Bob Lebzelter columns

A place for man or beast?

2013-04-26T08:18:00.001-07:00

I noticed the other day in a newsletter from the Animal Protective League, it was reassessing its Ashtabula Towne Square location and it would be closed for a few weeks.

I hesitate to say this, since I haven't looked myself, but apparently there's nothing much left on that end of the mall to attract customers.

The APL, if you remember, began operating a satellite store in the old Harbor Pet Store location by what was then a Sears Store and across from what was then Phar Mor. Well, Sears, Phar Mor, its successor stores, Steve and Barry's and Old Navy, are long gone. The APL adoption center operates on Saturdays only at that location and needs enough volunteers to work it. At one point, during a Christmas season, it even was open on Sundays.

The APL is open daily except Mondays and Wednesdays at its facility on Green Road in Kingsville as well.

I'm probably not the best person to comment on Ashtabula Towne Square, which opened in 1992 as the Ashtabula Mall (even though it isn't in Ashtabula.) I haven't stepped foot in the mall portion since before Sears announced roughly a year ago it was closing the store.

I've been in Kmart and my wife plied me with margaritas at El Puente in order to get me to go shopping at JC Penney a time or two.

But to go roaming the halls of the mall, er, towne square, no. First, I'm not sure what's left.

Also, I'm not much of a mall person. I can go to Peach Street in Erie a dozen times and not go to the Millcreek Mall.

I guess I'm not much of a mall person. There is a beautiful mall near where son and daughter-in-law were living outside of Rochester which has, among other things, an Apple store. My wife says it isn't likely Ashtabula Towne Square will get an Apple store.

Last fall, we visited a mall in Milton Keynes, England, that was so big, I had indoor ski slopes plus an Apple store. No, I don't think Ashtabula Towne Square will be getting that, either, although there are probably enough empty spaces to build a ski slope.

In fact, I'm spending less and less time in stores altogether. My visits to Best Buy are fewer. Too many clerks stand in line asking if they can help you. And virtually every visit includes a sales pitch for one of the satellite TV services. They just can't believe I don't want to switch.

I'm not buying movies as much as I used to and often simply order them online. It's easier that way. I've even opted out of getting physical discs at times and going directly to iTunes. Instant “Argo” and “Django Unchained,” without leaving the house and they look pretty good on the iPad and connected to the TV.

I've been thinking about taking a stroll through the 21-year-old Towne Square, maybe take some pictures. But then I remember a decade ago when a Star Beacon reporter got hauled into the security office and questioned because she was counting the number of empty storefronts. Today, she would need a much bigger notebook.

I noticed this week the animated signboard in front of the mall is still going strong, although I think it needs to stretch a bit to have enough to display to entice you inside. I saw multiple screens on what was available at Burger King, including many Whopper deals.

The movie theater is still there. I found the seats in the place noisy when I visited in the 90s sometime and haven't been back. Ironically, I saw “Jurassic Park” there, which is making the rounds of theaters again, this time in 3D, in celebration of its 20^th anniversary.

The retail industry has changed a lot in 20 years. The Fisher Big Wheel store in the Conneaut Plaza closed 20 years ago, followed by Carlisle's, Dillard's, Sear's and a lot more.

A lot of my retail needs have been replaced by Amazon and its mail order ilk. But that probably isn't the answer to the APL's retail needs. We aren't ready to buy our dogs and cats via mail order, I hope.

But if somebody tries it, for God's sake, put some holes in the top of the package.

How to stay young watching old TV

2013-04-15T09:19:00.004-07:00

TIM CONWAY, Ernest Borgine and Joe Flynn on "McHale's Navy.

I don't spend much time watching TV in the daytime, except for the 15 minutes or so I'm doing various exercises down in the family room.

Can't figure out why after using the ab machine, I still have such lousy abs, and why after working with weights, my arms are still sad, but that is for another time.

I have found during this workout, things can get boring looking at stains on the false ceiling or junk we have left downstairs that is accumulating.

So, of course, I divert attention by watching TV. I have gravitated toward the nostalgia channels, like Me TV and Antennae TV. These are secondary channels for the main Cleveland network affiliates like WJW Channel 8 and WOIO Channel 19. Seems like when they all went digital awhile back, the frequencies left room for extra channels.

And what to do with those channels? Why, program like when TV was still in its infancy. Literally.

These channels have brought back everything from “The Flying Nun” to “Gidget” for you Sally Field fans to “McHale's Navy,” “Dennis the Menace” and “Leave It To Beaver.”

Now I remember “McHale's Navy” as being pretty funny and you know, it still is, especially the interaction and physical comedy of Tim Conway as Ensign Parker and Joe Flynn as Capt. Binghamton.

Flynn, by the way, was from Youngstown while Conway hailed from Cleveland and both made frequent trips back to their hometowns. Flynn, sadly, went the route of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones, found dead in his swimming pool. Flynn lived to be only 49.

The trouble with “McHale's Navy” is it is so darned funny, I find myself watching to the end of the show, even though my workout is over and I need to go out and run. I did learn to discipline myself to shut the TV off before another episode comes on. These nostalgia channels often air double episodes.

The trouble is the commercials. They are scary. They are also for old people. Sometimes, they are gross.

But you have to figure, if you first caught “Leave It To Beaver” on network television in, say, 1959, and you were 20, today you would be something like 74.

So we have the parade of ads for mobile scooters so you can get around just dandy without exerting any energy. Or reverse mortgages, in which if you are 74 and are still paying on your home, you can get a loan and not have to pay it back. The bank can just take the house when you kick off. This is especially good if you want to screw over your kids. And there is the oxygen tanks for sale because you thought the guys on “77 Sunset Strip” where cool, smoking all of the time, and didn't believe it when the surgeon general said smoking causes lung cancer.

There's also commercials for tubs with all sorts of handles and nonslip flooring as well as buttons to push to activate help if you slip anyway. I need not mention the personal bathroom devices and materials for sale via TV. Nuff said.

All of this for 70-somethings watching Wally and Beaver, who are eternally young and still in black and white.

First thing you gleam from all of this is old people like free information. Free, free, free is constantly mentioned. Like somebody is going to pay money for information about colostomy bags.

Then there's commercials from super senior personalities, like Pat Boone. Ugh. What a snake-oil salesman. Do we really need to see old Pat relaxing in one of those super-safe bathtubs while singing? How many face lifts has that guy had? He's also the guy, outside of the tub, who tries to convince you to get a reverse mortgage.

Ironically, in a mid 50s “I Love Lucy” episode, Vivian Vance as Ethel says something like, “I never understood young people anyway. Just who is Pat Boone?”

These days, it is doubtful young people know who Pat Boone is either.

Today, both Ward and June Cleaver are dead, so are both Mr. Wilsons on “Dennis the Menace,” and Sally Field, well, she is alive and looks about the same.

On nostalgia TV they are all alive, cracking one liners on low-def, black and white TV, while their audiences are using lifts to go up and down stairs and Scooters to travel about the house.

Nostalgia TV commercials also provide the key to a more mobile life for our aging population. Yeah, I figured it out. Just buy a cellphone endorsed by the AARP. That's right, because those people with the AARP phones, according to the commercials, are out riding tandem bicycles and all-wheel drive vehicles at breakneck speed and enjoying a swim. Getting those phones apparently provides such an active life as to make Justin Bieber envious.

What do you have to lose? The information is free, you know.

It's my turn, my turn with grandkids

2013-03-01T15:50:00.004-08:00

GRANDCHILDREN, from left, Marcus, Henry and Benjamin, will be bringing their hilarity soon to Ashtabula County.

Anybody zipping through Facebook will find those prewritten nostalgic pieces about the good old days, you know, when Spam was a meat, well, sort of, almost, and a web was something a spider built.

I always thought it made the poster seem, well, old and stodgy. I don’t post such offerings or pass them on, because I don’t want to appear old and stodgy.

Why, back in my day, we didn’t want to appear old and stodgy.

Speaking of my younger days, at something like age 5 I got my first bicycle and it was my ticket to ride to my friend Joey’s home a full two houses down the road. It wasn’t long before I could ride the full two blocks to my grade school.

By the time I was 11 I became interested in music and comic books and the faithful bike took me downtown to City News or the bus stop for comics and then Simon’s Music Store, W.T. Grant Co. or JJ Newberry’s for records, especially Rolling Stones records.

I remember pedaling downtown to pick up a copy of “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow.”

“Want a bag?” the clerk asked.

Heck yes. Ever try to balance a $1 single on your handlebars without a bag? ITunes? What’s iTunes?

It wasn’t long before I was biking to West Springfield, Pa., for swimming lessons.

Of course, my first car made biking oh, so uncool. We secretly laughed at the guy who was 18 and still road around on a bicycle.

When I got older and started running to keep in shape, the idea of adding biking to my regiment seemed appealing. A few years ago I bought a bike at four times what they cost when I was a kid. But then, gasoline went up 11 times.

I started biking to work, biking around town, biking to the Animal Protective League to run with the dogs. There was the instance when I fell, breaking my collarbone and several ribs, too, while biking.

I recovered by the end of September and returned to biking the following spring.

These days the biking takes on a new aspect. Biking with the grandkids. OK, so the oldest just turned 4 and couldn’t reach the pedals of either of the bikes we have for him (yeah, two) at last attempt.

But Henry, 4, and twins Marcus and Benjamin, 2, will be moving much closer. By coincidence, so are their parents, son Derek and his wife, Jessica.

They have been living in Rochester, N.Y., close to Moe’s Mexican restaurant and the Apple store, very convenient when we came to visit. But changes in work are bringing them back to Ashtabula County and a house a few miles from ours and a long distance from the Apple store (sigh).

The other day, it dawned on me: When I’m not pedaling to the Beacon or the APL, I can pedal to their house and the grandkids and I can pedal around their driveway and turnaround in whatever devices our collective legs can reach.

Certainly my grandkids are as enamored as the next kid over technology. The iPad fascinates them. They like the Playstation 3 and its ability to magically produce Netflix movies. They take Facetime and Skype in stride.

But they still know the old-fashioned concept of running and jumping and playing.

It’s something I think needs to be preserved and continued.

The twins have come up with a phrase they use often, “My turn.” Their arguments about who gets to play with a specific toy often comes down to: “My turn.” “My turn.” “My turn.”

This summer, when daughter-in-law Jess hears this invigorating, logical argument and turns around to determine which two kids are arguing, one of them might just be me.

OK, so I download music these days. None of the stores I used to frequent are even in existence today. And the price of comics today are too steep for me.

But I’m basically the same guy I was decades before the tech revolution. I still ride the bike everywhere.

Well, I do have a metal rod in my collarbone that was required to get the darned thing to heal properly. My doctor thinks it’s because I was too active, didn’t stay quiet enough and allow for natural healing.

He didn’t understand. It was MY turn.

Old West still taking lives

2013-01-31T20:00:00.003-08:00

AMERICA IS still stuck on the gunfighters of the Wild West, fictionalized by Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain in the TV series "The Rifleman."

One thing that always made the United States stand out is its Old West heritage.

All you have to do is watch old episodes of “Rawhide” or “The Rifleman” to remind you America’s heritage stems from the rough and tumble days when men were men and women were school marms or prostitutes.

Yes, your average macho guy spent his days on horseback with a gun in his hostler. There was no shortage of bad guys, be they Injuns, train robbers or corrupt sheriffs.

It is that heritage that we share today. It is what makes us so unique amongst the world’s more advanced countries. We are a country of men’s men. It’s also what makes the rest of the world look at us and say, “Those people are crazy.”

Now the real Wild West is a far cry from all of those 60s westerns shown on the nostalgia TV channels. And today’s America is different from Hoss Cartwright or Bat Masterson. Today’s American male isn’t out corralling cattle or meeting bad guys for duels at high noon. Lots of macho has gone out of America.

But we cling to the illusion created mostly from 60s TV.

Why does America look back so wistfully at Ronald Reagan’s years as president? He certainly started the downfall of the middle class. No longer did hard-working Americans get yearly pay raises and improvements in life they could pass to their children.

But he did play macho, tough guys in various movies when he wasn’t playing opposite a chimp. And when he wasn’t helping tear down the Iron Curtain, he was back at his ranch chopping wood. That’s what macho Ronnie liked to do, chop wood. Sort of an Abraham Reagan.

But today’s male doesn’t have all of those macho things to do. We don’t split wood. We turn up the thermostat.

But that macho heritage has to go somewhere, right? So we plough that into football, one big modern-day testament to testosterone. It’s sort of like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” where the two men wake up in the same bed and regain their manliness by talking about a recent Chicago Bears game.

The other way of keeping the machismo alive is through guns. Take a deep breath before continuing to read: Most people don’t really need one gun, let alone an arsenal of assault weapons. Nobody needs to go hunting for food. If you think the government with that scary black dude as leader is going to come after you, even your arsenal can’t stop it.

But the government isn’t coming after you. Yet many Americans need to hold on to that idea that the only thing standing between them and tyranny are those automatic weapons.

It wouldn’t be so horrible if it didn’t result in the deaths of something like 11,000 Americans a year.

As I write this, a nutjob in rural Alabama is keeping authorities at bay for the third day while holding a 5-year-old hostage. This is a mean guy who walks around his property at night with a flashlight and a gun, maybe looking for injuns. He beat a dog to death with a pipe.

The same day this was unfolding, a gunman opened fire in a Phoenix office, killing one. He later commits suicide. A few days before, there was another shooting in an office in Texas. Another shooting takes the life of a prosecutor in Texas. Meanwhile, a junior high student shoots another junior high student in Georgia.And remember that crazy who set houses on fire in Rochester, N.Y., so he could shoot at firefighters who came to battle the blazes? This wasn’t long after the massacre of the first-graders in Connecticut. Meanwhile, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was begging lawmakers to act quickly to curb firearms. She had to resign office because she was wounded in the head and six others died in a Tucson shooting.

Chances of meaningful legislation coming after this carnage is probably nil and a large number of people want it that way. They say more guns are the answer and post canned propaganda to their Facebook pages describing their love of guns. It’s sort of the modern equivalent of strolling into a saloon with your six-shooters on and ordering a whisky, leave the bottle.

Helping to stoke the fires you can only stay free with an arsenal of weapons is the NRA. That’s not the NRA you see at the beginning of W.C. Fields or Marx Brothers movies of the 1930s. That NRA is the National Recovery Act, a program to help us get out of the Great Depression.

No, this NRA is the National Rifle Association, a group that once taught gun safety but now exploits gun craziness for money. It’s all about money and power and that’s what the NRA wants. Whether the NRA actually thinks guns are effective is irrelevant. Convince enough Wild West wannabes that guns are vital and the NRA is the only thing keeping you from losing your guns and baby, those gun nuts are throwing money at the NRA.

It’s like the great Red Menace of the 50s and 60s. Was Russia ever that strong? No, but convince enough people it is and Americans gladly give their tax dollars to a bigger and better Defense Department that keeps huge defense contractors in financial heaven for years.

Let me suggest another NRA, a completely fictional NRA, that stands for, hmm, National Reducers of Aliens. So using our heritage of 50s monster movies and the like, I convince enough people there are indeed aliens trying to take over America. Your only hope of not being cooked by monsters from an Ed Wood picture is my NRA. So you contribute. And I get rich. And my organization gets rich. And I can influence Congress. I can get laws passed that benefit the National Reducers of Aliens.

Sure, it’s silly. But it doesn’t really matter how true the premise is. The end result is a group with great wealth and power.

The difference is the National Rifle Association is real and it uses its power to keep the status quo. The result: More shootings, more innocent people dead.

Look at Europe and other industrialized countries. They don’t have our Lucas McCain culture and as a result they have far, far fewer gun deaths.

If you live in Japan, you can register for a gun. But the government does a thorough background check. It checks with your physician. It looks for any mental issues. It interviews your neighbors to find out about any peculiar activities or actions. If all goes right, you get the gun.

The result, seven deaths last year from guns, compared to 11,000 in America. OK, Japan’s population is roughly a third of America’s. So that’s 21 deaths vs. 11,000 in the U.S.

Every year we lose almost the population of Conneaut to gun violence to retain our Injun-fighting, rail splitting illusion of America, with fires flamed by money and power.

And Congress will continue to allow this to happen.

This nation refuses to do something to combat something real and horrible because of fear of an illusion.

Two years ago twins born; no way

2013-01-26T17:06:00.002-08:00

BEN LEBZELTER (top) in January 2011, with Marcus (left) and Ben Lebzelter in January 2013.

Life hasn’t always been easy for Marcus and Benjamin Lebzelter.

And that’s not simply because I’m their grandfather, although that would be tough enough.

The two were born two years ago, about two months premature. Their first few months were in warmed incubators, connected to enough tubes and wires, they look like they could be recycled for an electric chair.

Ben, the younger of the two by something like a half hour, came home first after several weeks of hospital care.

Older brother Henry, then not quite 2, was perplexed about this tiny little being, not sure at first where the baby brother ended and his little child seat began.

Marcus spend more weeks in the hospital, only to return home and go back to the hospital. Eventually, he had a portable device that looked a little like one of those 1989 cellphone transmitters to keep track of his vital signs.

It’s pretty hard to believe those little ET-like figures moving in animatronic fashion in February 2010 are the yelling, running, hilarious figures they are today.

In fact, all three just spent a week with us, wearing out the hallway with their riding toys, banging on the piano, demanding stories, wrestling and requesting to watch “Spider-Man” on Netflix.

But it is the same twins, sharing Henry’s collective interests in “The Transformers,” toy cars, toy railroads, Sesame Street characters, the iPad and more wrestling.

The twins’ vocal talents progress daily, although if you are trying to sleep past 6 a.m., their normal time of awakening, you can be lulled by their conversations, consisting of “No way,” “Cool” and everybody’s favorite, “My turn.”

If you haven’t had a child or grandchild for awhile, especially of the male variety, you might like to know these days Marvel and DC superhero stories have been toned down and simplified for the under 4 crowd and my grandkids want them read on a continual loop.

Yes, we tried directing their attentions elsewhere. They are somewhat interested when I put “Rocky and Bullwinkle” on Netflix, although I don’t think they got the jokes, like Bullwinkle graduating from What Sa Matter U. They had passing interest in “Mr. Ed” when I found episodes on Youtube. Henry was a bit surprised about a talking horse, but Marcus and Ben will still whinny on demand for you if you ask what a horse sounds like.

I found one of Aunt Megan’s old baby dolls to see how the boys would react. Henry recoiled like he was a vampire who accidentally opened the door of a sunny room. Marcus, taking queues from his big brother, turned away in disgust at the doll. Ben, on the other hand, said, “Oh baby,” attempting to cuddle it until Henry, protecting his honor, grabbed the toy away from him.

The three boys, all 3 and under, also like to wrestle. Who knew? Marcus thinks nothing of walking into a room, jumping on Ben and knocking Ben’s head to the floor. Ben, being of healthy stock, pretty much ignores the attack.

Both took their turns catapulting riding toys down the stairs. A few seconds of obligatory crying and a mark or two above the eye and they were ready to get back on to catapult again.

While we grandparents may be a bit more liberal when it comes to conduct than their parents, when Marcus wanted one of Ben’s toys and bit him to get it, I scolded Marcus and told him to say he was sorry. Immediately both boys hung their heads in shame, even Ben, who was the victim.

After another request or two to say he was sorry, Marcus said nothing but straightened his head and nodded once in “yes” fashion at Ben. The two then hugged and it was over.

Henry saeems to revel in having siblings after nearly two years brotherless. I did take him grocery shopping one evening sans his brothers. We took my Canon camera and his Fisher-Price camera and took pictures of each other looking through the lettuce, trying a cucumber out for a nose, checking dates on hamburger buns and buying milk. We took a break in the store when a Rolling Stones song came on the public address system.

“The Stones. You love the Rolling Stones,” Henry said as we danced in the dairy section to “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.” (It was during this instance when we apparently let our guard down and bought 2 percent milk instead of 1 percent.)

The kids are back in New York state, the home of new gun control laws (a good thing) and toll roads and expensive gasoline (bad things.)

We have Facetimed with them a few times, and when possible, Grandma Louise and myself exchange phrases like “cool” and “my turn,” but it isn’t as much fun.

They will be back again soon with all new phrases and Louise and I will have found out we are behind the times in cute sayings.

We can only console ourselves in knowing we can get an extra three hours sleep each morning.

Cool.

A few surprises in store in 2013

2012-12-30T07:47:00.002-08:00

Welcome to 2013.

It seems a lot like old 2012, doesn’t it?

But new years have a way of slowly making their marks. Nothing happens under defined timelines.

If you talk to historians, the 1960s really started with the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963 and ended with the Altamont shooting at a Rolling stones concert in December 1969. That makes the 60s something like a six-year decade.

But don’t you worry, 2013 will make its mark on history, just as assuredly as 2012 did.

If there was ever a year that the one could say the white male no longer dominated the political scene, it was 2012. The “close” race between Republican Mitt Romney and incumbent Democrat Barack Obama proved that true.

It was a year of fiscal cliffs, more disdain for politicians, who could agree on little, including global warming. Oh, it was also the year Hurricane Sandy brought the nation’s largest city to its knees.

It was a year many problems remained unsolved. The horror of a proliferation of guns and mental illness resulted in unforgettable tragedies in far-flung areas like Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., and our own backyard, Chardon, Ohio.

Ashtabula County continued to see its commercial trade erode to Mentor, Erie and Amazon. The Ashtabula Town Square continued to hemorrhage businesses in 2012, the most notable the loss of Sears. If studies are correct, that sorry trend will continue in this new year.

There are some efforts to bring back downtown Ashtabula, although a big part of it, to restore the old Shea Theater, quickly crashed and burned. The old theater today looks more like a bombed-out cave than the entertainment center it was when first opened in 1949.

Downtown Conneaut will get a boost in the new year with a large, bright, shiny new Dollar General Store. However, unless things change, it will have a full block of empty buildings, thank to the loss of a Dollar General Store from a less-than-shiny, old building.

It already looks like 2013 will be another year of school cuts and loss of municipal employees. Keep a shovel in your car if you live or work in Ashtabula this winter.

It is for certain that 2013 will take us on some twists and turns we never would have expected. So all we can do is sit back and try to enjoy the ride.

No bleary eyes for these three

2012-12-10T09:10:00.001-08:00

The other morning I had to get up at an exceptionally early time.

It was still dark out when my alarm unceremoniously went off. The clock scooted across the nightstand as I tried to silence it.

I rarely use an alarm since I rarely get up so early. It was one of the few shortcomings of touring Europe earlier this fall. We had to get up early each day, but it was to do things like travel up the Alps, take a boat ride in Venice, visit the home of King Louis the XIV.

But this morning the alarm went off for a far more mundane reason, an appointment I had.

I had to turn the light on, adjust my eyes and find the “off” button on the alarm.

That’s why I envy some young gentlemen who wake up not in a fog, but to tackle the day. They get so much more accomplished so much faster than I do. They scoff at the need for an alarm clock. They are my intelligent and highly motivated grandsons, Henry, 3, and twins Marcus and Ben, nearly 2.

Recently, they stayed a few nights at our house and since wife Louise got up with them one morning, I decided to the next. Plus, it is pretty difficult to sleep when you have three boys pounding on the piano (I think Grandma may have joined in the day before), laughing, zipping down the hallways on riding toys and crying after accidentally hitting each other. (I’m sure it was an accident.)

There is no rubbing eyes and orientation period in the morning with these three. It is time to run, play, drink milk, have a pre-breakfast snack, followed by breakfast followed by a post-breakfast snack.

On this particular morning, Marcus started the morning with a resounding speech. It was my failing. Most of it sounded like plausible gibberish as he expounded on his mystery topic for three minutes, arm in the air, eyes darting, furrowing, emotions changing. It was stirring indeed. There might be orators as good as Marcus, but probably not at 5:50 a.m.

How busy are these guys early in the morning? After getting everyone some milk and wrestling to get fresh diapers on the twins, I checked the iPad only to learn Larry Hagman of “Dallas” and “I Dream of Jeannie” fame died. I decided amongst the chaos ensuing, I would update the Star Beacon website with the news.

This is pretty easy, especially using the all-powerful Macbook. I found a recent Hagman picture on the Associated Press website, a “Jeannie” era photo and the story.

During that relatively brief time, Marcus was able to climb onto our extended living room windowsill, be told to sit down, ignore my warnings, fall to the ground, cry profusely, be comforted, climb back up and repeat the process.

Why, that would take me all day to do.

Meanwhile, Ben is running through the house, Henry is sorting through books. Ben goes up the indoor sliding board as Henry goes down. They meet somewhere in the middle and love it.

As the morning wears on, I introduce the kids to “Bullwinkle” through the magic of Netflix, attempting to expand Henry’s horizons beyond Spider-Man. Should a grandson of mine be enthralled with a Marvel character when we’ve always been a DC Comics family?

They seemed to enjoy “Bullwinkle,” despite all of the topical 60s humor, until the second “Fractured Fairytale.” Then they grew tired of it.

By then it was snacktime. It was time to dance. It was time for Gramps to grab and hang them by one leg, exclaiming, “Oh look, (Ben, Marcus, Henry) is a clock.”

On this particular day, we were heading to Jefferson to take a train ride with Santa.

While the kids are quick to get up and moving, they have no real goals toward getting somewhere on time.

Louise was in charge of grabbing kids, pants, shirts, socks, mittens, hats, coats, snacks, drinks, napkins, Kleenix, toys and diapers. I was in charge of saying, “Hurry up. we’re gonna be late.”

As I was getting the twins in their seats, Louise was hollering for Henry to get in the van NOW. But Henry heard his grandmother say, “Henry, stroll around outside and kick the rut on the side of the driveway left by the car’s tire. Be sure your shoes are all muddy”

We got to the station slightly late. I dashed to the ticketbooth, grabbed tickets and we were off.

I was impressed that as we sat down, Marcus commented, “Choo choo.” I was surprised the little guy was able to translate his concept of a “choo choo,” one of those little toys he pushes on a track at our house to the huge monster of a device we were sitting in.

Soon we were on our way, treated to elfs and Rudolph and finally, halfway through the trip, we picked up the Clauses, Santa and the wife. I told Henry I believed Mrs. Claus’ name was Ethel, but Henry disagreed.

The big guy gave the grandsons toys trains that included a pencil sharpener and those guys were happy.

Toward the end of the journey, the kids got a bit tired.

It was time to return home. It was only midday but it was event-filled none the less.

By then there was fussing and crying and some droopy eyes. It was nap time indeed.

Oh, it was time for a nap for the grandsons, too.

A holiday train ride

2012-11-24T18:38:00.000-08:00

Ben, Marcus, Henry, Derek and Megan Lebzelter go on a train ride and met some celebrities.

All those plans and Mitt still lost

2012-11-12T09:38:00.002-08:00

It wasn’t a good election for the far right.

Not only did they hope for better results, they thought it was a foregone conclusion.

Karl Rove and the gang assured Mitt Romney he would win the presidency. Poor Mitt had to scramble to write a concession speech, because losing just didn’t enter his mind.

There were select states that would decide the election and the Romney forces had several scenarios in place, all giving him the presidency.

One scenario they didn’t have in their bubble world, Romney would lose ALL of those swing states, including Ohio and Florida, giving Barack Obama nearly an Electoral College landslide. (The popular vote was much closer, but still went Obama’s way.)

The Republican party has gone to such extremes I doubt Ronald Reagan would recognize it today, certainly not Gerald Ford or Richard Nixon or Dwight Eisenhower.

It’s the reason Romney decided on another extreme, white conservative as a running mate, Paul Ryan, because he thought the more conservative he was, the better chance he had of winning.

Reagan was considered very conservative when he went against incumbent Ford in 1976 at the Republican National Convention. But to soothe everyone, he announced a running mate, if he got the nomination. It was liberal Republican Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania. Reagan went on to lose the nomination that year to Ford, who subsequently lost to Jimmy Carter. But he knew the need to compromise and reach out.

Romney didn’t try to expand his base. In the bubble, he continued to preach giving tax cuts to the rich boosts the economy, there should be no abortions for any reason, global warming is questionable and things like Medicare and the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be farmed out to private, for-profit companies.

Yes, imagine how much better FEMA would be in helping people after a tornado if its first obligation was to stock holders.

It wasn’t until closer to the election that Romney decided he might need to throw a few crumbs to the political center to assure his victory. He talked about wanting to help the middle class, he really did believe in global warming and abortion is OK in cases of rape or to save the mother.

It was too little, too late. Yet there are some delusional right-wingers who believe Romney lost because he didn’t stay on track with the conservative message. In fact, they accused him of being a closet moderate!

After the loss, the bubble started the spin cycle. It was the liberal media, Romney should have stayed on course with the strict anti-abortion, pro-rich message. Never mind all of those Republicans who made crazy statements about how women can suppress creating a child after a rape and the like lost. Never mind Fox News is the highest-ranking cable news outlet and virtually all commercial talk radio is ultra-conservative.

Alas, there was no conspiracy. Obama did win re-election fair and square. He was born in the United States. He isn’t a socialist or a communist.

How could this happen? Remember, the Republicans got together after the Obama inauguration and decided not to cooperate with Obama on anything, thus assuring he is a failure on jobs, the economy, getting us out of the George W. Bush recession.

Then with the help of a right-leaning Supreme Court, got a ruling people can contribute to campaigns with no restrictions. Nobody needs to know who you are or why you are funneling massive amounts of money toward one candidate.

Then, in states like Ohio where Republicans are in charge, try to disenfranchise voters who tend to vote Democratic with strict voter ID laws. They said it was to stop voter fraud, something that virtually never happens because there is no money in it.

Then with an economy still ailing because no jobs bills were passed, with supposedly fewer poorer people and minorities without drivers’ licenses able to vote and with conservatives having lots of money to spend, Romney would be a sure thing.

But it didn’t work and all of those billions given to Romney did nothing. Republicans even lost seats in the Senate and House. If it wasn’t for gerrymandering, the GOP would have lost the House. Statistics reveal more people voted for Democrats in the House races than Republicans, yet the GOP kept secure control.

Despite all of this, there are people, mostly white males, who think Mitt could have reduced the deficit and created jobs.

I have a consolation for you: All indications, including historical perspectives, show he would not have.

Reagan and both Bushes planned on big tax cuts for the rich to “grow the economy” while making cuts to balance the budget and it just didn’t happen. As Bill Clinton put it, it’s arithmetic. You don’t take away sources of income and end up with more.

Reagan more than tripled the deficit after taking over from Carter. Bush I added more deficits. Clinton took away those rich tax cuts and grew a prosperous economy, only to have it destroyed by more tax cuts for the rich from George II.

The fact people believe tax cuts for the rich will help the economy after it has failed so many times, is truly astounding. George II had the worst record of job growth than any modern president. Romney would have super-sized George II’s failures.

If Romney had a new caveat that would have somehow made this failed policy work, wouldn’t he have explained it during his campaign? Didn’t you just wonder how Mitt was going to cut the deficit, create jobs and lower taxes for the rich and make it all work?

Romney says he knew how to create jobs, but in the private sector, he eliminated jobs and cut pay and benefits. He moved jobs overseas. He had no experience creating jobs.

And he refused to say how he would change the tax code so much that it would reduce the deficit.

Take heart those of the middle class who are crestfallen at Mitt’s loss. First off, with a solid Democratic majority in the Senate, he could not get any of his plans passed. If he had, it would have meant even crazier deficits, more job losses and an even more diminished middle class.

Unfortunately, the popular vote was close and many still believe in the myth of lowering taxes on the rich and thus cutting the deficit. Reality doesn’t enter the bubble.

What would be nice is if the GOP in the House realizes something needs to be done to spur the economy and since crushing Obama backfired, now is the time to work together for the good of the country.

Make the rich pay a little more. They really, really can’t take it with them. Grow the middle class that will go out and spend the extra cash on goods and services that will boost the economy. Give companies tax breaks that build and offer jobs in the good old USA and lay down penalties on those that go overseas.

The far-right bubble will remain. The Limbaughs, the Hannitys will keep huffing and puffing on Clear Channel radio stations. But it doesn’t mean they have to be a factor in how our government operates.

Let’s be sensible. Let’s be pragmatic. If not, as the GOP’s base of older people and whites shrink, it may become known as the next Whig party.

Back to Europe through photos

2012-11-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

Everybody will tell you not to worry about taking too many pictures when you have a digital camera, which is about all anyone has anymore.
The problem with that is if you want to crop them properly and correct color and brightness, it takes roughly five minutes for every picture you have taken.
So when I am with the photogenic grandkids, even for a half hour,I have a long evening of photo work in store.
Imagine, then, when you spend 2 1/2 weeks in Europe, almost a week in Italy, three days each in Switzerland and France, several more days in England.
Whether you take photos or not, Europe is like nothing you will see in the United States.
We’ve taken the tours here in the U.S. of Monticello, home of President Jefferson, or Mount Vernon, where George Washington hung his wig. These places at best are 250 years old.
That time span is the equivalent of looking back at the disco era for Europeans. Everywhere you go, there is art and history dating back before Christ, thousands of years ago.
We visited a little town in Italy with a beautiful church dating to around 500. Of course, the church charges to go inside and has its own gift shop. And for some reason, in this gift shop celebrating a church dating back nearly 2,000 years, are postcards of the Our Gang comedy actors (also known as the Little Rascals.)
It is for certain that while Europeans are proud of their heritage and rightfully so, they are also unafraid of making a buck out of it.
Visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa and buy a T-shirt of Spider-Man using his web to straighten it.
Pinocchio was originally a children’s novel written by Carlo Collodi in 1883 in Italy. Everywhere you go there are Pinocchio souvenirs.
I got a lump in my throat when I saw Michelangelo’s statue of David in the Accademia Gallery in Florence. Outside the gallery’s giftshop is a bright pink recreation of the statue.
You can take all of the photos at the Louvre in Paris that you want of the Mona Lisa, but you can’t take a photo in Florence of the actual David statue. Now David is all hooked up to a computer (nothing Michelangelo did) to monitor any deterioration.
If you think photography is banned because maybe the flash would cause further deterioration, not so. Besides, the area is light well enough most photo novices could get by with existing light.
No, the reason photography is banned is because the people there want you to buy their postcards.
It’s one of the reasons you may see amongst our European collection of photographs of myself or wife Louise at Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, the Tower of London, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the courtyards of Venice, Florence and Rome or find us up in the alps of Lucerne, Switzerland.
But you won’t find any photos of us with the David statute. That’s because even though we looked, we couldn’t find any postcards of us standing by the statute.
Speaking of postcards, we spent 35 minutes standing in line at a post office in Florence. After 20 minutes, the postal worker in front of us closed her station and went on break. Britain has easier post offices to get through, plus they convert money!
It took two weeks, sometimes spending 5 or 6 hours a day, to sort all of the photos. But in a way, doing so was like returning to Italy.
It reminded me there is nothing quite like Italian spaghetti. It is creamier and less cooked then the American style. And nobody in Italy has meatballs with spaghetti.
You know England is famous for fish and chips. But they are also big on lasagne, but you don’t get salad with it unless you ask. You get chips instead, better known here as French fries.
A funny saleswoman at an Agatha’s jewelry store in the Louvre was one of the few people I met who didn’t speak fluent English. Hers wasn’t good and I have a passing knowledge of French. The store had Rolling Stones jewelry on sale because of the band’s 50th anniversary. We got along OK pointing and gesturing, but when she wanted to set the watch I bought to U.S. time, my attempts at giving the time in French failed me.
“Sept heures quarante cinq,” I told her but Louise finally had to write the numbers down. Ah, 7:45. I said I was sorry, but I learned my French back in “l’ecole .” Another puzzled look. Suddenly her eyes brightened. She smiled. “School, school,” she said. Forty years later, those French classes finally paid off.
It took us 45 minutes by railcars and sky lifts to go up and down the Alps in Switzerland, but it would be difficult to see anything more beautiful. Going through pictures, I was happy to see the textures of the land were reproduced as well.
All the way up, I kept looking out the window, wondering how anything could live on these mountains, they are so steep. It’s like, two steps and you would be plummeting to the bottom. And it wouldn’t take 45 minutes.
The huge courtyards with all of the artists and musicians, followed by the tiny, alley-like streets of Florence or Venice reminded me a bit of the fake, backlots of Las Vegas, Except these are real and go on forever. And no street or courtyard is like another.
Cheese and thinly sliced lunch type meats are very big for breakfast everywhere in Europe. Oh, and crusty, crunchy croissants that aren’t much more than bites of crust and crunch and air. I passed on all of it. Oh, and little cups of super strong coffee. You don’t get big cups of coffee in Europe and that is OK. None of it is as good as what I make at home.
Also, a tip for those thinking of taking a similar trip, I opted for a light Apple iPad over a laptop. You can’t do a lot of photo editing but enough to get a few pics online. For $4.95 you can get a great, simple-to-use video editing package, namely iMovie.
Plus the iPad causes fewer hassles through all of the security points.
Lots of photos, lots of memories. But my job isn’t over yet. I need to put together my videos, since my awesome Canon 60D also does video. I like doing still photos more, but an occasional video reinforces the event.
Then maybe a photo slideshow. At this pace, I will be reliving Europe, until, well, we can afford to go again.

Toilet seats an option in Europe

2012-10-19T18:57:00.004-07:00

At the Coliseum in Rome, Leaning Tower in Pisa and Eiffel Tower in Paris

Good-bye lift, hello elevator.

We’re back in the USA after more than two weeks in Europe, specifically Italy, the Vatican (it is its own country, you know) Switzerland, France and England.

Wife Louise and myself decided a few years ago other people were spending time abroad, we should save up and go, too.

Slowly, very slowly we prepared. Eventually, we knuckled down and got our passports taken. We took each other’s pictures against the white wall in our kitchen, which has since been painted yellow, for our passport photos.

Since we were novices, we decided to go with a seasoned travel agent, rather than try to book it solo. We had a myriad of questions and having a travel agent (Jayne Colin) helped.

We booked through Trafalgar, a giant company whose buses you will see throughout Europe. We opted for a tour called European Splendor, because it gave us the most countries in one travel experience. It did not offer the most rest and relaxation. It did pack as many sites and sounds into one travel experience as one could hope for, however.

No chance to recover from a day and night in various airports and on airplanes. No time to adjust to time changes. We flew into Italy and were soon at a beautiful Italian restaurant for our first meal of the tour. A few hours into our visit and Louise already got her butt patted by a local man.

The next day, it was up at 6:15 a.m. to go to the Vatican and coliseum. Unfortunately, Italy was hit by a nationwide strike of government workers that day so we couldn’t get inside the coliseum, although the ruins were impressive from the outside.

Trafalgar offers local tour guides who are usually local citizens who speak excellent English and are proud of their communities. We had one telling us about the Vatican. As a tour group, we got quick access, not having to wait to get in like everyone else.

Wherever we went, until we hit London, we were whisked into establishments and given the cook’s tour by experts. At the Vatican, we were given time to be shushed by guards at the Sistine Chapel. We got to see (and photograph) the body of Pope John Paul II. We experienced the ornate majesty of the Vatican.

From Florence to Venice to Verona, Italy is a beautiful country steeped in history and culture with its ancient districts with alleys for streets that date a thousand years. Not that an errant motorcycle or little car doesn’t drive through on occasion, requiring pedestrians to plaster themselves against buildings. Cars in Europe, especially Italy, are small because gasoline tops $6 per gallon. Last summer it hit $9 in France.

Nothing prepares you for the sites of Venice, when your boat taxi turns a corner and you get your first experience with the beautiful architecture mixed with waterways. Each corner brings another feast for the eyes.

If you imagined Switzerland as a giant fairytale scene come to life, with towns that look like they came from painted clocks and gorgeous scenes of the Alps, well, that’s exactly what Switzerland is. It is candy for the eyes, especially when you journey up the Alps. We stayed in Lucerne, but also spent an afternoon in a smaller community 40 kilometers away where we took horse and buggy rides to a farm where we had a lunch of local cheeses, wines and desserts and marveled at the country’s sexy cows. Yes, Switzerland is the home of the sexy cow.

A long bus trip the next day to Paris had us viewing the Eiffel Tower at night, then going up in the Eiffel Tower to the top to observe the beauty of the City of Lights. Stops the next day included Versailles outside of Paris, opulent summer home of King Louis X1V, the sun king. It was taken over by the masses two kings later during the French Revolution.

Our local guide told us how the royalty had no privacy. People stopped in to see royalty give birth, to assure those in succession to the throne were who they said they were.

We visited the Louvre, where among the artistry was the Mona Lisa. No bans on pictures either. Use flash if you like.

The Louvre had a series of shops as well, including an Apple Store and Agatha’s Jewelry, where I bought myself a 50^th anniversary Rolling Stones watch.

The contrasts between the old and modern are all over Europe. We stopped at an ancient church in a little Italian town where the gift shop sold postcards featuring the Little Rascals.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was an awesome sight, as you would expect. After feasting your eyes, you could buy a t-shirt of Sponge Bob or Spider-Man straightening it.

Our tour group of about 22 people from the U.S. and Australia stayed together for most of the journey, breaking up in London. The tour company’s fast-paced structure let us see a lot and after a day in London, we were on our own. Our trip took a less efficient pace as we figured out London’s transportation system and tried to visit what we could on our own. As a Stones fan, we visited Edith Grove, where Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones lived during their lean years. We dined at former Stones bassist Bill Wyman’s Sticky Fingers restaurant, well within walking distance of our hotel.

Oh yes, and Buckingham Palace, the Changing of the Guard, Tower of London, London Museum, etc. (Did you know the cost of an apartment in central London ranges from 8 million to 70 million pounds?)

Trafalgar is old pros at tours and theirs gives you a mix of the touristy and standard fare, like the Louvre and Eiffel Tower and front row at the Moulin Rouge along with out-of-the-way places, like the restaurant in the rolling hills outside Rome on a rainy night with a guitarist and two crooners or the buggy ride off the beaten path in the Swiss mountains.

Some highlights, thoughts and advice:

Europe is different than the U.S. and each country is different. Italians aren’t so worried about structure, while Swiss are very regimented.

Favorite stories:

There are many, like seeing the Michelangelo’s sculpture of David in Florence. (It was made of cheap marble)

Being called onstage at a pub in Lucerne and have to yodel and chug a beer, then being recognized for my exploits by a stranger hundreds of miles away in Paris a few days later.

You won’t find toilet seats in public restrooms in Italy and no wash clothes in Italy or Switzerland.

Wherever we went, people were friendly. The most helpful: People in England. “You look lost. Would you like some help?”

To get electrical lights to work in hotels in Italy and Switzerland, you needed to use the card that unlocked your door and place it in a separate receptacle (almost like a time clock) in order to get lights to work. Pull the card out and out go the lights within two minutes.

Wireless Internet was a new adventure everywhere. Some places gave you 15 minutes free. Others had it free in the lobby. Some charged a euro an hour for service. None of it was particularly fast. If you have an iPad with AT@T service, you can get foreign data plans that are costly and offer less than a gig of service. We decided before we left that Internet access would not dominate our trip and the sites of Paris and London would win out over Facebook and email.

We did transmit some highlighted pictures during our adventure. We used an iPad with an optional $30 camera connection kit to feed photos from the camera memory card. We also bought the various electric plugs before we left at the Apple Store. Italy, Switzerland and France took one kind of plug. England another. IPads are lighter, easier to use and more travel-friendly than laptops and cause less hassle during airport security checks.

With the $4.95 iMovie ap, I was even able to put together a few videos for youtube of our journey on the fly.

Once you’ve learned a few words from all of the countries you’ve visited, are in awe of crazy driving in Rome and traffic-challenged Paris, once you can discern a euro from a pound, it’s time to hop a plane for the long ride back to North America.

I’m still sifting through pictures of our adventure, deciding what to keep, what to toss and editing the remainder. In a week I got through Italy. Excuse me, while I pop another memory card in my computer and relive the beauty of Switzerland.

Auf wiedersehen.

There was no compensation for businesses mentioned in this column. See more European Splendor photos at boblebphotography.smugmug.com.

Fireworks? Who needs those stinking fireworks?

2012-09-03T17:25:00.001-07:00

Photos from that oh-so controversial fireworks display in Conneaut.

It was a warm late evening as the crowd gathered at Conneaut’s Township Park.

It was about time for fireworks. People were selling those glow-stick things.

Parents and grandparents were yelling at their kids not to stand so close to one of the rolling hills.

What was different about this night is it was part of the Labor Day holiday. Kids have been back to school a few days. College classes have started. We’ve already seen two weeks of high school football.

The change came because high winds made it too dangerous to set off a display back in July, so somebody came up with an idea to wait until Labor Day.

Frankly, I thought it was a good idea. And what’s more, I got to attend.

Fireworks are usually on a Sunday night, when I work. These fireworks were on Saturday.

Plus, It has been years since I photographed fireworks and decided to give it a try.

Nice warm night, the crowd seemed appreciative. We enjoyed roughly a half hour of lights, color, action.

But alas, this is Conneaut, where nothing, but nothing, escapes negativity, even patriotic fireworks.

When the Star Beacon published a story about the upcoming fireworks, it created the usual storm of comments on the newspaper’s web site, most of it negative.

A couple of people commented it would take more than a few fireworks for them to come back to Conneaut. Hmmm, I don’t remember anytime when anyone said, “Let’s set off some fireworks and get people who have moved away to return.”

No, someone who has moved away and found a good job, a nice home, maybe in one of those southern states where I hear they have no snow, just deadly hurricanes, probably wouldn’t hurry back to Conneaut.

If that was the reason for the fireworks, frankly, I think it was a dumb one.

It is interesting that people who have had enough of the city and don’t plan, presumably, of ever coming back, still check the web site of the local newspaper to see what’s going on. Or maybe the writer got to the page by accident. He was going to pinterest but his fingers hit the wrong keys and it came out starbeacon.com. It could happen. Especially if somebody’s hands are all sunburned from the tropical storm climate.

Another lamented he had no Labor Day holiday. He had to work right through it. Now my first thought was, who cares?

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe those Labor Day fireworks were for everyone who labors and if just one person could not make it to the event, they should have just canceled it for everyone else.

Somebody named Darnell posted, “All those booms and blasts will scare away more businesses from Conneaut! Oh wait, that's just the City flushing more money down the toilet.”

Now I am sure Darnell was just trying to make a good point. Just not sure what that point is. Is Darnell saying having fireworks on Labor Day weekend will keep new businesses from coming to Conneaut?

Was General Motors planning on building a massive plant here employing thousands at good wages, but pulled back because of the fireworks?

Or wait, is Darnell giving emphasis on the second half of his commentary, the part about the city flushing money down the toilet?

Is the annual tradition of having fireworks to celebrate our nation’s birth too expensive because some additional officers may need to be brought in to direct traffic?

Let’s get rid of D-Day re-enactments too, despite the thousands of visitors it brings and the great publicity. Forget the Christmas parade too. Conneaut is the only place where money is tight so let’s tighten our belts and have no reason whatsoever for anybody to come to town, see our beautiful Township Park or spend any money.

Another person donated money to help pay for the fireworks, but won’t donate next year! Why? Because they used the money to buy fireworks. Can you blame him?

Yes, it was just a story about rescheduled fireworks, an annual tradition. How can fireworks prompt such negativity, especially negativity which, frankly, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense?

But that’s Conneaut. That’s Ashtabula County. Home of wine, covered bridges and pessimism.

Maybe we need to dump some antidepressants in the water system to make people happier. Do you think that would get people who moved away to come back? If they drank city tap water and felt happier? That’s our goal, isn’t it?

A revival in class reunions?

2012-08-10T08:59:00.001-07:00

There’s an invisible barrier when it comes to high school classes.
For example, if you went to Conneaut High School, my alma mater, in the 1940s into the 1960s, you held a close kinship with your fellow graduates. In fact, many older classes get together every week or month at a local restaurant for breakfast or lunch.
But as the 60s evolved into the 70s, that all changed. Suddenly classes stop having weekly or monthly reunions. They can’t seem to be able to get together even once a decade to renew old acquaintances.
Like family reunions, they may one day face extinction. Maybe.
I know of classes surrounding mine which simply cancelled reunion plans because there weren’t enough people interested. Their battle cry: Maybe in five years.
Unto everything there is a reason and I have mine: In the 1950s and 60s, there were good, well paying jobs in Ashtabula County, not just for those looking for hot and heavy factory work, but for white-collar desk jobs.
The best and brightest could find a variety of careers without packing their bags and heading where the sun shines more.
But in the 1970s a brain drain ensued. People interested in specialized careers, engineering, math, science, creative works, were forced to move elsewhere. Local ties and friendships became strained, if not disappearing altogether.
After all, how easy is it to maintain a relationship with your best high school bud when you live in Fresno and he lives in Providence? A Christmas card, maybe?
Local ties and friendships can be strained in a world where people have multiple careers in numerous parts of the country.
But you know, there could be a trend back to local ties and friendships. I witnessed it this past weekend with my own class reunion. If you promise not to add up the numbers, I will tell you I graduated from Conneaut in 1972 and some of our past reunions didn’t come off. Sometimes it appears we have as many 1972 CHS graduates in Texas and North Carolina as we do in Ashtabula County.
This past Saturday something magical happened. We had a reunion with people I haven’t seen since the day of our graduation X years ago. (Sorry, you do the math.)
Two go-to guys from our class, Larry Sharpe and Jim Oatman, set up and put together a three-television video experience of photos and music from our class.
Classmates who it seemed 40 years ago (there, I said it) barely acknowledged the other’s existence were hugging and laughing and catching up with each other on a generation of changes.
We talked about where we live, work, children, grandchildren, some even great-grandchildren — and I won’t go any further.
People who seemed eternally 18 in our minds appeared to us all grown up and aging, but it didn’t really matter. The voices were the same, the mannerisms, the jokes.
Yes, there was some nostalgia, but not as much as you would think. It was more of what we’ve done since we last met deep into the previous century.
People who attended long-ago closed elementary schools posed for pictures together. Emails were exchanged. Part of the success I would attribute to fate and luck and forces I won’t even speculate on.
But besides the untold hours of work by people like Larry, Jim, Debbie Newcomb and others, the success can be attributed to one other person and if you are looking for a successful reunion, you might capitalize on this guy’s brainstorm.
He’s George Peterson, who may have lost his hair but not his enthusiasm. (I think I’ve lost both.) George has moved 13 years since leaving Conneaut those many years ago.
But he had an idea of setting up a Facebook page for our class, adding people to our site as he saw fellow graduates’ names and from there it all took off. People submitted photos of themselves now and in high school, milestones in their lives and even photos of their parents. People exchanged ideas, information and the whole thing grew.
Facebook and other social networking sites have been blamed for limiting real relationships. You’ve seen where there’s a crowd of people, nobody paying attention to the others while using their smart phones to update Facebook and Twitter status and texting others.
It sometimes causes us to create new ties with people we’ve never met and never will meet from all over the world, while ignoring those we’ve known all our lives.
But this past Saturday proved social networking can work in the opposite. George (who is moving back to the area) and his idea helped bring people together who might never have seen each other again. Everybody had a chance to take part in the planning. Everyone had a chance to submit photos for the cool video displays.
Our class of 72 fan site won’t dry up and disappear. It will continue to evolve, help us keep ties with our old classmates and keep up with everybody’s news.
Maybe the technology given to us in the computer age will make reunions popular and viable once again.
My classmates have headed back to Texas and the Carolinas and all points beyond and in between. But like those who graduated decades before us, we can keep in touch and maintain friendships, even if it isn’t across a restaurant table.
We maintain it via the Internet
And nobody needs to leave a tip.

Medical care can make you sick

2012-05-21T08:32:00.002-07:00

It’s a common rant of mine, but it’s one I haven’t railed on for awhile. I figure it’s time to discuss health care in America again. Sorry tea baggers.

Daughter Megan was hit by a car at Youngstown State University this past winter while taking graduate classes. She was in a crosswalk and a stupid kid didn’t see her.

It wasn’t a great experience. It could have been a lot worse. But it is another reason to emphasize the need for government operated health care.

Yes, the kind that was advocated by President Harry Truman after World War II. The kind that was put into place in England after the war. The kind that is in place in virtually every other modern country. And it works.

I suppose the version President Barack Obama squeezed out of Congress when Democrats held both branches a few years ago is better than nothing. It allows students to hold on to their parents’ health insurance longer. It gets rid of pre-existing condition clauses. It makes it easier for those without insurance to obtain it. In fact, it requires people to have insurance, something advocated by Republicans until Obama championed it. (I assume the Republicans are in the Beatles camp, because Obama has already said he is in with the Rolling Stones.)

Megan, working for the university as a tutor, had no health insurance.

We were happy to hear the driver did have insurance. The bad news, it was from Geico.

Here’s something to think about when you see those Geico commercials. Geico, like Safe Auto, offer state minimum policies. That’s why they are dirt cheap. The student who hit Megan had state minimum insurance, or $12,500. It really isn’t designed to handle medical bills of an accident victim. For that amount, you don’t even get a smile from an admitting nurse. It is designed to keep you legal with state law requiring insurance. Local, reputable agencies won’t sell state minimum insurance.

One night at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Youngstown, not the best or friendliest medical center to be in, cost $10,000. Yes, what my parents paid for their house. And at that price, the staff didn’t see that my daughter got her usual meds!

Fortunately, through the reputable people at State Farm, we have underinsured insurance, as funny as that sounds, that will eventually, hopefully, pay all of the bills.

But it is a balancing act, keeping track of all of the discussions with insurance adjusters and hospitals. It means paying some bills and hoping to get reimbursed later. Thankfully, wife Louise is now retired and can spend full time sorting this out.

And if you have had a medical situation, you know out of the blue you can get a bill for some massive amount of money months afterward.

Nine months after my mother’s death, we were still getting bills from medical facilities.

It is a scary, huge inconvenience at a time when the patient and family should be concentrating on recovery, not money.

It’s worse for many, like the woman I talked to a few years ago who scrimped by, not turning lights on, so she wouldn’t lose her home when her husband contracted a fatal disease.

Imagine being told essentially: Your loved one will soon be dead and you will go bankrupt and lose your home.

Hopefully Obamacare, if it isn’t struck down by the Supreme Court, will help alleviate this problem. But a real, full-blown government run health-care program would be better. You know, like the government running defense. The post office isn’t in the best of shape, but how much would it cost to mail a letter if run by a private company?

Imagine a health care system where so many of the employees aren’t bean counters, sending out bills. Where hospital staff isn’t spending its time helping patients figure out how to pay for bills inflated by the billing system.

We live in a world where medical bills are being paid by rigatoni dinners and silent auctions.

And Mitt Romney and his ilk want to continue with our expensive, bloated medical system in which a person’s life may be determined by what treatment costs will do to an insurance company’s bottom line.

It’s enough to make you sick. Just do yourself a favor. Don’t seek medical help.

Walking and not looking back

2012-05-05T20:22:00.001-07:00

So instead of a big, long blog, today I am putting together my little video production of the three grandsons walking.
Now Henry has been walking for better than two years. But twins Ben and Marcus were born prematurely, little beings strapped together by tubes for several weeks after their births in January 2011. Man have they changed and progressed! So here they are, walking and not looking back. Oh yeah, and they're hilarious!

Photography from a 3-year-old's eye

2012-04-30T08:32:00.001-07:00

It was late 1968. The Lebzelter tribe was trekking to Florida for the Christmas holidays, Miami to be exact.
We stopped for the night in Cincinnati and then off we went to the fun and sun capital of the world, where Jackie Gleason was then hosting his variety TV show.
There was myself, my parents and three brothers and we got along famously. Yeah, right.
The first night at our motel we were given a card for a free meal in exchange for hearing a pitch to buy land in Florida. I still remember a film presentation that stated one could get in on the ground floor for $25 a month. I remember thinking that was a lot of money. What is that, a week’s pay? I wondered.
My parents didn’t take the bait and in fact had a hard time finding the exit with the pesky salesman in tow. But early in the evening, the sales guy offered to sell us a cheap box camera that regularly cost $20 but we could get for a paltry $5. My parents bought it for me, a mere 15-year-old, and I started taking pictures.
What I photographed I have no idea today. Probably not my devil-driven brothers. I was the nice one. The camera, which my parents said probably wasn’t worth more than $5 in reality, came with a coupon to send away the film to have it developed for free. When I got the pictures, it included another roll of film, but development of that roll was somewhere near $5. OK, I was lucky to get 50 cents a week for spending money. I’d have to save for10 weeks to develop my next roll. So my photography interest plummeted under the weight of the almighty dollar.
Where that cheap camera went or the photos I took for that matter, I don’t know.
I sort of walked through my photography courses at Kent State, partially because I didn’t have a decent camera to shoot with. I did enjoy developing and printing black and white photos and actually have a few of those still around.
Working for the long-defunct Conneaut News-Herald, I quickly discovered I would be nearly as much a photographer as writer. My first successful photograph was of an accident victim being hoisted into an ambulance in the parking lot of the Conneaut Veterinary Hospital in East Conneaut.
Later, I bought a sleek Canon AT1, used to photograph nieces and nephews, pets, family. I chronicled my kids’ lives and even took a few of first grandson, Henry.
I got into the digital age with a Canon XSI and more recently, a Canon 60D.
Those cameras and computers did much to rekindle my interest in photography, that and having three highly photogenic grandsons.
Hoping to share my photographic interest with Henry, I bought him his first camera. Only it didn’t cost $5. It cost $50. It doesn’t use film, of course. It’s digital. And it does video.
Now Henry didn’t have to wait until he turned 15 to get his first camera. He was 2. The camera is from a famous manufacturer, Fisher-Price. It’s made for the rough and tumble life of a kid, plus you can roll the lens forward and take a picture of yourself.
We got it for Henry at Christmas, when he got an avalanche of other stuff, some of it not from us.
He had a hard time with the concept of pointing the camera at an object and releasing the shutter. He got pictures of the edge of the couch, the other edge of the couch, the corner of the badge on his beloved Sheriff Woody doll.
So this past weekend, Henry, his grandma and myself decided to go on a photographic odyssey into his back yard and beyond, to the site of the old Erie Canal flanking his yard near Rochester, N.Y. It was time to get serious.
I first gave him a couple of lessons on setting up a photograph, moving his head and hands and directing the camera to a subject. He has matured since he got his camera. He turned 3.
Our first stop was the tree out back. I climbed it and had Henry take a photograph of me in the tree. Henry did a nice job composing the shot. There was a little trouble because the sun was coming over my shoulder from the back so we ended up needing a little Photoshop help. If I had thought, I would have turned around in the tree and had him take it with the sun facing me. Then I used my camera, from up in the tree, to take his picture. In this case, the light fell on him nicely.
Out of the tree and my leg scraped, we headed toward the canal. Suddenly the new, mature Henry had become a photographer. He shot the water. He shot me at the bridge, a spot he was enamored with . Grandma Weeses was there to hold on to him so the camera, and Henry, didn’t end up in the drink.
Happily, I was there to chronicle photographer Henry being a photographer.
Back at home, I showed him how to get down and shoot flowers and the like.
I gave him the basics and he took off with it. I chronicled our time on the little video on this page.
It is surprising at this age how quickly Henry took off with it and created some nice moments.
The Fisher-Price camera takes fairly low resolution pictures, but for a toddler who drops things and forgets to shut it off, it works well. Plus it has features to place funny wigs or beards on the subject. It is a learning toy.
Someday, maybe at age 5, Henry will get a more adult-like camera. And when he turns 15, he will probably get a 3-D virtual camera that can take closeups of the planet Jupiter. It will cost $7,000, the equivalent of $5 in 1968.
In the meantime, Henry and I will have fun. Lots of fun.

Back in the saddle

2012-03-30T18:56:00.001-07:00

THE SCENE of the infamous bike fall in May 2011.

It’s the first time I had attempted it in something like 10 months and the time before ended in disaster.

Still, I figured this time around would be no sweat. Except for the disaster, I routinely handled this feat many times before. Well, maybe “feat” isn’t the best word to use, since by definition feat means “extraordinary accomplishment.” This wasn’t so extraordinary.

Anyway, last week I jumped on the bicycle and tackled the winding and somewhat steep South Ridge Road hill across Conneaut Creek in Kingsville Township.

The last time I had accomplished this, well, ‘accomplished’ may not be the operative word, the last time I attempted it was a darkening evening the Tuesday before Memorial Day 2011.

I was on my way home from work in Ashtabula. During warm-weather months, I usually bike to work. I plan to again this year, what with gasoline projected to hit $7 million a gallon. Newt Gingrich promises to get the price down to $2.50 when he’s elected, but that isn’t until November. Gotta watch the wallet until then.

For those who don’t closely follow my life (which is probably a good thing) I took the hill too fast last May and when I tried to slow down, wiped out on loose gravel. The upshot was a severed base to the handlebars on my bike, a badly scuffed up case for my Zune (although the Zune was OK), bloodied knees and elbows, a broken collarbone which would later require surgery and an overnight stay in the hospital and something like four broken ribs.

It sort of sidelined my summer activities. This year, however, things will be better.

First off, we’ve already had our summer. It was last week (week of March 18, 2012 for those slow to read). I got back on the bike maybe once last fall, when I had healed enough to get back on.

But last week I decided to ride to the Animal Protective League to do some running with dogs. That mean a six-mile ride to the APL, six miles with the dogs and then (OK math majors) six miles back.

Physically I didn’t see it as any big deal. My running resumed last fall and I even added a bit of weight training. Even the days I bike to work, I do some running beforehand. I even shower afterward, in order to maintain my stellar relationships with fellow employees.

I had a bit of a challenge from the get-go as I began the trip. My light exploded.

Yeah, I got a block or so from the house and half of the light on my bike shot out, spewing batteries, battery compartment and the front of the device all over the road. I can only guess when I changed batteries a few weeks ago, I didn’t twist the front on tight enough. It took a good 20 minutes to find all of the parts, finally discovering the front part in the middle of the road, just as a truck was going by. Fortunately he missed it. I reassembled. The light worked (a necessity when going home after dark) and remain unexploded during the rest of my trek.

I must admit I had some intrepidations approaching the hill from the opposite direction, going westbound.

The hill was always sort of exhilarating, although it doesn’t last as I quickly face the pedaling challenge going up the other side. Also, the hill often came during a suspenseful part of the “CBS Mystery Theater” episode I would be listening to on my journey. The quick-trip downhill invariably makes it difficult to listen with wind interference.

By the time I was done with the dogs, the wind was facing me on the way back. I brought an extra, nonsweaty shirt to wear on the return journey.

I was surprised I quickly became nervous about taking that hill, the first time since THE INCIDENT. I tried to think of other things, like why the township of Kingsville hadn’t placed an historic marker where I tumbled.

After the traffic light at South Ridge and Route 193, the anticipation grew.

I have to admit, I took the plunge slower, way slower. I put on the brake early. Maybe the slower pace was why the climb up the other side was so, well draining. Or maybe it was because I hadn’t done it in 10 months. Or maybe it was because I was a year older. No, no, that can’t be it.

I have a feeling as the year wears on, I will take the hill a little faster. There will be no time when I’m on the hill that I will forget that fateful day in May 2011 as I descended toward the creek valley and ended up in pain.

No, not even without an historical plaque will I forget. But I’d like one.

'Surfing Bird' and the Lebzelter boys

2012-03-01T08:10:00.001-08:00

It seemed like the middle of the night when I heard a noise.

At first I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t a “funny squeaking sound” like in “Christmas Vacation.”

It didn’t take me long to figure it out though, it was one of the twins.

Wife Louise and I spent a week babysitting three grandchildren, year-old twins Ben and Marcus and their older brother, Henry.

I use the term “older” rather liberally, because Henry turns 3 on Friday (March 2, 2012.)

And it wasn’t really the middle of the night, although to me it was. It was shortly before 6 a.m. Ben and Marcus weren’t just opening their eyes and orienting themselves to the new day like me. Oh no, they were wide awake and ready to take on the morning.

By that I mean, crawling off the side of our bed and zipping around on the floor, grabbing the baby monitor, pulling down Louise’s puzzle books and yanking on the carpets, trying to do a Scarlett O’Hara imitation from “Gone With The Wind.”

To paraphrase Meat Loaf, they were all revved up and ready to go.

Henry proves to be the late sleeper, waking at 6:10 a.m.

For the twins, barely a year old, the day means a highly structured procedure of bottles, breakfasts, snacks, bottles, lunch, naps, etc.

Well, it’s supposed to be highly structured. It’s just the boys are too young to know what “structured” means so often plans go out the window.

To watch and interact with the boys can be pretty funny. If you watch the video included on this blog, you get an idea.

All three are big at playing and Ben and Marcus tackle it like it is their jobs, like they are in China making iPads.

Often Ben will come upon something Marcus is playing with and take it away, or vice versa. They are at an age when losing a toy doesn’t mean a whole lot. The victim, who is too young to know he is a victim, wanders off to find another toy. There are plenty. If not interested in a toy, there’s always the Play Station remote or the cord to the MacBook pro or the strap to the Canon camera.

The twins play remarkably well between themselves. Sometimes there is a bump.

For example, I’m helping Marcus play with something when Ben crawls up and slaps Marcus across the face. I instinctively yell, “Ben, don’t do that.” Ben starts to cry because I yelled at him. Marcus, on the other hand, looks perplexed as to why I yelled at his sibling. He apparently was not bothered by the assault and I was a mere interloper into their normal daily affairs. Marcus it seems is the Larry Fine of the three Lebzelter boys.

It’s not surprising Ben, Marcus and Henry, at this writing all under 3, share many interests with me. We enjoy rolling on the floor and they like to dance to the music I choose. (“Surfing Bird” is a favorite, although they enjoyed Mick Jagger at the White House doing “I Can’t Turn You Loose.”)

Taking care of children has changed over the years. I noticed in some old footage of President Kennedy, he and his toddler daughter Caroline jump out of the back seat of a limousine, no child restraint seat.

My kids had one seat, but stopped using it at about age 2. It didn’t need to be installed by the fire department, it didn’t need to be replaced every six months as the children grew and the seats didn’t “expire” and need to be thrown away.

The day we decided to take all three grandkids to daycare, it took two vehicles to fit them and carseats. All it lacked was flashing lights and sirens as we cruised the streets.

My grandchildren are pretty cute and as well behaved as can be expected. But after awhile tiredness sets in and there’s a certain amount of whining and crying. But they still love me no matter how I act.

Even Henry managed a smile when he discovered for the umpteenth time I had placed his beloved Sheriff Woody doll from “Toy Story” fame on top of the wall-mounted TV screen.

I started missing the boys almost immediately after our week ended but admit the second rest stop on the 200-mile trek back to Conneaut, I pulled in and closed my eyes for 15 minutes because I was too tired.

We will see them soon and have more fun. But as they get older, I know they will learn more and gain in maturity.

What will I do then?

Presses silent in the night

2012-02-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

Back when I started my journalism career in Conneaut, at the now defunct News-Herald, we had what was called a community press. That means it was small. At most, it could produce 22 pages if it was all black and white.
If we had color advertisements and photographs, there were times we had a limit of 14.
When I started, we had an 11:15 a.m. deadline. As the presses turned, somebody scooped up the first batch and within 15 minutes you could buy a copy for a mere 15 cents at the City News a few blocks away.
The News-Herald was an important part of the community and people waited to buy our product, even though back then there were days it was only 10 pages.
Our sister paper to the west, the Star Beacon, had bigger presses and a higher capacity, but we had color more frequently and of better quality.
Times change and eventually a wall was knocked out beside the presses and they were hauled off to a newspaper in Chardon, where they were used until that paper closed operations. Where the presses are now, I have no idea.
The presses at Beacon, which never did a particularly good job of color, are now silent and will be available for sale to other newspapers, possibly as replacement parts.
The presses, a handsome investment by the Rowley family 43 years ago, have grown old and prone to breakdown. On Feb. 10, 2012, I witnessed the last run at the Star Beacon. In fact, I designed many of the pages in that last edition, including Page 1.
People who were losing their jobs worked hard that night to give one last quality product, or as good as could be.
In recent years we would print out copies of our color pages, particularly Page 1 and other color fronts, to give the pressroom an idea what the colors should look like. But no amount of tweaking could make them look anything like those printouts. Some days I would pull the newspaper out of the paper box across the street from my house the next morning and shake my head. Pictures with bright reds would turn sick brown. Some pictures looked jaundice. Other days the paper would look remarkably good.
I must admit I never really watched a press run for any length of time until that final night, when I committed a part of it to photos and video. The press people work hard, consistently adjusting the press, grabbing papers to see what must be done to assure the highest quality. I’m glad I got to see it that final day. Seems absurd to spend my life in journalism without really seeing a press run.
Tragically, roughly 20 more people will be without a job because of the action.
On the other hand, the press run isn’t nearly as important from a psychological point of view since the Star Beacon and almost all newspapers have gone morning.
Back in the old days at the News-Herald, we would finish up the news part of the paper at 11:30 a.m., the press would run and within an hour people were buying the paper.
I can remember covering trials where what I wrote in the morning was out on the street for everyone to read as they came back for the afternoon session.
These days the press run starts when everyone is in bed or getting ready for bed. They won’t read our product for at least another eight hours, when they wake up. So if the presses are whirring late in the night in Ashtabula or at our new printing location, Warren, it doesn’t really matter in that context.
The other factor is, how much longer will a newspaper printed on paper be a viable commodity?
Tablet computers are big these days, whether the iPad, Zoom, Kindle Fire or the other dozen.
My guess is most newspapers will eventually
make their digital editions (those people pay for that includes all content) specifically for the tablet. Colors will always be rich. You will be able to tap on a story to read the whole thing. Tap on a photo and read the caption, or maybe tap twice and you get a video.
There will be no set deadline. (Our new deadline, by the way, is a full 12 hours earlier than when I first started in journalism.) That digital edition you read will change with the news throughout the day.
There will be no problems with the newspaper not getting through because of bad weather. Customers won’t be upset because the carrier threw it in the bushes.
And if a headline editor accidentally writes “Lakview” for “Lakeview,” he can quickly correct it before too many people see it.
Yes, there will be a time when shortly after writers, photographers and editors are finished with the paper, it will be right there for the customer to see.
Sort of, almost like, those old days at the News-Herald.

Trying to solve country's problems with fiction

2012-01-17T06:58:00.000-08:00

If you grew up in the late 1950s or early 60s you may have thought there was something wrong with your family.

Your dad couldn’t solve all of your problems in a half hour. He didn’t wear a tie all of the time, even on Saturday afternoons tinkering in the garage.

Mom sometimes yelled and never wore pearl necklaces in the morning while getting you off to school.

You saw families with smart-talking African-American maids who still knew their places and were happy to work for low pay and come in the back door. But your family didn’t have such a person employed and neither did any of your friends.

That’s because they weren’t real. They were TV fiction, like “Father Knows Best” or “Make Room for Daddy” or “Leave It To Beaver.”

Hey, Gomer Pyle went through the entire Vietnam War as a Marine having zany adventures. No Vietcong ever shot at him.

As we got older, we realized none of this was true. It was fiction to enjoy in the evening after a long day at school or work. It didn’t have to be realistic. It just had to be written and produced so we would want to watch it each week, rather than another show that was less appealing.

And that brings me to the Tea Party, that leaderless group of often simplistic right wingers who formed a few years ago to reform government by making it smaller and reducing our taxes. At first it said it wasn’t aligned with any political party, that both Democrats and Republicans were bad. But after awhile, it decided the Republicans weren’t as bad as those Commie-spouting, Socialist Democrats. So the Tea Partiers did their best to take over the Republican Party and for awhile they were successful. They helped the GOP take over the House in 2010. They made presidential hopefuls move to the right, each trying to outdo the other with how conservative he or she was.

But after a short time in power, it looks like the Tea Party’s grip is loosening on the Republican Party. The candidates who truly towed the Tea Party line, like Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin, aren’t in the limelight anymore. If you do hear about them, it is probably more likely to be on a late-night TV show opening monologue joke.

Fewer people align themselves with the Tea Party, too, polls show.

And the guy who originated so-called Obamacare, in Massachusetts, is poised to be the Republican candidate for president.

So what happened to the Tea Party? My theory, its genesis is with the right-wing radio hosts, like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity or even Fox News. You see, these guys don’t need to be right. They don’t need to be logical. They don’t need to make sense. All they need to do is be entertaining and garner an audience and make money for their bosses, their affiliates and themselves and that is all that is necessary, sort of like Beaver Cleaver in 1960.

The likes of Limbaugh are millionaires many times over. They don’t get that way by being precise and logical. They do it by getting worked up and shouting and using buzzwords like “Communist” or “Socialist” and telling stories about President Obama’s birth certificate. Logic doesn’t enter into it.

Imagine if on “Make Room For Daddy” in the 1950s the plot centered on the African-American maid being raped at a bus stop and white authorities decided it wasn’t worth the bother? Not knee-slapping funny.

“The Beverly Hillbillies” after a decade was decidedly less funny because the writers frankly ran out of plots. The Clampetts couldn’t stay dumb hillbillies for a decade, right? So why not draft Jethro into the Army and have him come back from Vietnam a paraplegic ? That would cause some belly laughs, right?

Conservative radio may bring in ratings and money but the Tea Party tried to put it into actual practice and it doesn’t work. First of all, the radio hosts are sparse on detail. That drags down the program and they are at risk of losing listeners to another talk show or maybe a classic rock station (hopfully a Ted Nugent song comes on).

For years, everyone, even Republicans, agreed our health care system is a mess. Hardworking people, even those with health insurance, are at risk if their providers determine there’s a pre-exisiting condition or don’t want to hurt their profit-margin by paying for what they determine is an “experimental” procedure. Today’s Tea Party candidate forgets all of that, spouting private care only is working just fine and in fact, insurers shouldn’t have to accept pre-exisiting conditions and if you got sick, you deserve to pay more for your insurance.

Romney was CEO of a company best known for taking successful ventures, slashing workers, cutting their pay and stripping them of benefits to make money. So these people, with less money and no insurance, should somehow find a way to buy insurance, even if the costs are higher with pre-exisiting conditions?

When you take it past the fist pounding and sound bites and we’ll be back after this message, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Our globe is warming because of fossil fuels. We need to put our energies (pun) toward alternatives. But the Tea Party crowd thinks we shouldn’t believe the scientists and researchers. We should listen to the industries that are causing the pollution.

Oppose abortion but support legislation that would strip their parents of benefits if they have a drug problem. Oh, and also make it impossible to have insurance to get treated for that drug problem.

Do all of the Tea Partiers have sufficient savings and investments that we can rid the country of Medicare and Social Security as part of their new, smaller government? They seem bent on turning 2012 into 1912. Newt Gingrich even wants to get rid of child labor laws.

Just like “The Donna Reed Show,” Rush might be entertaining to some, but after awhile, you learn it just doesn’t make sense. The whole Tea Party concept comes unraveling. The truth is, health care needs reformed, we do need to take action on the environment, our cities’ infrastructure often dates 100 years and needs updated.

It’s also true that throwing more money at the rich and making the middle class disappear has done nothing to create jobs or improve our economy. We need a less partisan, more pragmatic and possibly boring system of solutions to our problems.

Hey, after a decade, even “The Beverly Hillbillies” grew stale.

Show us first your money

2012-01-13T09:34:00.000-08:00

I was just getting off work and decided to call home and have wife Louise get dinner ready.
Normally dinner time isn’t a big deal, but the next day I was getting routine bloodwork done and had to fast for 12 hours. That meant the sooner I dispensed with dinner that night the faster the 12 hours would be over, I could get into the hospital and out.
So I jumped into the car, flipped on the bluetooth device and told it to call home. My calls are hands-free these days.
Except instead of it ringing at home, I got a voice saying something about my call not going through. At first I thought it was just an Alltel glitch, like a few weeks ago when you couldn’t send any texts and no matter where you were, you were roaming.
But suddenly I realized the recorded voice was telling me my phone was shut off for nonpayment.
Huh? How did that happen?
And like everyone else trying to save a buck, Alltel didn’t have a real person on the other end. It was a machine that says it will put through my call as soon as we discuss payment. Will it be full payment, partial? And how will it be done, check, debit card or credit card?
My retort was to yell at the bluetooth device, “I paid the (expletive) bill.” The recorded voice didn’t react.
But then, how could it accept my partial or full check or debit card or credit card so I could make my call? And while the Alltel voice didn’t know it, I was driving at the time. If no texting is permitted while driving, writing a check didn’t seem like a good idea. Plus, who carries around checks? Who writes checks these days?
So I hung up as she repeated my options: check, debit, credit.
Then I got the bright idea, maybe it was an Alltel fluke. Maybe if I try the call again it will go through and this nonpayment nonsense will just go away.
Nope, recorded voice came back on.
Well, I needed worry about dinner getting started early because nobody was home to answer anyway. Since Louise is on the same account, in fact, the account is in her name, I tried calling her cell from our home phone.
This time I was told it is no longer a working number. Wow, Alltel had us really locked out.
I checked our Alltel account online and indeed it showed us owing $103 and change and it was due Dec. 28. How could we have missed it? Next, I checked our bill paying service at our bank and discovered we paid Alltel on Dec. 19, nine days before it was due. And yes, it showed it had gone through. Our checking account was $103 poorer.
Armed with my information, I grabbed the cellphone to call Alltel payment center. It would not allow the call to go through. Duh? Instead, annoying Alltel voice came on to tell me essentially I couldn’t go to Alltel’s payment center until I told her how I was going to pay my bill.
I learned awhile ago when you get one of these automated phone deals that doesn’t give you an option you want, like talking to a live person, you bark. Yes, years before when I needed a live person, the neighbor’s dog happened to be at our house. He saw something out the window and barked. The phone picked it up and immediately connected me to a live person.
So I shouted in the phone and made some noises and soon I was connected with a live person. After talking to me some, he decided he had to talk to Louise, since the phone was in her name. I might have been a crook trying to illegally get phone service restored.
Eventually he agreed to restore service immediately if within 10 days I email their customer services department with proof we had paid our bill. If not, service would go again.
I sent three confirmations we got from the bank, including the check the bank issued with a confirmation number and the date Alltel confirmed it got it.
That was a few days ago. Alltel has generously credited us with partial payment, saying we still owe $68. My guess is the $35 credit is what the representative put down so we could get service restored and the phone company has still not dealt with our so-called nonpayment.
Whatever incompetence there is on the part of Alltel, if you call me and are informed my number is no longer in service, don’t despair. I am still alive, I haven’t bought an iPhone (although it sounds inviting). It’s just my carrier is Alltel. Just bark a couple of times and I should be right with you.

Did Bill Shakespeare and George Washington know each other?

2011-12-06T08:57:00.000-08:00

American humorist Will Rogers has been dead for something like 80 years, but his words still have incredible truth. He said, “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
And that’s the reason even though the Republicans have an abysmal group of candidates, people with no vision, no sense of history, the Democrats are still in danger of losing the presidency in 2012.
President Barack Obama should have been more like Harry Truman during his first two years in office when he had both the White House and both houses of Congress under Democrats. The country was left in such shambles by George W. Bush, a completely different stance needed to be taken.
Whip fellow Democrats in shape and get the best health care bill possible passed, even if it is done without the support of one Republican! But he didn’t and consequently nobody was happy with him from either party.
Obama has a second chance though, because the Republican party candidates keep trying to best themselves as to how cruel they are, how much they want to hurt the poor and help the rich and how, well, stupid they are.
OK, using the term “stupid” isn’t nice, but gosh, it seems the best way to describe some of these people.
You want dumb? How about a Michelle Bachmann history lesson?
She says the founding fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery. Huh? Now ABC’s George Stephanopoulos rightly pointed out that isn’t true. Heck, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson HAD slaves. Slavery was written into the Constitution. Maybe some founding fathers had discussions about the morality of slavery. Who knows? But working tirelessly against it?
It seems people like Bachmann say stupid things, then try to come up later with an explanation of those comments. Sort of talking the barn door shut.
She later explained John Quincy Adams worked against slavery. Never mind it was decades after the Constitution was written. Never mind it was his father who was a founding father and Quincy was a mere child when the country was established.
Stephanopoulos should have asked her just what this Civil War was fought for if not to end slavery? To make a nice backdrop to “Gone With the Wind?”
She also signed a statement written by some Confederate-flag wrapped Tea Party group called the “Marriage Vow” that among other things says while slavery wasn’t perfect, it did assure children grew up in two-parent households. Well heck, what if one of the parents was sold? What if there was only the mother because the father was her master?
Never mind she got conservative actor John Wayne mixed up with serial killer John Wayne Gacy or suggested an East Coast earthquake and hurricane were a message from God. Or in South Carolina she wanted everyone to sing happy birthday to Elvis Presley. It wasn’t his birthday. It was the anniversary of his death.
Others enjoy talking about the founding fathers. Getting the facts straight doesn’t seem to matter. Take Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is proving to be dumber than predecessor George Bush. He mentioned to a female student one reason our founding fathers “fought the revolution in the 16th century was to get away from that type of onerous crown.”
Yeah, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were contemporaries of Shakespeare, right?
Sorry Rick. The Constitution and the Revolutionary War and all of that stuff took place between 1775 and 1789. That makes it the 18th century. You were only two centuries away.
Or how about his statement on a college campus he wants the votes of everyone 21 and older and the support of those under 21. The guy doesn’t know about the 26th Amendment, giving those 18 and over the right to vote. It passed on March 23, 1971 and was officially ratified on July 1, 1971.
We can chuckle at this, but I would be horrified that somebody with so little knowledge of this country could have a serious chance to be president. Now one way these people try to turn things around is by stating those statements are blown out of proportion by the liberal press, which has nothing better to do than know what year our Constitution was ratified.
Herman “Hey Baby” Cain did it after he gave such a startling demonstration about how little he knew about our dealings with Libya. Does it matter how little Cain knows about foreign affairs when we have a guy who knows how to spread pepperoni on a pizza and, well, other places? You see, his big qualification to be president: He ran a pizza chain.
Now some candidates are not so stupid as Cain or Bachmann or Perry. Some are just mean, like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who resigned from office in disgrace but hopes we forgot about that. Yeah, Teddy Kennedy hoped we forgot about Chappaquiddick when he ran in the primary against Jimmy Carter, too, in 1980. But that didn’t happen.
Newt’s the guy who when his wife, Jackie, was in the hospital with her third bout with cancer, asked for a divorce. Newt’s daughter, Jackie, now says that isn’t true, but her statements are directly at odds with what her mother said.
Gingrich acknowledges cheating on both of his wives. After getting down on his knees and praying after cheating on the wife with cancer, he cheated on second wife, Marianne Ginther, while leading impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton on allegations of perjury involving Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky.
Newt said the couple was going through “a very difficult time.”
That explains it.
So you aren’t too worried about Newt’s indiscretions or his taking huge sums as a “consultant.” What about his answer to the financial problems of the nation’s school systems?
Well, it seems Newt opposes child labor laws. Let the kids be the janitors in schools to free up money. Janitorial services are the big reason for our educational problems today, right?
Newt said, “I believe the kids would mop the floor and clean up the bathroom and get paid for it, and it would be OK.”
He shares the belief that poor people are lazy and drug crazed and deserve their fates.
“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it is illegal,” says Newt.
Newt and his fellow candidates have no real plan for this country, what to do about poverty or health care or unemployment or our deteriorating infrastructure. The answer to everything is less government. The answer is to have America go back 100 years, when nobody was born in a hospital, when roads were mudholes, when there were no child labor laws, when their were no government programs like Social Security and Medicare. When most people died before they hit 40.
Today’s GOP candidate makes statements about electric fences to kill illegal immigrants or how many people were executed in his or her’s home state.
The word of scientists holds no value when it comes to global warming. It’s much like when scientists during the Renaissance suggested the Earth was round, not flat, but the Catholic church rejected their evidence.
What has happened to the Republican party? Is it because the zany, conservative talk show hosts say far-out things to get ratings, so candidates now make similar statements?
I don’t know. The Democrats have some real problems. Obama is hardly a great leader. But do we want one of these other candidates in a position as the leader of the free world? We live in very scary times.
Republicans: Pray a darkhorse shows up who has some sensibilities to get the nomination.

THE VOICE — Read it yourself or I'll read it for you

2011-11-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from 1990s

Back before "Friends" or "Melrose Place," or even Fox for that matter, before Gingrich and Clinton, yours truly sat in the back of a classroom full of rowdy junior high students. No, I'm not being redundant.

I can still picture one flustered teacher who daily raised his hand, trying to talk.

Meanwhile, kids were talking amongst themselves, coming and going as they pleased.

That instructor didn't have THE VOICE.

I come from a family of educators and let me tell you, THE VOICE is important.

I don't think there's any classes for THE VOICE training. My wife is a teacher and I don't remember her ever mentioning such a class.

But THE VOICE no doubt comes in handy.

Normally, wife Louise has a rather quiet voice, at least in a reserved setting, like a telephone conversation.

But it only takes a few seconds for her to go to Teacher Voice Autopilot when necessary.

This comes in handy. When the kids were smaller and ignored warnings it was bedtime, she would make a dreaded announcement using the TVA.

"I'm going to give you 10 seconds to get in bed, TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, etc."

Those kids scrambled into bed. No need to issue a consequence if they weren't in bed. Teacher Voice Autopilot sounded ominous enough.

After a while, she just started with "TEN, NINE," and it was enough to get them scrambling.

A few weeks ago while we were room parents in daughter Megan's class for Halloween, Louise quickly adjusted to younger students (she normally wrestles seventh graders) and had them quiet, minimizing the amount of candy that was thrown or drinks that were spilled.

The regular teacher let Louise use her TVA. He knew everything was under control.

A few years ago we were in a movie theater. Three or four of Louise's students of a year or two before walked in and sat in the front. Bad sign.

Soon they were giggling and commenting out loud about the film. It was clear people were annoyed.

I nearly dropped my already heart-strangling buttered popcorn when this voice next to me thundered "GIRLS."

They were quiet. Not another word. Just one booming "GIRLS," sounding a bit like Radar in "MASH" announcing incoming wounded and all was quiet on the movie set.

On the way out, people came up to Louise to thank and congratulate her. I had a passing thought about selling autographs by her but knew she wouldn't go along.

She was an instructor at a summer Girl Scout camp. I was the lowly lifeguard. It took two or three shrill whistles by me to get the same attention she commanded with one "GIRLS."

The whole Teacher Voice Autopilot was best illustrated one tired evening recently. I was ready for bed. Louise was already in bed. I decided to put beagle Casey out front on her chain for any last-minute responsibilities she might need to fulfill.

When I was ready to have her come in, she was out in the yard as far as the chain would take her. Come on in, I told Casey. She looked at me, then ignored me. The chain was attached to a railing. I could have grabbed it and reeled her in like an Oregon pike, except that would mean either finding a pair of boots or sticking my stocking foot in a puddle of melting ice to get to it.

I slammed the door and stomped to bed instead.

Don't care if the dog's out all night, I grumbled to Louise.

"I bet Casey will come in for me," she announced, getting out of bed. Now half of me wanted her to be successful, because that meant the dog was in and I wouldn't have to get up later when she scratched at the door.

But I knew if Louise was successful, she'd saunter in with a smug look on her face.

"Casey, COME," I heard her say once at the door, using the TVA.

Seconds later she said, "Good puppy," amidst the clanking of the chain. Casey was in.

THE VOICE even transcends various species of animal.

17 years was not enough

2011-10-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

CASEY REGAINED use of her legs for her final Boo Wow Walk in October, 2010, escorted by Megan Lebzelter

It’s been two weeks since Casey Lebzelter died.

If you didn’t know her, if her face didn’t lighten up when she saw you, her tail thumping against the floor, then just know the photo of the dog with me out in the woods that has graced this blog for many years was indeed Casey Lebzelter.

Casey kept running longer than most dogs. When you counted her down, she found a way to get back up. Unfortunately, time is everyone’s eventual enemy, including Casey’s.

People say Casey lived a pretty good life. My wife’s brother-in-law, John Lowery, the first day he met Casey, rubbed her head and said, “You’re going to have a good life.”

I hope she felt she did.

We got her from the Animal Protective League in June 1994. It was the day of son Derek’s 14^th birthday party. It was a Sunday. I had picked her as mine a few days earlier, but we could not pick her up until Sunday, in case someone had lost her and would come in to claim her. Fortunately for us, that didn’t happen.

I read at one time the best way to train a puppy is to get two people together, facing each other in a room. You put the dog down and point him or her at the other person. That person calls the dog’s name. When the dog comes, you praise him or her, turn the dog around and the other person calls the pooch.

You do this as long as the dog keeps interest and you keep praising. Never give the dog the idea he or she can ignore the call and take off in the opposite direction.

Good advice. Too bad I read about that after trying to train Casey. Casey would slip outside and she was so fast, we could never catch her. We had to wait until she tired and allowed us to slip a leash on her and take her back to the house. She loved chasing rabbits and could get within inches before they took off. More than once I was afraid Casey would grab one. She never did.

From Day 1 at our house we enjoyed trips into our back woods and into Conneaut Creek. The last visit I made with her was summer 2010.

Whenever anyone went somewhere in the car, Casey was ready to go. We were so used to her spotting and barking at another dog or cat on the roadway, I got to doing the barking at animals I saw when she wasn’t riding with me. I knew Casey would want it that way.

At least twice I called her to jump in the car for a ride. The ride would take 24 hours, as we took off for Florida. The drive was so enticing to her, she wouldn’t go to sleep until we made it to the Florida line. She enjoyed watching the world go by.

Casey strolled along the Atlantic Coast in the Sunshine State during one visit, the Gulf of Mexico the next. We got pictures of her in each state along the way.

After a few years, she tired more easily being outdoors and she was easy to pick up and bring inside. Her love of food reflected on her body frame.

But everyone she saw she met with a tail wag and a glowing face. She was happy to see everyone. I figured one day she would be a greeter at Wal-Mart.

She would go running with me and sit on the couch while I watched television later.

She visited the Star Beacon and had her photo take with most of the staff. When someone left and we got a group shot, Casey was there for the photo.

Eventually, she had a difficult time walking. Her back legs stopped working. She had to be carried about and a towel had to be slipped under her to hold up her back when we went outside. Casey was out, but only temporarily.

At age 11 she went on her first two-mile Boo Wow Walk, to benefit her old pals at the APL. She did it with no problem. She had slowed down by the next year, but when she got amidst all of those dogs walking, she picked up the pace and finished the job with no problem.

It was at age 15 her back legs failed her and we took her in a stroller. Something remarkable happened shortly after that walk, however. We took her to the Edgewood Veterinary Clinic where she was given various medications to help her with her mobility. Within a week we noticed her back legs starting to move a bit on their own. Soon she was walking again. It was a bit clumsy. Her legs were a bit stiff, but she walked. And I smiled while mowing to watch her again on her own walking about the lawn.

The next Boo Wow Walk, Casey couldn’t walk the whole time, but she did part of the distance. Eventually, age came back to battle her again and her back legs were rendered useless a second time. Until we tried more medications and yes, she was given the privilege of walking yet again.

It was about a year ago her back legs gave out for good, although her front legs continued to hold out.

She no longer was so happy to see people. Her tail didn’t thump in happiness against the floor.

But she was a good dog and looked after her family. In years past, she would go to bed with wife Louise but would pull herself away from the nice, warm covers to greet me when I came home from work after midnight. When I was suitably greeted, she returned to bed.

Casey was the glue who kept everything together and everyone knew her.

Her body continued to fail but we tried to help her as much as possible, giving back for what she did for us.

The Boo Wow Walk was coming up again a few weeks ago, but it was evident Casey would not participate. She could not keep food down and she was not urinating much. Kidney failure was evident in her 17 ½- year-old body.

The prognosis wasn’t good, but she was hooked to IVs and given medications again at the Edgewood Veterinary Clinic. She had a 20 percent chance of recovery. And she did recover somewhat and we were told if all goes well, we could pick her up on a Saturday and told to bring her back for a checkup later the next week. It looked like Casey would beat the odds again.

But that Friday afternoon she took a turn for the worse. She could not longer right herself. By that Saturday we had been hoping to pick her up, we got a call it was time to make a decision. We raced to the clinic but by then Casey had made her own decision. She died.

The first thing I did when I got home was to walk in the woods we shared and down to the creek, alone.

When I could finally bring myself to put a tribute to her on Facebook, going through 17 years of photographs, I heard from colleagues and friends from a dozen years or more back, who remembered Casey fondly.

It’s been a few weeks since she left us. If you step back and think about it, we should be happy we had her as long as we did and not be sad. Few dogs live that long. Her life was renewed more than once.

But that’s looking at it in practical terms.

Casey was a huge part of my life going back six years into the last century. She was a good dog. A great dog. I will miss her for a long, long time.

We got Casey from the Animal Protective League. Casey and I have spent much time since then at the APL, volunteering to run with other dogs. (I ran, Casey sat in the office or my car, often greeting the homeless animals.) The APL is having more financial problems for a number of reasons, including the fact the Boo Wow Walk was a monsoon. Please, consider a donation in Casey’s name. Make contributions to the Animal Protective League, 5790 Green Road, Ashtabula, Ohio 44004.

The slings and arrows of wearing a sling

2011-09-10T15:35:00.001-07:00

I can remember a time, oh so long ago, when I didn’t wear a sling.

As time goes on, those days sans sling get dimmer and dimmer and dimmer.

I began my slinging days back in May when an unfortunate bike trip down a lonely country road hill at dusk resulted in a fall and a trip to the hospital. Eventually I discovered not only was my clavicle (collarbone) broken, but five ribs. I didn’t know for awhile about the ribs, which explains why I tired so easily walking around Best Buy.

Several weeks after the mishap, the doctor informed me it wasn’t healing. It might be because I was I’m a slow healer. It might be because I was too active. It might be I was too active and reported about it on this blog and the doctor read it.

Whatever the reasons, the doctor decided to stick a pin in the clavicle to make it solid again, necessitating my first-ever surgery and stay in the hospital.

I’d been wearing the sling to keep my arm still and improving the chances the clavicle will heal.

The surgery meant the whole healing process started over again. So me and Slingy, as I call my sling, have been together for parts of five months. Why, that’s almost half a year. Five months of curtailing activity. Five months without running with dogs at the Animal Protective League. Five months getting by with walking as an exercise.

But that isn’t the only problem. People come up to me and say, “What did you do know?” I have to explain that “now” is the same old injury, still waiting to be healed.

When I broke the collarbone originally, there were kids in high school, waiting to graduate. By now, some have already flunked out of college!

My boss at the Star Beacon, editor Neil Frieder, is ever-so sensitive. “How much longer are you going to wear that thing? You look ridiculous,” he told me.

And yeah, I sorta do. The sling distorts my shirt and jacket (if I’m wearing one.) It tugs to the side. It mangles my collar.

I’m beginning to think Slingly wasn’t built to last this long. The Velcro is starting to wear out. Besides the sling, there is belt-like device that wraps around to secure my arm better, offering maximum discomfort. But these days, the Velcro will simply let go. As a result. I have to grab one end, swing it around my waist and reattach the stupid thing. (Oh Slingy, did I call you stupid? I didn’t mean it.)

After doing the Velcro swing a few times, I probably will be more adept at using a Hula-Hoop.

The Velcro belt around Slingy is starting to look a bit sad. The Velcro is attracting things like hair (obviously not mine) and some food stains have sort of appeared. Mercifully, the doctor said I could not run, but said nothing about me not eating.

So Monday I go back to the doctor and have an x-ray and we will see if it is healing any better. We will see if me and Slingy continue to be Siamese twins.

It would be nice to cast off Slingy and walk around without it.

Wonder what the doctor would say about me using a Hula-Hoop. He’d probably say no.