Sides

Manchurian candidates on both sides, unable to loosen their ties. Salmon moving upstream, unable to think outside the motive. Blinders on a race horse, patriotic addictions—a righteous opioid screaming into its own echo. We, the people, need you to get out from under the platitudes and look back at us.

Do not ...

Don’t tell me how to make chili or insist that there’s only one way. Next it’ll be the way I mow my lawn or wear my hat. Revolutions have been fought over people insisting on the way others should think, feel, and follow. You might have a clear view of party, politics, religion, and yes, even Constitution, but I was born with my own special gray matter, and that is what matters to me. If there were only one way, we'd have to eliminate east, west, and south. I like north, but only on visits. If I need a new recipe, I’ll ask around.

Speed, the need ... with one exception

               1969 Road Runner    (The Bird)

The horn went "Meep Meep" and when you stepped into it, it slammed you back against the seat. That wonderful instant carburetor speed was followed by screaming pipes and rear tires that couldn't keep up the with horses.  Marlboro's on the dash and sideburns you can't see.

                               1987 Grand National   (Blackie)

Dubbed "The Vete Eater" My first intro to a Turbo; the pause and then the smooth increase- like a taxiing jet. I rarely passed one car at a time, pulling into the on-coming lane and stepping into it ... warp speed, loved warp speed.

                                        1998 BMW M3   (The Beamer)

Classy ride, owned speed, bought with only 22K miles and very dependable.  Handed down to the kids.










                        1999 Mustang Cobra  (The Snake)

I regress. I hear "the sound" on the new Cobra.  The pipes instantly make me think of Steve McQueen and his green Mustang in the movie "Bullit"  I go by the dealer on duty and inspect one on the display floor. I ask if I can test drive it. They agree, but insist I go solo to do it. I suspect they saw the saliva dripping from my jaws. I go up to 280 and at the beginning of the on-ramp. I stop. I look into the rear-view mirror and lose all desecration. Nothing but smoke behind me, the tires are like soft chewing gum and finally grab, second gear and they grab again like glue. By the time I hit fifth gear I was near 140 and ready to sign a contract.  When I got back the car dealer could smell the ride I took and smiled. "I want one, the next one you guys get in" The guy said, "Yessir Officer" It had "the sound" I fell off the speed wagon. Raggio, you little boy!

(I sold it when I retired. It has very few miles, but those were miles with smiles!)

                                                     
                          1974 Alfa Romeo "Alfetta"  (Sinbad)

I would sell all the cars I've ever known to have this vehicle back. No car I've ever owned was more "me" Sinbad reflected style, class and grace. Riding in it was, personal. The seats bucket seats were close, the wood dash and faces of the dials clearly followed the smooth lines and Italian accent. I so so so regret selling it, always will.

1985/2019

Just before retirement.

Weather-hyped

     On the 18th hole it was 95 with a breeze ... that was 12:50 

The course was virtually empty, save for this golfer and coyote!  ;-)

                    Apparently around 4-5 it got near 105!

The Putt

Sea Ranch
August 5, 2019
Hole 11
Some say the putt was so long it deserved an intermission: 85 feet as the crow flies. Add 10 more feet for the circuitous route it had to take before gently disappearing in the cup! 

Longest putt ever for  Raggio!

The Amendment needed

Until the ownership of a gun becomes a privilege, not a right, we’ll continue on the merry-go-round, grasping at a ring everyone knows is one hand too far to capture.

I don’t know any responsible, reasonable gun owner who truly believes his or her guns will be taken away by a president, a party, or even both parties. Fear incites such ideas, such nonsense. Only a minority threatens their sport, their traditions, and their safety. Those professionals I know and worked with regard possession of their weapons more as a privilege than a right. And with that privilege comes the maintenance of and responsibility for the use of those weapons; they know the force (and the implied force) weapons carry.

Making ownership of a gun a privilege that must come with the same responsibilities the majority of gun owners practice today seems to me the only sensible path to reducing the crisis that afflicts us. Arguing the point about a right does not help. Deserving the privilege would, in my opinion, go far toward preserving the right.

If you own a gun and you don’t hear voices or you haven’t had dreams of carnage and murder, then you are as frustrated as a non-gun owner with the lack of imagination in our Congress, and you see this is not about taking away your gun. Rather it is about finding the antidote to the fringe who use, abuse, and terrorize us with the constant distraction of hate.


The Second Amendment needs to speak to privilege, not right.

We need to stop repeating the talking points and guesses about gun registration and background checks—those will come, but they will come down the line. Ask any cop if background checks will have an impact on the carnage, and the response will be, “Not a scintilla!” A serious background investigation for a new officer may take weeks, even months. There aren’t enough people on the planet to conduct serious background checks on new gun owners. (And we can’t even pass that law!)

A few suggestions:

1. Finding a way to reduce the number of weapons in this country is paramount. We need to get the guns out of the hands of yahoos who want to shoot stop signs and fire into the air on holidays. Access to weapons is too easy. Most guns are handed down, or you know a guy, or you know a guy who knows a guy …

2. Making the mere possession of an assault weapon, outside of a responsible entity like a gun club, punishable on the same level as possession of a chemical weapon will make a difference. Make the punishment unthinkable.

3. Reducing the arsenal we use on ourselves will have to find fresh ideas and be reduced to the state level for enforcement. Dividing a problem by 50 ideas works better than trying to manipulate the current sludge of Congress.

4. Expecting that Congress will cure, solve, or move is futile. If they move on background checks, they’ll say, “Well, it’s not the answer, but it’s a start.” No, it’s not a start. It’s hands having trouble patting each other’s backs. These people have become experts at a conversation that speaks to no one but themselves; they will not move unless their re-election is threatened.
5. Changing the verbiage in the Second Amendment is the only way I see to circumvent the Supreme Court and the gun lobbyists.

We can shake our collective head; avoid malls, stadiums, concerts, and any line longer than ten people; or we can consider demanding the right to live without fear for our children and the exploitation of these events by the Internet and the press, even when exposure of those events is excused with the disclaimer: “What you are about to see …”

A Woman ...

... has a thousand more reasons to be angry than a man, and yet women don't go AK-47 hunting. Hmmmm …

A place for fog

The edge of collected images seems to dull in the passage of time and daily distractions. It is in the silence where they beg to appear from back in the line. Tilted heads leaning to be seen to the side of the even administrations that only have one purpose and that are born to tunnel vision, they stand perfectly straight—perhaps necessarily, though they are, without any personality, solid colors. Clear. Obvious. Styrofoam.

Notes sing and the fingers back there in the line snap, heads nod, hips move, and words rise like a melodic phoenix to remind something in me that rhythm is the jukebox of the heart, so I sing to remind those tilted heads they’re not just in line, they offer a place for fog where the world softens in meaningful nostalgia, and they remind my feet they’re not just for shoes, for walking.

Irish beach 70th

Morning visit

Everyone has tens of thousands of stories; each one of them can change the “once upon a time.” Our memories are our hieroglyphs. The order in which we recall them can change their temperature, status, and direction with a fresh menu of ideas. The idea that one person might present himself or herself as your Rosetta Stone is absurd. If you are seeing someone for a personal bout that extends more than a few months, you’ve made a friend you trust, and you are paying him for both. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that.

There is feeling good. Feeling bad. And not feeling. Examine what made and makes you feel good, but don’t mine too deeply. We never really ask why that song lifts us, why we find comfort in aromas, the sun, and the quiet. Going back in order to go forward might seem to make sense. We see history and we see us. The brain only goes back to our beginning. Two people wearing plaid do not make some inner familiar coincidence. In fact, in the compromise we make to accept that, we lose ourselves and restrict discovery to comparisons.

To recognize satisfaction and practice its retention through all distraction, I believe, is the gateway to understanding the smile. We suffer more from believing in mental “sameness” than the fear of mental illness.

A Politician’s Disclaimer?

I have decided, before I am exposed for actions I’ve forgotten, been forgiven for, been excused for, and those no one will ever know, I want to apologize for all the shit I’ve ever done that might be offensive today that was clearly unknown to be then.

But I want to go all the way back to when I was ten—no, no, five! I should have played Tonto occasionally instead of always wanting to be the Lone Ranger. And I want to admit now that my hands wandered to places they shouldn’t have while at the drive-in with Kimberly Love, who never actually said “no” until I went for the buttons. I realize I was dumber than a sack of sand, and should have known better when Butch announced that from now on he was “the nigger,” I was the “the wop,” and Eddie Guadalupe was “the speck”—yeah, the speck. We realized later that the word was really “spic,” but we had used “speck” too long to change it—it was the Bronx in the ‘50s, and that’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. You won’t get it, but I’m not going to spend my life trying to define it for you.

I’m going to run for office and try to drive the car without always looking in the rear-view mirror to see what might catch up to me. You see, it slows the vehicle and delays getting where I would like to go: understanding what’s ahead and listening to those who know about destinations.

So I’m going back to age five, calling, “Ollie ollie oxen free!” I’ve never had body parts in my freezer, and I hope you vote for me!

40 years of golf 27-47-67

Poker Wisdom?

Poker wisdom?


Conservatively, at any one time, there are a collective 420 years waiting to raise or fold. Over these past years, “yesterday” always seems to be the focus, a softer focus, a matter-of-factness. (New word.) The sense is  less of an apology for what was and more an explanation for it. Changes came in the way change might best be consumed—over time, a long time.


We have all, to a one, admitted scandalous actions and words—the hallways of our lives then were much narrower. We lived in our communities and learned from sidewalk to sidewalk, and of course we believed mostly what our parents believed (with the exception of sex, bedtime, and broccoli). We learned about races through avenues of television and some of us took a fresh look at one another, for the first time examining the other one’s last name. But hallways still remained narrow.


We shake our collective heads at the table and wonder how we could have been so distant from what, in retrospect, now seems so obvious. But it wasn’t … obvious. We rubbed two sticks together, if you will, to start a fire, unlike today’s flip of a switch. The news was uninterrupted by commercials; it was Joe Friday news. And it was meted out in small bites, because the hallways were narrow.


Politics was that “thing” that you felt you should know about and would take the time one day to investigate, but not now. Feeding kids and making rent were the paramount issues. No one on the television was selling right from wrong or left from right—at least not so obviously as to permeate those narrow halls enough to make us stop and think.


And that is where we “seniors” stand united in our observation: There seems to be reaction, not thought; the flavor might be accurate but there is no sipping. “Our side says …”—without any regard to Mr. Simon. Ideas need and deserve the fermentation that should come from thought, and while it may seem obvious to some, swift currents make the table suspicious. We are not guilty of ideas we digested as normal and true when we believed they would always be so. We were mistaken.


This new generation has grown up with explanations, retro accusations that are justified within that shield of hindsight and completely out of focus to a generation dueling with a guilt they’re supposed to feel, but don’t understand. How could it possibly have been different? We didn’t have the benefit of understanding and explanations that came in seconds from a keyboard. Most were, it appears at least to this group, political plebes.


When someone tells me, “This is the way it should be now,” and wants some immediate movement as if it has come from the burning bush, it is representation without fermentation.


Half the table voted for someone I didn’t. And long before that inauguration, they were tired, weary, and angry. And I realize no one wants to be told their nonfiction chronicle deserves to be edited—as if it would or could amend one’s today.


There is something frightening about righteousness: It’s not like a sunset that speaks for itself, or music that moves the soul. It lacks the subtle influence water has on thirst, and usually it is offered in fortissimo, showing that it couldn’t last if whispered.