Happy Birthday to Me

I'm 55 today, and yet still taking a college kid's summer job for the US Government. I took it, but didn't keep it. I was forced to resign because I couldn't carry a Honda gasoline generator on my back over the tops of the mountains of Central Idaho. "Good luck with that," I said.

And a happy father's day for my late dad. Two years ago he passed coming this July 22nd. He taught me you can be a regular guy and still be a big player in history as he was in WWII, and know famous people like Ernest Hemingway on equal footing. And like the prematurely late Tim Russert's dad Big Russ, my Big Russ, as he referred to himself in jest, did a crap job all his life until a heart attack got him out of it, luckily not permanantly at the time. I always said I'd rather lose the job than my health. I learned that from him. It still is a necessary policy too it seems.

I shared my story with Russert, but he didn't include it in his last book. I got a reply thanking me for reading his first book, even though I hadn't. That was nice of him at least. Dad has a room at Ft. Carson, Colorado and an award in his name for the fourth Engineers, and a spot at the Vet's History Project. Not bad recognition for a bakery worker from Waterville, Maine. We do what we can.

Tim Russert R.I.P

It's as if the Sun eclipsed at high noon

Jesse Jackson on Russert's sudden passing of a heart attack at 58.