Bob Lebzelter columns

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.

Great train crash

2011-09-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Back in the 1940s, there wasn't a lot of discussions about what to do when you grew up.

A few people went to college. Many more didn't even make it through high school.

That's because everybody knew they had a job waiting on the railroad. First and second generation Americans followed their fathers onto the railroad.

The railroad meant prosperous times. Downtown Conneaut and Ashtabula were filled with cars on Nickel Plate railroad payday, ready to spend their money.

There were no malls, no Interstate 90 to quickly whisk people to the next big city for shopping. Also, most people only had one car, even if it cost just $1,000 new.

So downtown business sections, even in small towns like Conneaut, prospered.

But railroad life could be dangerous.

It was 50 years ago this month when two freight trains collided early in the morning in Painesville.

The most seriously injured in the accident was a 50-year-old Conneaut man, Christy Kraus, the engineer.

He suffered scalds and burns on his arms, legs and back and was taken to Lake County Hospital.

It began at 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 2 on a siding of the Nickel Plate Railroad in Painesville. A train in which Kraus was the engineer plowed into the rear of a standing freight. The locomotive reduced the cab of the standing freight to patchwood, leaped clear of the track, across a small creek and buried itself deep into the bank.

The train leaped high enough into the air to pull down telephone and electrical wires along the right-of-way. Mud and underbrush were piled as high as the cab.

The cab then caught fire, as did the rear refrigerator car of the standing freight, which was hurled into the air and came down on the burning engine.

Two trainmen who were standing in the freight caboose saw the oncoming train and jumped, escaping death.

The brakeman on the oncoming train, Charles Ainsley, 26, jumped clear of the cab before the crash. Another Conneaut man, Donald Metcalf, 26, had screamed to Ainsley, warning him of the collision.

Once Ainsley was clear, he ran into the blaze, burning himself as he backed against the boiler of the engine while saving Metcalf.

Metcalf worked several more years for the railroad, worked on the boats, moved to Ashtabula and died in 1992.

Kraus was left for dead but somehow was able to free himself.

Two wrecking crews worked during the day to untangle the wreckage and clear the four tracks. Traffic was tied up on Route 20 in Painesville.

Kraus spent the next three years in and out of the hospital, in severe pain. The medical world at the time didn't know how to handle severe burns.

Meanwhile, Kraus had a family. He had a son who was either in the military or would be soon. He had a daughter who would soon turn 13.

His wife, Lydia, was a former legal secretary who, as tradition dictates, stayed home with the family.

With her husband's injuries, she decided it was time to go back to work.

A job opened as a librarian at Conneaut High School. When asked if she had experience, she said yes and landed the job.

Kraus eventually went back to work but one arm was useless. He enjoyed gardening despite his withered, burned arm. He went in and out of the hospital. The railroad paid him a small amount for injuries sustained in the accident.

Kraus had spent 26 years working for the railroad. He was a veteran of the first world war, spending 19 months in Europe. He was active in what is now Conneaut's Lakeview United Methodist Church and was a VFW member.

Late in the summer of 1949, his injuries resulted in heart problems. He was taken once again to the hospital, this time Brown Memorial in Conneaut. There he stayed for five weeks. In late September, at age 56, Kraus died of a heat attack.

In the meantime, his daughter had just started her freshman year at Otterbein College.

Kraus never lived to see his grandchildren. His son left the military, married and eventually had five children.

His daughter married three years after his death and they had four sons. The first was born in September 1953, nearly four years to the day after Kraus' death.

That little boy was me.

This column appeared in the Ashtabula Star Beacon in February 1994.

Punishment swift for teen killer in 1927

2011-09-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

Originally published, May 22, 1994

It took 16 years to try, convict and finally execute John Wayne Gacy, America’s most notorious mass murderer.

If there was criticism of Gacy’s fate, it was that it came too slowly.

It wasn’t always that way. For one of Ashtabula County’s most heinous murderers, punishment came in the same year as the offense.

The murderer was Floyd Hewitt, 16, of Conneaut, a boy whom today would be considered mildly retarded. A newspaper account at the time stated, “He is not considered of normal intellect, his drooping mouth, dull eyes and appearances contributing to the opinion. He was not bright in his classes at school and other students state he smoke and had a habit of ‘sassing’ teachers.”

The story began on Valentine’s Day 1927. Hewitt Loved listening to the radio. The only radio in North Conneaut belonged to Frederick Brown, his wife Celia and their 5-year-old son, Freddie Jr.

Brown worked evenings as an engineer caller at the Nickel Plate railroad.

Hewitt, as he often did, found himself at the Brown home that evening, listening to the radio. Frederick Brown was at work. Hewitt, in his confession later, said he became impassioned by the music and tried to take familiarities with Mrs. Brown. She responded by slapping him. She grabbed a stove poker to hit him. But he grabbed the poker from her and a fight ensued. Mrs. Brown ran for the stairs.

Furniture was overturned. Blood-stained papers were everywhere. The curtains and one rod had been pulled from the windows looking from a stair landing, halfway to the second floor. Several potted plants on the window sill were overturned.

Hewitt beat Celia Brown with poker.

The little boy, who would have entered school that fall, was playing with cards on the living room floor when he heard the commotion. He ran screaming , startling Hewitt. Hewitt picked up the boy’s baseball bat, a christening present, and followed him into the basement and beat him to death, too. He was found under a workbench. Hewitt washed his hands and went home.

Brown left work at midnight and was home by 12:15 a.m. The door was unlocked.

He walked in to find blood-stained woodwork and paper everywhere and stumbled over his wife’s body in the glass-enclosed front porch.

He ran to a neighbor’s house to inform police.

A sheriff’s detective found footprints from the Brown home to the nearby Hewitt cottage where Hewitt lived with his divorced mother, Olive. Police checked on people who frequented the Brown home and targeted Floyd with the crime.

After a night in jail, Floyd admitted to the crime, collapsing as detectives took him back to the house so he could review what took place.

Olive maintained her son’s innocence, saying he was home all night.

Meanwhile, 81 automobiles formed the procession for the funeral of Celia, 27, and her son. As services ended at Conneaut United Brethren Church, where both Browns taught Sunday school, the coffin was opened as hundreds passed by. It contained both mother and son. They looked peaceful, asleep.

Before the casket was closed, Fred Brown reportedly said, “Yes, we shall meet sometime face to face,” repeating works of a hymn. “She died for honor. And my baby, not my baby, my man, he died a man.”

Hewitt was charged with two counts of murder and went on trial in April in Common Pleas Court. It took four weeks to obtain a jury and hear testimony.

Floyd’s mother and father, William of Erie, attended the trial each day.

The eight-man, four-woman jury found him guilty of first-degree murder without recommendation for mercy. It carried an automatic execution by electrocution penalty, read by Judge Charles Sargent.

The sentence was to be carried out in August, but was delayed to November after his Ashtabula attorney appealed.

He was one of the youngest, if not the youngest man ever to be executed in Ohio.

Walter Brown remarried and had another family. Celia’s brother, Christy, had two children. One of those children, a daughter, had four boys herself.

One of those boys was me.

When John Kraus was shot

2011-09-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

A reprint of a classic Bob Lebzelter column

Newspapers back in 1913 weren't too subtle in their reporting.Take for instance when tall, good-natured John Kraus was shot on his way to school early that year. The Conneaut News-Herald in its lead paragraph the same day said it was done by "some fool with a gun."No doubt accurate but we are less blunt today.Kraus, 16, was walking back to school after having dinner. He was with some companions and they were crossing a vacant lot in the area of Lakeview and Clinton avenues in the northern section of Conneaut.

Kraus told authoritIes he heard a humming noise and a sort of spat, but didn't realize at first he had been hit.

John C. Peters later said at an inquest he was working on a shed about 100 yards from North Conneaut school that Friday when he heard John Kraus cry for help. He and a man named Harry Coyle ran to him and caught him as he was falling.

Kraus said, "I've been shot," placing his hand under his sweater. Blood was evident.

Kraus, explained his mother was in Pittsburgh and asked to be taken to a hospital. Coyle put him in his wagon and took him to the residence of Dr. F.W. Upton. Upton took young Kraus in his automobile to Grace Hospital in Conneaut.

At 3:30 a.m. Saturday, John Kraus died.

He had a bullet lodged in the back of one lung, the perforation allowing no air to escape. The skin of his torso was like "a blown-up bladder, so that the skin cracked when a hand passed over."

As a newspaper article stated, "The location of the bullet in the lad's lung made it impossible to save his life, as the escape of air from the lung could not be stopped."

Coroner Baxter said he found a 38-caliber bullet in the boy's body. It entered at a point above the 10th rib and to the rear of the left side and was deflected by the rib and went through the lower area of the left lung.

Before John Kraus died, he said he believed a boy named Edward P. Baker had accidentally shot him.

Baker testified he and Kraus walked together home from school for dinner earlier. But there were later rumblings the two weren't the best of friends.

The day Kraus was shot, witnesses say John Baker took his revolved after dinner and loaded it with five bullets and went out in the woodshed and shot once at a tin dipper. That was at 12:30 or 12:45 p.m. He then went to a friend's house and shot at a 2 by 3 foot plank. Baker went to yet another home. While there, he was told how Kraus had been shot and was saying Baker did it.

"I thought they were joking," said Baker at the inquest.

But according to those who helped Kraus, the boy had said, "Edward Baker shot me." He pointed to a shed in a hollow as where the bullet came from.

No charges came from the shooting. Edward Baker left Conneaut soon after the incident.

Constable Chilison said several complaints had been made "from time to time regarding the reckless use of firearms by boys in North Conneaut and elsewhere in or near the city."

The newspaper, when initially reporting on the shooting, stated, "The case adds emphasis to the criminal folly of parents allowing irresponsible boys to carry firearms, for it proves anew the need for penal punishment of persons who use guns recklessly."

North Conneaut schools were closed the following Tuesday afternoon in respect to the memory of John Kraus. A prayer was held at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Kraus of Millard Avenue. The casket was borne to the Conneaut United Brethren church, where the Rev. G.N. Barnes, retired, and the Rev. W.N. Barton, pastor, conducted services. Burial was in Center Cemetery.

John Kraus was shot on the same day it was announced a fine opera house was to be built on Broad Street in Conneaut.

John Henry Kraus was born in 1897 and would be 97 if still alive today.

Of course, he would have lived to see his old school closed a decade later, replaced by a school built nearby, Lakeview Elementary. The field he was walking through is now part of Conneaut Shores Golf Course.

A sister, Celia, was guilty of having the only radio in the neighborhood 14 years later. A retarded youngster who enjoyed coming over to listen apparently became overcome by the music and made improper advances. When she rebuffed him, the youngster crushed her skull with a baseball bat, then killed her 5-year-old son, Freddie, as well.

A brother, Christy Adam Jr., was in a terrible train accident in 1944 and his heart finally gave out in 1949.

John Kraus' father died of artherioslerotic heart disease in 1939 at the age of 79. His mother died a year earlier of myocarditis at age 69.

"Some fool with a gun" robbed John Kraus of a chance to have a family of his own, to make his mark in the world. It denied him the chance to have his own children, to know his nieces and nephews.

One great-nephew, bearing the same surname, lives with his family in the same house John Kraus lived his short life.

Another great nephew happens to be me.

Read another reprint of a column about murder in my family, coming soon.

Tears last only a short time

2011-08-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

It happened before. It happened again this past weekend.

I walk into the room. I spot the small-faced individual sitting/lying there. I saunter over. I smile and say hello.

The little figure gives me the once-over. His lower lip juts out and suddenly I know and fear what will happen. But to stop what happens next is like trying to prevent water from going over Niagara Falls.

The little guy I am trying to have a dialog with begins to cry. Not unlike Niagara Falls, the flood gates open. It is Hurricane Irene in miniature.

The little guy is Benjamin Charles Lebzelter. About the only thing big about him is his name and eventually, his smile.

Benjamin is youngest grandson. Boy, it was difficult enough at one time to say “grandson.” Now it’s “youngest grandson.”

Yes, a year ago there was only one grandchild, handsome and thoughtful Henry Robert. But on Jan. 22, that number tripled with the onset of Ben and his ever-so slightly older brother, Marcus Edward.

The initial reaction of Ben seeing me and crying matched an incident almost two years ago involving Henry.

But just like in that instance, the initial fear wore off in a few seconds and during the rest of my visit, we were best pals. In fact, all I have to do is go up to Ben, stick my head in his face and look at him quizzically. Before you know it, he has a huge, wide grin.

Marcus, on the other hand, will give you a smile once in awhile, but he’s more pensive. He sat on my lap for better than 10 minutes, drinking in the landscape.

It is ironic Marcus spends so much time in intellectual pursuits, since he looks strikingly like Curly Joe DeRita, the last of the Curly Howard replacements in the Three Stooges slapstick comedy team.

Fortunately he doesn’t act like one of the Three Stooges. I made the mistake once of showing Henry, 2 ½ years, a Stooges short. When he saw Curly accidentally whack Moe with a mallet, he started yelling, “He’s hurt. He’s hurt. I don’t like this.” We had to shut the DVD off immediately.

For months, the twins, although eating, sleeping and playing right next to each other, also seemed oblivious to each other. Young babies often twirl their hands in the air and put them in their mouths. Lying side by side, Ben would stretch his hand over Marcus’ face and Marcus would put Ben’s fist in his mouth. Neither noticed the difference.

But today the two have acknowledged each other’s existence. Sometimes they look at each other. While Marcus is the intellectual, it is more often likely Ben will jabber endlessly while Marcus listens in fascination. You expect him to pull out a pen and start taking notes

If you watch the video at the top of this column, you may be struck by how this discussion is similar to what you would find on a Fox News program. Or maybe “The View?”

I don’t know about you, but my cable system offers channels into the thousands these days. An all-baby babbling channel featuring a “Ben and Marcus” show doesn’t seem that far from reality. I would insist it be in HD however. (Note the video above is in full 1080p video.)

Henry, meanwhile, is learning to blow bubbles. He plays with his cars, trucks and bulldozers, doesn’t like to put them away, seeks endless snacks and enjoys his new big-boy bed more than potty training. Some things are better about growing up than others.

Grandkids are fun and tiring. They don’t sleep, at least more than maybe five minutes at a time. Then they want to be entertained. I, however, like to sleep more than five minutes and can find my own entertainment, thank you.

We will be visiting grandkids again soon and this time will take one of them, Henry, back with us for a visit. We must lay in a supply of snacks (plums, not “neckerines”) and make sure his toy firetruck has lots of batteries.

He will have to make some concessions. We don’t have a big boy bed for him at our house. But we may be able to exchange that shortcoming for a certain laxity when it comes to toy cleanup.

He will get to watch a little TV, but probably not “The View” and definitely not Fox News. I might try to slip in a Three Stooges short. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Karl Pearson got to the real person

2011-08-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

Last week while editing the Almanac feature you find normally on Page. A2 of the Star Beacon, I came across the birthday of a professional baseball player, born more than a century ago.

Sports writer Karl Pearson was in the room and as I often do, I queried Karl on just who this guy was. Without blinking, he told me about his record in baseball, how he went to fight in World War I, was gassed, came home handicapped and died a young man a few years later.

When it comes to sports, or movies or history, it’s hard to stump Karl Pearson. He’s the guy you would want on your team on “Jeopardy” and the like.

A wealth of information was lost with his sad and most unexpected passing Sunday morning.

He was also a guy with a certain number of vulnerabilities. I would like to say I’m the kind of guy who would not capitalize on them, but, well, I did. He was a huge Ohio State fan and loathed Michigan. So when Ss. John and Paul grad Urban Meyer left Florida, I posted near his desk speculation Meyer might go to Michigan.

I helped Karl update security on his laptop. He wasn’t what you would call a techie person. In fact, the phone company can probably lay off the last information operator in the U.S. Karl was the only person who used the service, I think.

Anyway, Karl would discover after I was done with his laptop, it played the Michigan fight song and showed a photo of the campus.

It was at these instances Karl would start stewing, then slowly he would shake his head and get a big smile on his face. The guy could enjoy a joke, even at his own expense.

He spent a Thanksgiving with us and when he wasn’t helping set the table or taking plates away, he was kept occupied entertaining my family as they asked him question after question about sports.

My last discussion with Karl was the Thursday before his death. We got into one of our crazy discussions about a topic Karl took most seriously, his church and religion.

Before you know it, we got onto topics like feet washing and snake handling. Again, Karl ended up smiling and wished me a good weekend and warned me to be careful, since I am still recovering from surgery to repair my clavicle.

Karl was the most organized person in the world and was methodical in his planning for Star Beacon all-star sporting events or banquets.

A few years ago I wrote my longest column ever. It was an answer to all of the people who say the Star Beacon never writes anything positive about people.

So I chronicled a week’s worth of positive articles in the Beacon. And let me tell you, many were penned by Karl Pearson.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, this guy detailed the accomplishments of local youth. Tens of thousands of people have yellowed scrapbooks of articles , some dating more than three decades, written about them by Karl.

He organized scholarships. He put together the Star Beacon scholar athlete pages twice a year to spotlight those who not only excelled in sports, but also in their school work.

No doubt those students spotlighted as scholar athletes had added ammunition when it came to applying for scholarships.

In fact, at this writing, I understand not all of the stories Karl had written in recent days about young people have even been published.

Many who enter the field of sports writing do so to observe and enjoy the game and give their slant on why one team one and another lost.

Karl spent far more time with the individual, personal stories of the athletes. He brought them more into our world. He helped us relate.

He did it all while putting up with my jokes about snake handling, feet washing and Michigan.

He even found time to wish me a happy weekend, too.

Discoveries about old westerns and surgery

2011-08-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

BOB LEBZELTER, about to have surgery, photo snapped on a cellphone.

I learned a lot from my recent surgery.

It stands to reason. They stick a tube down my throat, give me oxygen, I go under and they cut me open. There should be some life’s lessons in there.

But one sidelight of the surgery I discovered: “Bonanza,” the old TV western, just doesn’t stand up today. It’s really dated. The plots are dumb. The sets look like a cheap backlot, which they probably were.

You see, before having surgery, I visited the office of Dr. William A. Seeds and it must be they found an all “Bonanza” channel or my appointments were scheduled when the show was on.

Inevitably, I was left cooling my heals at least for awhile in the waiting room with the cheap-looking western, punctuated with breaks designed to attract old people. Maybe old people have bad eyesight and don’t notice the cardboard backgrounds.

Besides the adventures of the Joe and Ben and Hoss and Adam, we learned how to get a scooter to drive around in or a new shower that’s easy to get in and out of or how to take your blood-sugar readings easier. And get this, all provide free information. Old people must live in fear they will be charged for information.

So anyway, after a dose of free information and the Cartwrights, I see the doctor or one of his assistants. From there I got the details of my surgery.

In case you didn’t know, I had taken a nasty fall on my bicycle, breaking the clavicle and five ribs. The clavicle didn’t heal and Seeds decided it needed a steel rod and screws to put it together again, as well as a card I can show people in the airport.

We arrived at the hospital at the super early hour of 7:30 a.m. and was asked in the surgery department if there was anything new since I had tests done a week before. I informed them Congress passed a budget measure and was then whisked to my room. It was explained I would go off to surgery, then wake up in a recovery room and return to this particular room. After I appeared to have my senses back (good luck there) and I ate and drank something, I could go home. So I figured by 3 p.m. I would be out of there.

Except I’ve never been under anesthetic before. I’m still not sure what happened, but I apparently did not wake up on cue, when I did I complained of being nauseous. Later I learned I was given three doses of anti-nausea medicine in my IV.

When I finally awoke, way past 3 p.m., I was sweating and so tired I could not keep my eyes open. When I became oriented, I realized I was not in the recovery room. I apparently slept through that. I was in a room in a different part of the hospital. It seems I was staying the night.

Not only did I have my first surgery and under anesthetic, I had my first IV and my first night since birth in a hospital room.

Now my mother, who spent plenty of nights in hospitals from here to Florida, often said hospitals are the last place to get a good night sleep. How right she was.

First of all, I couldn’t go to the bathroom on my own. I had to ring for someone to disconnect me from all sort of machines. At first, they didn’t want me to even get up. I had to dangle my feet over the bed before they allowed me to stand.

So once I did stand, I did a little dance. Showed them.

So all night, I felt like just holding it until I did get home, just so I didn’t have to call someone.

In the back of my mind, I imagined a Conneaut Medical Center Twitter feed being sent out: Bob Lebzelter is peeing again.

They also wanted to give me clear broth and Jello for dinner. I told them I wouldn’t eat it. Being vegetarian, I imagined the broth would be laced with dead cow and gelatin comes from the bones of animals.

Instead I ordered pasta and marinara sauce, salad, oriental vegetables and pie. I hadn’t eaten in 16 hours.

At one point they asked me if I wanted my ice pack changed. It was at that moment I realized I had an ice pack on my shoulder.

I had a fitful night’s sleep, punctuated by new IVs and medication. I ate waffles for breakfast and a veggie burger for lunch. I had my first therapy session on my arm and finally went home, about 24 hours later than expected.

It wasn’t a terrible experience. I was disappointed I didn’t get a ride in a wheelchair to be dismissed. Everybody I know who left the hospital went in a wheelchair. I got escorted by a nurse.

So now I sit recovering, trying to do my exercises but little else with my left hand. Yes, I’m left handed.

And I will tell you something else. Except for the time people were helping me get out of bed and my butt accidentally activated the TV remote, I never had the television on during my hospital stay.

I was too worried it would automatically turn to “Bonanza.”

Going under the knife

2011-08-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m going under the knife in two days.

For those of you reading this in the future, like in 3-D with the words flowing in front of you in animated style in 2080, the specific date is Aug. 4, 2011.

The surgery is to repair a broken clavicle. If you have not gone to medical school, that’s the collar bone.

I’m like one out of 300 whose collar bone, er, clavicle, doesn’t mend on its own. I’d rather be one of 300 who has super powers. Based on the summer movies out, I probably have one in 20 chances of having a super power.

But no, I’m blessed with having a damn clavicle that won’t mend itself instead and Green Lantern bombed at the box office and can’t fix it.

I’ve already been to the hospital for a preliminary visit where I talked to the doctor who will be administering the anesthetic. I will be blessed with a tube being shoved down my throat during the surgery. When they take the tube out, I will wake up. Lovely. He assured I have a better chance of having an accident on the way to the surgery than anything happening during the surgery. Guess I should walk to the hospital.

I had to fill out a form with questions like, When was your last menstrual period? I wrote “soon.”

Then a nurse asked questions vital to my surgery, like, am I Hispanic, Latino or would I rather not say? I told her I ate at a Mexican restaurant the night before. It’s true.

I broke the damn clavicle when I fell off my bicycle going rapidly down a hill in Kingsville. It is now an historic spot. My goal is to get as many people to visit the spot of my clavicle injury as those who visit Gettysburg. I have high goals.

The mishap happened the week before Memorial Day and I have been stewing ever since. It’s been a beautiful, hot summer and it’s been wasted on me. I can’t ride my bike to work. I can’t run. I’m sure the dogs I visit at the Animal Protective League miss me. So I’ve tried to stay in shape and burn calories other ways, like visiting Conneaut Creek behind my house. It’s a treacherous jaunt. In fact, I had forgotten how treacherous until I was midway down.

Besides the clavicle, I have five broken ribs too. Now most people probably wouldn’t go hiking in the woods, down a steep hill to Conneaut Creek to go wading with a broken clavicle and five broken ribs. Most who do probably keep their adventures to themselves, so as not to get the odd looks and head shaking I’ve gotten.

But no, not only do I do it and tell people, I write it in this blog. How was I supposed to know the doctor would read it? And how was I to know when having a casual conversation with his aide and I mentioned I had also spent two hours swimming the morning of the appointment, she would relay the information to the doctor?

Now let me justify why I went swimming. First, it was a perfect, blue-skied day. Secondly, the water was calm and warm. Now the doctor told me I could mow, a much-less pleasant activity. Now wouldn’t you think a non-impact aerobic activity like swimming would be less damaging than pushing a mower?

I didn’t tell the doctor I swam out far enough that a stranger on a raft told me if I got tired, I could hang on to his raft for awhile.

And I really did try to minimize use of my left arm, in bad-clavicle territory. I felt no ill-effects from the swim.

But the doctor came in and said to me, “Did you really go swimming today?” I replied in the affirmative.

“You’re killing me. You’re killing me,” he replied.

He went on to say new x-rays show my clavicle isn’t healing on its own and he doesn’t think it will. And yes, my activity level may well contribute to it.

So now I’m looking at my first real surgery ever in just two days. Surgery like in I will be out cold and cut open. I get to go home the same day but I have to eat or drink something first. I don’t have to be Hispanic or Latino, just be able to eat something.

I can’t bring my wallet or jewelry to the surgery. I can’t wear makeup. No food or drink after midnight the night before. I can brush my teeth, but not swallow water.

So there it is. I will let you know what happens, at some point, when I can type.

I was thinking about an early-morning swim the day of the surgery, but if I swallowed any water, it could delay the operation.

Plus I don’t want to kill the doctor any more.

Booming technology and a shrinking middle class

2011-07-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, before grandson Henry was born, I decided I needed a better digital camera.

The Olympus I had was OK, but it was basically a point and shoot and had the dreaded shutter lag many digital cameras of the time had. That meant you took the photo, but it took a second or two for it to write to the card. Yes, it was a second or so delay, but when you are shooting pics of a lively baby, that delay seems more like you release the shutter and he graduates high school and starts college before you get the image.

So, this being 2008, I did some research and bought a Canon XSI digital SLR. Now I thought the compact Olympus took good pics, but the Canon blew it away. My reward was tons of cute Henry pics and a few other photos to boot.

I bought the camera at Best Buy around Christmas and got a second telephoto lens as a package deal at a good price. So I bought an item costing close to $1,000 and helped the local economy a bit.

When I learned Henry was to become the brother of twins, I opted for a second Canon camera, this one with high definition video as well. This time I made it easy on myself, I bought it online.

The big box store didn’t have the model I wanted at the time and I would have to buy lenses I didn’t need. Couple of clicks of the computer and that camera came zipping my way.

Local stores didn’t have the cards my camera needed, especially for video, at least at a price that seemed reasonable. So I added a card to the package as well.

Remember when there were plenty of places to buy music on CDs and movies on DVD? Or rent movies on DVD?

I-Tunes pretty much did in the CD store. First you get your music immediately. Second, you can get only the music you want. No need to buy a whole CD with all of that filler. Good-bye music stores.

Now look at all of the places you can get new video releases. In the old days you would go to your video store the day the new Indiana Jones picture was released. There you would see 25 clunky boxes that had contain copies of the VHS movie, all of them already out because you didn’t get there in time.

Today, you can watch the film through pay-per-view on cable, through various Internet sites or through services connected via your Blu-Ray DVD player or game system. No wonder all of those home video stores have disappeared.

Then there’s services from Amazon and Netflix that let you watch Internet- streamed general movies and TV shows quickly and easily. Through many game systems and those Blu-Ray machines as well as stand-alone devices, you don’t have to watch those films on your computer anymore. They easily are reproduced on your TV. Bulding home movie collections are a thing of the past. Just go online and select what you want to see.

And those cameras I bought, especially the one that produces high-definition videos, has diminished the room on my external computer hard drive. So I checked for local sales, wasn’t impressed, so you guessed it, I ordered a three terabyte drive online.

If you are only going to back up what is on your computer hard drive, no need for an external drive at all. Just sign up for a service like Carbonite.

Like to read? Used to be when you need to buy a book, it was off to the book store. Remember Walden’s in the Ashtabula Mall? Then along came book readers, where you find the book you want, download it in seconds and begin reading.

The Amazon Kindle is designed to look like an actual paperback. There’s also the Nook, the Sony Reader, even the ever-popular Apple i-Pad doubles as a book reader.

So is there any surprise that Borders, the 40-year chain that closed a bunch of stores earlier this year, says it will close the rest? Borders also owns Walden Books.

Borders, until recently, had a store just off the Millcreek Mall. Down from Borders is Discount Shoe Warehouse, where I buy my running shoes. I figure technology won’t close that or similar stores. You can’t download a pair of shoes. You can’t turn on a “shoe reader” and have it make you a pair. There are experimentations with printers that may one day ‘print’ you a pair, but that may be a ways off.

I’m sure I’m like many when I say I want to try on the shoes before buying them, so you won’t see me ordering from shoes.com or the like.

But that doesn’t mean shoe stores or other stores seemingly safe from today’s technology are out of danger.

Stores not battered by technology and the Internet may be impacted by the shrinking middle class. Since the big recession a couple of years ago, businesses and industries have cut personnel, cut hours, cut wages and have eliminated raises.

Even when the economy improved, industry found it could work with fewer employees or those with reduced hours and make even more money.

The federal government saw to it the industries were rewarded for their greed with no-strings tax cuts.

These days, with help from Tea Bagger Republicans, there’s a move to continue tax cuts for the rich and powerful, while cutting Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and other programs that benefit the middle class, in order to balance the federal budget.

The middle class already has less to spend, on shoes or restaurants or new cars or whatever. More reductions will result in even less spending.

A budget that results in the rich paying their fair share and not cutting the legs of the middle class any more may result in the middle class spending more money, doing more to help the economy. If industries want tax cuts, let them build in the United States, let them expand in poor areas of our country and provide jobs.

Politicians and businesses that push for more tax cuts on the backs of everybody else would have been the topic of a Dickens novel in the 19^th century. Today we call it capitalism and for many Americans, that’s just fine.

Trouble is, if everything is made in Third-World countries and sold or downloaded over the Internet, it’s going to severely impact where people who buy this stuff work.

Of course, if this impacts manufacturers, maybe the government can bail them out. Nah, let’s not even think about it. Maybe I will go take some pictures.

A cripple in the creek

2011-07-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Yes the term "cripple" is not politically correct. But I am using the term to make fun of myself. Plus I don't mind being a little politically incorrect in order to use some illiteration.

I was munching on my morning bagel and suddenly thought, hey, this would be a good day to go to the creek.

Warm, sunny, few clouds. I knew Conneaut Creek would be like bath water and it’s right in my back yard.

Well, except that I have a pretty big back yard. Not as big as someone in Australia, but still a good size. Also, I happen to have five broken ribs and a broken collar bone and am apparently a slow healer.

It’s interesting that Johnny Cash got hooked on pain killers after breaking five ribs. He ended up at the Betty Ford Clinic. I take my ribs creeking.

Soon I’m decked out for the trip. I have my camera, an additional telephoto zoom lens, an extra camera battery and a cell phone. We also have lots of hiking sticks. But I didn’t think of that. It would have made things easier.

The trip began by crossing our woods, roughly a quarter mile, that ends with a steep decline and the scenic Conneaut Creek.

The creek really is nice too, shallow but you can still look down at the little fishies with a swath of slate for sitting or lying while listening to the mellow sounds of the water.

My goal was twofold, to get some nice pictures and return home without damaging my collar bone further.

During my last visit to Dr. William A. Seeds, I asked again if I could start biking (the activity that got me in this mess in the first place) and running. He said no to both, but added I could ride a stationary bike if I wanted. Well, that’s something I guess, but I did ask him, Do you have any idea how long it takes to get somewhere riding a stationary bike?

I didn’t ask about hiking in grown-over woods and climbing down steep embankments and consequently climbing up those embankments. I decided to use my own judgment.

Normally, I zip down the hill, grabbing on to trees or vines or roots as needed. But this time, I remembered the x-ray of my collar bone, with one side of the bone below the other. As I descended and realized what a challenge this trip would be, I could see the two sides of the bone tearing apart, like a turkey wishbone. I’m sure it wouldn’t happen like that, but it made me a bit queasy anyway. It’s why my left side was supposed to be immobile.

At times, I had to grab roots and vines with my left arm, which at the moment was supposed to be immobilized in a sling. I felt a sensation in the collar. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, I thought. But then I noticed what looked like wild animal poop so I photographed it. I’m easily distracted from danger.

Just before that, the lens cap came off my camera lens and I had to stretch to get it before it tumbled into the stream that feeds Conneaut Creek while holding onto a tree with my “good” right hand and hoping myself, the lens cap, the camera and me didn’t go sliding off into the abyss.

A few close calls later and I was down the hill, but there was a little stream between me and my entrance to the creek. Instead of diving down to the stream and jumping across, I walked about, finding the easiest and safest way to cross. I felt a bit like a senior citizen getting off the bus at the nursing home after a field trip to Bob Evans.

I was soon at the creek and it was blue and beautiful, although the rocks seemed more slippery than usual. I was extra cautious, like a senior citizen crossing Conneaut Creek to get back to the nursing home after a trip to Bob Evans. OK, maybe I’m using that example a bit too much.

We have lived at our house for 21 years and while we suffer with an inordinate amount of mud in the spring, dirt roads that are reflected on our automobiles and a clay soil not the best for growing vegetables, the country atmosphere can’t be beat.

During all of those years, I thought it would be nice to pack a picnic and have the whole family go creekside. Maybe sometime in the next 21 years. Maybe sometime with grandson Henry.

After tossing off shoes and socks, I trekked into the creek, stopping at the crying wall, where water-soaked slate rained down on the creek. I photographed little fishies. I used the video mode to catch some of the magic of the stream. I heard but didn’t see what appeared to be a huge tree crash above me.

I heard and saw a massive bird that was headed toward me. I grabbed my camera, even though I didn’t have the long lens on it. I figured a distant pic was better than none. But the bird stopped in midflight and flew the other way. I switched to a long lens, but it never returned.

I placed my camera on a downed tree and took some photos of myself in the creek. Finally heading back, I photographed deer tracks and unusual plants before coming to the base of the hill I needed to climb to get to the top of the woods and head back to the open area of my yard.

Taking a breath, I started the climb, my foot slipping here and there, but no major problems. As I neared level ground, I stepped on a small tree log that started to roll. I caught myself just before I fell backward and a short, painful descent to the bottom of the hill.

Getting home, I was sorry this was my first trip down to the creek this year. I’m also sorry Casey my beagle could not make the trip with me. She always loved our trips, but at 17 and with paralyzed back legs, even with my often poor judgment, I knew better than even to attempt to take her.

Hopefully my collar bone will continue to mend. I can get back to activities I love. Oh, and Dr. Seeds will never learn about my hiking trip.

But hey, he didn’t say no hiking, right?

Take a survey, ANY survey

2011-07-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about surveys.

It all started the Tuesday before Memorial Day. I was biking home from work. It was about 9 p.m. and I was going down the hill at the Conneaut Creek valley on South Ridge Road in Kingsville Township.

I know that’s a dangerous roadway, even in a car. In the winter if you hit an icy spot, you could end up in Conneaut Creek.

Well, I must have been daydreaming, or listening to my Zune MP3 player a bit too intensely. Suddenly I realized I was going too fast and decided to slow down. In fact, I came to a complete stop when I hit gravel, the bike skidded to a stop and I landed hard on the roadway.

It was so hard, in fact, I would later learn I broke five ribs and a collarbone.

I hobbled up, called wife Louise on the cell phone, thanked some people who had stopped and asked if I was OK. I said I was fine. I wasn’t, but that’s what I said.

I don’t remember a lot of what happened. Louise suddenly appeared and took me to the hospital. I don’t remember waiting for her. I remember her struggling to get the bike in the car and someone helping. I remember the trip to the hospital. I don’t remember going into the emergency room or filling out insurance forms, things Louise said we did. I remember being x-rayed and told the collarbone was broken. I learned later about the ribs.

The hospital later gave me a survey to fill out. Sorry, the whole night was a pretty much a blank. When it was time to go home from the hospital, I thought maybe it was 10:30 p.m. It was actually 1:30 a.m. I lost a lot of time that night.

And let me be a bit selfish here. Fill the survey out for free? When a trip to the emergency room can cost close to what my parents paid for my boyhood home, do you expect me to do your survey for nothing? Even if I had remembered what was going on, I don’t think I would fill it out.

Now the bicycle incident was pretty traumatic. Seven weeks later, I still can’t ride a bike or run. The heeling process is slooooow!

But something more traumatic happened to Louise one day. The washing machine broke. Louise does lots of washing and it was a pretty awful time for her when she discovered the device on top of the washer you turn for rinse, spin, wash, etc. stopped working.

So she calls Sears. Now calling Sears for repairs deserves a survey right there. First off, a mechanical, artificially pleasant voice answers and asks what you need. REPAIR. OK, what needs repaired? WASHING MACHINE. OK, what is your address?

Then the mechanical voice finally connects you to a person who asks what you need repaired and what is your address? So what was the point of telling Miss Mechanical Voice?

Louise explains the dial on top of the washer has stopped working. Real Person promises a technician in three days. For Louise, that’s four trips to the Laundromat.

The technician shows up and discovers, yep, the dial on the washer needs replaced. But does he have one on the truck? Of course not.

So what was the point of telling Real Person the problem, if nobody is going to make certain the part is on the truck?

May as well have told Mechanical Voice this is the Lebzelters, here’s our address, something needs fixed, get out here to find out what! Any further information falls on deaf ears no matter how many times you say it.

The washer was eventually repaired. A survey call came in but it was when I didn’t have time to take the call. My frustrations were lost.

But Sears now regularly sends me e-mails about its wonderful deals, a couple a day. Both English and Spanish. How special. No kidding. While writing this column, I got a Sears email in Spanish.

Then there’s Time-Warner. Get a call we can get home phone service at a couple of bucks less than the local phone company. Plus, it includes nationwide long distance to the whole U.S. and Canada and the Virgin Islands. Wow. Our cell program only includes the U.S. and not even all of the islands up in Alaska. I have to get this.

So the technician comes out and wants to know if there is a place in the house where we have a telephone line and cable connection close by.

Indeed, in the family room, which I show him. Then I make the mistake of going upstairs to do something else. Technician says all is well and leaves. Yep, I pick up the phone. It works fine. And soon Time-Warner calls with a survey. Did the dude (my word) show up on time? Yep. Was he friendly? He didn’t tell jokes, but friendly enough. Did he tell you about all of the swell conveniences of my Time-Warner phone system? Nope. Didn’t mention a word. Sorry to narc on the technician, but the truth is the truth. Felt good I took a survey and mentioned all was not well.

Hours later, I went downstairs and discovered the technician disconnected the cable line going to the TV and hooked it into the phone system. Sure we had phone, but he apparently decided we didn’t need cable television in the family room.

Oh how I wished I had headed downstairs BEFORE the survey. I was about to call Time-Warner and scream at the nerve of the people. But all I would have gotten was some faceless, nameless person a hundred miles away who has been taught to parrot certain selected phrases to disgruntled customers. Another technician, I am certain, would have taken another four days to come out and complete the process.

So instead I searched through a dusty box of old parts and came upon a splitter and a cable cord. Connected the splitter and cords going back to the TV and telephone. Viola! Cable TV and telephone, including calls to Canada, ready to go! Eh? Gave myself a survey and decided I did an excellent job.

I’ve since been back to the hospital for a C-scan. They were nice and I got in and out. No complaints. Nobody there disconnected my cable TV. And a day later I got another survey.

Do these surveys mean anything? Are changes made from survey results? Are they just requested to give the customer or patient the illusion he or she matters?

So after reading this, please take the time to take my survey and email it back to me at bobleb@roadrunner.com.

Was this column entertaining?

Could you relate to it?

Was it interesting?

How could it have been better?

Was it too long? OK, let me rephrase, how much was it too long?

Is your cable and phone both working after reading this?

Ellery Queen

2011-05-17T14:59:00.000-07:00

Obscure mystery series on DVD

Ellery Queen was both a fictional detective in books starting in 1928 and the author of the books.
The author was actually two Brooklyn cousins, Frederick Dannay and James Yaffe. Besides the books, Ellery Queen became the name of a celebrated monthly mystery magazine, movies, radio dramas and a 1975 television series.
The TV series, starring the incredibly lanky Jim Hutton, lasted only one season and was highly stylized. The series required some suspension of belief and many of the characters were wildly exaggerated. The series benefited from the fact it was set in New York City in 1947.
The series also had an A-list of big stars at the time, including Guy Lombardo, Susan Strasberg, Eve Arden, George Burns, Milton Berle, Rudy Vallee, Pat Harrington Jr., Ray Walston and Don Ameche. Unmasked as the murderer in one episode was Monte Markham, who two years earlier played another famous crime solver, Perry Mason.
The show also included some stars who are still active today, including Betty White and Orson Bean.
The series started with a booming announcer declaring a certain person would be murdered and here’s the cast of suspects. Then we see the list of familiar actors playing potential murderers.
David Wayne played Queen’s father, a New York City police inspector who dragged his absent-minded son, Ellery, to crime scenes.
In various episodes, an obnoxious newspaper columnist and radio mystery host also attempted to solve the murders. They inevitably get it wrong. Ellery gets it right.
The team that brought you “Ellery Queen” also produced “Murder She Wrote” nine years later.
The murder victims inevitably tried to give a dying clue as to who their killers were. The crimes were solved, not by looking at motive and opportunity, but by breaking a puzzle left by the victims.
For example, in the pilot, a woman has been shot. She drags herself to the new-fangled television to leave a clue. Authorities know when she died and they get the TV station to re-inact the news program that aired that night, so everyone saw what was on the TV at the exact time the woman died.
In another episode, a victim uses his dying breath to fall into a phone booth and dial a person he never met before and had no connection to, thus leaving the clue.
Queen and dad interview the crazy, campy 40s characters that made up the casts. It’s sort of a game of “Clue” come to life.
Near the show’s end, Hutton as Queen would see something or someone would say something. He would stop, turn and say something like “That’s it” then proceed to break “the fourth wall.”
He would turn to the TV camera and tell the audience the important clues that point to the murder suspect. Sometimes it’s pretty evident. Other times you would never guess the killer, at least the way Ellery reasoned it out.
But the show is great fun to relive, with all of the 1940s costumes and scenery and actors eating up the dialog.
The series ended in 1976 and Hutton died three years later, three days short of his 45th birthday of liver cancer. He had appeared in the 60s beach film “Where the Boys Are” and the Vietnam propaganda film “The Green Berets.”
His son, Timothy, won an Oscar for “Ordinary People” in 1980 and dedicated it to his father.
The short but sweet run of the series is available on DVD and can be rented if you are a Netflix subscriber.
If you are a mystery novel fan, you will enjoy this old, somewhat obscure TV series

Bike to work: It isn't horrible

2011-05-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

BILL WEST / Star Beacon

KOSKI CONSTRUCTION employee Candy Abraham of Ashtabula controls the flow of traffic while a milling process takes place on Route 84 Monday in Ashtabula Township.

It was almost like I was a parade marshal.

There I was in front, with the rest of the entourage following behind me.

Well, except it wasn’t exactly a parade. Actually, we were in a construction site and the road had narrowed to one lane. Flaggers let one line of traffic go, then the other. I was first in line to go when it was our turn.

Ah, but the rub was I was on my bicycle leading a line of cars westbound on Route 84.

If you go anywhere today, you know construction abounds. People can’t get from Conneaut to Ashtabula or vice versa without running into construction.

I-90, from Kingsville to Ashtabula, has been under construction since the Kaiser signed the Armistice in 1917.

Route 20 is so congested that my insurance agent was stuck in traffic coming from Ashtabula to Conneaut and had to postpone an appointment. A big traffic tieup in Ashtabula County? Who wouldda thought?

Lake Road is even under construction!

Before leading my traffic contingent, the flagger told me, “Be careful.” I tried pedaling as fast as possible, so as not to inconvenience the cars behind me.

The day before, I was at the end of the contingent. The flagger as we were coming back motioned me to return to the other lane of traffic early so cars could go from the opposite direction. She sort of made the “wave” sign to move me over.

I’m not sure if this is the third or fourth year I’ve discovered biking to work, that 12-mile haul from my home to the Star Beacon. I usually bike twice a week, the days I have an earlier day. I figure I save about a gallon of gasoline per day. This makes it a particularly good season to bike.

Much like the first year of biking, gasoline is about $4 per gallon. So two days worth of biking saves me $8. I think about the savings and what I can do with that extra money while sitting on the tractor, mowing the lawn.

Last September, gasoline was about $2.60 per gallon. I only saved $5.20 per week back then. This year’s jaunt is far more economical.

The heavy riding tends to make things on the bicycle wear out. My front wheel has gotten bent. Other things happen that don’t make it impossible to ride, just more difficult. But since the wear happens over time, I don’t notice it. Eventually, I think, hmmm, maybe I better take this in to get it checked.

The guy at Baker’s Bike Shop then marvels at how I even moved on the thing because it needs so many repairs and adjustments.

I was only able to ride it one more day after repairs were made last October. That meant the bike was in great shape for the trips this year.

My first trip, in mid-April, wasn’t to work, but to the Animal Protective League to run with the dogs.

Riding to work means watching the weather is an office project, too.

Someone inevitably says toward the end of the day, “Bob, it’s cooling off and there’s all kinds of clouds. You better get out of here.”

Nothing like people telling me they want me to leave work early. Wish that it were so, as I always have “a few more things to do” before leaving. Sometimes I hit the rain. Surprisingly, often I don’t.

The previously mentioned construction on Route 84 has resulted in a problem, even when workers aren’t out there. The road is ground to nothing, leaving it rough for cars, rougher for a biker. It’s that way from Route 11 in Ashtabula Township all the way to Route 193 in Kingsville.

When a colleague suggested the other day I wear a jacket during the ride home, I scoffed. Biking generates a certain amount of heat and frankly, I worry more about getting overheated than too cold. No need to feel overheated that night. A strong, cold wind stayed on my front right to my doorstep. I should have worn the jacket.

Biking always results in some sort of adventure. It’s never boring. Like the other day when a fox ran across the road in front of me. Or the same evening when three large, scavenger birds, wings elongated, high in a tree, watched me ride by. Right out of the beginning of a Hitchcock movie.

My first two rides went pretty well. Actually, in my three (or is it four?) years of biking, I haven’t had a really terrible time, even during storms.

So if you are thinking of saving gasoline, burning some calories and having fun, bike to work. Remember my motto: Bike to work. You won’t have a really terrible time.

A routine Sunday night? Yeah, right

2011-05-05T09:03:00.001-07:00

THE MAY 2 Star Beacon front, before and after news Osama bin Laden had been found and killed.

The other day, I came the closest as I ever have to yelling “stop the presses” and it didn’t even dawn on me until the next afternoon.

I am talking about Sunday night, May 1, 2011. I was laying out the news pages of the Monday Star Beacon. We always have a short staff on Sunday evenings, but in recent years it has been limited to myself doing editing and laying out the newspaper, Don McCormack on sports and Margie Trax doing double duty on writing and photography.

Sundays aren’t normally big news days and as the days warm, they are dominated by festivals or events, things like the Grape JAMboree in Geneva in September or the July 4 Festival in Conneaut or Mother’s Day in Geneva-on-the-Lake.

This particular Sunday was the Louie Run at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Painesville, kicking off a hopefully safe motorcycle riding season.

The other big story – if you can call it that – was a preview of the rather limited primary election that Tuesday.

It being a routine Sunday, I was in routine mode. I got the paper done, Margie was gone. Don had finished sports. I made sure the final negatives for the day’s paper were all in the pressroom and ready to go. Margie had a particularly nice picture of a motorcyclist I was playing at the top of the front page. I even had a headline that was the same as a Rolling Stones song, “Ride On, Baby.”

I also made certain early on I had the new newsstand price change on the front. It was the first day single copies cost 60 cents, instead of 50 cents. Home delivery was unaffected.

I had already updated our Internet edition and was nearly ready to go home, after Don and I looked at the early papers coming off the press for any glaring errors we might have missed. Back at my desk the phone was ringing. It was sports writer Karl Pearson, who said he was watching CBS and the network announced President Barack Obama was going to make a statement to the nation at about 10:30, just a few mintues away. I checked our wire services and there was a notice of the same, but no inkling about the topic. Very strange. Very cryptic.

Knowing it was a late Sunday night and on short notice, I knew it had to be important. The pressroom was five minutes from starting up the presses.

I walked in and said something like, “Better hold off guys. Obama’s speaking on something in a few minutes and it might be important.”

McCormack, searching the Internet, discovered the Navy SEALS had found and killed Sept. 11 planner and master terrorist Osama bin Laden. Now I hadn’t heard or thought of bin Laden in a few months and it took about 30 seconds for it to sink in who he was talking about. Hey, I was still on normal Sunday night, get-out- by- 11 mode.

But when it sunk in, I knew we were in for the long haul. Don had the TV on MSNBC where talking heads killed time while we waited for the president to come on. We kept hearing about this “two-minute window,” after which Obama would speak. But it took closer to an hour from his scheduled time before the president appeared to make his brief announcement.

Don, who enjoys working with Photoshop, was experimenting with various layout scenarios while we were waiting for the president. I kept checking AP for an official notice from the wire service that declared bin Laden had been killed.

AP took a half hour to produce three lines quoting sources as saying the terrorist was dead. I immediately updated our web site, www.starbeacon.com, with the news.

Eventually the president spoke. But unlike say, the State of the Union address, reporters didn’t get an advanced copy of his speech. AP didn’t come through within five minutes with a full story. No, we got six inches of text , not enough to fill the space I had left for our story.

The other big wire service we subscribe to, McClatchey, had nothing. McClatchey offers us, among other things, news from newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and Orlando Sentinel.

After awhile, the AP gave us a 10.4 inch story. Still not long enough, but it was good enough to update our web site again. It’s what happens with a big national story we have no control over. We hurry up and wait.

Fifteen minutes later, AP updates again with another 10.4-inch story. Ughhh! Going home early and the Louie Run seemed like distant memories. Finally, the wire service came through with 14.6 inches and with Don’s Photoshop work and a photo I grabbed of Obama speaking, I could put together the revised paper, better than two hours after I initially checked to make certain all pages were accounted for.

The Louie Run and election preview were now just above the fold to make room for bin Laden at the top. The bottom two stories, about Pope John Paul II becoming a saint and a study about childhood obesity were pulled from the front. The pope story reappeared on Page A6, but the obesity story is lost to the ages.

While I finished up the front and the revised A6, where the new story jump went, Don got the OK to print extra copies and increase the size of our Tuesday edition, so we could get more news about the big event in the next day. One thing about newspapers, as soon as you are done with one, there’s another coming up within 24 hours.

Yep, if the bin Laden story had broke a few minutes later, I would have been saying “stop the presses” rather than “Better hold off” to the press crew. And rather than leaving shortly before 11 p.m., it was more like 1 a.m.

It started as a routine Sunday night, but ended like anything but.

If someone had told me early that day I would have come real close to yelling “stop the presses,” I would have thought it was because I forgot to change the price on the front page.

'Winter' then and now

2011-04-18T08:25:00.001-07:00

It was 1975, or heck, maybe early 1976.

It doesn’t sound THAT long ago, until you do the math. That means 35, maybe 36 years ago.

But when you think of technology, it was light years away.

I’ve always been into technology. I got a Beta VCR, HD DVD player, a Zune MP3 player. Yeah, they all bombed, but you know, they were all good products.

The only one available possibly in the time I am talking about was the Beta VCR. Products to allow us to time-shift television were unheard of to the average person back then, but later we found out the electronic industry had been working on such a contraption for years. They just didn’t work well.

Back then it really didn’t matter to me. I was a poor college student with a 12-inch black and white television and an AM / FM radio with cassette. A computer was one of those big whirling deals you fed punch cards to and it told you who to date.

I was a newlywed at the time. Wife Louise robbed the cradle. I was also a senior at Kent State University and was taking a film class. I can’t remember much about the class. I remember nothing about the professor. I do remember he showed us Elia Kazan’s “Viva Zapata,” starring Marlon Brando dressed as a Hispanic. Later, he would become Italian for “The Godfather.”

So this teacher told us we were going to become filmmakers. He handed each of us a small, 8mm film camera. He told us little about how to use it, except it had this key in it. Pull the key out and you could shoot in sunlight, vs. indoors. Or maybe it was the other way around. What does it matter? Just don’t lose the key!

We had to make a series of films with this gizmo. I remember the teacher didn’t even bother to tell us how much time was available per roll of film. Yes, this was film, the kind you had to buy and then process to see the results.

I had to call Campus Camera to find out the exact length: Three minutes.

One assignment was to do a film using sound. Now these things were as silent as if Harold Lloyd or Charlie Chaplin was standing there with me. The sound had to come from another source.

So I decided to take the easy way out, which I often do. It was winter. I would do three minutes on winter and I would use the Rolling Stones’ haunting “Winter” as my sound.

Again, I can’t remember much about the film. It isn’t in the Internet Movie Data Base. I can remember part of it was sweeping snow off the steps coming down from our second-floor, $175-per-month apartment. In fact, I believe we had to dump a little snow on the steps to sweep off.

Also included in the movie was cleaning off the windshield. Riveting stuff.

And there was no high-tech way of inserting sound. After getting the film back from Campus Camera, I plopped my pink cassette version of the Stone’s “Goat’s Head Soup” album in my cassette / radio combo and hit play as the film started.

I also remember friends Dean and Becky, who drove down from Conneaut to help with some of our filmmaking efforts, although I’m not sure if it was this particular production.

I mention my film, which I imagine is stocked away somewhere, brittle and impossible to watch today, because a month or so ago I did another essay on winter.

This time I didn’t see “Viva Zapata” first and didn’t get a grade. I had the day off, nobody else was home except the sleeping beagle Casey and it was snowing. Great huge clumps of snow were coming down, making my woods in the back look like something out of “Doctor Zhivago.”

And my new Canon 60D camera has full HD video. So as more of a learning process than work of art, I got started on my new video essay. This time I had 12 minutes to record, if I needed it. The final production was slightly longer than three minutes, which is plenty.

Packing my new camera in a plastic Golden Dawn grocery bag to protect it from the wet snow, I went out to shoot a few photos and intermix it with short video. The wooded area was simply stunning and my video doesn’t do justice.

When done, instead of sending film to the Campus Camera, I simply fed my camera card into the old Vista machine and started editing. (By the way, Campus Camera is still in existence.)

Now my 1975 production involved REAL editing, like actual film you had to cut and line up the sprockets and splice with white tape and view through a machine that showed your movie as you turned the crank. When watching the movie back on a projector, the film jumped when it hit one of those splices, because I wasn’t a good splicer.

The 2011 production meant feeding the whole thing into Windows Movie Maker, cutting down scenes, pulling in pictures and then have the entire compilation crash my computer because Microsoft thought Movie Maker was a security risk. Oh yeah, and Movie Maker is made by Microsoft. After screaming for two days about what idiots they are at Microsoft and how I should go get a Mac and use i-Movie, I watched some youtube videos and learned a couple of ways to solve the problems.

And the result is my little mini-production, my essay on winter, showing off my wooded back yard, a place I don’t spend near enough time.

I should send a copy of my latest effort to my old movie-class prof, if he is still alive, if I could find him and heck, if I had a clue as to what his name is.

Right now, I’m gonna think spring.

1911: A disaster happens because people didn't matter

2011-03-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

It was a century ago, a far different time. Well, maybe not as different as you may think.

Thousands of immigrants were pouring into New York City from places like Russia and Italy and elsewhere to escape persecution and poor economic times.

They dreamed of vast farms and a land of plenty in the United States. But for many, they ended up going no further than the tenements of New York, vast, overcrowded, slum dwellings.

And they worked in hot, dangerous, overcrowded factories.

Government at the time felt no regulations were best for businesses and the country in general. There was no minimum wage – that didn’t come until the New Deal of the 1930s. There were no child labor laws. There were no safety standards.

By 1909, a large contingent of people, many women, were fed up with the system. They wanted to form unions and negotiate for better working conditions. Strikes were met by thugs hired by the owners who thought nothing of beating up the women, many just teenagers. Police, too, were in the owners’ pockets and were known to beat the strikers to a pulp before throwing them in paddy wagons.

The women didn’t give up and eventually many won union representation. Those that didn’t found themselves still with better working conditions.

The predominately poor, immigrant women who worked for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory didn’t win union membership. But they did get better pay. They already worked in a better, newer building. It had more light, was more airy, roomier, with tall ceilings, compared to the cramped quarters other workers experienced.

People wanted to be hired by Triangle, which was owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The new shirt waists were all the style and in great demand. There was pressure for employees to work quickly and proficiently. The employees put in 12 to 14 hours days with few breaks. You could not go to the bathroom at will. Pay was roughly $2 a day but from that, the owners docked the workers for the electricity for operating sewing machines. If they needed a new needle or made a mistake and ruined material, they got docked for that as well. If not careful, these women, some as young as 14, could spend 14 hours at work and have little if anything to show for it.

It was all pretty demeaning, too. One exit was perpetually locked because management was afraid the women would steal materials. Employees were limited to just one exit, where all of their belongings were searched.

Yet there were some good points. Saturday, after all, was a short day, just eight hours. And Sunday, well, there was no work.

Andy you could dream. Like the girl who was saving up so she could marry her boyfriend and buy a farm.

It was 100 years ago, March 25, 1911. The sewing machines were humming. Workers were walking amongst the sewers, supplying materials. Production was so important.

Some nieces of one of the owners were visiting that Saturday when the owners got a phone call. An errant cigarette thrown into a two-month pile of scrap materials on the eighth floor had apparently started a fire. Now smoking was banned from the building, but that didn’t stop some from smoking anyway.

The owners and their little nieces made it to the roof where a man in a nearby building supplied ladders which helped them and others escape.

Operators neglected to contact anyone on the ninth floor to tell them about the raging blaze. They didn’t know until they smelled smoke. But by then, it would prove too late to save all of the women.

The one door was locked to deter theft. There were two small elevators and the women started ringing the bell to signal the operator to come up to the floor. One operator was shocked when he got to the ninth floor to find all of these hysterical women wanting to climb into an elevator that safely held 12. Behind them was a wall of fire.

The operator took more like 24 down and then drove the elevator into the inferno to pick up more. Eventually frantic women pried open the doors of the elevator and jumped on top to save themselves. One elevator gave out and crashed in the basement. Another elevator buckled under the intense heat.

So much for the rescue attempts.

Meanwhile a crowd in the streets grew below. They noticed what looked like finished garments being tossed out the windows. They figured it was management trying to save some of the stock. They soon discovered they were wrong when someone spotted a human leg. It turns out these women were jumping to their deaths to escape the blaze. Some jumped holding hands. Many bodies were on fire as they leaped.

The fire department discovered it had ladders that only went to the sixth floor. It didn’t help those frantic, doomed women on the ninth floor.

Unbelievably, the whole catastrophe was under control in about 18 minutes. One young lady who jumped somehow survived, at least for a few days, before she died, too.

When it was over, 146 had died, 62 by jumping out of windows. It was the deadliest industrial accident in the history of New York City. It was the fourth highest loss of life of any industrial accident in the United States.

Policemen, who were beating on these women a few months earlier, were picking through the charred, grotesque remains. It took such an emotional toll, most officers could only work an hour at a time.

The next day a makeshift morgue was set up so people could search for loved ones who did not return home that night. One daughter recognized her mother because of the hair she had braided before Mom and had gone to work the day before. The youngest victim was 14.

The two owners were charged with manslaughter but were cleared of all charges.

After all, there were no regulations. No regulations for child labor, no regulations requiring sprinkler systems, although they did exist at the time. No regulations requiring fire drills, although they too existed. Fire drills took away from production.

And in the end, the owners profited with a massive insurance settlement. There was an investigation and new regulations did result.

Today it is 100 years later and we are returning to a state where the average person doesn’t matter, is the victim of job loss and pay cuts. We have more and more politicians, elected by the average person, who believe few if any regulations are what is best for business and America.

We have lawmakers breaking unions, exacting cuts from the average worker, while bestowing generous tax cuts on the rich.

We live in a state where the governor came to office and wielded hefty cuts to the aides and clerks and secretaries, while offering huge pay raises for the more elite.

The gaps that existed 100 years ago are starting to return and this time many of the rank-and-file, listening to talk radio and Fox News, are helping to perpetuate that existence.

To government, to the politicians, to the police, those newly immigrated women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory didn’t really matter.

Do average, hard-working Americans matter today?

Smile, I got new twin grandsons

2011-02-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

It has become a tradition with me that each time I become a grandfather , I go out and buy a new camera.

I’m not talking about one of those point-and-shoot jobs so small your thumb can release the shutter, move the zoom and turn on the flash all at the same time.

Au contraire, I buy the digital single lens reflex cameras, better known at DSLRs. The first purchase was because I had an OK point and shoot when grandson 1 Henry was born two years ago. But I knew Henry would be out and about and if I wanted to get those special expressions and quick moves, I needed to upgrade.

When I learned I would be a grandparent of twins, I knew it was time for an even faster camera with video capabilities. Either that or I wanted an excuse to buy the latest and greatest and the grandkids was good enough.

Whatever the reason, I bought the first camera to capture everything that is Henry and I think I’ve done that. Frankly, sometimes I think I should put the camera down and enjoy the moment with him. But then I find myself looking at the photographs later and decide, yeah, keeping the camera at arm’s length with Henry around is a good idea.

My reliable Canon XSI let me take multiple exposures of Henry within a second or two. He could go from happy to neutral and inconsolably sad within two seconds. My new camera, the Canon 60D, can record those pictures even faster.

It reminds me of a photo I saw in a series of photography books. It was of a family more than 150 years ago getting its picture taken by a professional photographer. The youngest child was maybe 3 or 4. Believe it or not, those were days when people still used film and it was very slow film, meaning you needed a lot of light to get a good picture.

How much light? How about leaving the camera shutter open for 13 minutes in the bright sun to get a picture? How about family members having to wear uncomfortable neck braces to hold their heads perfectly still for 13 minutes to get one exposure?

The toddler did his best, but the photo shows he moved his head a few, leaving the ancient photo blurred.

Gosh, you wouldn’t think photography would change so much in 150 years.

The new camera has a high ISO reading, which means it can take nice photos in dark areas without a flash. It also includes video, which adds another dimension to my recording of the grandkids’ lives, as well as spending time editing the video and archiving it. No idle hands for moi.

The twins came into our lives rather abruptly. Daughter-in-law Jessica had been having a few problems carrying the twins and ended up in the hospital. But after a few days she was being released and like dutiful grandparents, we went up to help out and care for Henry. A huge burden on our part. Yeah, right.

It was Jan. 21 and Jess was told to stay in bed most of the time and go downstairs only once per day. The doctors wanted a bit more of a gestation period before the twins made their debut, or as we called it, Jesstation.

So naturally the first evening we were there Jess went into labor and our grandtwins, Benjamin and Marcus, were born very tiny and very early. They each weighed about 4 pounds. Together, they weighed less than Henry did at birth.

Not being the most enlightened grandparent ever, I was mildly shocked to find out when Jess left the hospital, the twins would not. Ben stayed another month and Marcus five weeks before their bodies were mature enough to live outside the medical confines of the hospital.

This past weekend we were invited up for Henry’s second birthday party. I just got the D60 camera on Thursday and headed to visit on Friday (da-doo-ron-ron-da-doo-ron-ron.)

Marcus had been home a full day. Ben a week.

It was a time of great baby holding and Henry playing amongst all four grandparents. We watched as the nearly five-pound Marcus and Ben did exciting things like sigh or yawn or thrust their arms in the air. I asked Ben more than once, “Ben, do you have a question?” I tell you, it was hilarious each time.

The now-standard Canon XSI has allowed me to produce several homemade books for Henry, in which I used photographs of himself and family and incorporate them into what I guess can be called family nonfiction. They go by such titles as “Henry and Gramps: Best Buddies,” a self-servicing effort on my part to familiarize Henry with me, along with a counting book, “How Many Henrys?” and soon to be available for the Kindle, “My ABC Family.”

The new camera will be introduced in my next literary effort, “We’re Big Brothers,” the compelling story of how Henry, his father Derek and both grandfathers are the oldest children in their family.

Interacting with Henry, Ben and Marcus shows how lucky I really am. Henry is hilarious, razor sharp and constantly changing. For instance, he no longer sits in a high chair. There’s a real bond, too. I can crack a joke way above his level, but look over and see a big grin on his face. He is either way above his chronological age or he just knows when Gramps is being funny and reacts accordingly.

We play with blocks, we draw letters, we experience his Stinky Garbage Truck, which Henry is no longer afraid of. Soon, we will have similar experiences with Ben and Marcus.

Plus when Henry acts up and cries, my initial reaction is, who cares? He’s Henry. He can do what he wants. In other words, it is his parents who are the disciplinarians, and maybe Grandma Louise, simply because she is a teacher and that comes naturally. I just smile and Henry knows it’s no big deal.

I’m also lucky that I’m not there for the twins’ feedings every three hours. As preemies, they can’t sleep through the night. Son Derek and Jess have to get up to feed them whether the babies want up or not. I’m very lucky. Well, except when I have to get up with Casey, our 16-year-old invalid beagle.

I just get to make the three-hour trek every few weeks and see how things have changed, what new things Henry has discovered, what Ben is raising his hand for, how much more jet-black hair Marcus has received.

I don’t think I will be getting any more grandchildren soon and that’s OK. I’m rather pleased with the ones I have. Plus, I really don’t need another camera.

Internet shrinks world and our choices

2011-02-23T22:05:00.000-08:00

People have said for years the world is shrinking, because of rising technology.

They said that in the 1960s when we had three TV networks and calling Europe or Asia was a tremendous undertaking.

In the past two decades, thanks to the Internet, the world has certainly shrunk.

When niece Kris had her son Zack over in England, we could see pictures within minutes. Thanks to webcams, we can see and talk.

I have communicated with people I share similar interests, not realizing at first the person is in Belgium or France or even Cambodia.

We have access to so much information and so, so many options, including where to spend our money.

So many small businesses have cropped up because of the Internet. The Internet is what is credited with giving us the prosperity we had during the Clinton years, when the U.S. deficit vanished.

Yet I got to thinking, while we have so, so many choices retail wise, it seems day in and day out, our purchases more and more come down to three: Amazon, Netflix and iTunes.

Take Netflix for instance. Way back in January 2000, when I had saved up to buy my first DVD player from Toshiba for $249, I got a card with it for four free rentals from this thing called Netflix. So I joined and have been a member ever since. Now at the time, there were three video stores in Conneaut and many more throughout the county. At one time, Conneaut not only had three, but Rite Aid pharmacy had a video section.

Trouble was, the movies were limited. There would be 25 copies of the latest Sylvester Stallone bomb, but a highly regarded more artistic picture wouldn’t be available anywhere. Forget anything with a subtitle, be it foreign or silent.

So Netflix, which is movie rentals through the mail, became a godsend. I could choose the movies I wanted via the youthful Internet and they would be mailed off. Any obscure movie I discovered I could rent. The monthly fee was less than what I spent at local stores.

Consequently after having visited local video stores on a regular basis, I found myself going to rent movies locally once since 2000. Now I did visit a video store on State Street in Conneaut a few times. The store was open under various names and ownership and I went in to stock up on movies when they went out of business.

Today Netflix also includes movie streaming via the Internet. It is joined by other Internet movie services, cable, through iTunes, Zune, Playstation 3, satellite and more.

The upshot: Where there used to be tons of video stores in the county, off-hand I can think of two today, Family Video in Saybrook and Star Lite in Conneaut, along with a few Redbox video vending machines with limited selections and a couple of drug stores with some videos.

Thanks to the Internet, our choices for video rentals have narrowed to Netflix and the rest. Remember Blockbuster? Netflix has become a verb, as in, “I’m going to Netflix that.”

Then there’s music. Remember Media Play and all of the places that had big music sections? Albums, cassettes and finally CDs would dominate. There were sections for rock, rap, country, gospel, classical, children’s and more. Big floor space. Big selection.

Today, we have iTunes and its ilk. You search for the music you want, download it within seconds with our fast Internet connections and immediate gratification is ours!

I don’t have an iPod. Sorry. I do have the lesser-known Zune, the Windows equivalent, which has its advantages, including HD Radio (although we have no HD radio stations around here.)

I have discovered the few albums I am interested in these days, it is much easier to download using my Zune account then look for in the stores, because the stores have such limited selection. They almost force you to download.

The trouble is, downloaded music is in a compressed, inferior format compared to say, CDs. So music lovers of today are getting less quality then back in the day when we went to the store to buy CDs.

There is another option, of course, ordering your music from a place like Amazon. Yes, we come full circle. Amazon is becoming the place we buy everything we don’t get from renting at Netflix or download from iTunes.

At Christmas, wife Louise looked through Consumer Reports to find the perfect toaster - yes toaster - to buy son Derek, wife Jess and grandson Henry. It was sleek and silver, it had a countdown LED that told you when the toast would pop.

But we spent three days in lots of stores looking for this toaster or two alternatives in Ashtabula County and the Erie area. Finally, I Googled the model number and there it was, at Amazon.

Duh! We had already bought far more Christmas merchandise online than ever before, much of it from Amazon, so why hadn’t I thought about the toaster before? Save gasoline, save time, save sales tax.

I recently decided to upgrade my Canon camera. But I already have a very nice Canon camera with a set of lenses that would fit the new one. I go to Best Buy and ask the clerk if I can buy the body only. She says she doesn’t think so. She doesn’t check. It’s easier to say she doesn’t think so and leave it at that. Fine. Amazon has it cheaper and the first entry for the model is “body only.” Plus stores tend to jack up the prices of auxiliary merchandise, like an extra battery or memory card. I got everything I needed in one order.

Buy a TV at the big box stores and they will charge you from $30 to $120 for the HDMI cord (that’s high definition media interface) that connects your high-def TV to a cable or satellite digital box or Blu-Ray player or game system. Online services like Amazon have them for $5 and because they are digital, they work just as good.

What has this done to the retail industry? It used to be the local mom and pop stores were impacted because they don’t have the buying power of the big chains. But the chains are now affected. Been to Circuit City lately? No wonder Borders is going belly up. You can order anything from Amazon and have it shipped. Forget having it shipped! Buy a Kindle or similar book reader for $140 and download the newest books in seconds! And unlike MP3s, there’s no quality loss and books are cheaper.

Hello! Can you see why Walden’s in Ashtabula Towne Square is gone!

Through merchandising and shopping habits, we have narrowed where we spend our dollars.

And who knows, some day we may only have Amazon. That’s because Amazon has announced its premium members (who pay $79 a year for discount shipping and other promotionals) will now be able to stream movies, just like, well, Netflix. Plus Amazon allows you to download music, like, yep, iTunes.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t help the local sale tax, the state sales tax, it doesn’t help employ local people in the retail trade. It doesn’t leave as many local stores to offer door prizes for the local Cub Scout event or school festival either. Although I have had personal experiences with chain stores like Sears who flatly refuse to help any local organizations.

Yes, the Internet gives us infinite possibilities when it comes to retail, but more and more, it seems our focus is concentrated on Amazon and its partners, plus Netflix and iTunes.

How long before those three places and the local Wal-Mart are our only real choices?

And yes, I admit contributing to the situation, too. Price, convenience and selection are too good to pass up.

More pain than pleasure but we keep doing it

2011-02-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

A very convincing, seemingly logical person, sits down next to you and tells you hitting yourself in the head with a baseball bat can be a pleasurable experience.

He says you have to do it at the exact right angle. If the sensory mechanism is struck just right, you feel really good. It’s also good for you.

So you do as the gentleman says and whack yourself in the head. But it doesn’t feel good. Not at all. It hurts. But so convincing is this gentleman, you try it again.

Now of course it is a con. Nobody can hit himself in the head and make it a pleasurable, healthy experience. Yet you continue to try, seeking that sense of euphoria you are now convinced is possible if you only slam your head correctly with a baseball bat.

So you do it again and again. Heck, you do it for 30 years. You are convinced it is indeed possible.

I bring up this story for two reasons: The start of the federal budget process and the 100^th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan.

Let’s go back before Reagan was elected president, back before 1980, when Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

Carter was generally considered a failure. We had the Iran hostage crisis, interest rates to buy a home hit close to 20 percent. He even discussed a general malaise in the country. Optimistic former actor Reagan seized on these problems and pledged to solve them and won the presidency.

So Carter wasn’t perfect, but under his administration you could still go out and get a factory job, make enough to feed your family, have health insurance often paid for completely by your employer, you had a generous pension program. If you worked hard when you hit 65 you could retire. Oh, and the federal deficit was $60 billion.

Besides that, problems like homelessness had generally been eliminated.

Now Ronald Reagan had a different idea. He said if you cut taxes, especially for the wealthy, they in turn would invest that money in the economy, thus generating jobs and those people with the new jobs would pay taxes and in the end, the federal treasury would have more money than it did before! Yes, cut income but get more money instead.

This went hand in hand with cutting government, because government is the enemy. Cut regulations. Cut programs. Make people more self-sufficient.

But cutting taxes did not increase money to the treasury under Reagan. When he left office, the deficit ballooned to $300 billion. Companies started negotiating for pay cuts from their workers. Health insurance coverage started to decline. Those pensions weren’t so stable. Homelessness again became a big part of America. An HBO documentary suggests the decline of small, industrialized, Midwest towns can be blamed on Reagan policies.

Hmmm, sort of reminds us of the guy with the baseball bat theory. Because since then, a large number of politicians still maintain cutting spending and taxes to the rich will be the godsend to our economy.

Eventually, under Democrat Bill Clinton and with the economic boom created by the new Internet, the federal deficit was wiped out.

Ah, but then George W. Bush took office. A disciple of the Reagan policies his father once called “voodoo economics,” Bush got even Democrats in Congress to go along with more tax cuts for the rich to stabilize the economy.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001 and after those attacks on our nation, we had a huge boost in military spending. But the tax cuts for the rich stayed and we went into a tremendous deficit quickly. The Clinton surplus disappeared like a drop of water on a hot griddle

But interestingly, with a Republican in the White House, those mounting deficits just didn’t matter. Nobody objected. Nobody cared until, well, a Democrat returned to the White House, Barack Obama.

Then the deficit mattered a lot, to Republicans, to Fox News, to right-wing talk show hosts.

And the way out of it, just like under Reagan, is big tax cuts for the rich, huge cuts in spending and deregulation. Now deregulation caused much of the problems at the end of Bush II’s term and Bush did a terrible job of creating new jobs. But like the guy seeking that sweet spot of pain by whacking himself with the baseball bat, Republicans are still preaching the same garbage and Democrats are too weak to really challenge it.

As charismatic as Reagan was, he could not get through the kind of gut-wrenching cuts necessary to balance the budget and give all of his rich friends the big bonuses they wanted compliments of the U.S. government. It won’t happen now. He opted to balloon the deficit.

So what about a change in thinking? Let’s get rid of all of the big tax cuts for the rich, which Obama originally wanted to do before he caved in. The rich would pay more even if we went back to the Reagan levels, let alone Carter. OK, now if the rich want a tax break, they actually have to invest in the U.S. They have to build factories, employ people at decent salaries, do something more than grab the money and go or spend it on cheap-labor factories in China or third-world countries.

Herbert Hoover tried to give industries money at the start of the Great Depression, hoping they would allow it to “trickle down” to the poor. At that time, direct aid to the poor by the government was unheard of. But the industries didn’t do it.

Let’s face it, if you are given a cash bonus through tax breaks or whatever, it is easy just to pocket the cash or invest in foreign countries where cheap labor gives you a better chance of making more money.

It is all about profit and greed. Many industries are recovering nicely from the big recession started at the end of the Bush term. But they aren’t hiring people back because profits are higher by working those who are left harder. Those still working have crummier health plans, no pensions and more responsibilities.

Thanks to propaganda from the Tea Party activists, Fox News, the Limbaughs and the Becks, America has actually bought into all of this. While people in Egypt and elsewhere are protesting and demonstrating for a better life, we in America are voting to give the ultra-rich even more money. We are voting to take away health reforms and the outlawing of pre-existing conditions and all of the other inequities that bankrupt innocent people who get sick every day.

We buy into the zany ideas of the mentally challenged, like Sarah Palin, who is a role model to the tea party for resigning as governor of Alaska during a series of scandals and likes to shoot animals from helicopters.

Obama is presenting a budget with many cuts, but the GOP says it’s not enough. The truth is, nobody from either party is ready to place his or her name to a budget with the kind of cataclysmic reductions necessary to balance the budget and allow the super rich to retain their cushy tax status.

Efforts to cut the budgets while boosting the rich have been tried for 31 years and it hasn’t happened.

It’s time to put away the baseball bat and think in normal terms. But given conditions in this country right now, that probably won’t happen.

Hmmm, maybe if I hit just above the ear lobe.