even get one that was good without a lot of trouble. 

It did warm up, but I think over that week, we went to the beach maybe once or twice."

Shiver me timbers!

And that happened a half century ago, when the term "climate change" wasn't even around.

Look, before you know it, it will be plenty warm up in the north, so we just have to bide our time and wait for that to happen.

At least let's be happy that we didn't get too much snow this past season.

I think that threat is over, but Mother Nature generally doesn't care what the date is--

And she may still have an April Fools surprise for us up her sleeve.

Rant #3,669: Don't Breathe a Word

Yesterday was an extremely busy day, and today will be even busier.

I have several things related to employment that I have to do with my son, and I have a ton of other things to do, including work.

I am really busy for another reason, but you will just have to wait a couple of days before I let you in on that.

Don't breathe a word ... but you can't, because you don't know about it ... but if you figure it out, please don't say anything.

One hint: 

No, it has nothing to do with hair suddenly sprouting on my decsdes-long bald head.

That is all you are going to get from me.

But it is all good.

Otherwise, not much has changed with my family and myself, only that I am another day closer to my birthday on April 28.

Twenty-six days, and I finally catch up with my wife in age.

Pretty neat being the young-un here ...

But not really, because our son isn't even 30 yet!

His turn comes in August.

We have to do something special for him, but we haven't decided on anything yet.

I don't remember what I did on my own 30th birthday.

That was way back in 1987; it seems like it happened another life ago, and for me, that is just what it was.

Heck, I wasn't even a father yet!

That is all I am going to say about it.

It is funny that as you get older, you can definitely break down your life in stages.

I will call that era "My Adult Training Wheels" stage, but it didn't last too long, and I was on a two-wheeler stage pretty quickly.

But fast forward to today, almost 38 years later.

And I am as busy as I have ever been.

I guess it is better to be busy than bored.

Rant #3,668: Damn the Torpedoes

Torpedo bats.

April Fools!

No it isn't.

This is the latest, real controversy revolving around Major League Baseball, and it is just a tempest in a teapot.

On Opening Day weekend, the New York Yankees not only bear the visiting Milwaukee Brewers, they nearly obliterated them off the face if the earth.

The Yankees hit a total of 15 home runs during the three games, with four by Aaron Judge alone, including three on Saturday.

I mean, they don't call them "The Bronx Bombers" for nothing, but some think there is much more to it than that.

They point to the bats that some of them used, which are shaped a little bit differently than other bats.

The shape of the bats was supposedly created by individualized information gleaned by the team's analytics department about where certain batters are more likely to hit the ball on their bats.

Each of these bats is a little thicker around that area, and the theory is that if it is thicker, the ball will propel harder off each batter's individual sweet spot.

Not all players are using these bats; Aaron Judge, who hit 58 homers last season, isn't, but Jazz Chisholm, who hit three Homer's this past weekend, is.

So you just know some players believe the team is cheating--

But MLB has quashed that talk, saying the bats are 100 percent legal due to its rule book.

One player from the Brewers said that since it is the Yankees who have benefited from their use of these bats, MLB is letting it go because, "They are The Yankees."

All nonsense.

Maybe the Brewers' pitching staff is really that bad.

Maybe the weather had a lot to do with it, as it was very warm in the Bronx this past Daturday afternoon, the wind was blowing out, and the Yankees were facing their former pitcher, Nestor Cortes, so they were very familiar with his stuff.

That day, they hit nine homers, which isn't a record, bu the way.

All of this probably contributed to the weekend outburst, and maybe the bats had something to do with it.

Other teams are probably a bit jealous thst the Yankees one-upped them and used modern technology to design a bat that can pummel 90-100-mph pitches.

Funny, two points that have to be taken into account, but aren't:

1) The Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton used a variation of this type of bst during the 2024 postseason and World Series, and,

2) The bat was actually at least partially designed by soneone linked to the Florida Marlins' coaching staff ... yes, the same team that is traditionally one of the worst teams in the sport.

So the Yankees were just onto this quicker than other teams, and other teams' players--including the New York Mets' Francisco Lindor--already use the bat (he is still looking at his first hit of the 2025 season, through the first three games).

You just know that other teams will now jump on this bandwagon, and you just know that when one of the users goes 0 for 5 in a game, he will bemoan the moment he tried the new bat.

And that's baseball.

Rant #3,667: Leaving It All Behind

Being confined to bed for such a long time forced me to put off various activities until I was ready to move about as my left leg strengthened.

Over the past year or so, I did just about everything that I couldn't do when I was laid up, everything from driving a car to going food shopping to seeing my son play basketball and bowl.

But as I checked off things from my list of things I wanted to get back to doing, there was still one thing I hadn't done, all these months later.

I had never been to our storage unit, where we are keeping a lot of our "stuff" because the apartment we moved to was way too small to hold everything.

Well, I can now cross that activity off my list, because on Friday afternoon, I finally visited our storage unit, going there with my wife.

The storage building is just about a mile away from where we currently live, but it may as well have been on the other side of the world, because I hadn't seen any of the things stored there for the past 18 months or so.

We have so much stored there that is very important to us, including my LP collection, books, photo albums, larger photos, family heirlooms, etc.

And I hadn't seen any of them in a long time.

So close, yet so far.

The place where we have all of this stuff stored is quite modern and quite nice.

You need a code to get your car in through the gates, and once inside the building, you need a key to get into the unit.

And the whole place is climate controlled, and the air conditioning was on when we were there.

When we moved to our apartment, we had a major problem with the original movers, and with our original storage facility.

We had to move our things to another facility, and our things ended up where they are now.

The original movers damaged or destroyed some of our things--including the plastic receptacles that many of these things were placed in--and we also believe that some of the things that we had decided to store were, let's say, pilfered, although we would have to go through everything piece by piece to ascertain that.

Anyway, my wife warned me thst I should be prepared for what I was going to see, and as I turned the key in the lock, I was prepared for the worst.

Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought, but yes, it was pretty messy.

I went through a few boxes, and it was like I was meeting up with old friends I hadn't seen in years.

The first thing I saw were framed pictures of my sister and myself, probably from about 60 years ago.

I rediscovered numerous books, photos, and other things, and it is really heartbreaking that this stuff is stored away, just sitting there, and not being enjoyed.

When we moved, we threw out bags and bags and bags of different things, and, in fact, I was first hurt lugging a bag of junk down the stairs to the curb.

We spent about 15 minutes there, and I took three small things back to our apartment:

A book of Monkees cards--don't laugh, these are very valuable.

A scrapbook of articles I wrote for the old Island Ear publication and for other publications--the beginning of my professional writing career.

A book on The Little Rascals/Our Gang short features series, a book that is long out of print and very difficult to find.

I wish I could have brought home everything, but I was happy with what I was able to bring back with me.

With these three things in tow, we locked the door behind us and we left the building, having to use our code to drive out of the place.

It was a nice place to visit, but I do wish we had the room to bring all of it back with us.

But alas, that just wasn't meant to be.

Rant #3,666: Maybe Tomorrow

I am so tired.

This week has been a busy one, what with work and everything else I have to do.

I am bushed ... I could use a couple of days where I don't do very much.

This is not retirement ... it simply can't be.

I think I need a retirement counselor, if there is such a thing.

This person would need to instruct me about "how to enjoy retirement without any money."

Is it possible?

Not in the environment we are in now, that's for sure.

But getting back to time management ...

I barely have time to write this blog five days a week.

I sleep pretty well, but I have slept better.

I seem to do a lot of thinking in my dreams.

So I'm not counting sheep ... I am going over things that bother me, and there is plenty that gets my goat right now.

I have to tell you, I have a lot to be thankful for, but there are times that my personal situation hits me right between the eyes.

I am brought back to reality each and every morning, when i prepare for the day.

I am so much better than I was, but the stark reality hits me when I shower and get dressed.

Not that either is a struggle anymore ... it is just so much more difficult to do these things than it once was.

It sounds crazy, but putting on socks is the worst.

i do it, but when i put on my left sock, i have to contort myself a bit, and it just brings everything bad back to me.

Yes, I am whining, and i am very thankful to all who got me through this ... but it is still difficult.

In general, I wish things were better all around for myself and my family, but I guess you could say we are holding our own, or maybe just treading water.

But there's always hope.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

And while I contemplate all of this gobbledegook, how about ending the week by reading the next installment of my novel?

I would appreciate it.

And while you are doing it, have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

22

The students filed back into the classroom pretty quickly after the lunch break, and as usual, they were led by Melissa, who took her usual seat, the first seat by the door in the first row.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Abraham,” she said, with even more of a perk in her speech than normal. “It is so good to see you again after a nice lunch break.”

“It is good to see you, Melissa, and your classmates here,” “Mr. Abraham” replied. “We have plenty to do this afternoon, so let’s dive right into it.”

Melissa nodded over to another student seated next to her, and whispered, “Sure, he is going to be taking a dive, all right.” The other student smiled, nodding in agreement.

"Mr. Abraham” began the afternoon lessons, and the day went quickly for Abraham Lincoln Panim, as the clock quickly got closer to the 3 p.m. end of the school day time.

During the arithmetic part of the lesson, “Mr. Abraham” turned to the class as he finished writing on the blackboard.

“Does everyone understand this?” he asked, looking around the room. “It is getting late in the day, we only have a few minutes left, so if there is anyone not understanding this, we need to talk about it—“

“I’m not sure about it,” said Melissa as she raised her hand to get “Mr. Abraham’s attention. Responding to her plea for help, Abraham Lincoln Panim walked over to her, anticipating her questions.

“What seems to be the matter, what’s the problem?” he asked, as he bent down to see Melissa’s work.

“I don’t know, what is the problem?” Melissa asked, as she yanked on Abraham Lincoln Panim’s scarf, which went from being held tightly around his face to falling on the floor, revealing his secret to the entire class.

“My brother said it was you!” Melissa screeched “You are that rat-faced guy that my brother told me about. You have a rat face! And you hate cheese!”

The class laughed, and Abraham Lincoln Panim bent to the floor to quickly retrieve his pulled-off scarf.

And as he was doing this, he realized … Melissa Hartung was Brandon Hartung’s younger sister, the very person who had terrorized him when he was in nursery school and when he was in college.

“Not only did my brother warn me about you, but Mr. Sedall said you were the rat-faced guy!” Melissa bragged to the class. “They both knew what they were talking about—you are a rat face!”

“Rat face! Rat face! Rat face!” the class yelled almost in unison, and Abraham Lincoln Panim was only saved by the 3:00 p.m. bell that rang.

The class filed past him as he was still on the floor, trying to cover his face with his scarf.

He sat there as the last child filed out of the room.

Rant #3,665: Start

Today, the 2025 Major League Baseball season begins ...

Although it already began, when the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs played a two-game series in Japan last week.

So, the Dodgers are 2-0, the Cubs 0-2.

And yes, Shohei Ohtani--the very marketable/highly unmarketable star--has a home run already under his belt.

Ohtani is an enigma, and MLB really doesn't know what to do with him.

He could be the game's most highly marketable star, as he is not only a great hitter, but also a superior pitcher, the first such bombastic combination since Babe Ruth, who did what he did a century ago.

But the Babe became the true face of the game because he was, by far, its most marketable player, appearing in ads, movies--

You name it, and he was there.

Ohtani--and MLB--have a problem, and that is that while he is highly marketable, he speaks no English, so that kind of stifles his marketability.

Don't get me wrong, he DOES speak English, understands it, and even with a strong accent, could use the language in a variety of merchandising tools.

The problem is that it is something of a "badge of honor" for Japanese players not to speak English to reporters and the public, instead relying on personal.interpreters to get their message out.

The Seattle Nariners' Ichiro Suzuki certainly laid the groundwork for this during his Hall of Fame career, and the New York Yankees' Hideki Matsui followed suit--

Only to be outed by teammate Derek Jeter years after both of their careers ended, at one point telling the press that Matsui spoke and understood English as well as anyone.

Don't get me wrong; Ohtani has been in a number of commercials, but he has scant little to say.

Compare that to, for instance, the Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James, who is a marketing goldmine for the NBA, and often has too much to say.

Ohtani makes a goldmine from sales of his shirts and other things, but he woukd make even more if he spoke English.

This is a conundrum that MLB has had to deal with since Ohtani has been in MLB, and while the game has the Yankees' Aaron Judge as something of a substitute, can you imagine if Ohtani could be persuaded to speak English?

As it is, like Ichiro and Matsui, Ohtani has made baseball-crazy Japan even wilder about their adopted national pasttime--

Brought to those shores by none other than Babe Ruth when he barnstormed in Asia prior to World War II.

Whatever the case, the 2025 season officially begins today, with Ohtani and Judge leading the way.

Play ball!--

Or in Japanese--

プレイボール

Pureibōru