Today is the last day of the current session of the US Supreme Court. It’s a day we will long remember and live to regret. Four of the many rulings handed down will touch everyone of us. Of course, the most infamous was the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion and the corruption of our right to privacy. While many saw this coming from this conservative court, this astonishing decision targeting a woman’s very basic right to privacy was a gut punch to most Americans and a day of rejoicing for many others. It will further divide the country that has people on either side of the political divide screaming at each other. This has resulted in chaos across the country as blue states try to pass laws and state constitutional amendments to protect abortion rights and red states are passing laws to turn women and doctors into criminals.

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It’s not often you witness a one in a million coincidence. My wife and I were working on the lawn at our Jersey shore house when a young man was riding by on a bike about ten feet from the curb. There are three sycamore trees along the sidewalk in front of the house. As the bike rider was passing under a branch which hung out over the street, it cracked. The branch jutted out from the trunk about twelve to fourteen feet above the ground. It was about ten feet long and six to eight inches around. The branch came down hitting the rider across the face knocking him and his bike to the ground. His backpack came off and his phone went flying. I ran into the street. Helped him up and got him to sit on the curb. Grabbed his bike and his cell phone before it was run over. That’s how we met Akon.

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When the January 6th Committee started laying out its case against Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and stage a coup, there is one thing that is at the center of this dangerous time in our history, truth. It’s something Trump couldn’t handle and he convinced millions of Americans his twisted view of reality were the real facts. In her devastating opening statement at the hearing Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney said it in clear terms, “…you will see that Donald Trump and his advisors knew that he had, in fact, lost the election. But, despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information-to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him. This was not true.” We all know Trump had his own term for truth he didn’t like “Fake News”. But, history tells us of a warning we never heard.

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It’s here. Next weekend is Memorial Day. The start of the summer. After two summers of Covid, we’ve all been looking forward to getting back to normal. But what is normal? Inflation is at a forty year high. Everything costs more. Who predicted over $4.50 for a gallon of gasoline? Madman Putin is committing mass murder on innocent civilians in Ukraine on a level not seen since World War II. The world seems to be hoping he really is dying of cancer because we can’t figure out how to make him stop. Covid cases are back up. Health experts are suggesting we should keep wearing masks in crowded places. Most people are not listening anymore. And who would have predicted American mothers are desperate to find formula for their babies? Pass the sun block.

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No matter your views on abortion, we have all been shocked by the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion by Justice Alito, supported by five of the conservative justices, that would overturn Roe v. Wade. It would leave it up to states whether to allow abortion or ban it. About twenty states are almost certain to outlaw abortion if Roe is overturned. While every national poll shows the majority of Americans support a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body, I’m not here to argue abortion rights. But rather the institution of the Supreme Court. It’s supposed to be above partisan politics and interpret the Constitution. That’s has been eroded. The court is very much a political body and it’s helping fuel the serious divisions in the country.

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I first met Phineas and Gene fifty-five years ago. I was sixteen years old as they were. Recently I was roaming around a used bookstore. It even had boxes of books on its front porch. As I scanned the titles of hardcovers and paperbacks, there it was, a well worn paperback of “A Separate Peace”. It was that one book of the many you read growing up that you never forget. It was written by John Knowles and published in 1959. It is a coming-of-age story of two teenage boys at a New England prep school called Devon in 1942. It’s told through the eyes of Gene Forrester who reruns to the school fifteen years after that fateful summer to tell the story of his friendship with his former roommate and best friend Phineas.

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In the last two weeks we have watched innocent women and children bombed and murdered in their neighborhoods in Ukraine. They have jammed into trains in a desperate effort to flee to safety and the unknown. The men have stayed behind to fight the superior Russian army as it slogs its way through their country. Their strength and determination have been an example to us all from their president to the mothers who have shown us courage in fiercely protecting their children. All this, while not knowing if their husbands, fathers, sons, and boyfriends will survive as they fight to save their country and their future.

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Adam could not look at the flashing cursor anymore. It was relentless. Just pushing and pushing him to start writing. He felt as if it was saying, “Okay big shot, your first novel was such a success, let’s see you do it again.” He was renting his friend’s beach house for a week just to get away and concentrate on the new book. It was October. The summer crowds on the Jersey shore were gone, and the weather was still comfortable. The past year had been crazy. He finally had gotten a first novel published after a few re-writes. He had made his living writing free-lance for magazines or on-line publications. He worked as a bartender. He was stunned at the success of the book. He was being praised for a break-through first novel and as a star of a new generation of writers. The financial success allowed him to finally become a full-time writer and let someone else pour the drinks. What if people knew the truth?

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The bald eagle, our national bird, is everywhere. It’s on the great seal of the United States. It was adopted as the emblem of the country in 1787. It’s on every one dollar bill, coins, and passports. It’s up there with the flag, Liberty Bell, and Statue of Liberty as a universal symbol of American strength. It’s been a sign of government authority since the Roman Empire. The bald eagle has survived despite man’s carelessness that almost wiped it out of existence. Over development into their natural habitat, hunting, and pesticides made them an endangered species for years. The number of adult breeding bald eagles in the US and Canada has dropped by 2.9 billion since 1970. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in  1962 lead to the banning of the pesticide DDT ten years later. It was not only killing animals like the bald eagle, but contaminating soil and water for decades. Conservation efforts has increased the bald eagle population from 417 nesting pairs in 1963 to more than 71,400 nesting pairs and an estimated 316,700 individual birds in the lower 48 states.

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These two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl is designed to get us all revved up for the big game. We have the Cincinnati Bengals who everyone thought would have to buy tickets to get into the game. They have the story of the Boy Wonder Joe Burrow who’s leading the Bengals out of thirty years of playoff darkness. The Rams have the  quarterback Matthew Stafford story. A chance meeting on a Mexican vacation with Rams coach Sean McVay led to the biggest trade last off season. After years with the awful Lions, Stafford finally gets his chance to prove he can win the big one. This is also the time when coaches get fired and hired. There are interviews and second interviews and experts speculating on who is the favorite for a job. Then the Brian Flores story broke.

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