Showing up on time
I have a great character flaw, I am unable to be on time. My countermeasure, however, is that I do early better than anyone you ever met. My motto is if you are always early, you are never late. I generally arrive a good half-hour early for whatever event I am attending.
Waiting for someone who is always late is extremely annoying. One of the more charitable thoughts is that the person I am waiting for must think they had time to do one more thing before they needed to get where they had agreed to be. The truth is, being on time isn’t important to them.
Waiting is another tedious activity of which I am not fond. Books are my constant companion because reading is a great way to pass the time. I rarely get enough time to read for pleasure. Reading on a tablet allows me to carry around an entire library of books on a 5 by 7 inch device that is less than an inch thick.
I am limited only by the device’s memory and the electrical charge, which lasts a good long time. Reading a story is always so much easier than writing one.
With great sorrow, I have read of the passing of former First Lady Barbara Bush. The wife of one president and the mother of another, she served as an excellent role model for women of all ages.
There is a tenured professor at Fresno State, Randa Jarrar, who is quoted on Twitter with “Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal.” Her mother must not have taught her it is bad form to speak ill of the dead. I think she is an excellent example of why the tenure system is so flawed.
I have never been a fan of the Bush family, or their politics, but this is mean spirited and I hope it makes her feel important. She has freedom of speech but should, in some way, be censured by the university. Keep in mind this is coming from a life-long, registered Democrat. Both political parties have disappointed me in recent years.
The country had poor choices in the last presidential election. The Democrats have proven just how low they are willing to sink to embarrass the office of the president. Unless they can come up with a very good candidate in the near future, Trump will be re-elected POTUS.
One tabloid article suggested that candidate should be Michelle Obama for president with Oprah Winfrey as her running mate. This sounds like an article from MAD magazine or the Onion looking for a place to light.
I have always thought Richard Nixon should not have resigned. If the opposition had wanted him out-of-office, they should have had to impeach him. Had I been good ol’ “Tricky Dick,” I would have had a great big barbecue using magnetic tape as fuel.
In his famous 1977 interview with the late David Frost, Nixon is quoted as saying, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” According to Frost’s obituary, he extracted an apology to the American public from Nixon.
When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, an announcement was made about it over the intercom. I was in the third grade. Students were sent out for recess while the teachers decided what to do with us. My mother worked registering voters and on the grassroots campaign for JFK. He was like a member of our family.
She developed an interest in the future president when he was just Senator Kennedy. She had copies of both Profiles in Courage and PT-109. Just after he was elected, she donated a letter she received from then-Sen. Kennedy to an auction for the March of Dimes. They were instrumental in the recovery of my older brother, Rocky Hill, when he had polio.
The most disturbing rumor floating around the playground when President Kennedy was killed is that with him dead it meant Nixon would be president and we would have to go to school on Saturdays.
My mother, brothers, cousins and I were at the train depot when JFK came through the Valley prior to his election. Mom and I were there when RFK came through in May of 1968.
Had Senator Edward Kennedy not run his car off the bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, he would have had a much better chance during his run for president. In theaters now is a new movie about this tragedy.
“On July 18, 1969, Sen. Ted Kennedy drives his car off a bridge on Massachusetts’ Chappaquiddick Island. The accident results in the death of passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old campaign strategist who worked for Kennedy. The ongoing investigation into the mysterious and scandalous events forever alters his political legacy — and ultimately changes the course of presidential history,” according to one review of the film.
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Have a good weekend.
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Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.
