A TOTAL CROCK



I'm so tired of politicos. Especially the one we have in office now. You know, the

guy in the White House who is half Black/half White. Like many, he says he's Black. Which is fine with me. I could care less what color he is. That's not what I object to about our commander in chief.

But my latest beef with him is not playing basketball for publicity. Ike had golf, Reagan chopped firewood, but they seemed to do it without publicity. Without playing a saxophone on SNL, like The Slick One, without playing basketball with LeBron and Russ.

My gripe today is Obama's full support of a mosque being built very close to Ground Zero. When I first heard the idea months ago, I thought it was black humor. The kind I don't care for. When I heard it was serious, I was appalled. And when I read in the morning paper that Obama was for it, well, was a crock. What a crock.

What a lack of respect. I mean there are already a lot of mosques in the city. One more, there, a mockery.

Keep it up, Barack. I like you as a one-termer. Actually, that's only half true.

LITTLE SURFERS --LITTLE GIRL AND BOYS

I knew they could do it. They all have great balance. Plus the spirit of adventure. Plus the invincibility of youth.

So off they went as Evan and Dillon on respective days taught them surfing in the Pacific last week.

The two boys, age 9 and 7 got up the very first time. I knew they would, but not the first time. Their sis took a little longer. But maybe because she's bigger/older. She also got up, just not initially.

By getting up I mean standing and, you know, surfing. Not boogie boarding on a long board. Not on bended knees. Surfing. I don't know which song played louder in my head, "Surfer Girl" or "Hawaii 5-0's" theme song but it was fun watching them surf.

Our daughter, even older and bigger surfed, too, until a stingray took a bite, small thank heavens, out of her left foot. End of her surfing for the day. A visit to an Urgent Care followed after a hot soak for an hour in the tub. A shot, some x-rays, some meds and she returned two days later, but only in a help role.

Did it slow down or stop our grand ones? Not in the least. I didn't tell them another surfer who went out with them had also gotten stingrayed two days prior.

While the littlest surfer wanted more days in the water, the other two were happy to tunnel and pool it. And he did both helping to build the biggest tunnel I had ever seen on a beach. While he also "hit on" some girls at the pool where he told his G-Ma and me to act like we didn't know him (while he presumably was making a move or two).

As most vacations, it went all too quickly. But there's always next Summer.

MM--SHE WAS AVAILABLE, BUT I CHOSE SS

At a young age, I had a bevy of movie star beauties to be attracted to. Monroe, Mansfield, Loren, et. al. Even Mary Tyler Moore from tv along with Joey Heatherton, Barbara Parkins, Mia Farrow before the awful hair.

But the one I sat up and noticed was Stella Stevens. I guess Jerry Lewis did, too, because she was in more than one of his movies.

Although SS was in the mold of the bleached blonde, she seemed as if she tried less to be attractive. She was funny, too, which Tuesday Weld and others were not in the least.

Stella wasn't stuck up. She didn't even flirt. She was kinda like my first rejection in grade 5 only nicer. For lack of a better term, she seemed wholesome. Not quite the Sandra Dee innocence, but just sweet. Easy on the eyes, too.

After those Lewis movies, I don't know what happened to her. By then I had turned my attention elsewhere. To Racquel Welch.

THIS ISN'T IT

But we have a picture like this hanging in our dining room. One with a frame that extends the picture.

It's part of the decorating we did when we bought our erstwhile new house in 2003. It's the first, make that second time, I had ever been included in helping to pick out chairs, pictures, other furniture.

I enjoyed it. And my wife actually listened to my advice. Including the purchase of the picture. Others must have liked it, too, because on that same day, two other couples also purchased the picture. Well, one just like it. From a very small shop.

To be fair, the frame wasn't quite as large as the one pictured, the interior not as pronounced, but the view from Tuscany in our dining room runs out into the frame like this one. As an artist friend of ours says, "it flows into the living room".

I'm not that advanced to understand flow, but I don't mind being asked to help pick out some furniture or accessorize. But I'll never be metro enough to go shopping just to go shopping with no intention of buying. I'll never figure that one out.

GONDOUGHLA

At least that's how we used to pronounce it in the Midwest. In Italy, they pronounce it gonedauhla with the accent on gone. Well, actually I don't
really know what the word is in Italian though I speak the language. "Caio", and "andiamos" count as being somewhat fluent in my book. Of course in my book I am multi-lingual.

Just over two weeks ago, my wife and I took a gondola ride in Venice under the stars. Well, actually there were only stars on our return boat ride to the pier because of Summer time lightness in the European sky. But that's how it was advertised.

It was really a good time. We went with a group of 6 gondolas with a singer in boat 3. We brought up the rear but could still hear him pretty well. Not well enough for my wife and not familiar enough for me. There are a lot of great Italian songs, but I couldn't identify any of his. But now I'm nitpicking as I'm wont to do.

Lots of people walking on the narrow streets and standing on the small bridges. People in their houses with shuttered windows painted either brown or green. People taking our pictures, well ours and the others on gondolas. One small boy with his parents leaned over too far and fell into the canal just as we passed. His father pulled his submerged son to safety and coughing began. It continued until we rounded a corner I guess you would call it. A family story for years to come.

A beautiful, a big city with one canal huge enough to harbor a cruise ship, Venice is a favorite of mine. It seems the more I travel, the more favorites I find.

CLAMOR

Oswald Chambers talked about the clamor of life. Back when. I wonder what he'd say about clamor today.

Clamor is one of those words that needs defining. Our son suggests commotion. Unorganized chaos, my wife suggests. For me clamor is what gets in the way. So I guess they're both right. Along with Oswald.

New York City is constant clamor to me. Swarming with people hurrying to get there before anyone else, wherever there is. It's sensory overload with sounds, blurring sights, activity--commotion and chaos in the city that never sleeps. Yet recently I was told at Maxey's and Roxy's delis that they didn't open until 7:30 AM. Too late for our flight, so at Times Square, I'm forced to eat McDonald's because the city that never sleeps, never woke up in time for me.

But NY still defines the word better than LA, Tokyo, Beijing, or Rome. Somehow there aren't the lights, the movement that New York has. Tokyo is second. The others all distant thirds.

LA certainly defines traffic jam better than the others, but in my experience, Seoul is a close second and ahead of NYC. But even downtown LA isn't all that clamorous though it may be all that glamorous.

A recent syllogistic illogic Facebook statement that some have embraced goes something like this--saying that to be a Christian you have to be in a church is like saying that in order to be a car you have to be in a garage. Maybe I didn't word it quite right, but that's the gist. To me, one of the least places for clamor is in a church.

I've heard others claim they could be near to God in the outdoors, in the mountains, on a golf course. But they're as wrong as the analogy about church and garage. Corporate worship is necessary in a clamorous world that seems to thrive on individuality.

We all need companionship. We all need peers. But most importantly we all need God.