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Month: June 2020

We’re Going to Make It……

We’re Going to Make It……

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I haven’t told my wife yet.

How do I tell my wife this?

Do I just come out and say it?

Do I leave a note on the counter?

Maybe a photo?

Maybe write a blog?

 

 

This is a big weekend for me.

I am a big fan of horse racing as you may know and today is the Belmont Stakes.

Tomorrow, as you also know I am sure, is Father’s Day. And next to horse racing, yeah I think my kids are pretty special too.   So I am looking forward to spending some time this weekend  watching some horse racing and also spending some time with at least some of my kids.

Eighteen years ago the family wanted to do something for me that was special so they asked me what I wanted to do on Father’s Day and they would arrange that.

I said, “I want to go to the horse races.”

And so, they worked it out that they would take me to the races at Laurel Racecourse in Laurel, Maryland on Father’s Day.

Not having a vehicle big enough for the six of us, we took two cars.  Alexa at the time was attending the University of Maryland in College Park and recommended that on the way, we also go out for brunch at the 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant located at the College Park Airport which she had been to before. This restaurant was a theme restaurant based on World War I and II aviation and complete with replica planes surrounding the building with sections made to look like it was exposed to “air raids.” On the way out of the restaurant we asked a passerby to take what would turn out to be the last photo of all six of us together in front of one of the planes positioned outside the restaurant, before heading over to the racetrack.

That was a great Father’s Day memory from 2002.

Now it is Father’s Day weekend 2020.

And this year we happen to have a horse racing emphasis once again on this weekend. As a result, it made it a little bit more special, though still bittersweet.

The Belmont Stakes is typically run on the third Saturday after the third Saturday in May when the Preakness is run which works out to be normally the first Saturday in June.   This year, however it’s on the third Saturday in June.  And typically the Belmont Stakes is the third leg of the Triple Crown and usually follows the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness which are the three races that make up the Triple Crown, but this year the Preakness will be the third leg sometime in October.  Triple Crown races are limited to horses that are three years old.

 

Are you following all this?

 

Of course, all the confusion created this year is on account of the virus.

 

Although Father’s Day, on the third Sunday in June remains unaffected by the virus with the exception of the fact that unlike eighteen years ago, this year I couldn’t go to the races even if I wanted to because patrons are not allowed in the stands to watch the live races.  Not to mention, though we probably could go out for brunch if we really wanted to by following the limited outdoor seating rule, I would prefer to stay in my back yard.

 

So in honor of this special memory of horse racing and Father’s Day eighteen years ago I thought it important this week to do something different that was special and on my bucket list.

 

Which, I haven’t told my wife about yet.

 

But here goes:

“Honey, we own a racehorse…”

“Actually, we own four…”

“Remember the evening this week we were sitting by the fire pit and I was on my cell phone?…

“And, you said you were going to go in because I was on my cell phone and not talking to you anyway?…”

“I wasn’t talking because I was busy buying a racehorse.  Well, actually four.  Well, actually just a share of four racehorses.”

“ A very small share.”

“They are just two years old and they are all girls.  Just what we need right?”

“Isn’t that great?”

“Happy Father’s Day?”

“Right Kim?”

“I love you…”

 

Donny is gone, the 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant is gone, I don’t think I have been back to Laurel Racecourse since that day, but I still have a photo and a nice memory.

And still stuck in the door of one of our kitchen cabinets is another reminder of this same time not quite eighteen years ago.  This one came in a sympathy card at the time and reads:

“NO MATTER HOW TOUGH LIFE GETS, IF YOU CAN SEE THE SHORE OF HEAVEN, AND DRAW STRENGTH FROM CHRIST, YOU’LL MAKE IT………………..

Still a great reminder today, as it was that summer of 2002.

WE’RE GOING TO MAKE IT…………………….

 

Happy Father’s Day, aren’t they cute?
Photo of the same plane taken in 2007 after the close of the restaurant courtesy of Ben Sumner.
The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind

The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind

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Would You Like a Lime with That Week Thirteen – The End

 

“Hey man, c’mon, c’mon we are going downtown, there is a huge protest going on.  There is going to be thousands of people in the streets.”

“Thousands of people?  You mean to tell me I can’t sit next to you at a bar and have a cocktail, but I can stand next to you in a protest and throw a Molotov Cocktail?”

“Yeah man, c’mon lets go.”

“Wait, wait,  wait, what about all that anxiety and social distancing and the economic disaster we just created due to the virus?  What was that all about?”

“C’mon really?  Are you still talking about the virus? That’s so last month.” 

“No, people with businesses lost their whole life’s work and incomes and some are just now beginning to open up again, isn’t that important?”

“Look, we don’t have to wait for them to open, we can just go in and take whatever we want.  It’s that easy! It’s a riot!”

“I don’t get it.  We can’t assemble twenty five people to worship in church but thousands can protest in the street?  There is something not right about that.”

“Dude… church?  There is no church anymore.  You don’t have to go to church any more, you watch it from your kitchen. Your kitchen is your church.  And besides, there is no God in all of this anyway.”

“Wait, wait, yes there is…  I think there is…God has to be in all of this…where is God?…I want my God back…”

 

Bob Dylan released Blowin’ in the Wind way back in 1963.  I would have been seven years old.   By the end of the decade much would change for this country.  The 60’s had proven to be one controversy after another with protests in the streets common.  Though there were definite similarities to some of the causes, like civil rights, and it’s hard to believe we are still talking about it all these years later, the hypothetical conversation above still can only be unique to this time.

Though I read that Dylan denies that Blowin’ in the Wind was written as a protest song, it certainly fills that need perfectly, and has been described as the anthem of the civil rights movement.

“How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?…

how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?…

… how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind”

 

Some think that this theme of “blowing in the wind” may have been taken from a passage in Bound for Glory, Woody Guthrie’s autobiography, where Guthrie compared his political sensibility to newspapers blowing in the winds of New York City streets and alleys.

 

To me sadly, we just experienced this generation’s 9/11 in Mr. Floyd’s death.

We just had the incident. The moment when the whole country came together in a crisis, the one where everyone agreed, and the one that presented the perfect opportunity to build on.

But, like boo boos and never letting a good crisis go to waste, this opportunity seems to have been hijacked for other purposes, at least initially.

Mr. Floyd’s death can’t be in vain, there has to be some result.  And just like the 60’s, peaceful protest will prevail and changes will be made to tighten up some of those wrongs that still plague our society.

But laws and protests aren’t going to solve this problem, we can’t force people to change.

And there are always going to be bad people out there.  We can’t erase whatever the genes are that cause some people to be abusers, murderers, racists, and whatever else is bad in people of all colors in this world.  We need to acknowledge those people exist, and exist disguised and wearing many coats, and some uniforms, and deal with them appropriately.

But the rest of us, the majority of us, those of us who came together for a brief moment on Memorial Day or in the days after, need to not waste another fifty years and just remember to trust each other and to treat each other with love.

We have to look at ourselves and decide what we can do to help make this problem go away one by one.

We need God back because we need God’s help.

God has to be in all of this.

Because God is love.

 

And God is in the wind.

 

Week Thirteen and the end of the tag line.