August 7th Primary Candidates Need You !

This is the original. Uncle Sam came later and so did a version for the Czar of Russia. It is probably one of the most famous and copied posters in the world. It debuted almost a century ago. The gentleman pictured is Britain's Lord Kitchener who was asked to raise an all volunteer Army for the Empire in the first world war. It was hoped that such an army would forestall  the need for conscription.

Today and through August 7th every candidate in every election needs you and not just for your vote. In fact your vote may not even be a factor until election day. You are needed to volunteer. Address envelopes, knock on doors, hand out leaflets  and so forth and so on. If you are lucky you will be paid in pizza and pop  (or similar refreshments ) eventually. There is no money, no inaugural ball invitation, appointment to a cabinet or any position to be expected. You probably won't even get an ordinary Christmas Card  let alone a prestigious one from the candidate. No offense but Christmas cards have a way of snowballing and the candidates we are taking about aren't all that prestigious.

So why do it ?  They people you pitch in and help are community leaders. Many are involved and participate in local government. That brings us to what is in it for you factor.That may sound crass but it isn't  because there are many benefits for you that need to be articulated.

But first a digression  to put things in perspective ....

A story is told about a soldier seriously wounded in combat and more or less left for dead in a field hospital. A pretty nurse approaches and tells the wounded soldier that he will have to do something or  make a sign."The Doctors think you are dead," the young nurse explains. With all the strength he can muster the soldier manages to knock over an IV stand and the Doctors come running. The soldier has a long convalescence and he keeps asking about the nurse at the field hospital who he believes saved his life. Finally he is told there are no female nurses at the field hospital and there have never been. It is too close to the front lines.

Most likely your Government thinks you are
dead as well. Only the regular receipt of your taxes payments convinces them that there is no need for  further action at this time. Attending meetings is one way to show them you are alive. Volunteering in an election even better.  Ogden Nash wrote, "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker." The same also applies to the relationship between meetings and elections.

Once it is established that you are among the living your usefulness  increases 100%. They need you. You need them. Opinions are very important and form a  basic unit of exchange. The Candidates learns from you. You learn from the candidate. Equally important is name recognition. Your efforts to get the candidate name out gets you recognized. So don't be surprised if while you are addressing envelopes the candidate asks you about your opinion on a variety of issues from poster design, to  
how many people will vote.

Remember you  are not being asked  to volunteer for the French Foreign Legion, the salt mines, or a  slave labor battalion.


The candidates will accommodate your schedule and  be grateful for whatever you can do. If you call them six months or two years later and say "you probably don't remember but I came in twice and addressed envelopes for you for about a hour, " you will be surprised  to discover that you have  not been forgotten. You maybe remembered as "the lady with the hat" but you exist in memory.

So pick your candidate and campaign. Do so immediately. After The 7th of August there will be less candidates and a lot less need for your services. Judges and Sherrifs have very little to with most people. A state representative on the other hand represents a lot of people and the 40th District (Birmingham, Bloomfield Township, the City of Bloomfield Hills and Eastern West Bloomfield ) has four candidates spending tens of thousands of dollars to get the word out.

 If you live in City of Bloomfield Hills or a City like Birmingham with a similar governments and have an interest in participating in that government some day, the McCready Campaign would be a natural. McCready is a former Bloomfield Hills Mayor and long time City Commissioner.

If you want to work in state wide campaign candidate David Wolkinson  has campaigned for the Guv.

Robert Lawrence and Dave Potts will also put you to work but the Birmingham School Board and the County Commission  don't translate as possibilities for everyone. Still you will be learning and  having fun. Should you visit the prospective candidates web sites do not click on the volunteer box and fill out a form. It is too late for that. Call and find out where and how to help now. Don't let anyone dissuade you. The Candidates needed you yesterday. Who knows maybe you can write an article about your experiences or at least have some funny stories to tell.

Sierra Club celebrates "new" meeting place in Bloomfield Hills. Announces Fall General Meeting Topics and Dates

Last  Winter the Sierra Club of Southeast Michigan moved  the location of their General meetings to the Birmingham Unitarian Church. which oddly enough happens to be in the City of Bloomfield Hills.The City is 80 is years old this fall and among other reasons it became a city to avoid incorporation into the City of  Birmingham. The Southeastern tip of the City (Woodward and Lone Pine where the church is located ) is the only part of the City still in the Birmingham School District.


How successful was the move ? Sierra Club members of  Southeast  Michigan Phil Crookshank and Joanne Cantoni  did a top ten list of reasons to celebrated the move and had a hard stopping at ten so they added an eleventh.


Don't let the words "general membership meeting " fool you. You do not have to be a member to attend. There is no admission charge and there is plenty of free parking. "Membership" means a way of attracting new members and thus the topical topic presented at each meeting . Meetings are held on more or less  a monthly basis on Thursday evenings.Light refreshments are served at 6:30. The Meeting starts at seven.


Below is the fall schedule. To make it bigger click on it with your mouse. For more information call 248-561-5019.

Do movies and TV provide clues to Living in the City of Bloomfield Hills and the Art of Being Neighborly ?

Andy Grifffith the star of a show by that same name recently passed away at age 86. In the program he is best known for, he Played Sheriff  Taylor of Mayberry North Carolina. The show ran ran from 1960 to 1968 and since then in syndication virtually no stop. It has been reported that some some episodes are on file at the Smithsonian.The one below titled Stranger in Town is good candidate for such honors. A stranger comes to town and .an outbreak of mass hysteria is avoided when cool,calm, and collected Sheriff Andy gets the facts and delivers them in a dramatic speech in the denouement scene.  It was one of the few times Griffith in the heat of passion and exasperation actually speaks Southern. Episodes in later years  feature a more refined  sage and sheriff.. Maybe that happened after the interstate went in.

This episode available in it's twenty five minute entirely on You Tube. Most of the early Andy shows from fifty years ago have gone into public domain but the may not stay there. Public Domain means that copyrights have not been renewed. That can always change if  somebody wants to take them out and pay for the rights. That could  happen with Andy via   commemorative  box sets  for the holidays. The You Tube version above also features the final gag which often gets cut for commercials on over the air or cable re-runs.

Ya'll been watchin summer reruns of Hart of Dixie ? Can't help but like a show about comeuppance, community,and purgatory  that  features show titles like Pariahs and Parades or Gumbo and Gumption. We'll give ya little sample. But First an administrative detail however. For those unfamiliar with the CW  or what is being shown on Television these days, the clip below is rated PG13. Parental Guidance suggested.  There is, in keeping with the Southern literary tradition of writers like Tennessee Williams author of  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Street Car Named Desire a mildly  steamy scene with fully clothed participants. There is also  a couple of  incidents of barn yard language in which what you sit on is referred to as a small beast of burden or a conjunction.

Catch that little bit of Charles Dickens  towards the end ? Did you see it coming  ? Sweet Potato Pie and hush my mouth, I  did not. Maybe that's why I like the show. I am easy to fool. I did however catch the substitution of "Hart" the lady's last name for "Heart" which if I am not mistaken is play on words.

Funny that they toss out a bombshell in the preview rather than  saving it for the  season one finale  Either the writers are short on ideas or have more than we know of. Oh the suspense!

I would also be amiss if I didn't tell you that I see in the show some of the folk that occasionally appear on these pages. Check out the Mayor(of Bluebell) who verbally and adroitly wears many hats.

Sad but true, this report is late and we are four weeks into the re-run cycle. However if you want just drop in that would be fine. Not a lot has changed and you already know who everybody is. The re-runs are also scheduled  to run outwhen it is about time for season two to begin Clever.

So much for a stranger in a strange land. Now for something completely different from the 1965 gem A Thousand Clowns, a movie nominated for Best Pictureand drawn from the play by the same name by Herb Gardner.

The protagonist Murray Burns knows everything about Manhattan and the other  four Burroughs. He is also a man of definite ideas. In fact he  shouts community improvement tips to all residents in ear shot. Why exactly is the first question the movie asks. Murray's problem  if there  is one is getting  in sync with the rest of the world. The tune in the movie's  beautifully choreographed opening (once you get through the snare drums and cymbals) is The Battle Cry of Freedom a 1862  song used on both sides of the Civil War. It is also Murray's anthem. Regrettably we run out of film just as the movie gets going. We are told the film is available on Amazon and it does turn up on Turner Classic Television. It is also performed  quite frequently in community theatres.

So what about it City of Bloomfield Hills ? We are known as not particularly outgoing or neighborly but is that a fair 
assessment ? If it is any comfort the Isle of Manhattan gets the same rap. Do TV shows or Movies provide answers ? How about Magazines.How about one called Living in Bloomfield Hills ? Naturally there is more. Stay tuned....

2012 Olympics begin Friday and call to mind The Patron Saint of the Incredible, Bob Beamon.

It was  the fall of a year  in which the words "pretty incredible " often came to mind.The  Detroit Tigers overcame a 3-1 game deficit to win the 1968 World Series over the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 3. Elimination  games five and seven were played  in St. Louis. Pretty Incredible. 

The Governer of the State of Michigan that fall was George Romney. He was a seeking the Republican nomination for President. In a televised  interview  on the Detroit based  Lou Gordon Show  Romney  used the word "brainwashing" in a lucid, and perceptive explanation of our nation's  involvement in the war in Vietnam. The rest as they say is history. Pretty Incredible.

The Republican Candidate for President, that fall and eventual election winner, was Richard Nixon. He had somehow managed to resurrect himself  from a disastrous 1962 "farewell" press conference after his defeat in that year's California Gubernatorial Race. Pretty incredible.

And on October 18th 1968, in Mexico City, the prohibitive favorite to win gold in the Long Jump, 
Bob Beamon wound up  shattering the the world record by almost two feet. How incredible is that ? Consider that from 1935 to 1968 the world's record in the long jump advanced a mere eight  inches. Beamon's leap is still,  44 years later an Olympic record. As a World record  Beamon's jump survived 23 years until bested by American Michael Powell in the 1991 Tokyo World Championships. Athletes are competitive people and Beamon's Jump captured on film has been reviewed by the brightest and best of them ad infinitum

Mike Morrison author of  an  Info Please piece titled "A Beaming Beacon. Unknown Athlete Sets Track Record ". tells us that  "After exactly 19 loping strides, he hit the board perfectly, stretched out with his legs and flew through the air like no one ever had. And finally, he hit the sand in the pit below—29 feet, 2½ inches later! "

Other accounts say Beamon was at least somewhat well known and a medal (possibly Gold) was expected. What happened however was so unexpected as to be mind boggling. Some analysts in an effort to expain  even venture into what Beamon did the night before. The accounts range from a self admission to having a Tequila to steamier  encounters alleged by some British sports writers.The best analysis this writer ever happened upon (source sadly forgotten) said that no matter how or how long you looked at the film, on October18th 1968, Bob Beamon did everything right.

In life there are parallels.  Beamon almost failed to qualify for the Olympic Finals. He fouled on his first two qualifying attempts. Teammate, and  World Record holder Ralph Boston told to him to relax, take a foot off his jump and  just qualify for the finals.


In the 1936 Berlin Olympics Jesse Owens  after fouling twice received the same advise from a German competitor and eventual Silver medalist Luz Long.



And now to the  the moral of our story. Never would Beamon jump as far again. Never would Mike Powell who now holds the world's record jump as far or win an Olympic Gold Medal. Both  record breaking performances were a once in a life time experience. Which prompts the questions, with  all the talents the Almighty has given us, does each of us have the capability to put it all together at least once in a lifetime ?


This writer thinks so. My Bob Beamon moment came, oddly enough twenty years to the day after his. For days previous I had been in a quandary or a snit about a  "get together for coffee with a girl" thing  my friends had pushed me into. Prior experience had told me that such things usually didn't work out but I agreed to go through the motions. The problem was forgetting the Chicago Blackhawks would be in town when  I had agreed to a Tuesday evening. I could call and reschedule or I could just go and get it over with. Maybe it would get over in time for me to make the game.


At the time, except for the significance of the date, I knew all about Bob Beamon's amazing jump. In fact I had even been alive when it actually occurred  but details escaped me until I heard a Russian hockey player  talking about it in a post game show. Impressed I looked it up and was even more impressed. So much so I embellished the story slightly and worked into my nine to five patter which involved getting businesses to buy my service.


So when my friends asked what I was looking for in say a potential spouse, I would start with the Track and Field competition in the 1968 Olympics and not get very far before everyone decided that I was totally hopeless.


On October 18th 1988, the Blackhawks not withstanding, I did meet  a gal who with a laugh could shatter  world's records. We were married the following Summer. How exactly I managed the feat I really don't know.For once in my life  maybe I did everything right. I guess my wife did too. That's what makes it fun.

Naturally with any absolutely incredible, borderline unbelievable triumphs, there are detractors. My better half I and I could just be birds of the feather who by divine providence or dumb luck happened to cross paths.

To which I would say  au contraire mein herr. The mechanics of the situation were far different than most would imagine. If I had called to reschedule our cup of coffee, she, not knowing the importance of the Blackhawks, woulds have started backing off.  Stating  an  awareness that we were both being pushed into  "this" she'd decide If I had other things to do so did she. At which point I might have asked "like what ?'' and been told "Wallpaper."  


Of course I would have never known what she meant by that word or the importance people in the City of Bloomfield Hills attach to it.


Blackhawks looming and  wallpaper were just one of a series of hurdles we sailed over in a time faster than we ever dreamed. Rather than bore you the details I will simply say, Thank you Bob Beamon for showing us the way !