What's in a name anyway?

            My nephew got married over a recent weekend and this is worthy of note for a few reasons. He’s the first on my side of the family to get married whereas all of my wife’s nieces and nephews are already married. I have three siblings and between them they have five boys, no girls. My wife and I don’t have any children which I will explain a little later.

            When Diane and I got married almost 34 years ago we thought we were being progressive by having her hyphenate her last names to Graves-Lis, which she has legally used since then. What I found out at this wedding is that many couples are now being even more progressive by ditching their original last names for a new combined last name that they will both use as well as for any children they may have. That’s what my nephew Ben and his new bride Jenna did, combining Lis and Farwell into Mr. & Mrs. Liswell.

            That got me thinking that it would have been cool if when Diane and I got married we had both taken the last name of Gravelis, as in never being buried. Or better yet, since there are no real rules for combining or creating new last names what if we go with the “vanity plate” model and do something like Edmund & Diane Arelove or Mr. & Mrs. Sospecial or how about Diane & Edmund Thegreat.

            But seriously, I think what Ben and Jenna did in creating a new last name is very sweet and also smart in that it shows how committed they are to having an equal marriage. I wish them all the best.

            Does it bother me that there is one less chance for the Lis name to be carried on? Not really, since I made the choice years ago not to have children and knew that my personal bloodline would stop with me. Plus what’s in a name anyway? I don’t know the exact details of how my family got the name Lis, what I do know is that Lis is the translation for Fox in Polish. My dad also told me when I was younger that some of his relatives used the German translation of Fox which is spelled Fuchs and sounds like what you think it sounds like.

            So I guess I could change my name to Fox but I don’t think anyone has ever thought of me as a fox. Plus then I couldn’t use my silly puns like “ignorance is Lis” or my newest one, “Lis is more”.

            OK, enough about names, let’s get back to the wedding. Ben and Jenna are a beautiful, smart, healthy, caring couple. They are both in their late twenties, Cal-Poly graduates, both working at a large accounting firm and living in San Francisco. Their futures so bright everyone around them needs to wear shades. Same goes for the large contingent of millennial friends, schoolmates, and coworkers that were in attendance, they looked ready to conquer the world.

            At one point during the reception I looked around the room at all the young people talking, laughing, drinking, and having a great time. I leaned over to Diane and said something to the nature of them having their whole lives ahead of them, she replied in a whisper, “not all of them”. It was like a reality punch to the gut and I knew exactly what she was thinking. It wasn’t about all the young people around us it was about Julia from Winters, another beautiful, smart, and caring millennial who has no future, only a past because she died last week in a tragic accident.

            That’s kind of the Yin and Yang of life. You can be in the middle of a joyous occasion and think of something sad or I’ve been to sad funerals where someone will say or do something funny and you start laughing. There is such a fine emotional line between what we are feeling at any given moment or situation that sometimes you just have to say screw it, I feel what I feel and there’s no point in trying to control it.

            That’s also how I feel about my family name, it is what it is. I could have been a Fox, a Fuchs, or anything else some long forgotten ancestor decided to call himself but I’m a Lis and I’m good with that. As for the rest of the family, they can do what they want, be as creative as they want because what’s in a name anyway. No one really cares except maybe ancestry.com because this trend is going to make their job that much harder.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 9 of the following link. Winters Express 6/14/18

In Memory of

            As many of you already know, the cat known as Eddy was tragically killed on the porch of Steady Eddy’s Coffee House. It is very saddening and also angering in its senselessness but that’s not what I’m writing about today. I could also be writing a whole column about his history, but again I won’t. Long story short, he showed up as a feral kitten shortly after we opened the coffee house, we started feeding him, he stayed around through 4 owners and 14 years, he became comfortable with the people and the place, he loved and was loved, then he was attacked by a dog and died.

I don’t mean to sound short or cold about this tragedy because I really am sad and was in shock for the whole day after I heard and I cried when I had to break the news to my wife. But as a writer/columnist the thought I was having was about the need for most people to memorialize the dead, especially the tragic ones.

Now if you hadn’t noticed, I’m not like most people. As a matter of fact, in my mind I have this joke motto that I live by, “Ignorance is Lis”. In other words, I don’t want to remember or be reminded of things that cause me pain or sadness. The reason I bring this up is because as of this writing I haven’t stepped back onto the porch at Steady Eddy’s because I’m not sure I can handle it without turning into a blubbering idiot.

You see the reality is that even though I sometimes come off as cold and indifferent, I’m actually very (maybe too) sensitive and empathetic. Let me give you a few examples that aren’t about a cat because I have so many that do involve cats.

Recently Christopher Mendoza was tragically killed on the 505 down by Vacaville. I didn’t know Christopher other than when he was in High School and was a customer at the coffee house, in the past few years I would pass him on the street since he was always out walking and we would make eye contact or give a nod of the head. So after I heard the details of what happened I dreaded making my weekly drive to Vacaville. The first time I drove it I got queasy and felt sad as I came up to the spot on the freeway with the bright orange CHP marks on the pavement showing the point of impact. I can imagine what the scene was like but I don’t want to, I wish I didn’t know and I wish I didn’t have to think about it every time I drive to Vacaville.

Another tragedy I wish I didn’t know about, but am reminded of almost every day when I walk from work to the post office is the shooting death of Leslie Pinkston. I walk past the spot where she was parked and the tree that was painted purple in her memory but is now faded and will probably be cut down when the hotel exterior is being finished. The morning she was killed I heard the shot and what I thought was a scream but it didn’t register because it was so out of place in the usual quiet morning of downtown Winters. Once I saw her car (that I recognized) with the shattered window and all the people rushing around it, I realized what had happened but I didn’t go out and look because I didn’t want that image in my mind, remember ignorance is Lis.

Let me give you one last example of how warped my feelings are as compared to normal people. 30 some years ago my wife and I had a dog that was blind. She was so special I can’t even begin to explain. She also had terrible seizures that would last for a few minutes and when she came out of them she would be disoriented for hours but would eventually return to normal. Sadly in the end she went into a prolonged seizure and had to be euthanized. I wasn’t there for that, the reason being enough to fill a whole other column and something I regret to this day. But my point is about what I did when I got home from work that day (before my wife), I went around the apartment and picked up and put away everything of hers. Her leash, her bed, her toys, everything, because I couldn’t stand the pain of seeing them.When Diane got home from work she was furious with me and pulled everything back out so she could grieve like a normal person because unlike me, not everyone thinks that ignorance is bliss.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 5 of the following link. Winters Express 5/16/18

Mom manipulated by fake news story

            My mother who is 88 years old likes to send and or forward emails that she finds interesting, relevant, or funny. Many of them are animal and nature photos or jokes that someone sent her. She also sends a lot of links to MoveOn.org petitions because she is very liberal and politically involved with the Democratic Party. I also want to mention (because of where I am going with this story) that she is Jewish but not religious, and has visited Israel a couple of times.

            All that being said, let’s get on with the content of the email she sent me (and 42 other people) with the subject line of Fwd: Brilliant and in which she just wrote FYI.

During the recent cease-fire, the leader of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, Khaled Mashal, sent a gift to the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, in an elaborate box with a note. After having the box checked for safety reasons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the box and saw that the content was human feces. He opened the note, handwritten in Arabic by Mr. Mashal, which said, "For you and the proud people of the Zionist Entity."Mr. Netanyahu, literate in Arabic, pondered the note and decided how best to reciprocate. He quickly did so by sending the Hamas leader a very pretty package with a personal note. Mr. Mashal and the other leaders of Hamas were very surprised to receive the parcel and opened it very carefully suspecting that it might contain a bomb. But to their surprise they saw that it contained a tiny computer chip. The chip was rechargeable with solar energy, had a 1.8 terabyte memory and could output a 3D hologram display capable of functioning in any type of cellular phone, tablet or laptop. It was one of the world's most advanced technologies, with a tiny label, "Invented and produced in Israel." Mr. Netanyahu's note, personally handwritten in Arabic, Hebrew, French, and English, stated very courteously... "Every leader gives the best his people can produce."

            My initial reaction was a slight chuckle, then I got upset because it’s very Racist (and that’s not like my mother) and finally I started wondering if my mother actually thought this was a true story considering she put FYI at the beginning of the forward. My feeling was that this was a joke story but I thought I should do a little fact checking before I blasted my mother for sending it to her email group.

            After about a 5 minute Google search I found that the story had originally been published in 2014 by a website called To The Point News, who tout themselves as “The Oasis for Rational Conservatives”. The only other references I could find were posts on Facebook and chat rooms so my conclusion was that this is “Fake News”.

            So now the question is, why did my mother, who’s intelligent, well read, and keeps up with the news think this was something worth sharing? First, the original email came from a guy in her Sierra Club group (in hindsight she did say she should have paid more attention since he is a Republican). Second, the story makes Israel look good. And last but not least, it sounds plausible, like it could be true.

            This email my mother forwarded is a better example of an insensitive joke than fake news but it still gives us the opportunity to discuss the fake news hype.  Fake news is nothing new, I’m sure it’s been around since early man started telling stories around the fire and was probably used to try and make his adversaries look bad. It’s basically gossip with the intent to manipulate social or political thought. Back before the internet we called it “spin” and there were people known as Spin Doctors, now they are “Communications Specialists” who give us “alternative facts”.

            At its core, a lot of fake news is propaganda. That’s kind of what my mother’s email was in that it tried to elevate Israelis while denigrating Palestinians. The fake news/propaganda tries to elicit an emotional rather than a rational response from the recipient because they are much easier to manipulate that way. And Psychological Manipulation is what all this current fake news crap is all about.

            The powers that be, whether politicians, big business, religious leaders, or the super rich are all trying to influence us into their way of thinking. Social media has made it so much faster and easier to get the message and or disinformation out to the masses that most of us can’t even keep up with the sheer volume let alone figure out what’s fact or fiction.

             Let me wrap up this little rant by saying that I think that an eternal skeptic like myself has an advantage in the info-wars in that I don’t believe much of anything I hear whether it comes from the left, right, or down the middle.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 5 of the following link. Winters Express 4/19/18

Ice, Ice, Baby

            The New Year is here and for many people it’s a time for reflecting on the past and planning for the future. If you’re a regular reader of my columns then you probably already know that I’m not one of those people. I should probably clarify; I do reflect and think about the past (way to much) it’s the planning for the future that I’ve never really been into.

             I gave up making New Year’s resolutions ages ago when I figured out that if I couldn’t or wouldn’t change my ways during the past year why would I make any more effort to change starting on any given January 1st. I know me, and I don’t see any point in kidding myself or those around me. That’s not to say that I haven’t given up some bad habits or changed my ways, just not as a New Year’s resolution.

            Christmas and New Years are so close together that they get lumped together into the “holiday season” and it’s too bad because I really dislike the beginning but I’m always happy to see the end. One of the things I like about New Years is that it’s the only holiday that’s non-religious (if you don’t count the Gregorian calendar aspect) and non-political.

            Thinking back as a kid, New Years was always exciting because my parents liked to throw New Years Eve parties and they would let me help do stuff like peel the shrimp. Then they would let me stay up until midnight if I could keep my eyes open and see everyone ringing in the New Year.

            As a teenager New Years was just another excuse to party since my friends and I stayed up past midnight almost every weekend anyway. I don’t remember any specific New Years parties that stood out, I just know we partied like there was no tomorrow.

            Considering that I’ve lived through 60 New Years, none have really left much of an impression other than the one I’m going to tell you about now. Oh, and impression may be over hyping it.

            When I was in my mid-twenties and already living with Diane, for 2 or 3 years in a row we celebrated New Years Eve with an old friend of mine and his wife at their house down by Detroit. It was such a low key get together that we jokingly called ourselves “The Boremores” as in boring. We played board games, ate, drank, waited until midnight then made the hour drive home.

            So you’re probably wondering why this is memorable. Well the party wasn’t but the drive home sure was. First let me explain; I used to be one of those guy that If I said I was going to be somewhere at a certain time then you could set your watch by it because nothing was going to stop me. And if it was a social commitment, for sure don’t get in my way.

            Anyway, that particular New Years Eve the weathermen were predicting freezing rain and we probably should have stayed home, but damn it I committed to a party so we were going.

Sure enough just after midnight, as we were leaving, the rain started and at the same time the temperature started to drop. I had the wipers and defrost going full blast to keep the rain from freezing on the windshield. Even though the salt trucks were out the freeways were still treacherous and the drive home was what we Midwesterners call “white knuckle driving” because you’re holding onto the steering wheel so tight.

After a couple of hours crawling down the freeway we made it home without any mishaps and collapsed into bed wondering about what a way to start the new year. Was it an omen for what lay ahead? We weren’t sure but we were definitely a little freaked out as we finally drifted off to sleep.

That morning, New Years day we woke to an almost unbearable brightness coming in through the bedroom window (and it wasn’t from being hung-over). Our bedroom was on the second floor and looked out over a park that was across the street, as I got up and looked out the window it was one of the most amazing, dare I say even magical sights I have ever seen. The storm from the night before had past and the sun was shining down on all the trees covered in a layer of crystal clear, shimmering ice.

It was one of the most beautiful and memorable things I’ve ever seen and reminds me that sometimes you just have to sit back and let nature say HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!

To view the column in it's original form go to page 12 of the following link. Winters Express 1/4/18

The dark and the light of Christmas

            Before I get into Christmas let me put it out there that I am not a religious person but if I was I would have to consider myself Jewish since that is my blood line. That being said, I do believe in Jesus, I just don’t believe that Jesus was the son of god because there is no god. I do think that Jesus was such a charismatic person that the impression he left on humanity through his teachings and deeds has endured and grown for thousands of years.

            I could go into a big old rant about how modern Christmas is just about crass commercialism, gaudy light displays, over indulgent parties, and forced get together with families but that’s not where I’m going this year. No, to me Christmas is about birth and death.

            Celebrating Christmas is kind of a strange thing because the holiday is about the birth of Jesus but in the back of our minds we all know the end of the story, that in not so many years he is crucified and dies. For me every year when Christmas comes around I think about death, not because of Jesus but because of my younger sister Moira.

When I was Sixteen years old my sister disappeared on December 19^th, the day before her Fifteenth birthday. I don’t have real strong memories partially because it was 44 years ago but also because that was the year that I discovered pot so I was stoned through the whole ordeal. I thought that she had run away because that’s what I wished I had the courage to do considering the dysfunctional state of our family and that’s also how the police were treating it.

Her birthday came and went, presents unopened, then Christmas, then New Year. I was on winter break from school so I just partied with my friends and didn’t think about much other than myself. A month into the New Year we learned the truth, that she had been killed on that first day she went missing and our family was never the same again.

So that’s my tale from the dark side of Christmas, one of the many reasons I can’t get to excited about the holidays. But it’s not all doom and gloom, on the brighter side December 20^th was not only my sisters birthday but it’s also my wife’s birthday and I’m so thankful that’s she’s in my life because I can’t imagine where I’d be without her.

Like I said, Christmas is about death and birth, and the holiday season is when I consider myself to have been reborn as Steady Eddy. When I was 32, living in Flint, unhappy at work and not sure of my future, a serendipitous holiday opportunity or dare we say Christmas Miracle arose that changed me forever.

There was this place in downtown Flint that had been built at a cost of $80 Million to help revitalize the area and attract tourists. It was billed as an amusement park / museum and was called Six Flags AutoWorld. When it opened in 1984 there was great hope but it closed for the first time after just 6 months and was on again off again for a few years and then closed.

In 1989, Flint had a new mayor and possession of AutoWorld by default. He decided to reopen the park for the 5 week holiday season and long story short, I was at an AutoWorld meeting representing the beer distributor I worked for when they asked about vendors and I volunteered to run the popcorn concessions even though I had no real experience but hey, how hard can popcorn be?

To run the concession I had to get a business license and to get the license I needed a DBA. The name I came up with was Steady Eddy’s Pushcarts. Steady Eddy was one of my many high school nicknames and pushcarts because some of the popcorn poppers were on wooden carts but also because one of my all time favorite books as a kid was called “The Pushcart Wars”. That’s how I became Steady Eddy and those 5 weeks were great. Diane and I running around multiple locations inside the park, making popcorn and hot pretzels, managing our staff, interacting with visitors, other vendors, and city employees. Before long everyone was just calling me “Steady” and I loved it.

It was my best Christmas ever, I didn’t care that everything was over the top decorated or that Christmas music was blasting non-stop. Everyone was having fun, including myself and best of all, Diane and I netted five thousand dollars under the table, Ho, Ho, Ho.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 14 of the following link. Winters Express 12/21/17

This could be the Utopian States of America, Inc.

            Continuing on the theme of my last few columns, I think that income inequality is one of the largest societal problems we are facing. If we can fix that then maybe we can make America great for all. Notice I didn’t say great again? That’s because it’s never really been great for the majority of us.

            First let me clarify, when I talk about fixing income inequality it doesn’t mean that I think all incomes should be equal. It’s more about making it fairer for those at the bottom because the reality is that the deck is stacked against them from the get go. They are just in survival mode (as are many in the so called middle class) so they never get the opportunity to succeed at improving their lives.

As a society I feel that opportunity is the most important thing we can provide for our members. The opportunity for quality education, affordable healthcare, decent housing, food security, and the opportunity to not live in fear of those who profess to protect us. If we can provide these things, then as a society we’ve done our part and its then up to the individual to succeed.

So how do we get to this utopian vision of America? Maybe we can use that “social capitalism” I was talking about in my last column. But instead of just having socially conscious businesses let’s try a radical approach and make the federal government a corporation. I mean it’s already kind of a business with employees, income, and expenses, it just needs to be restructured. All U.S. citizens of age would be stock holders and each would get to vote for the board (congress) and the executive officers. Wasn’t this one of Trumps selling points, that he would run the government more like a business?

OK, yea I know it’s kind of a pipe dream to think we could change the constitution to allow us to have a USA, Inc. Especially considering we have all these Federalist Society members trying to keep us running our country like it was still 1776 even though society and the world has changed unimaginably since then.

 Anyway, regardless of how the federal government is structured let me give you my vision of a better and more equitable America. Now obviously I don’t have all the answers as to how we can get to this place and I definitely don’t know how we pay for it, but here goes.

Basic minimum living standards: All our citizens will be provided a clean and safe place to live, food for 3 meals a day, a basic cell phone, internet, and TV access. In exchange for this they are required to work a minimum number of hours for either a private company, for the government (workfare) or be enrolled in school or vocational training.

Free primary, secondary, and specialty education or vocational training: Everyone gets the opportunity to learn and become whatever they desire or is best suited too. In exchange they have to give back to the community a percentage of their skill, such as a doctor has to volunteer at a free clinic or the skilled tradesmen have to help maintain free housing, etc…

Affordable healthcare: This is a tough one excepting the staffing of doctors, nurses, and their support. That will be easier because without the burden of student debt more people will go into the profession because they want to help people, not just to make money. Also in exchange for their education they will need to volunteer some of their time. The hard part is reining in the costs of pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and healthcare facilities. I think that can be done by using the social capitalism model that would require them to be nonprofits. The understanding being that a nonprofit can still make money to pay salaries and do research and development they just have to charge and pay socially acceptable norms.

So those are three of the main areas that need fixing to improve our society. Financially I think they can be achieved by cutting back on foreign aid especially military and by withdrawing our military from the dead end conflicts we are now in. We should use those resources to improve our crumbling infrastructures, creating jobs at the same time.

Just to clarify, because we are providing these basic opportunities to those who need it doesn’t mean we won’t still have private education, healthcare, and housing for those that can afford it. It’s just that we’re leveling the playing field a little so we can all be happier, healthier, smarter, and hopefully friendlier to those different than ourselves.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 13 of the following link. Winters Express 12/14/17

Being Woke about Sexism & Guns.

I submitted a column over 6 weeks ago that continued on my theme of income inequality (look for it soon) but I asked the editor to run this one first because the topics are so current.

So where to begin? Let’s start with the least controversial topic of “being woke”. As a 60 year old white man I probably shouldn’t even be using (or knowing) that term, but I really like it. Considering the demographic of the Winters Express readers I don’t need to worry about getting called out for appropriating urban slang, more likely I need to explain it. In a nut shell being woke means that you are aware of and vigilant to what is (or should be) socially unacceptable.

            That leads me to the topic of sexism, more specifically sexual harassment and/or misconduct. Once again, as a 60 year old man should I even be going there? Statistically, I am the problem, personally not so much. First let me explain that as a human male, I have been aware of and sexually interested in females since I was a pre-teen. I remember finding and reading erotic books that my dad had in his desk and also looking at by best friends’ fathers’ collection of Playboy magazine’s when I was just 10 years old. By age 13 I had Playboy pinups all over my bedroom walls and my head was full of unrealistic fantasies.

            I won’t go into any more of my sexual history, just wanted to make the point that I have always enjoyed the female form. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first thing I notice about a woman is her body. Does this make me sexist or a bad man? I’m only doing what comes natural but I’m also “woke” to the fact that this makes women uncomfortable so I try to be sensitive and not obvious as to where my eyes instinctively want to go.

            This brings me to all the high profile harassment claims that are all over the news. Do I believe the accusations? Hell yes. As a man, I know that historically when given an (perceived) opportunity a lot of men will try and take advantage of women for very basic sexual gratification. And that’s just everyday guys; if it’s a man with power and an overinflated ego then women watch out!

            So how do we fix the problem? Well I think what we are seeing right now is a good start. Thanks to the “Grabber in Chief” it’s now easier than ever to talk about it, expose it, and for men to start taking responsibility for it. That’s what I’m doing, I work with mostly young women and I’m very aware of all the sexist things I shouldn’t do. I don’t touch, I don’t leer, and I don’t make sexual comments or jokes. I keep it professional, plain and simple.

            OK, now let’s talk about guns. It’s gotten to the point that with so many mass shootings we can probably all start playing the 6 degrees of separation game. Let me start, this last shooting (as of the time I write this) at the church in Texas was at first just another tragedy in the news. Then my mother-in-law from Michigan called to tell my wife that both parents of the husband of our niece who lives on a military base in Okinawa had been killed in that shooting. Even though we never met them they were still family and it becomes more than just a news story, it’s just a few degrees of separation.

            I’ve never owned a gun and I’ve only shot a 22 caliber rifle when I was a kid at YMCA camp (I wrote a column about that) and once as a teenager I shot a 450 Magnum (my ears are still ringing) when I worked for a guy who thought he was cool and carried it around in his briefcase. In high school my best friend jokingly pointed his dad’s shotgun at me and to this day I don’t know if it was loaded or not but I still remember the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach and it wasn’t a good one.

            In the United States there are hundreds of millions of fire arms; anywhere from 1/3 to ½ of all households have at least one. There are so many that I don’t think there is any way to put the Genie back in the bottle so how do we regulate them? I have a very simple solution; follow the wording of the 2^nd Amendment and require anyone who owns a gun to be a member of a “Well Regulated Militia”.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 11/30/17