Spring, Springing

Baloo and Zuzu enjoying the early evening in the backyard

Everywhere I look, spring is in the air. Or as it turns out, all over my car. This time of year, a light (and sometimes not so light) dusting of greenish pollen covers one’s automobiles even one day after hosing them off. It is a cost of having been admitted to a life of paradise here on the Eastern Shore. As I look at the photo above, I am reminded of something I heard my father say as a boy— “Show me a man with a nice lawn, and I’ll show you a bad golfer.” This is perhaps true, but what I can display is both bad lawn-keeping and bad golfing. I’m sure there is far more I can do to create a lovely green carpet without weeds, but the effort and the desire not to create befouling run-off into the Miles River restrains my hand.

Every year, I rightfully beat myself up about how I spend my time in the spring and summer. I don’t paddle-board, enough. Really at all. I don’t kayak enough. I don’t go out with Catherine in her beautiful wooden row-boat. I don’t take our Whaler out. I don’t watch enough baseball. I don’t play enough golf. I don’t garden. I don’t fish. I live in a ridiculously beautiful place with all of these pleasures at my fingertips, and I make poor use of them.

This pitiful state is entirely my own fault. I work too much, sometimes inefficiently. I travel a good bit for my work. I dawdle with Twitter far too much. Some might say that writing these essays is poor use of my time, but this is something I see as likely following me into retirement—whereas those other sumps will either go away or greatly diminish.

Catherine goes about all this stuff differently than I do. She REALLY hates it when it is a nice day and she is not outside, and often I will have to walk the property a bit looking for her when dinner is ready, because she’s been out on some project or another. We have tulips, peonies, irises, daffodils, and roses growing variously, along with flowering trees and bushes that require her attention and love. If the sun is shining, her desk will be empty and she is out drawing strength from it, while I scribble some madness that no one will read about how big a Navy we need.

I comfort myself with the prospect of retirement, that when the paid work goes away, I will become the gardener and waterman that Catherine’s love and ancestral plot provides the opportunity for. I am two months shy of my 58th birthday, and for the longest time, I had 60 in my crosshairs as the walk-off point, although there was always a “number” ($) associated with that number. The stock market swoon coming as it has—inconveniently close to blessed relief—means that 60 might be out of reach—although I am working as hard as I ever have to get there.*

The next six weeks are kind of brutal from a time management standpoint. Multiple work trips and the normal pace of my professional life alone will take up a good bit of time, but there are many important personal life events (college buddy’s out of town wedding, two daughters’ college graduations, birthdays of said daughters, Mother’s Day, and Catherine’s birthday) that also populate my pre-Memorial Day program. Looking at this period develop about a month ago, I realized that what I really wanted was to try and “fence off” the summer. And by that I mean that aside from work commitments and trips necessary for work, I was not going to put ANYTHING on the schedule that took me away from this beautiful farm. I will fish. I will paddleboard. I will golf. I will garden. I will boat. I will grill. I will swim. I will stretch, run, and lift. THIS is the summer — my 16th on the Shore— when I finally take some advantage of the advantages I have.

Now, I just need to make it happen.

*This is probably not true. I worked harder for the three years I was Ops Officer on a Cruiser (1994-97). Hardest job of my life.

The Leaker

The person responsible for leaking a great deal of classified material onto the internet was arrested this week, and it turns out that his prime motivation appears to have been the ego-kick he received from a group of wide-eyed teen-aged boys over whom he presided online as some sort of skewed sensei (I referred to him in a text message as “Lord of the Fleas”). It does not appear that he was acting as an agent of any other government, but that this was solely the irresponsible and patently illegal sharing of classified information. During the Cold War, there were generally three types who shared information with our enemies—those who did it for money, those who did it for ideology, and those who did it for ego (as in “my agency doesn’t respect me, look at how clever I am, etc). While the leaker was not DIRECTLY passing information to enemies, it surely has gotten there, it surely is pretty devastating, and it surely was for ego. I hope he goes to prison for a long, long, time.

Never one to miss an opportunity to burnish her credentials as one of the most irresponsible Members of Congress, someone who should NOT be even able to SMELL classified material opined thusly:

This woman is a menace, and defending the actions of this reckless criminal reveal that love for country is way down on this list for the MAGAverse, far below hatred and wallowing in victimhood.

Author’s Note: If you respond to this piece in any way defending what this woman wrote (or defend her in any way, shape, or form), I will remove you from the list of subscribers. Your right to free speech cannot be denied by the government. You do not enjoy that right here.

Pompeo is Out

It appears that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has decided not to run for President. That he had toyed with the idea at all seems sufficient evidence of his lack of fitness for the office, as I don’t remember ever hearing single American voter say “you know, what this country really needs is a Pompeo presidency”. Good for him for exercising a minimum level of judgment by ending his quixotic path.

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has joined the race, and in any other year, I’d be okay with that. But this is not any other year, and Trump’s path to the GOP nomination is all but assured if the same math as 2016 comes into play, where there is a Trump/Rump and everyone else splits the vote. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the field and the GOP come to act on this, but they all know it to be the reality of the situation.

Mike Pence—who I REALLY liked before he became Trump’s running mate—continues to plug away with as far as I can see no viable path to the office. The Trump/Rump detests him (one might recall their military wing on 6 January calling for his head) because of his disloyalty to their Cheeto Jesus, and the rest of the GOP can’t get over his lamb-like obeisance to the excesses of Trump presidency while part of it.

At this point, what would make me happy is a three person race—Trump, DeSantis, and Nikki Haley. I realize that is unlikely to be the case as others continue to consider a run, but that’s the race I want.