Thoughts For The Day From Papa ‘a

Good Morning All & Happy Sunday!

Well, our beloved Green Bay Packers went down to defeat yesterday.  It goes to show that special teams are REALLY important in the overall scheme of things when it comes to football, don’t you think?  How many football games can you think of that have been decided by special teams play (i.e. punts, field goals, etc.)?…too many to count!  Now it’s on to rooting for the Los Angeles Rams and our favorite pro football player, Cooper Kupp, of Eastern Washington University fame!

Let me be one of the first to wish beloved family member and friend, Abby in Huntsville AL, a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  She celebrates her special day tomorrow.  She’s a wife, mother, former Air Force officer and business consultant extraordinaire (not to mention she makes a mean dish of Cougar Gold mac ‘n cheese).  Here’s to you Abby!  Also, Happy Birthday to friend, former Thrivent executive and community volunteer & philanthropist beyond compare, Bob in Spokane WA; and friend Melissa in Spokane WA, who celebrate their birthdays tomorrow (Jan. 24th) as well!  Here’s to all of you!  Enjoy your birthday celebrations and eat lots of cake, won’t you?

Speaking of birthdays, here’s to actress/dancer Chita Rivera, who is 89 today; to actor Gil Gerard, who turns 79 today; to singer Anita Pointer of “The Pointer Sisters” fame, who is 74 today; to actor Richard Dean Anderson is “MacGyver” T.V. fame, who turns 72 today; to musician Robin Zander of “Cheap Trick” fame, who is 69 today; to Princess Caroline of Monaco (I always had a crush on her!), who turns 65 today; to singer Anita Baker, who is 64 today; and to actress Mariska Hargitay (daughter of 1950’s star Jayne Mansfield) of “Law & Order” T.V. series fame, who turns 58 today.  Happy Birthday to all of you!

And a very special Happy Birthday goes to one of my all-time heroes, pilot Chesley (“Sully”) Sullenberger of the “Hudson River Airplane Landing” fame.  That was some kind of piloting skills, don’t you think?  What an amazing thing he did!  Here’s you, “Sully” on your special day of celebration…Happy 71st birthday!

Speaking of notable people in my life, I was going through my Dad’s address book the other day.  My mother had kept it all of these years and it has a treasure trove of information about people (family, friends, clients, business associates, etc.) that were important in my Dad’s personal life and professional career.  I’m looking forward to reading it and writing my impressions of the people that Dad included in it.  One such person was a gentleman by the name of Sherman (Sherm) Huffine.  He, along with a number of people who were “shakers and movers” in the town in which I grew up (Olympia WA), attended the same church as my family.  Mr. Huffine married one of the daughters of Adolph Schmidt, who was the son of the founder of the Olympia Brewing Company, Leopold Schmidt (if I have the generations correct).  He and his family were faithful attendees of St. John’s Episcopal Church and, as I recall, he was an impeccable dresser…always in tailored suits that looked quite impressive to me.  He was a real gentleman in every sense of that word and had a great smile, as I remember.  He and his wife cared for their two twin sons, who were born with some developmental disabilities.  One of the sons received training as a pianist and played classical music brilliantly.  Mr. Huffine and his wife were true patrons of the arts and founded the Seattle Opera Association and was an emeritus director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.  He served as the Vice President For Legal Affairs and  Secretary-Treasurer of the Olympia Brewing Company for many years and was a 1930 graduate of the University of Washington Law School (also a graduate of Queen Anne High School in Seattle).  He remained on the Board of Directors of Olympia Brewing Company until the company was sold to Miller Brewing Company in 1983.  As former Secretary of State Ralph Munro said of him…”He was a wonderful man…He was truly a guy who put his heart and money where his mouth is and went out and helped people.”  One of the benefits of growing up in the church (St. John’s Episcopal) was I got to meet many wonderful people from all walks of life and certainly Sherman Huffine was one of them!

Speaking of good men and effective leaders, President Harry Truman has always been a favorite of mine.  Among the many wonderful books I received as Christmas presents this year, is one given to me by my beloved sister-in-law, Nancy, entitled “The Accidental President:  Harry S. Truman And The Four Months That Changed The World” by A. J. Baime.  I’ve often thought that even though our world seems to “advance” through technological innovations of various kinds, we still can’t seem to figure out how to get along with each other and observe/practice moral virtues when it comes to our relations with others and between nations, particularly when it comes to avoiding armed conflict/wars.  In other words, our morals haven’t caught up with our technological advances.  President Truman seems to put his finger on this dilemma or conundrum, if you will (don’t you love the way the English language gives us so many different words to describe things?), as described in “The Accidental President.”  Here is the excerpt from the book to which I’m referring:

“Truman had fought in a European war as a younger man and had seen war’s devastation.  But he had never seen anything like Berlin in July, 1945.  In contracts to the Great War, World War II was a fully industrialized conflict.  The French 75 cannon had given way to swarms of 60,000-pound, four-engine bomber aircraft capable of shredding whole cities.  He wrote in a diary entry that night of his impression of Berlin.  It had left him philosophical and fearful for the future of mankind:

“I hope for some sort of peace—but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries and when morals catch up perhaps there’ll be no reason for any of it.  I hope not.  But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we bore too deeply into the planet there’ll be a reckoning—who knows?”

—A.J. Baime, “The Accidental President”, pages 281-282 (2017)

 

Speaking of World War II, I’ve been reading my Dad’s interview connected with the Washington State World War II Memorial Foundation and in the following excerpt, he talks about the day he and his fellow Marines landed on Iwo Jima:

“…I got off (of the landing craft).  I saw this guy flying through the air…I make a left turn cause we were supposed to gather to the left and up to the top of the—the terrace.  They’re kind of like this (gestures).  And then—and then—but artillery’s coming in.  So you flopped down in the sand for awhile, you know.  There’s no way to cover but you just get down so you don’t get loose shrapnel going through you or a sniper or whoever’s shooting at me I don’t want you—I don’t want them to hit me (laughs).  But we got to rendezvous, to get your stuff together.  Well, probably an hour and a half, maybe two hours before we got all our—our team, together. And found each other, you know, cause there’s all kinds of people there and there’s dead guys around, you know.  And so out of the 28th Marines, the regiment, 20th Regiment, had the job of going across the narrowest part first.  That was near Suribachi.  That was to cut—cut the dragon in two, if you will.  And so then we (the 26th Regiment, 3rd Battalion) could turn—the 20th turned towards Suribachi and part of the 27th Regiment, to start with, would turn to the north so that we protect our flank then, and so forth.  And then we came in and then we filled in with the 27th, turning to the right.  But look …back up like this and here’s this crazy mountain, you know.  And they’re looking down like this at you.  And it’s uh—for them for awhile it was like shooting fish in a barrel, sort of, you know, it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was.  And, but eventually our—our Naval guns knocked out some of their big, heavy stuff, even—and gradually the attrition…” (more to follow in future “Thoughts For The Day From Papa ‘a)

—Donald (Don) Newbold, “Washington State World War II Memorial Foundation Interview”

 

Here’s the trivia question for the day:

Q:  The game “UNO” was created after a dispute about the rules of what game…”Go Fish”?…”Old Maid”?…”Hearts”?…or “Crazy Eights?”

A:  Merle Robbins, a barber from Ohio, invented the card game “UNO” in 1971.  He created the game in an attempt to settle a dispute with his son over the rules of the game “Crazy Eights.”  The original decks were designed and made on the family dining room table.  Merle set aside $8,000 to produce the first 5,000 UNO decks.  He sold them out of his barbershop, while his son Ray handed them out to his classmates.  A year later, he sold the rights of the game to International Games for $50,000 plus royalties of 10 cents per copy. Today, the game is produced by Mattel in 80 countries and has sold 151 million units worldwide.  WOW!

 

Here’s the fact for the day:

1% of the Earth’s wood supply is used by IKEA.   How about that???

 

Here are some thoughts for the day:

 

“And all the answers that I started with…

Turned out questions in the end…”

—Alison Krauss & Union Station, “Gravity,” from the album “Lonely Runs Both Ways” (2004)

 

“Once upon a time in a far off land

Wise men saw a sign and set out ‘cross the sand

With songs appraised to sing…they traveled day and night

With precious gifts to bring…guided by a light

 

They chased a brand new star…ever towards the west

Over mountains far…and when it came to rest

They scarse believed their eyes…they’d come so many miles

This miracle they prized…was nothing but a child

 

Nothing but a child could wash those tears away

Or guide a weary world into the light of day

And nothing but a child could help erase those lines

So once again we all

Can be children for a while…”

—Kathy Mattea, “Nothing But A Child,” from the album “Good News” (1993)

 

Here’s to a great Sunday and lots of love & good wishes always!

Press on,

Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, Mark, etc.)