For someone who wasn’t there, it’s hard to describe what it meant to grow up in the 1970’s.  There was definitely a feeling of being a part of an anti-establishment, anti Vietnam war era movement.  I think half the time we didn’t really know what we were against but if it felt like it was coming from the establishment, we were against it.  If Laugh-In or the Smothers Brothers made fun of it, then it must be bad.  Watergate and bringing down the Nixon machine was a huge victory for the little guy.

There was an incredibly common theme to the music of the day, which had a strong message of a younger generation taking over.  Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Allman Brothers, Aerosmith, Elton John, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Fleetwood Mac, The Bee Gees, Billy Joel, and Steely Dan were all sending strong anti-establishment messages with their lyrics and incredible song writing.  With only a few stations to listen to, these bands had the monopoly on the message and it was powerful.

The kids I knew aspired to get out of the house at 18 and be independent no matter what. The hip ‘thing to do’ after turning 18 was to get in a van, travel the country for a year or so and work odd jobs along the way.  Let’s get this independence thing started with a bang.   Very few of my peers were able to actually do this, but at the time it was talked about as a legitimate plan.

One of the worst fates it seemed, was to be stuck living at home with your parents under their oppression.  Since about age 12, I had already decided there was no way I was ever going to let that happen to me. Ever. I had resolved to grow up fast and get out. It was understood that this probably meant living poor for a time. So be it. Not a deterrent in the slightest. I’ll eat peanut butter and jelly every day if I have to.

One of my older sisters got engaged at age 16 and was on the fast track to independence. I looked up to her in this regard and while it wasn’t a competition to see who could get married the youngest, I was definitely envious of her approach to getting out of the house early with the ability to make her own decisions.

I was a somewhat rebellious teen. Not horrible, but definitely not on board with my parents’ ideals which included ( for a time ) private school, mandatory church attendance ( and I mean mandatory ), and somewhat higher expectations around behavior and appearance, some of which could be traced back to the teachings of Catholicism.

Looking back, the expectations weren’t really that high. I did okay in school, I guess.  I’m a lifetime 3.2 student at all levels.  Trying for an A was usually more effort than I was willing to put out but sometimes I’d surprise myself and go for it.

I’m actually very thankful for certain aspects of my upbringing.  For one thing, being a part of the private school culture instilled a stronger sense of conscience than I might have had.  There’s a little bit of a work ethic message that came with it that has served me well in my adult years, though I didn’t value it much at the time.

With regard to rebellion, the two biggest rules that ranked on me the most were the control over my haircut and ( a crew-cut for about the first 10 years ), and the mandatory church attendance. As a parent, I get where they were coming from now, but at the time I was livid — and both were non-negotiable.

I make it sound like my parents were demanding task-masters.  They were not.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  They actually had a strong vision of what they considered the family framework and that included a lot of fun and laughter.  Dad was a hilarious entertainer and my golfing buddy.  Mom was always there for me when I needed it most.  Once I got to know them better as an adult, I came to find out they were actually quite liberal-minded when it came to social justice issues.

Punishment was pretty rare and I can’t think of a single time I got some when I didn’t fully deserve it.  It’s just that the vision had to fit inside this particular framework and that was a challenge for me.  As it turned out, a really big challenge.

Tied in with this was the culture of the 60’s and 70’s where long hair was a big deal. And I mean BIG DEAL. Walking to school with a crew-cut immediately excluded you from any kind of cool kid group. You weren’t hip. Your parents obviously had control over you and you came from one of those ‘strict’ families. Bummer for you. Yes, bummer indeed. And you’re reminded of it every single day.

So sophomore year of high school I meet this really nice girl from more of a blue-collar family. Her dad was a mechanic. They camped a lot, liked to hunt, fish, and all of that. I genuinely liked those things too but I think in the back of my mind dating her and joining this family culture was another piece of the rebellion pie. We got along well, but at the same time it was a statement to the rest of the family that I am my own man. Back off. I’m going in this direction and it’s not what you may have had in mind for me, but too bad. And indeed there was nothing they could do about it. I liked that aspect of it. It wasn’t all about rebellion, I genuinely loved her and enjoyed being with her family.  But with the benefit of hindsight, part of it was.

We got married during Spring break of my freshman year of college.  I was 19, a student and part-time janitor. She was 18 and worked full-time to support my education. It wasn’t a snap decision.  We didn’t ‘have to’ get married. We chose to. We were a pretty unusual case, even for 1979. We had been dating for 4 years.

The early years of the marriage were a little challenging financially, but I don’t recall feeling like we didn’t have enough.  We started a family right away and moved to the Everett Washington area. I remember being pretty happy. It was an exciting time. New job at Boeing. Out on my own. Life was good.

Somewhere along the way though, I started to realize I had gone down this particular path for the wrong reasons. It was clear we were two very different people who were raised in two very different family situations. When you have kids ( we had 3 ), you automatically have something in common and often times that alone can be enough to keep a marriage together. In our case, it was — for 27 years. But about 12 years into the marriage I realized I am not being honest with myself here. I am not able to be my authentic self – and neither was she.  That’s very frustrating for both people.

What does it mean to ‘be your authentic self’?  I like the definition which states “Living a life that is in tune with who you were created to be.”  Contrast that with fictional self:  “When you live a life in which you are not faithful to your authentic self, you find yourself feeling incomplete, as if there is a hole in your soul.”

Part of this is simply feeling like you fit in.  In Oregon we have this vast culture divide between people who live East of the Cascade Mountain range, and people who live in the valley.  West of the mountains we defined by liberal politics, especially in Multnomah County.  East of the Mountains, where her family was from, it’s far more conservative.

I remember visiting family east of the mountains and struggling to fit in at times.  I’ve spent the vast majority of my career in various roles of the software industry — from Software Engineer to Manager to Software Engineer again.  By trade I can’t help but be an Irish software geek.

So try being out with the guys in Central Oregon and Bob over there is talking about how he just replaced the tranny in his truck  but it still has a little slippage.  And the compression wasn’t quite right so he had to take the head off and adjust the pistons.

What have you been up to, Bill?  “Well, I fixed a really tricky timing problem between hardware and software on a Flight Controls box between the air speed signal and the new ASIC.  And it took 3 days in the debugger to figure it out.”  [ Stares ].  “Cool.”

Top that off with the fact that as a mechanic, I am a klutz.  The stories are legendary.  I packed the wheel bearings in my truck one time and the front wheel came off going over Mt. Hood.  And I had my wife and 3 month old daughter in the truck.  No one was hurt, thankfully.  Her Dad came to the rescue and bailed us out big-time.

Another challenge for me was that as I had decided to just “be” my authentic self and let the chips fall where they may, I got more vocal about politics.  I have never, nor will I ever, understand how conservatives buy into trickle-down economic theory.  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut at the irony of voting against one’s self interests and this led to quite a bit of additional friction.  It starts off as friendly banter, but if you’re not careful ( and I was not ), it can escalate.  At the end of the day it simply exposes family differences that are nearly impossible to reconcile while keeping some semblance of your authentic self.

If there’s any fault to be assigned here, it clearly goes to me because I’m the one who changed. She stayed true to who she is. I am the one who bait and switched and I’m sure that was very hard for her. It’s my fault if fault needs to be assigned. In my defense, I was a naive teenager.

As hard as divorce is, this one has a happy ending because we both met and married a partner who is far more accepting of our authentic selves. I couldn’t be happier for her and her new husband and I’m sure she feels the same way about Donna and I.

What a great thing it is, to be able to get up every morning and be your authentic self.

To be able to think out loud unfiltered and still be accepted and understood.  To be hanging with your peeps who get you.  To be able to pursue what floats your boat without fear of judgment.  To not have to feel like you’re walking on egg-shells around family.

And for every benefit I just listed for myself, the exact same thing is true for her.  It’s freedom.  It’s the difference between waking up everyday wondering why you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole vs. being excited about what lies ahead.

Joining the dating pool in 2007, after being out of it for 30 years was an interesting experience.  I get a kick out of the profiles on match.com where people put forth the impression that they offer a thrill a minute.  We’ll be rock climbing, jet skiing, para-sailing and running marathons when we aren’t traveling to Istanbul.  I knew better than that.

My main requirement was that this time around: I get to be my authentic self.  As it turns out, on the very first date with Donna we had sort of an a-ha moment where we both declared we are not going to settle.  For me, that was #1.  Neither one of us needed to be married.  We were doing fine single, thank-you very much.  I knew this was a very good starting point.  And it was.  But that’s a blog post for another day.

Authentic Self.  Yep.  I’m in favor of being who you are and not trying to be someone you’re not.

Both of my parents had really strong social networks back in their day.  There were family friends from college days, friends from work, the neighborhood we lived in and from the local Catholic Parish that we belonged to.  A Teacher and a Nurse, we were middle class most years, but I know the finances fell behind a few years due to some ongoing medical issues.  It was all pretty transparent to me.  My needs were taken care of.

Being of someone limited means they learned to maximize their entertainment dollar.  Both card players ( duplicate bridge became their go-to game ), they learned that all you really needed for a good time was to have a few friends over, pull out a deck of cards and make a pot of spaghetti.  Pretty simple, but always filled with a lot of laughs and good cheer.  They created a lot of memories with that strategy and seemed fulfilled.

It wasn’t until I started raising a family of my own that I came to appreciate their wisdom in this area.  My first wife and I struggled to find mutual friends.  There are basically 3 things that can screw up a potential choice.  Either I liked the guy okay but couldn’t stand to be around the women, or else she liked the woman okay but couldn’t stand the guy.  On a few occasions we got with the other couple pretty well but then couldn’t take being around their kids.  It’s a tricky equation where we learned from the school of hard knocks, mostly.

We hit it close a few times and found a family we liked to vacation with and seemed a really good match.  The kids were all about the same age and got along great.  One year we did a 4 day / 3 night vacation at Black Butte Ranch and had a great time.  Everyone had so much fun that we decided to do it again the following year at Sun River, only this time for a full week.  A week turned out to be a bit too long for all of us I think because by the end of the week I think both families were pretty glad to get out of each other’s hair.

In the absence of finding a great couple to hang with during many of those years, we fell back to vacations with family because well, they have to put up with us.  Not that it was a big challenge to be around family, it wasn’t.  It’s just that we didn’t seem to ever be able to get to that level that my parents got to, and that caused a bit of self-reflection.

I’m an engineer so that all by itself may be a part of the problem.  Have you ever been to a party with a bunch of engineers?  Boring.  No wonder she was dying to get out of there.  Work parties were the worst.  Houses, neighborhoods, kids’ school, and work talk.  Zzzzzzzzzzz.  I once went to a work Christmas party of hers and it was a huge eye-opener.  After about an hour the band started up and all these really cute girls got out on the dance floor and let their hair down.  Say what?  Girls that were her co-workers.  That just doesn’t happen in Engineering.  The female engineers I worked with weren’t shaking their booty for nobody, no-how, no-siree-bob.  I just didn’t happen.  Pretty much categorically, one could use the word ‘uptight’.  And the guys weren’t much better in this regard.  Nerds and dancing don’t mix too well.  I often wondered how scandalous it would have been if we had ever had a band at a work party and people actually got out there and shook a leg for a bit.  The water cooler area would have been packed on Monday.

My current wife worked for a Big 4 Accounting firm for a number of years and the social scene described was, let’s just say, quite a bit more lively and spirited that the (yawn) high-tech companies where I had toiled for 30 years.

My first wife and I split after 27 years together and both got a chance to start over.  Having not been together now for about 8 years now, it’s clear the fresh start was welcome for both of us.  We’ve both remarried, the kids are grown and our lives are completely different.  It feels more natural on both sides.  It’s not work.

I am so thankful that my new situation has a full calendar of people we both genuinely love to be around.  I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but the struggle appears to be over, and that’s a very good thing.  We get out often, socialize with a really nice variety of friends that we both value a great deal, and everything just flows so easily now.

That is all.

This may sound obvious, but perhaps not to all musicians. I discovered years ago that in terms of playing pleasure, I am able to get more satisfaction playing the piano than guitar. I’ve decided the reason is due to simple math. On the piano, I can play rich chords with 10 fingers whereas on the guitar, I’m limited to 5.

If you’ve ever played either instrument, you can probably relate to the notion of rich sounding alt-chords like Em7b5, or G13. There’s just something about playing along to a tune that calls out a G7 and knowing a few substitution chords that will give the song a more rich sound. This is really what the ‘Real’ Books are all about. Jazz standards are chock full of chord substitutions and they are a true joy to play. For the guitar player, it helps separate you from the pack a bit and that’s satisfying in its own right.

What I learned later however, is with the piano, you not only play the rich sounding alt-chords, you have options on the base line as well. It’s really just simple math. Having 10 fingers at your disposal, you have the chance to give the chord so much more on the low end plus the high end.

I had headphones on one night while I was playing a Jazz Standard. I forget which one, but it was probably either Misty or My Funny Valentine. The headphones allowed me to crank up the sound and get lost in what I was doing. I still remember, every time I hit one of those alt-chords on the piano, so absolutely amazing in its sound, I got a pleasurable feeling and had to do it again. I couldn’t stop and I knew deep down that while I was a guitar player at heart, the piano actually gave me more pleasure to play. If only I could read music better!

I’m going to be weak on data to back up my points on this post, but I don’t care. It’s a general common sense thought anyway.

How arrogant are we as a country to think that we know it all when it comes to public safety. Other countries have wrestled with gun violence and acted. The UK is one example as pointed out by Piers Morgan. Good for Piers for standing on principle.

We are stuck in gridlock because of monied interests. Same story, different issue.

The damage George W. Bush has done to the economy will be felt for decades. It’s not just the cost of the wars, it’s the Supreme Court appointments that I think get overlooked. The existing court stands conservative by a 5-4 vote on most issues, but the most damaging one is Citizens United because it basically supports the idea that money can win the day. He with the most dollars deserves the most influence.

Consequently, the NRA lobbyists, in the name of free speech, indirectly control what legislation gets put to the floor. Even though 80% of Americans support the idea of more thorough background checks on guy purchases, especially for mental health issues. The NRA won’t hear of it and cries tyranny at the very thought.
As a result, we get to witness school shootings as common-place events. Over 70 school shootings since Sandy Hook. Ho hum.

What we need is for the silent majority to stop being silent. Nothing will happen until the NRA backers take them to task for this position. Speak out.
It might save a child ( or 20 ) from a horrific death some day.

Just after pope Benedict resigned from the papacy, I blogged here in agreement with E. J. Dionne in order to do any real good, the church needed to think outside the box and elect a woman to the papacy, arguing that nothing short of turning the organization upside down would effect any real change.  I also blogged here that  early results from Pope Francis were great.

Times’ “Man of the Year” appears well deserving, not for anything in particular that he’s gotten accomplished on the world stage, but for the attitude he brings to the job.  He sees himself as a servant, not as royalty.  He’s anxious to let go of the trappings of the papacy and apply real reform to institutions that need it ( see Vatican Bank ).  And at great risk to himself I would add.  Any time you start talking reform and the result is that corrupt individuals are no longer going to be benefiting, you’re messing with fate.  Just ask Ethel Kennedy.

Most importantly, his focus is right.  He hasn’t significantly brought about reform of any kind yet … but he has softened the church stance somewhat on gays and Christianity ( “who am I to judge? ” ), and he rightfully reminds people when it comes to birth control, abstinence, celibacy for priests “We don’t need to talk about these things all the time.”

That is an incredibly powerful message.  This is the point I was trying to make in my earlier post about Francis.  No, he hasn’t changed his mind on the ‘official’ laws on something yet, but we have more pressing things to worry about right now than to be talking about contraception all day long.  Yeah, it’s on my list but it’s 79th.

It’s easy to over-simplify these things, but in my mind there are two basic camps of Christians in the catholic church.  You have your group led by Bill Donohue of the Catholic League who run around using fear tactics to justify every archaic rule that’s ever been invented by man… and then you have your second group which is more focused on social justice issues like income equality, housing for the poor, feeding the poor, health care for all, etc.  There are quite a few Catholics who get this and roll up sleeves and get to work on behalf of the poor and have been ignoring Rome for decades.  Now they don’t have to anymore because they have a friend in Rome who has the same mind-set as they do.

I believe this is a quiet revolution that, if given some time, has the potential to turn the Catholic church into something that many people will come to admire.  Prior to Francis, the only news from the church was bad news.  More child molestation charges and more instances of the pontiff in chief making sure that the rules of the church didn’t change on his watch.

But you really need no more proof than watching Rush Limbaugh go off on a rant calling Francis a Marxist.  The rule of thumb that I go by is, anything that pisses off Rush Limbaugh is a good thing.

This guy Obama can’t win for losing. Had he attacked Syrian chemical weapons depots without consulting Congress, he would have been castigated for that. If he checks with Congress, he’s a wimp and a poor strategist, giving away too much information to the enemy.

While Fox News anchors Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity are keen on projecting Obama as the foreign policy equivalent of Jimmy Carter. We’re getting shoved around here on this Syria deal! Nobody tells America what to do! Where’s Bush and Cheney, they wouldn’t have put up with this shit!

Week after week they strut GOP has-beens across the stage questioning every motive, and criticizing every decision. If there’s a chance to make a mountain out of a mole-hill, they are all over it.

In the end, if Obama is able to take the Russians up on the chemical weapons offer (which Syria has now agreed to), and not a single missile is fired from afar and nobody is killed, you can bet that Fox News will find a way to call that defeat.

With this particular middle east conflict, it seems like a powder-keg with potential to set off a serious chain of events involving several countries dropping bombs on each other. It’s not far-fetched to imagine World War III breaking out as a result of getting in the middle of the Syrian civil war with Israel, Iran, Russia, Al Qaeda, indeed the entire middle east.

My question is, with so much at stake, why is O’Reilly so anxious to get to fisticuffs before exploring other options on the table? The answer: It’s because he’s got a small dick.

Rumor has it that an Indian contractor has bid the Skagit River bridge replacement. A solution is said to be possible by mid next week.

@GroverNorquist:
Poll shows favorability towards Tea Party movement up 15% since January. (Rassmussen) IRS finally does something useful.

Me (@pithyopine):
Rassmussen? Really?

@GroverNorquist: ( Text Message via Twitter Direct Message )
Each pollster has their own assumptions. Rassmussen and Zogby both show decline for Obama. I am looking at the trend.

@pithyopine:
Maybe use a source that isn’t a puppet of Fox News?