Category Archives: Guy stuff

‘Five Masculine Moments’

OK, twice in one week I’m succumbing to the temptation to share stuff sent out on mass emails.

And yet again, as with the dog picture, it’s from Samuel Tenenbaum, who forwarded it with the message, “Have a good laugh!”

Mia McLeod trashes Identity Politics

Sometimes Rep. Mia McLeod loses me with her rhetoric. But hey, I — or some other grumpy heterosexual white guy — could have written this, from a missive she sent out Saturday:

A reporter asked me whether I chose race over gender when I supported Sen. Obama over Sen. Clinton in 2008. But he didn’t stop there. Next, he wanted to know whether I’m supporting Hillary now because she’s a woman.

Really?

His questions weren’t meant to be offensive. They just were.

I didn’t choose race then or gender now. I chose the person I believed to be the best candidate…the one whose vision and life experiences resonate most with me…the one whose passion and purpose move and inspire me.

So why are my choices presumably defined by or limited to race and gender?

If race trumps everything, shouldn’t I be down with Dr. Ben Carson, whose neurosurgical skills I’ve always admired and respected, but whose politics I can neither understand nor appreciate? Should I believe he’s the right “prescription for America,” simply because he’s the only black man who’s running?

And when it comes to gender, am I expected to support any woman who runs for office…just because she’s a woman?

If that’s the general sentiment, I can see how we got Nikki Haley….twice….

So how is Mia is trashing Identity Politics just as I would do? I guess because our “life experiences resonate.”

You see, we were both born in Bennettsville…

Cruz would be less appalling if he were more of a, y’know…

You’ve heard by know about Donald Trump’s nodding, winking, mock-shocked repetition of a vulgarity aimed at Ted Cruz. And if you haven’t, well, excuse this violation of my civility policy:

“She just said a terrible thing,” Trump said with a smile. “You know what she said? Shout it out.”

The woman shouted louder, but still couldn’t be heard throughout the cavernous arena.

“Okay, you’re not allowed to say and I never expect to hear that from you again,” Trump said with mock seriousness, like a father reprimanding a child. “She said — I never expect to hear that from you again! — she said: ‘He’s a pussy.’ That’s terrible.”…

There’s been a goodly amount of appropriate harrumphing over this, but I haven’t seen any address the “substance,” such as it was.

And the thing is, Cruz would be a more appealing, or at least less appalling, if he were just a wee bit more of a, well, you know.

There’s a long tradition of tough-talking in our politics, but Sen. Ted Cruz takes ersatz machismo to a level that is frankly embarrassing, such as in the video above, in which he promises that “if you wage jihad against us, you’re signing your death warrant,” and that he will never “apologize for America.”

You know what? As uncharacteristic as it would be for me, if Ted Cruz gets elected, I will apologize for America.

Here’s the problem for people like Cruz and Trump both: As much as they’d like to portray the president as a “rhymes with wussy,” Obama’s been actually killing terrorists right and left, including the grand kahuna of the jihad crowd himself. We all know that, if you get mixed up in terrorism, you make Obama’s list.

But he does it like a man of respect, like Vito and Michael, never uttering a threat, but quietly whacking guys left and right as needed. The heads of the other four families thought Michael was a, you know, but they found out different.

Cruz is a wannabe Sonny, only without the rep to back it up. Really, when did Cruz make his bones? Never, to my knowledge.

Cruz needs to get in touch a bit more with his, um, gynecological side, just enough to dial back the empty strutting about. It would make him less contemptible. Maybe then we could take him seriously as a man…

The look that’s supposed to scare the terrorists.

Y’all are all getting ads like this too, right? I said, RIGHT?

The ad at right, generated by Google Adsense to appear in the right-hand rail of the blog for my viewing pleasure, is weird on a number of levels.

What’s the connection between hot women and low testosterone? Is the theory that guys who have need of the product will look at the picture and think, “I feel nothing, so I must have low T”? I would think that most heterosexual males would be persuaded, by looking at a picture like that, that one thing they do not need is more testosterone. I mean, seriously, did Ulysses think he had low T as he was tied to the mast, his naked ears tortured by the sirens sweetly singing?
Who are the ad wizards who wrote that copy? You’re saying this is “What Happens When You Take a Testosterone Supplement?” Well, then, no thanks! I don’t want to look like that! (I mean, it might be gratifying to see Bruce/Caitlin Jenner turn green with envy… but not that gratifying.)
Finally… why am I seeing this? I promise you that I have not searched for “What do I do about low testosterone?” or “Large-busted young women who wear T shirts that are way too small.” Hey, maybe that’s the problem! Maybe Google assumes that if you’re NOT searching for such pictures, you must have low T….

But of course, it’s not just me, is it? All of you fellas are getting the same ad, right? I said, right?

I don’t know. I just think it’s weird. And what about all those ads about meeting Asian women? Is that just because I’ve written about going to Thailand?…

But we’ll all keep reading ‘Playboy’ for the ‘interesting articles,’ right, guys?

And we’ll mean it — if we bother. Which I doubt. Seriously, those of you who are no longer adolescent boys — when was the last edition you bothered to pick up?

The shocking news:

Last month, Cory Jones, a top editor at Playboy, went to see its founder, Hugh Hefner, at the Playboy Mansion.

In a wood-paneled dining room, with Picasso and de Kooning prints on the walls, Jones nervously presented a radical suggestion: THE magazine, a pioneer of the revolution that helped take sex in America from furtive to ubiquitous, should stop publishing images of naked women.

Hefner, 89, but still listed as editor-in-chief, agreed. As part of a redesign that will be unveiled in March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude.

Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

For a generation of American men, reading Playboy was a cultural rite, an illicit thrill consumed by flashlight. Now every teenage boy has an Internet-connected phone instead. Pornographic magazines, even those as storied as Playboy, have lost their shock value, their commercial value and their cultural relevance….

In other developments:

Apple will no longer produce cool gadgets for the consumer market.
Coca-Cola will drop its line of sugary soda.
Carter will no longer produce its little liver pills.

OK, that last one might have actually happened. At least they don’t call them that any more. But you get the idea.

Frankly, I’d call this a desperate plea for attention. I mean, seriously — if nudity has become passé, why remove it? Why not have your models nude sometimes and not nude other times, as the photographer chooses? Since it’s so last century and all to care about it.

Also, you know, there’s nothing particularly new about this. In the past, the centerfold models were often partly clad. Partly because that was sexy, and partly to distinguish “Playboy” from “Penthouse” and “Hustler.”

I’m thinking the plan is to get people to run out and buy the first edition under the new policy just to see what the clothed centerfold looks like, then everybody will say “uh-huh,” and go back to not buying the magazine, ever.

Because, as everyone knows (hence the joke), the articles around the nekkid women weren’t really that “in-ter-esting.”

The last “Playboy” I bought for the “interesting articles,” and I suppose the last one I bought, period, was the November 1976 edition — the one with the Jimmy Carter “lust in my heart” interview.

And you know, I haven’t missed it. I don’t think I will in the future, either.

I knew Strom Thurmond. And Joe Biden is no Strom Thurmond (yet)

Washington is abuzz with how Joe Biden has apparently devolved from good ol’ Uncle Joe to the “Creepy Uncle.”

The latest cause of these musings — and perhaps the last straw, some are indicating — is the incident in which the veep was all over the wife of Ashton Carter while the new SecDef was being sworn in:

Joe Biden Got A Little Handsy With The New Defense Secretary’s Wife http://t.co/MnEyWjx8Yw pic.twitter.com/Cz2fW0JiWn

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) February 17, 2015

This has led the media, both new and old, to recall similar incidents. New York magazine has put together a slideshow. Enjoy.

The Washington Post has run a fun piece imagining an intervention in which everyone Joe knows — “Jill, Barack, Michelle, Sasha and Malia, John (Kerry), John (McCain) and several women he recognizes only from having told them, once, in passing ‘No dates ’til you’re 30!'” stage an intervention to put an end to his pawing and whispering. An excerpt:

“Do any of these women look comfortable?” Sasha asks. She produces the most recent picture.

Joe squints at the picture. “Looks pretty comfortable to me,” he says. “Jill, that’s a comfortable face, right? That face says ‘I’m comfortable around this suave man.’”

“No,” Jill says….

Then there’s the Top Ten list of what Biden may have whispered to Stephanie Carter, courtesy of David Letterman:

10. “Let me know when this gets weird.”
9. “What is that, Pert Plus?”
8. “You have the clavicle of a much younger woman.”
7. “Have you seen ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’?”
6. “Is that the necklace I gave you?”
5. “I haven’t heard a word your husband said.”
4. “You look like young Jeanne Kirkpatrick.”
3. “Ever heard of a second Second Lady?”
2. “I don’t have a time machine but I do have a hot tub.”
1. “In the words of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, ‘I’m not 100 percent sober.'”

Not everyone is taking it lightly, though. Here’s a more serious piece setting out why our gregarious vice president should “probably” cut it out.

Yet Joe is a piker, a paragon of 21st-century Proximity Correctness, compared to his old friend Strom Thurmond, whom he famously eulogized so eloquently right here in Columbia.

Just to give you an idea of the difference, let’s turn again to the pages of New York magazine, which, in a piece about Sally Quinn, quoted from a book about Strom by our own Jack Bass:

Washington writer Sally Quinn told of a 1950s reception where: “My mother and I headed for the buffet table. As we were reaching for the shrimp, both of us jumped and let out a shriek. Senator Strom Thurmond, grinning from ear to ear, had one hand on my behind and the other on my mother’s. As I recall, we were both quite flattered, and thought it terribly funny and wicked of Ol’ Strom.”…

Perhaps we should stage the actual intervention sometime before Joe reverts to that standard of groping…

Like we really needed another place like this…

Yesterday, my wife was trying to dress my grandson, who’s two-and-a-half, to go outside and play in the chill. She couldn’t find a coat that fit him. Then, she found one of his older sister’s heavy coats, and tried to put that on him.

“No!” he said.

What was wrong?, she asked.

“Purple!”

She corrected him: “No, it’s pink.”

“Girl!” he said. He has lately taken to calling himself, rather emphatically, “Boy,” and instead of struggling the way he used to to call his sister by name, she is “Girl.” As are each of the Twins, his cousins.

We don’t know where he’s gotten this all of a sudden (not from me, not from my wife), but it’s taken quite a hold on him. Call it pink, call it purple, call it what have you, he wasn’t having any of it. Nothing against girls; they can wear that if they’d like. But it’s not for him.

So today, we went to find El Machito something he would accept at Once Upon a Child in Harbison. We found something that we hope he’ll like. It’s safety-vest orange on the outside, and has an olive drab quilted liner that he can pull out and wear separately. He might think the orange is too much like pink. We’ll see. The main point is, it’s warm.

But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about…

After we got the coat, I dropped my wife off at the store that went into the space that once held my favorite store in the world, the Harbison Barnes and Noble. I wanted nothing to do with it. I went to run an errand at the mall.

When I came back, she was still in there. So I made myself go in. And you know what I found?

I found a place that looked, to me, almost exactly like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx and Ross. Yet another place like those. Nothing special about it. OK, technically, this place had brand-name items those other places lack. My wife showed me a pair of canvas Adidas shoes the right size for our grandson, as she was explaining this place was a little more expensive than those other places.

I said it wasn’t too bad — less than three dollars for a pair of toddler tennis shoes. She said, “What are you talking about?” I said, look, they’re $2.97. Then I looked more closely: $29.97.

“Thirty dollars?!?!” I said. “Thirty dollars for a little kid’s canvas shoes, like Keds?” She told me to lower my voice and said yes, and that this was very reasonable; elsewhere they’d probably cost $45.

I was happy to get out of there. Is just seemed so unfair. The B&N had been a special place. Yes, it was as chain, but I liked it better than any other B&N, and I like them all.

There was nothing special about this, not to me.

But you know what really hurt? I had had trouble finding a nearby parking place outside. That never happened when it was a Barnes and Noble. Which doesn’t seem right. In that same shopping center were two other stores that looked just like this one, regardless of quality of merchandise. The bookstore was special. But there it is.

Bryan Caskey’s shotgun tie

I had lunch today with Bryan Caskey at his club.

We’d had drinks at my club recently, so it was his turn.

We talked about the kinds of things gentlemen talk about at real gentlemen’s clubs (as opposed to the trashy kind) — politics, whether one can actually travel ’round the world in 80 days, shooting for sport, etc. Then in the middle of the shooting part, I noticed his shotgun-shell tie.

So I thought it only right to share it here.

Then we went back to harrumphing about those political chaps, most of them vile Whigs and Jacobins, don’t you know…

James Taylor now wearing LBJ’s cowboy hat?

Yeah, I know he lost his hair and no longer looks like this. And guys who lose their hair often wear hats, even in this post-JFK era.

I still found it disconcerting to see him wearing LBJ’s cowboy hat, in a promo picture with a Groupon offer for tickets to a concert in Charlotte.

Or was it Ike’s hat? Or Harry Truman’s? Or FDR’s? Or W’s?

For whatever reason — maybe it was the suit and tie, which also seemed weird for James Taylor — he didn’t look like a cowboy, but like a politician trying to look like a cowboy…

Shell Suber on things we should know about prostate cancer

Last month, we did what we could to fight breast cancer. Now, we tackle another nemesis.

I’ve known Shell Suber since he was the Richland County chairman for the Republican Party several years back. Some of you may know him, too. Good guy.

Whether you know him or not, those of you of the male persuasion should listen up to what he has learned, the hard way, about prostate cancer. This being Movember, the message is timely. Actually, it’s always timely. This is from his blog:

I have prostate cancer

By Shell Suber

NOTE: This was originally published as a small series of posts on Facebook on November 6, 2013. Published here in its entirety with minimal edits.

I have prostate cancer. I found out a few months ago and I haven’t told many people. I didn’t see the point. After some surgery next week I won’t have it any more so why make a federal case of it? I had my gallbladder out last year. How is this any different?

But it is different. Read on to see what I mean.

First, I need to assure everyone I feel fine. No symptoms at all. In fact, I might have gone years without even knowing I had prostate cancer if not for a lucky break. More on that later.

Second, and this is important, PLEASE DON’T SAY ANYTHING TO MY KIDS. They are 9 and 5 and we decided to just tell them Dad is going to have another thing taken out, like that gallbladder last year. No sense bringing up the “C” word when it’s not going to be an issue after next week. Sadly, Abby and Walt have ample reason to associate hospitals/cancer with funerals and we don’t want them to be scared that this is anything like that, because it isn’t. Thanks.

This is a good place to share a few quick facts about prostate cancer. If you don’t have time to read all this, just read the capitalized part at the beginning of each paragraph.

CANCER IS ALWAYS BAD, BUT SOME IS WORSE. It depends on size, speed, and location. Prostate cancer, if it is caught early like mine, is on the “not as bad” side of the cancer spectrum. To be sure, prostate cancer can be serious, but most men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not die from it. In fact, more than 2.5 million men in the US have been diagnosed at some point and are still alive today, like me. This is because it’s usually a slow moving cancer and it’s in an organ that doesn’t have a lot of high-level involvement with your blood (like your liver, lungs, and pancreas do.)

IT’S RATHER COMMON. Only skin cancer is more common. About 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The older you get, the more likely the diagnosis. About 6 in 10 cases are guys 65 and older. It’s rare before 40. At 47, I’m on the “fairly young but not unheard of” side.

ONLY MEN GET IT. If you didn’t know that already, you aren’t quite sure what a prostate is, are you? I wasn’t either, to tell you the truth. Anyway, I won’t go into what role it plays. You can look it up. Just know that any man can get it. And it’s also worth noting that black men get it at a noticeably higher rate for some reason. And, as far as they know, there aren’t really any behaviors that “cause” it (like smoking/lung cancer).

IT’S EASY TO FIND. Prostate Cancer is, as cancer goes, an easy catch. There is a simple blood test called a PSA test that gives the doc a fairly good indication that all is good or, if not, more testing is needed. If you want to read more about the PSA test and your PSA “number,” there are a million articles out there. All you really need to know is that it’s a blood test like all the others you have ever had – one needle in the arm and you are done. The OTHER way to check is… well… do you remember the Moon River scene in “Fletch?” [ Moon River ] Anyway, Dr. Babar was checking to see if Irwin’s prostate was the size and shape it should be. If it’s not, you may be in for more testing. In my case, that meant a biopsy. It’s an outpatient procedure that takes no time at all and they even give you a Valium afterwards if you want. Sort of like getting a really great lolly-pop.

IT’S NOT NECESSARILY HEREDITARY. There are some cancers that are very hereditary. Breast cancer, for instance. But prostate cancer doesn’t work quite that way. So don’t go thinking you are in the clear because nobody in your family has ever had it. You aren’t. I wasn’t. Nobody in my family has ever been diagnosed as far as I know. Some of you may know cancer took my mom five years ago and her father last year. Both of those were unrelated to mine and to each other. Oh, and when I say “nobody in my family has had it,” that’s probably not true. Read on.

IT’S USUALLY TREATED IN ONE OF THREE WAYS. Because it’s such a slow cancer, sometimes when they find it in an older fellow, they just watch it to see if it’s growing so slow it won’t cause a problem. I mean, why bother if it’s not going to kill you before you’re 110, right? Other times they just try to slow it down with radiation. Again, so it won’t get you before something else does. Then there’s me. I’m only 47. They can’t slow it down THAT much. Besides, the risk is always there that it could “get out” of the prostate and that would be, um, bad. So for me, it’s removal of the prostate, a treatment you avoid if you can (because of the side effects) but it’s a virtual cure (as long as the cancer is all in the prostate.)

If you just read all that, you now know a lot more about prostate cancer than I did.

HOW I FOUND OUT I HAVE PROSTATE CANCER. As I said before, I might have never found out – for years maybe – but for a lucky break. Last year my wife and I decided, after much talk and, I feel, a sufficient period of procrastination on my part, that I should have a vasectomy. So I went to see my lifelong friend Tom Edmunds. Tom and I have known each other our whole lives and played a little football back in the day. He’s a urologist now and the man to see if you are going to get snipped. Blood work was done pre and post and my follow up PSA numbers gave him reason to be suspicious. [A note about PSA numbers: High is bad. Low is good. But CHANGE is what gets their attention. If your PSA number is the same this year as last, that’s good. If it’s higher, well, you may be in for more tests.] Anyway, had I not “manned up,” as Tom is fond of saying, who knows? We might not have known until it was too late.

LATE EDIT – After my original post, Tom, my urologist, shared this about PSA numbers…

Get a baseline PSA at age 40. 0.7 is the mean. If your baseline is above 1.5 at age 40, it needs to be watched yearly. Also, a rise of 0.4 in 1 years’ time is a reason to be checked out. Make sure your doc does an EXAM. Many don’t. African American men have twice the incidence. If your insurance company won’t pay for a PSA, get it anyway! What is your life worth? – Dr. Tom Edmunds

If you need more information (or a good urologist), contact Dr. Tom Edmunds at Capitol Urology, vasectomycolumbia.com, (803) 251-6602, info@capitolurologysc.com

SIDE EFFECTS. Next week I am going to have my prostate removed. Simple as that. They take it out and I don’t have cancer any more. Besides, after you are done making babies, you don’t really NEED it any more. So what’s the catch? (You just knew there must be one, right?) Well, there are two rather unpleasant possible side effects. Without getting too graphic, the prostate is right down there near a handful of nerves that we men are VERY fond of – the nerves that make it possible for our buddy down there do all his jobs. Removing the prostate damages these nerves. Most of the time the impact is temporary. But sometimes it’s not and that sucks, which is why they avoid taking it out if they can help it. But being dead is worse, so…

WHY AM I WRITING THIS? At first I was going just keep this quiet. I didn’t want to be “that guy with cancer.” People sort of treat you differently – you know what I mean – and I didn’t want that. Besides, after my surgery next week, it will be gone for good, along with my prostate, so why tell the world? Here’s why. Because this is one of those things that if more guys get tested, there will be more old guys for me beat in golf in 30 years. More PSA Tests = Less Funerals. Simple math. I’m too busy for funerals. So there you are.

Before he outmaneuvered Obama, Putin whupped a congressman at arm-wrestling

And it was a Republican congressman, so the Russian leader’s humiliation of U.S. political leaders has been non-partisan, and has covered two of the three co-equal branches of our government.

Maybe he and Justice Scalia should go out on a shirtless hunting trip together, and see who can bag more game. Or something.

Anyway, courtesy of Slate, here’s the story:

During an interview with KPCC that aired yesterday, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, was asked if he had ever met Vladimir Putin. It’s safe to say his answer was more than a little unexpected.

Turns out, during the early 1990s, Putin, then only a local official, traveled to Washington with a Russian delegation. While there, Putin and two other Russians ended up playing a game of touch football with Rohrabacher and a few of his “right-wing” buddies. Things only got stranger after the game:

“We all ended up going to the Irish Times Pub afterwards, and we were having a little bit too much to drink I guess. But anyway, we started arguing about who won the Cold War, etcetera. And so we decided to settle it like men do when they’ve had too much to drink at the pub. So we got down to these arm-wrestling matches, and I ended up being paired off with Putin. And he’s a little guy, but boy I’ll tell you he put me down in a millisecond. He is tough … his muscles are just unbelievable. And then his bodyguard gets up and this buddy of mine and says ‘oh I’ll take him.’ And my friend put his bodyguard down, so it was good.”

But was Obama RIGHT about Kamala Harris?

I’m really not terribly interested in whether President Obama’s compliment about California Attorney General Kamala Harris was “sexist.” After all these years, I’m still trying to figure out an accurate, consistent definition of the term. It seems to shift, depending on context.

I’ll let y’all hash that out. Anyway, here’s what I’m talking about:

Speaking at a fundraiser in a wealthy San Francisco suburb, President Obama praised the looks of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,” Obama said. “She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.”

“It’s true! C’mon,” he added, to laughter from the crowd…

And why did they laugh? Because most of the people in the crowd, male and female, had probably had more or less the same thought.

Coming from Obama, I take the remark as pretty benign. If it had come from Bill Clinton, I might react differently. Poor Obama — he’s seen as so aloof, so one time he tries to be a regular guy, to give an honest human reaction, even be gallant, and he ends up having to apologize for it. With Bill Clinton, the remark would be superfluous because we already knew he was a “regular guy” — and not in a good way.

400px-Kamala_Harris_Official_Attorney_General_Photo

And really, I want to hear from everyone on this. I’m not looking for the male reaction. Women are equally fine judges of pulchritude. I’m not looking for anything salacious or lascivious. I’m thinking more on the level of that episode of “Seinfeld” when George said of Joe DiMaggio, “Now that is a handsome man.”No, for once, I’d rather stay away from the value judgments, and ask a simple question: Was the president’s observation accurate?

When I started writing this post, I meant to link to a site that would show us all of the attorneys general. Unfortunately, the only link I’ve found that looks like it would enable us to do that doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe a lot of other people had the same thought, and overloaded the site — I don’t know.

I can say that, based on the photos I’ve looked at, she’s the best-looking attorney general I’ve ever seen. (Henry McMaster may have been tall and well-coiffed, but come on…) But I may have missed some unusually handsome examples of both genders; I must admit that.

I’m just trying to help the president out here, on the theory that truth is an effective defense…

7-year-old boy suspended for being 7-year-old boy

Passing on this bit of news from Maryland:

GLEN BURNIE, MD (CNN) – A 7-year-old Maryland boy was expected to return to school Tuesday after serving a suspension for forming his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun and allegedly saying the words “bang, bang.”

Children at Park Elementary School went home on Friday with a letter explaining there was a disruption in school.

Josh Welch and his father B.J. say the disruption lead to a two day suspension for the second grader in Brooklyn Park.

Academics are hard for Josh, who suffers from ADHD, but he excels in art class. It is Josh’s own creativity that may have gotten him into trouble.

Josh was enjoying his breakfast pastry when he decided to try and shape it into a mountain. “It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn’t,” Josh said.

Josh takes full responsibly for trying to shape his breakfast pastry, but admits it was in innocent fun. “All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn’t look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda,” Josh said.

When his teacher saw the strawberry tart he knew he was in trouble. “She was pretty mad? and I think I was in big trouble.”

Reminds me of when the elder of my sons was a toddler in his high chair eating toast. He ate it down to where he had two crusts left intact in an L shape. He then grasped it by one side, and aiming the other around the room said “Pow, pow!” Nearly broke my wife’s heart. She felt like she had done something wrong raising him — after all, his older sister had never exhibited such “violent tendencies.”

But boys will do things like that.

The fact that this one did it with a dessert-type item reminds me of a bit of silly dialogue from the original version of “The Office:” It was only a trifling matter. Nevertheless, they took him into custard-y.

Paul Ryan: The Deerslayer, policy wonk version

OK, you know veep candidate Paul Ryan is a major policy wonk. One thing you might not think of him as is a good old boy. But a magazine with a name that sounds like a stutter — Deer and Deer Hunting — is aiming to set you straight. See this release:

Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan opens up to Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine about his love of the outdoors.

“Bowhunting is my passion,” said Ryan to Deer & Deer Hunting’s Editor Alan Clemons. “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Ryan talks more about his childhood, being a father and balancing his hunting and Capitol life in an exclusive interview with Deer & Deer Hunting. The column will be in the October issue of Deer & Deer Hunting and will be available on newsstands September 4.

If you’d like to learn more about the interview, I can provide you with the pre-released interview, a press release, a copy of the magazine issue or any additional information you may need.

For more information on Deer & Deer Hunting, please go to www.deeranddeerhunting.com. For any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

I didn’t get to read the whole story because I didn’t want to give the mag my email address and have a whole new batch of emails to delete (I’ve made that mistake too many times in the past). But I confess to being curious as to whether the piece contains any other quotes as, um, interesting as “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Yeah, OK. I thought he only got that excited about cutting Medicare costs.

Of course, I’m a bit of an old hand with a bow myself. One day when we were in England last year, we were strolling in Hyde Park and came across a sort of carnival, which had a booth called “Robin Hood,” which enticed marks to shoot an arrow at balloons. Sure, it could have been a trap set by the sheriff, but I couldn’t resist. I immediately laid down my five quid (the real Robin Hood would have loved to find a fat friar carrying that on him), gave my camera to my wife to record the moment, and took my three shots. Unfortunately, my wife thought the camera was set for still photos rather than video, and merely aimed it at me, pressed the shutter release, and turned away.

So it was that she missed when I actually burst one of the balloons. But the great tragedy was that she missed my next shot, which split the previous arrow… yeah, that’s the ticket…

OK, so that last part didn’t really happen. But I did get one of the balloons. Of course, I’m sure that doesn’t match the excitement that Ryan speaks of. But that’s OK by me.

Take THAT, ye oppressor of good Saxon yeomen!

The Guys gird themselves for battle. Or something.

You ever watch people in a public place doing something fairly ordinary, but there’s something about it that makes it interesting, and you’d like to ask them what’s up, but the normal social threshold for doing so just isn’t quite there, and you’d sound sort of loony asking? You know, people you see and without being able to help yourself, starting making up a story about, for no particular reason?

It happens to me a lot. But I’m easily distracted.

One recent morning, I was coming down the steps in the city garage behind the Capitol Center (yep, I’d been to breakfast at Cap City), and as I passed one of those glassless windows in the concrete — between the 2nd and 1st floors, it was — I saw five guys standing lined up with their backs to me in the median of Assembly. They were in dress shirts and pants, but no coats yet. They were standing alongside two SUVs, standing so close to the tinted windows that their noses couldn’t be a foot away. All in the same attitude. It was like a drill team or something, and this was their routine. I half expected each of them to hold an arm out to the side to dress the line.

I kept descending the steps, and by the time I passed the next window, I realized they were putting on, or adjusting, ties. They were making quite a production of it. I was next put in mind of a group of commandos in an action thriller — you know, the guys who, after they’ve slipped in past security, reach into their duffels and, all together, in practiced motions, pull out black coveralls and automatic weapons. (Forgive me; I’ve recently watched the whole “Die Hard” series while working out at home. There’s a scene like that in every one of those. See the video below.)

By the time I’d reached the street, they were pulling on suit coats, very deliberately and seriously. In all this process, there had been nothing of preening; they were too sober about it. Deadly serious. They were girding themselves, preparing for… I don’t know what. Something they had trained for, seemingly. The two younger guys closest to me looked like athletes. And the older, beefier guys could have been ex-athletes. Or soldiers. Or cops. Putting on suits didn’t look like an everyday thing to them, although when they were done they were the essence of business propriety.

I didn’t notice any of them talking to each other as they started walking together along the median. They were just… moving out. Again, like they’d rehearsed this.

Sorry that I hadn’t taken a picture from the stairwell when I’d first noticed them lined up, looking at themselves in the SUV windows (if you’d seen that, you’d know why they seemed out of the ordinary), I shot a picture of them crossing Assembly after I stopped at the light there. I had to stop again at the light at Main and Gervais. By that time, they were crossing the street in front of me, headed for the State House.

All that time, they had walked down the street with the air of the Earps and Doc Holliday heading for the O.K. Corral. Not talking at all, that I could see.

Initially I had thought they were headed for some serious business meeting in the Capitol Center (the old AT&T building), maybe at the state Commerce Department, or one of the law firms in the building. “Business” in the sense that Beaver Cleaver used it: They were gonna give somebody “the business.” Lay down the law, as Dad did when Wally or the Beav got out of hand.

But when I saw them headed for the State House, I decided they were either representing a police association that was lobbying lawmakers about some kind of law enforcement legislation, or one or more of them (or maybe a fallen comrade) was about to be honored by a resolution of the General Assembly.

But really, I have no idea. I just knew there was some kind of Serious Guy Business going down. And these guys had dressed for the occasion, right there on the street, in unison.

Even superheroes slip up now and then

I met a superhero over the weekend.

Not the kind in “The Avengers,” as enjoyable as that entertainment was (I actually saw it that first huge weekend, which is unusual for me). More like… did you see “Unbreakable,” about a very ordinary guy who gradually comes to realize he is invulnerable (except to water) and far stronger than a normal man?

More like that.

We had an eventful weekend. My little grandson had to go into the hospital on Friday night. He had a virus that his sister and cousins had been passing around, with fever, and because he was only three weeks old, they put him in Children’s Hospital and did a spinal tap on him. I would have thought that excessive, except his father, my elder son, actually had meningitis when he was only two weeks old, and it was caught just in time.

The good news, the wonderful news, is that he’s OK (except for a temp slightly over normal) and is home now.

Anyway, Saturday, we were visiting him, and when we got out to the car, it had a flat. I got out all the gear to change it, including one of those ridiculous little dogleg tire irons that never work. And true to form, this one did not. Oh, I got three of the lug nuts off, by standing on it to loosen them. But by then the too-soft metal at the fitting had bent, and it wouldn’t grip the remaining nuts.

So we called the roadside assist number on our insurance card, and waited.

After awhile a man parked next to us in a plain dark-blue pickup. No markings, and certainly not the wrecker we had expected. Very unassuming vehicle — a secret identity pickup truck, if you will.

Out of it got an ordinary, unassuming man in regular streetclothes. He looked sort of like Reginald VelJohnson, the actor known from “Family Matters” (the guy whose life Steve Urkel made miserable) and the first “Die Hard.” No uniform or coveralls or anything. It was when we saw him open his tailgate and start putting on kneepads — serious kneepads, like the ones that the Delta team wore in “Black Hack Down” — that we asked, “Are you here for us?”

Yes, as it happens, he was.

We showed him the tire. I showed him the useless, bent tire iron.

He reached into his unassuming pickup, and revealed his super power. It was … having exactly the right tool for the given situation!

He pulled out a heavy, 25-inch socket wrench with a 3/4-inch drive mounted on its rotating 1/2-inch drive. It gripped the nut tightly enough, and provided sufficient leverage, that it was easy to remove the nuts even one-handed. Like butter. Or like Superman, depending on your preferred metaphor. (I went out the next day and purchased one exactly like it. I works beautifully. Why, oh why, don’t cars come with these, instead of those useless little junior crowbars?)

Oh, but you say, any ordinary mortal could have the right tool once, in a given situation. But he went on to show that this was no fluke. We were wondering how we were going to get that tire repaired over the weekend, when the man said he could do it right there.

He opened his hood, and used jumper cables to power a small air compressor he had in the truck bed. He had the hole from a broken-off screw plugged in a couple of minutes, and slapped the tire back on. Then, he drove off into the streets of Columbia as quickly as he’d come.

The perfect wrench was one thing. The MacGyver-like rig to repair the tire was something else. I resolved that I wanted to be this guy when I grew up.

This is the kind of superhero the world needs, and I was glad to have met him.

Unfortunately, there is a postscript.

With the baby getting out of the hospital this morning, we headed to the beach. At a stop to walk the dog, my wife noticed a bubble popping out of the side of that same tire.

I checked it with a gauge, and it had 40 pounds of pressure in it, instead of the usual 30 or so. I let some air out, and we drove to a tire place (fortunately, in my iPhone I have a computer of comparable power to the one Superman had in the Fortress of Solitude, and found the biggest tire place in Aynor was 1.4 miles away). We had a new tire in about 40 minutes.

Superheroes aren’t perfect. Sometimes, in the midst of struggling against supervillains, or merely life’s pedestrian vicissitudes, they forget a key step. In this case, checking the pressure before putting the tire back on.

As Uncle Ben put it so well: With great power comes great responsibility.

The Birth of The One Who Will Bear the Name

Why have I been writing off and on about “guy stuff” all week? Well, it’s been on my mind, and here’s why. I’ve been getting ready.

Today, my first grandson was born. Here’s what a milestone he is:

The first boy born into the family since my younger son, who is now 31.
We’ve had eight wonderful, beautiful girls in a row in the meantime — my two youngest daughters, my brother’s two daughters, and my four granddaughters.
My father had only one brother, who had no sons. Then there was my brother and me, and my two sons. And now my older son has a son, and he’s the only one in his generation.
He’s the first boy in an even longer time on the other side of his family (the Herring side).

So you can see how I would be contemplating the nature of the male of the species, and trying to get my head around the concept.

We are excited. Excited the way we have been with every one of our grandchildren, only this time with a novel factor (for us).

Look at him. He’s a big boy, isn’t he? Look at those hands — I think he could palm a baseball. Unfortunately, I forgot to take one into the nursery with me (see how you can forget stuff when you haven’t had a boy in a while?). He’s 9 pounds, 7.5 ounces. A mannish boy. And dig that Kirk Douglas cleft. All the women who see him exclaim over that.

He will have all new stuff, unlike all the girls who had loads of hand-me-downs. We are not set up for a boy, but we will adjust.

His big sister, the super-articulate 2-year-old, isn’t entirely sure what she thinks. But I know she’ll love him, as we love her. He’s going to have her, and 6 girl cousins, hovering over him. But I think he’ll handle it OK.

We’re going to spend a lot of time with this guy in the days to come. And with our granddaughters, too, reminding them of how awesome and special each of them is.

This is going to be fun.

bradwarthen.com

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