About Roy and Dale and Seymour

Probably the names Roy and Dale don't jump out at you. I'm talking about Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans. Maybe even now knowing their last names you still don't know who I mean. Wouldn't surprise me. Roy died in 1998 and Dale in 2001. That's not that long ago really, but we tend to forget people quickly. Roy and Dale are dead dead, not like Marilyn Monroe and some others who are alive dead. Nearly every antique shop I visit has some type of Marilyn memorabilia. Only one time have I seen a Roy Rogers item, and that was a 5 x 8 photo signed "Happy Trails," Roy Rogers. It was buried on a shelf with a $2 tag on it. I have never seen a Dale Evans item. 

Seymour isn't a who...it's a what. Seymour is a small central Wisconsin town whose sole claim to fame is that it is the site of the annual Outagamie County Fair. Outagamie County is pretty much nothing but small towns except for Appleton. Appleton has a much larger population than Seymour and was founded 20 years earlier, so I don't know why the fair ended up in Seymour but there it is. I'll get to what got me thinking about Roy and Dale and Seymour in a minute but first I want to explain how the topic came to mind in the first place.

In the last few days while on the internet reading news and what have you I have been receiving advertisements pointing me to articles about the closing of the Roy Rogers museum. I didn't know that there was a Roy Rogers museum so out of curiosity clicked on one of the links. It turns out that the museum closed in 2009. It took me awhile to come up with a theory as to why I'm getting these articles now. About a week ago I Googled birthdays on December 12 to see who else was born on that day. Going back to the museum article I saw that the museum was closed on December 12, 2009. I'm guessing that an algorithm in somebodies software matched the dates and automatically sent the information to me. I don't know how else to explain it.

It was sometime around 1974 that my ex-wife and son and I were in Seymour at the County Fair. So were Roy and Dale. Now, I've learned that memory is a piss-poor tool for recording and playing back history, but I do have some recollections of what I think I saw and thought during that day 46 years ago. 

It was a typical county fair with emphasis on future farmers and their animals. There were a few food and novelty kiosks. There was what looked to be a hastily erected small stage. I remember that there were various acts on the stage; singers, saw players, comedians and the like, all of them probably local, and all were accorded polite applause after their act was finished. Then Roy came on stage and sang a song, backed up by a small band. Then he gave a speech about how great it was to be in Seymour and how great the crowd was. I seem to remember that the 'crowd' was about 30 people. After the speech Roy got off the stage and mingled among those present but I don't think it was what he expected. Most of the folks paid little attention and I remember as he walked past me that he looked like just any other guy trying to find the restroom. 

Dale got on stage next. I don't remember if she sang, but I do remember her speech about how society was moving away from basic values. She talked about men being men and women being women and that both had natural roles in life. She scoffed at the women's liberation movement and the notion of unisex. She finished with something like, 'Am I right about that ladies?' I think she was expecting a rousing approval but instead there was almost a complete silence. Obviously the women in the sparse audience didn't share her views. 

Another memory I have of that day was one of Roy's crew announcing over the public address system that there were some men amongst the audience that had signed photos of Roy and Dale; that they sold for one dollar and they didn't have many of them. I bought one, I don't know why and I remember my ex-wife looking at me like I was crazy. The question did cross my mind, "Are they reduced to this?...playing county fairs and selling one dollar photos?"

I wondered about the careers of Roy and Dale. If you're playing the Outagamie County Fair in Seymour, you're either at the bottom of your entertainment career and just beginning or at the bottom and washed up. Roy and Dale were no longer celebrities...no longer household words. They had gone from being mainstream entertainers to successful business people. Roy lent his name to a restaurant chain, and had his image on everything from action figures to lunch buckets. There was a ton of Roy Rogers merchandise, which is why I'm surprised I don't see any in the antique shops. It's either in the hands of collectors or in landfills.

Roy started a museum that contained his stuffed horse Trigger and lots of other memorabilia. He reportedly told his children that if the museum ever became a financial burden to 'close it up.' As already stated the museum closed in 2009 and all of its contents were actioned off. 

I don't know what happened to the photo I bought that day, and was not tempted to buy the one I saw in an antique shop. Roy and Dale are gone, and I don't think it's likely that I'll be in Seymour again to see who is playing there these days. 

Sail Away, sail away, sail away

My intention is that this will be the last post about my 80th birthday. I've written everything there is to write about it, except for one last happening that has to do with the black balloon with the number 80 on it in the photo below.

We took that balloon with us from Pete and Kim's house and upon returning home tied it to a dinning room chair. Curiously, though it's not round the number seemed to always be facing me whenever I looked at it no matter which direction I approached it from. I almost felt like it was trying to communicate with me; wanted to tell me something. But what? That I'm 80? I know that! I received two t-shirts and birthday cards and emails and phone calls telling me that. I don't know if it was taunting, sympathizing or celebrating with me, but after a couple of days of feeling intimidated by the balloon I decided to get rid of it. It was Maribel who suggested that we do something symbolic with it, as sort of the official ending of what turned out to be my four day birthday celebration. So we took it into the front yard and after a rousing chorus of the birthday song, released it. 

Not having any experience in releasing helium balloons I expected it to rise to a modest height and them drift off with the slight breeze to the south. It didn't. It rose nearly straight up with a slight declination to the south. When it was a mere speck in the sky I thought of the song Orinoco Flow by Enya and the lyrics sail away, sail away, sail away. I wondered how high it was, what the view looked like from there, how long would it stay up, where would it come down...would it come down? Then my thoughts turned philosophical. Here's this black balloon, number 80, sailing off to parts unknown and probably the end of its existence. If it were sentient what would it be thinking? Would it be thinking about the events in its brief life? Would it be fearful of this last journey or would it embrace it? 

Maybe it was thinking of some of the words from Enya's song: 

From the North to the South, Ebudae into Khartoum

From the deep sea of Clouds to the island of the moon

Carry me on the waves to the lands I've never been

Carry me on the waves to the land I've never seen

We can sail, we can sail with the Orinoco Flow

We can sail, we can sail.

And then it was gone.

There's Too Many of Them!

At a recent gathering the subject of  internet and telephone scamming was briefly touched on. Each of us commented on the number of scam contacts we receive and how we disregard them, but there were also some examples of family members or friends who had fallen or nearly fallen for a scam and lost money. At one point I commented that the root of the problem is the scum who are doing this. Someone else responded that, "There's too many of them!" Shortly thereafter the conversation moved to another topic. I would have liked to pursue the subject but that's not the kind of thing you do at a social gathering. 

There are a boatload of statistics detailing the magnitude of cybercrime. For example, according to the Federal Trade Commission there are 1.5 million phishing sites set up every month. According to a 2018 report from McAfee, the global cost of cybercrime is almost $600 billion a year. And that staggering figure does not include the billions lost to scams and rip-offs that are not internet-related. There are statistics profiling the types of scams, ages of victims, average money lost per victim and on and on. That's informative but not what I was looking for.

The one statistic I wanted most and was unable to find went back to the "There's too many of them" comment.  What I was looking for is an estimate of the percentage of a given population who perpetrate these frauds. I found nothing. How many people does it take to set up 1.5 million phishing sites in one month? How many people does it take to swindle their fellow human beings out of 600 billion dollars annually? It's more than two men and a woman operating out of the back room of a pawn shop in Toledo. 

There are some 209 million people in the US age 18 and over. How many of them are scammers...internet, telephone or otherwise? Five percent? That would be 10,450,000 people. That number is equal to the entire population of the state of Georgia. But let's say it's only two percent. That's 4,180,000 vultures preying on us, a number equal to the population of Los Angeles. Think about that. 

In an older post I wrote that the people of Peru do not accept corruption, but that it is so commonplace that they expect it. I think that that is where we're at with scammers. We expect it and when it happens we try to ignore it and move on. There have been wars on drugs and organized crime. Let's have an all-out war on scammers, and while we're at it let's throw in hackers and trolls. If these creeps are smart enough to hack into bank accounts, there must be good guys smart enough to find them. It's likely that the FBI and other agencies know about some of the larger internet scam organizations. Maybe they can't shut them down for lack of evidence. I say to hell with evidence. If there is good reason to suspect that an individual or organization is internet or telephone scamming, go get them, and if it means trampling over their civil and constitutional rights so be it. 

I fantasize sometimes, usually about situations that I think need to be changed but am powerless to do anything about. The topic I'm writing about is one of those situations. In one fantasy I am a trillionaire, and somehow magically am able to identify every one of the scammers. I offer each of them one million dollars, with the condition that they face a five-member panel of psychologists and psychiatrists, and present to the panel a rational and justifiable reason for why they do what they do. And saying that they do it because they need the money doesn't cut it. If they're smart enough to set up a scam they're smart enough to earn an honest living. Every one of them...scammer, hacker and troll would have to walk away without the million. There is no justification for what they do.

In another fantasy I have, all of the parasites mentioned above are assembled in the Great Basin Desert. Each of their names are called out so that friends and family know who they are. Then I vaporize them. Poof!....gone! Extreme?...sure but it's only a fantasy. Or maybe wishful thinking. They don't deserve to live among decent people.

Excuse me, I have to go because my phone is ringing. The caller ID says "Unavailable". 

I Made It

On December 12, 2020 at 7:35 PM I reached the age of eighty. I know that there seems to be a lot of people living past eighty these days, but still, the 2010 census shows that only 4.8% of the population made it that far. I had my doubts that I'd make it, particularly during the past couple years when out-of-control blood pressure issues and a triple by-pass made things look bleak. And then there's family history. To my knowledge I am the first male in both my paternal and maternal line of male ancestors dating back to the early 1800s to reach eighty. I would have liked to have had a celebration, but circumstances are not what they were when I wrote the following post on my old blog in Peru five years ago:

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Yesterday me and Frank Sinatra celebrated our birthdays. Frank was 100, or would have been if he hadn’t died in 1998. But when you’re a somebody like Frank it doesn’t matter if you’re dead…people continue to celebrate your birthday. Family, Friends and wannabes show up at some posh location decked out in their finest hoping to be seen on the next day’s news. And they don’t have to pony up for presents.

I was 75 yesterday. I didn’t think I’d make it this far. When I was a kid life expectancy was 67 years. You retired at 65 and died two years later, hopefully having enjoyed the allotted 730 days of your golden years. Now life expectancy is 79. That raises a question…which mortality table applies to me? If I go by the 1940 table I’ve lived eight years longer than average. Based on the 2014 table I’ve can expect maybe four or more years before my ticket to the white light express gets punched. But I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m still on the right side of the grass and enjoying life and that’s what counts.

the Tom Filipowicz Combo 

Frank and I have more in common than just birthdates. Frank was a singer. I was a singer. Frank earned a lot of money and won many awards for his singing. I did not. In the late 1950s and early 60s I had a band called the Tom Filipowicz Combo. There were four of us. I was the vocalist. We performed for weddings, birthdays, graduations and other activities, earning not much more than expense money. I added a female vocalist to the group who turned out to be pretty good, and shortly after that two of the guys suggested we go to Vegas and take a shot at breaking into the big time. I chickened out. They went, and one-by-one became disillusioned and went on to other things, except for Terry (playing the guitar) who stayed in Vegas and lived out his life as a session musician. Those were different times. The band and my voice are long gone, though I can still occasionally be heard in the shower belting out, ’…and that’s why the lady is a tramp!’

as Herr Schultz in Cabaret singing the pineapple song

Frank was an actor. I was an actor. Frank earned a lot of money and won many awards for his acting. I did not. I was okay as a community actor; at least the local reviewers thought so. My favorite role was that of the defense attorney Sir Wilfrid Robarts in Agatha Christie’s…’The Witness for the Prosecution.’ My favorite production was ‘Cabaret’ staged by the Actors Repertory Theater. I portrayed Herr Schultz. The male and female leads were New York professionals as was the director. The rest of us were locals. We did 17 evening shows and two matinees – each performance to a packed house. That was my first paid acting gig. I still have a copy of the first check somewhere. My acting in Cabaret led to some paid script writing and acting for in-house promotions for a Green Bay television station for about a year, but that was the extent of my paid entertainment career. Thankfully I never gave up my day job. For the next few years I acted in and directed more plays at the community level than I can remember, but it gradually reached a point where it wasn't fun anymore, so that facet of my life ended. 

There were gala celebrations for Frank in many major cities in the USA and around the planet plus an all-star television special, but the “really big shew” as Ed Sullivan used to say was at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills. Frank Sinatra Jr. and everyone who is anyone was there. Afterwards they probably dined on exotic dishes like Coquilles Saint-Jacques followed by bùche for desert and drank Dom Perignon at $400 a bottle.

My birthday party was at a back table in Chili’s restaurant in the Chiclayo, Peru mall. We dined on exotic dishes with names like ‘big mouth burger’ and ‘chicken fried chicken’ and drank Peruvian beer at $2 a pop. Okay…so it wasn’t the Saban Theater and there were no television cameras or tuxedos or fancy foods, but friends being together sharing convivial conversation and laughter aren’t the exclusive domain of high-rollers at celebrity parties, and we had our share of both.

   

In the evening there was another celebration, this time with family at a restaurant on the sixth floor of the Saranga Hotel. These are some of the same folks I celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday with, except for my niece CJ who is seven. At that time I had known them and Maribel for only four days, being on my first trip to Peru.

After returning home Maribel commented that “the whole day flowed like a river.” It really did. This was one of my more enjoyable birthdays. It was a relaxing day spent with friends and family. I couldn't ask for more.

Maybe in five years I’ll write another post about our birthdays when Frank is 105 and I’m 80. I’ll bet Frank’s party won’t be nearly as spectacular as the one this year. Reaching 105 is no big deal if you’re dead. It’s automatic…everyone does it. Turning 80 will be a milestone for me and I’ll be ready for another party. But this time no Chili’s restaurant. I’m thinking that the San Martin Ballroom at the JW Marriott Hotel in Lima Peru will be the place to be Saturday evening, December 12, 2020. Watch your email for the invitation.

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It feels like just yesterday that I wrote that post, and yet so much has changed since then. There was no party at the Marriott Hotel in Lima. There was no party anywhere. We had begun thinking about one earlier in the year, considering several commercial venues in the Chattanooga area but ultimately decided that it would be more fun and less formal if we did it at our house. We settled on six couples, totaling fourteen people with me and Maribel. It would have been cozy in our house but doable. We were already apprehensive about Covid-19 and when the "Thanksgiving surge" began we agreed that we did not want to be responsible for a social gathering where the virus could spread so cancelled the plans. I'll admit I was disappointed but as it turned out that wasn't the end of the story. 

A celebration doesn't have to include lots of people, music, dancing or speeches. All that is necessary to commemorate a special event is to have people who think enough about you to want to be with you to mark the occasion. So last Saturday night on my birthday me, Maribel and our neighbor friends Tim and Alisha enjoyed a good meal and conversation at Logan's Steakhouse, followed by cake and beverage at our house. I very much appreciated them being with us. 

And it wasn't over yet. Today there was another celebration at the home of some Chattanooga friends, Pete and Kim (lower). Also there were Dave and Vickie (right). Kim had prepared a great lunch and Vickie had baked my favorite cake...cherry nut.  

A word about friends. In my 80 years I have seen so many friends come and go. It's sometimes sad to think about the people who for one reason or another are no longer in my life, but drifting apart seems to be inevitable. I am happy now with the people who I call friends, and hope that they'll be around for my 90th. 

So considering the birthday dinner with Tim and Alisha; the luncheon with Pete, Kim, Dave and Vickie, plus according to Maribel the seventy eight electronic birthday wishes from friends and family in the US and Peru, and having the best wife a man could have at my side, I would say that I couldn't have asked for a better birthday celebration.

Confederate President Jeff Davis would have understood Donald Trump

It's March, 1865 and the Confederate capitol Richmond was in turmoil. The civilian population and soldiers were deserting is staggering numbers. Inflation had priced most goods, when available, out of the reach of most people. Even the most optimistic realized that Richmond would fall, though many could not imagine that the Confederacy itself was doomed. President Jefferson Davis was one of the hopeful. Despite the urging of his cabinet members and advisors to evacuate, he clung to the belief that a telegram would come from General Lee informing him that General Grant's forces had been defeated and were retreating in disarray toward Washington. It was probably with shock and disbelief that Davis read the telegram from Lee telling him that the line of defense could no longer be held and that Richmond should be evacuated immediately. 

Davis kept his cabinet members and other officials waiting on a train for several hours while he waited in a telegraph office, expecting to hear that the military situation had changed and that Lee had prevailed. This was the first of many times that Davis would experience denial, refusing to accept that his army had been beaten; that the Confederacy was tottering. Davis expressed to his personal secretary Burton Harrison that, "I cannot feel myself a beaten man!" During the days of his exodus from Richmond in March to his capture May 10 in Irwinville, Georgia he continued to cling to the hope of eventual victory, but showed frustration as his entourage encouraged him to accept the inevitable, and then one by one abandoned him. He became what could only be described as irrational, insisting that the thousands of southern soldiers who had deserted would again rally to the flag. In one of the last letters to his wife before being captured he wrote that, "....it may be that a devoted band of cavalry will cling to me, and that I may force my way across the Mississippi and if nothing can be done there I can go to Mexico." He probably hoped to build an invasion army from the many confederate soldiers and officers who had escaped to Mexico. For him the Confederate cause had become personal. He could not concede defeat and in fact never did.

After his release from prison he moved his family to Canada, which he found distasteful, and after awhile eventually moved to Louisiana, where he wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government." It is a two-volume largely self-serving work justifying the Confederate cause and his actions in it. It is not an easy read.

I can see so many correlations between Davis's personality and behavior and that of Donald Trump...the denial and inability to accept defeat, the focus on self, the not listening to and in fact turning on advisors who did not tell him what he wanted to hear, and grasping at every straw until there were no more straws to grasp. And like Jeff Davis I would bet that there will be a Trump memoir forthcoming, detailing how victory was stolen from him. But maybe he'll surprise me.

The Fraternal Order of Dead Christmas Carolers

Maribel likes to sing Christmas carols. Unlike me she enjoys Christmas music. This morning she was singing along with the song 'Have a Holly Jolly Christmas', and doing it with vigor. On a whim I asked her if she knew who the vocalist is, knowing full well she did not. She was unimpressed when I told her it was Burl Ives and that he has been dead for 25 years. The next tune was sung by Andy Williams. That is not surprising. I think that Andy recorded every song that was ever written and some that weren't. His annual Christmas program was always popular. He died 8 years ago. 

Following Andy's song was a song was by 'mumbles' Presely. I was never an Elvis fan. Nor am I a fan of mumbling. If a Christmas song has to be sung, at least do it so that the words can be understood. I'llhavabooCismasthoutyo doesn't make it. Maribel says I shouldn't call him mumbles. Says it's disrespectful. She's probably right. And I guess I should stop referring to a bowel movement as a 'Trump dump'. Anyway, mumbles...I mean Elvis has been dead 43 years. So about this time I started wondering how many of the Christmas songs being played are sung by dead people. Besides Burl, Andy and mumbles...I mean Elvis, there's Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Gene Autry, Nat Cole, Bing Crosby, Karen Carpenter (tragic loss), Ella Fitzgerald, and...the list goes on forever! I tried searching the internet to see if, 1) there are any new Christmas songs and 2)  any living people who recorded them. It turns out that there are a few of both but I never heard of them so they don't count. Okay...Maribel pointed out that there's Jose Feliciano who is alive and regales us with "I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas" every 30 minutes or so, but he's 75 and could die at any moment. 

So I'm guessing that Christmas is not "...the most wonderful time of the year" from the viewpoint of the legion of carolers singing to us from the beyond.

Thoughts while going Nowhere on a Stationary Bike

One of my favorite morning experiences is the stationary bike. Not riding it, but getting off when I've got my five miles in. Riding a stationary bike can be really boring. The time goes much faster if I can let my mind wander. If I just stare at the computer read-out it takes forever for the numbers to progress. Usually I have background music. Not the jazzercise stuff most people listen to. I like relaxing music, like light jazz by Bony James  or most anything by Yanni. 

I don't like Christmas music so almost always listen to a CD. I forgot that this morning so was forced to listen to whatever 'Sunny 92.3' was playing, which off course was Christmas music. A couple of selections did get me to thinking. For example, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It had its origin in 1939 as a promotional book by the Montgomery Ward Company. Think about the story line. 

A reindeer named Rudy had a shiny nose. Because he was different, all the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. And they wouldn't let him play in reindeer games. That's bullying. That kind of behavior is totally unacceptable today, and probably was not approved of in 1939. And don't tell me that Santa and Mrs. Claus didn't know about it. I mean, Santa is there 364 days each year. He don't go nowhere. Have you ever seen him at an IHOP or any restaurant? On a beach? In a movie theater? Anywhere? No, and not Mrs. Claus either. Both of them knew full well how Rudy was being treated and they ignored it. They were complicit. By the way, being that they never leave the house, where are all the little Clauses'? Do they have a platonic relationship, or is there some factor prohibiting them from being parents? Who is there to take over the business when Santa checks out? 

Anyway, there came a Christmas eve when Santa was fogged in. He's got no headlights on the sleigh and apparently no other source of illumination, so he has the gall to ask Rudy to guide his sleigh. And upon hearing this, all of the other reindeer starting sucking up to Rudy, thinking that he might become a favorite of Santa. If I was Rudy I would have told Dancer and Prancer and the rest to ****off! Then I would have turned to Santa and said, "Now look here Claus...let's talk about this." I would have demanded better food than the other reindeer got, and my own indoor heated room, and the services of an elf as my personal groomer.  

Essentially Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a song about discrimination and probably slavery. I would not be surprised if the liberals in the Biden administration try to ban it.

There's another Christmas song that got my attention; Do You Hear What I Hear? This one is a newcomer, going back to only 1962. Here's the setting. A group of friends have gathered at someone's house one cold December evening. They're just sitting around being social, drinking Christmas type drinks and doing the chips and dip thing when one of the men walks to a window to see how deep the snow is. Suddenly he shouts out, "A child is shivering in the cold! Quick! Somebody bring him silver and gold!" 

To my knowledge silver and gold have no warming properties. I don't know what the guy was thinking. It seems to me that child clothing (if available), blankets and a hot toddy would be more suitable. Better yet, how about bring the kid in the house! 

To be fair, many if not most songs, not just Christmas carols have nonsense lyrics, probably just to make the words rhyme, whether or not they make sense. I guess that's why I prefer instrumental music. The notes don't have to rhyme.