This Sunday we will all being celebrating Father’s Day. It’s a day with a long history that started in Catholic dominated Europe in the Middle Ages. It was originally celebrated on March 19th, St. Joseph’s Day in honor of the guy we have all been trying to live up to for two thousand years. It was brought to America by the Spanish and Portuguese. There were several failed attempts to make it a national holiday over the years. There was a bill first introduced in Congress in 1913 to make it a holiday that failed because of fear it would become too commercial. Why would they ever think that? Finally, in 1966, President Johnson issued a proclaimation honoring fathers on the third Sunday in June. In 1972, President Nixon signed a law making it a national holiday. Oh, and the whole commercial thing. One study shows only Christmas out sells gifts for Dad on Father’s Day. I guess that goes all the way back to St. Joseph.

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The crowd was middle age. There was a lot of gray hair and bald spots. About 24 hundred of us were gathered at the Borgata Event Center to hear and see the man who will forever remind us of our youth and the turbulent times when we came of age. As with many iconic figures, his first name is all that’s needed. And, in his case, it’s a nickname, Ringo. He was the last Beatle. John, Paul, George, and Ringo. John was the rebel, Paul was the cute one, George was the quiet one, and Ringo was the funny one. He was the last one to join the band, when the other three kicked out their first drummer, Pete Best, to complete the group. Ringo was playing in another band in Hamburg, Germany that was performing in the same club as the Beatles in 1962. They would change and influence music, fashion, and culture in the decade that would rock the world.

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It was 13 years ago, but it was trip I will never forget. We went to Paris for our 3oth wedding anniversary. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go to Normandy to see the beaches of D-Day and the American Cemetery and Memorial. My father-in-law had landed on Utah beach in August of 1944 about two months after the initial landing. He rode a tank ahead of Patton’s army and survived The Battle of the Bulge. It was about a three hour drive north of Paris. You drive along narrow two lane roads through the French countryside that looked as it did in 1944. You finally see a small horizontal sign as you make a turn with an arrow that just says “American Cemetery.” I wasn’t really prepared for what we were about to see and feel.

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One of the most important and damaging stories in the last 25 years has been the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests that went on for decades and was covered up by superiors. A coverup that allowed the crimes to continue for years. Thousands of  vulnerable children from alter boys to high school girls have been violated and their lives ruined. The church has spent millions in legal settlements with the victims. Even after church officials finally admitted the enormity of the crimes, they still can’t stop offending victims. Pope Francis recently admitted grave errors in defending a bishop in Chile who is accused of covering up one of the country’s most notorious pedopile priests. No top official in the church has ever been held accountable or charged with a crime until now.

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This time it was a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee in the middle of the night. A man who should never have had a gun pulled up to the restaurant, got out of his car, and opened fire with everyone’s favorite assault weapon, the AR-15. Two people were shot and killed in the parking lot. Two more were killed when the shooter burst into the restaurant. As we’ve seen before, one person stood up to stop the madness. Twenty nine year old James Shaw had stopped in the restaurant on his way home from a nightclub. He was only there because the first Waffle House where he stopped was too crowded. He wrestled the gun from the shooter as he was reloading, and pulled him outside the restaurant before the man ran away. He was naked from the waist down, but he did have on a green jacket. All the victims were in their twenties. Twenty nine year old Travis Reinking was taken into custody the next day while hiding behind his apartment complex.

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Elections are like job interviews. As voters, that’s how we should be evaluating House and Senate candidates for political office. They want the job representing us on some serious issues like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s an attractive opportunity. Starting salary, $174,000, free airport parking, free gym, up to 239 days off a year, you can earn up to an additional $15,000 a year from outside income, a cost of living raise every January 1st, $3,000 annual tax deduction for living expenses while away from home, health insurance, vesting after five years, generous pension and retirement benefits, you have to be 30 years old to become a US Senator, and 25 to be a Representative, and finally, no experience necessary. Representatives get job evaluations every two years, but senators don’t get reviewed for six years. Where else can you get jobs like these?

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The Beatles famously sang, “Here comes the sun, It’s alright, Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter,…it feels like years since it’s been here.”  January and February are the darkest, coldest months of the year. But, we always hold out hope for March. The clocks get turned ahead the first weekend of the month, and we get that extra daylight at the end of the day. Spring looms only three weeks ahead. We know it’s slowly going to get warmer. But, March can be cruel. Just when you think we are out of the clutches of winter, we get slammed with four nor’easters. The promise of the smiles of spring turn to the grimaces of ice and snow for one last jolt. The temperatures for almost every day this March have been below average. This followed a February when it rained more than half of the days. While the first day of spring was a week ago, the real first day of spring is March 29th.

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It’s overwhelming inside the sports betting parlor of the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on the the first weekend of the NCAA college basketball national championship tournament. Eighteen giant TV screens are on a two story curved wall. Across from that wall is the wall with all the teams playing, and the various point spreads and odds in yellow, orange and red lights. There are dozens of low slung black arm chairs in a semi circle where bettors pay to sit, order drinks and watch every game simultaneously. They are surrounded by hundreds of standing bettors. Most everyone had a drink in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and a betting sheet. The room is pulsing with testosterone. The crowd seemed to be 98 per cent male. The few females included the waitresses who tried to navigate the crowd with small trays loaded with beers and cocktails. The men were all ages. Twenty and Thirtysomethings wearing backward baseball caps and college tee shirts, and middle aged men looking over their reading glasses at the betting sheets. You are at the center of the American sports betting world.

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The parking lot of the middle school was packed. I found a spot around in the back after moving some pallets to clear a space. It was the meeting of the Bucks County Democratic Committee which was to vote on whether or not to endorse a candidate for congress from the 1st district and other offices. I was there as an advisor to Rachel Reddick, one of three first time candidates running for the nomination. There were tables set up in the hallway by the candidates recruiting people to work on their campaigns. Rachel still wasn’t told if the candidates would be permitted to address the committee members before they voted.

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It’s been among the top news stories for weeks. Thousands of people are sick, and flooding emergency rooms. Children are dying from severe cases. It’s one of the worst seasons in the last ten years. Doctors are repeatedly advising people to get the flu vaccine, even though the latest CDC study says the vaccine is only 36% per cent effective against the most common strain called H3N2. It sounds like a robot character out of Star Wars. I got vaccinated, as I have for the last several years, and hoped for the best. Three years ago, hope wasn’t good enough. I got the flu. Okay, one year of bad luck. Won’t happen again. No so fast.

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