I don’t think I’ve complained about the East Tennessee summer since our family moved back from Atlanta in 1992.  Now, it has been so dry a time-or-two that even dust bunnies were thirsty.  But it’s been a long time since I’ve been in hot weather like I experienced in Georgia.

Georgia is where summer goes to die of heatstroke.   I remember one afternoon when we lifted off from Dekalb-Peachtree Airport, and the temperature was a hundred-twelve.  The little machine didn’t fly as much as it beat the thin air into submission.  We had air conditioning.  Yessir, both doors off.   And you have to fly a little higher than our measly twelve hundred feet to get any relief.

It’s not every summer.  Some of them were simply hot, like everywhere else, except Wisconsin, which has winter, and Labor Day.   But when summer gets cranked up in Atlanta, you don’t  breathe as much as you inhale hot gas.  Being outside in late July feels like a Collie is panting on you, and trying to sit in your lap at the same time.  Getting into a sun-baked car with vinyl seats has been known to instantly cure piles, itchy bottom, and the inability to speak, or at least scream.  More than once, I have driven several miles, steering with a napkin and holding my butt off the seat, only managing to keep the soles of my feet and the back of my neck touching the vehicle.

It’s Georgia where I learned to get my dress shirts heavily starched.  I was a WSB Radio reporter in the days when we were expected to dress as if we were headed to the State Capitol, but be ready for a tromp through the thorns to catch an interview for a breaking story.  You could get by with tossing the coat in the back seat of the news car, but a tie was mandatory.

In the summertime, I found that if I wore a shirt starched to near cardboard stiffness, I might look only as if I had taken an unexpected pool plunge at the end of the day.  Being a man of considerable girth…okay…fat.. tends to make you sweat just a little more.  No, that’s not right.  Being fat makes you sweat more anyway.  But when summer’s blast furnace roared in Atlanta, I would look like I had slept in my shirt by eleven, and by seven at night,  it would be about to rot off my back.  I knew that if my shirt had heavy starch, at least I would broil in my own gravy.

The above photo was taken during the 1988 Democratic National Convention.  I was in air conditioned splendor at the moment at The Georgia World Congress Center.  Note, I had been outside…you can see the wet hair, and the rumpled shirt.  I believe there was a pool of melted starch at my feet.  And never mind the eyeglasses.  Pay no attention to them. They were only for reading… and driving… and, well, seeing.

Anyway, some of us WSB Old Timers were talking about weather and heat and the strict dress code the other day, and I thought I would pass along this ode to summertime.

I might have been a little damp, even a little on the pasty side.

But thanks to Elmo Ellis, Aubrey Morris, Bob Ketchersid, and scores of other fine broadcasters before me who set the standard, none of us ever showed up under-dressed.

(dedicated to all the U-S Military service members who will be in this summer’s heat- df)

I think I would look good wearing one of these.

Read about the Tesla here.

This is not a crop circle.  And if you thought the old I-75 and I-40 interchange in downtown Knoxville was a mess:

Check this idea.

It’s sometimes important and refreshing to realize just how small you are

You might have noticed there are no advertisements on this website…wait…don’t click…this is not a plea for money, nor is it some whiney piece of self-misery.   It’s just an explanation to you that I am my own boss on this page.   I am the chief executive, editor, writer, copy boy, and broom-sweeper of the word bin.

It’s sometimes important and refreshing to realize just how small you are.  And I am just that.  Small.   Not by definition of mass and specific gravity, but small in the editorial sense.  What I’m trying to say folks, is my opinions on national and international matters don’t count for squat, and I think you’re probably getting a nose full of news from other sources.

That came into clearer focus to me this morning, when I read my own piece on healthcare reform.  I realized that…if you wanted op-ed pieces on national and international affairs, there are much loftier medullas than mine to tap.   You don’t need more of the same from me, you need less of the same.

And so do I.

There are places all over the web to regularly find commentary on political, national, and world issues.

But from now on, this will not be one of them.

We’re gonna have some fun, some laughs, and maybe shed some tears.  And I promise to keep it either local, funny, strange, or of such importance that as my third grade substitute teacher Mrs. Blodgett once said “If it just can’t wait, go ahead.”

Because I said so…and as WKRP’s legendary news director Les Nesman said…. “This is my space…all inside this tape on the floor.”

Let’s say you’re a firefighter.

Your company gets an alarm that a barn full of hay is on fire.  Now, hay is expensive and it would be hard for that farmer to replace.  But while you’re on the way to the barn fire, your dispatcher tells you there’s a house on fire, and some people might be stuck on the second floor, hanging out a window.  You’re the captain.  It’s your decision.  One, or the other.

That’s how I see our nation right now.

The barn fire is our messed up health care system.   The house fire is the economy.

Which one do we choose to battle first?

Please allow me to digress for a bit, and explain why I think a huge Constitutional fight could swell up like a marshmallow in a glass of cola:

First, it appears House and Senate proponents of the current health care legislation will attempt a procedural end-around in order to get the bill passed.   I have read The Constitution…many times.  One of the toughest classes I took while earning my B.A. at The University Of Tennessee was Constitutional Law.  And, by golly… I passed.

It could be argued that the procedural effort apparently underway could undermine the federal instruction that any law sent to the President must be passed by The House, and The Senate.  Because some parts of the bill might be separated in the individual votes, I believe there could be a legal challenge.   And there is that pesky Tenth Amendment that could be interpreted as preventing the government from requiring American citizens from buying anything.

I believe the legal fight over the current bill would take longer to resolve, and be more damaging to our nation because of expense, delay, and political posturing instead of moving forward with actually fixing health care.  It’s a question of what do we want:  five old folks in a courtroom deciding what we need in health care,  or our representatives to get off their political agendas, deal making, and word-ginning and get to work on real health care reform.

I ask again- why do we need artificial deadlines to fix health care?   Please think of it this way:  If you’re a rational person and you need to buy a car, do you listen to the salesman telling you that “this deal is only for right now…today?” Do the free hot dogs and sodas convince you the deal you’re getting is the best in town?  Or do you research the cars, see which ones are rated best, and take your  time to count the price and payments on the loan?

That’s all I’m asking.

Now, back to the fire engine where you’re the captain.   Of course, you make the decision to divert your response to the house on fire.

We have a house fire.  It’s our sputtering economy.

I drove around in west Knoxville for a while yesterday.  I toodled my Jeep through some of the most affluent parts of our area.  And while some places looked busy, there were ghost stores.  And other parts of town are even more haunted with fairly new buildings that are empty.

There are a lot of us living from one paycheck to the next, and sometimes, the money runs out before the pay period.  I spoke with a friend of mine who does business with small, private business owners, and they tell him that for the most part, their businesses are surviving in much the same way.

And yesterday, I got an earfull of information from a person who works in the private mortgage business.   They told me that private home mortgages were nearly impossible to obtain.  Credit scores of 750 are being challenged by underwriters, because two years ago, the applicant might have been late on a credit card payment.  And people who have worse credit scores might as well settle in for a long search for a decent loan.  Government backed loans are being written, but they take a long time.  This person told me that one of her mortgage applicants waited three months, for a turn down, and their search for a home loan had to start all over again.

Credit cards, the heroin of home budgets also squeezed some card holders before new regulations took place.  I wish there was some way we could stop that addiction.  If most of us could go sixty, or ninety days without making any new credit card purchases, I wonder if it would send a message to the banks.   Better, if we could pay off the balances, and then stop credit purchases for a while we might first, see a big change in our personal budgets, and secondly, send a message to credit card companies concerning interest rates.

We gave banks and other financial institutions gazillions of dollars to stop the bleeding in our economy.  We bought an automobile company to keep it from going to rust.  I don’t think it’s made much of a difference in most of our lives.

The house is burning.  A decision has to be made.

I spoke with a repo man this week.  He works mainly in southeastern Kentucky.  And his business is booming.  He told me he was busy all the time, picking up cars, trucks, ATV’s and other stuff where people could not keep up the payments.  Some of them were probably caught up in personal problems like drug trouble, or just buying more than they could pay for.  But there are others, working folks who are not working now…laid off.   They had jobs and they could pay for what they bought, but with no work…their purchases have to go back.  The repo man told me he was getting some cars that had been financed for only six months or less.  I wonder if those folks had bought them during the “cash for clunkers” fiasco.

Health care is about a sixth of our economy.  So that means 5/6th’s is still out there.   And that’s where the house fire is located.

Maybe I’m too much of a dreamer, but I think a Manhattan Project style effort to deal with our economic problems, with a real deadline of  a year to study and then deliver concrete proposals.  We could include economists, labor leaders, corporate executives, and financial leaders..successful ones, smart ones, and stake-holders to look at where we are as a nation, and what we need to do.

The house is burning.  A decision has to be made.

And now to one more issue-

Some folks have commented on my Facebook page that my criticism of the current health care bill is a reflection of my bias as a reporter, and a reflection of where I work.

Horse apples !

I don’t know where some folks get the idea that because I work for a place that broadcasts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, that I might drink the Kool-Aid of any talk show entertainer.  I’m not foolish enough to bite the hand that helps feed the station’s bottom line, but never, ever do I start out the news day with some kind of plan to slant the news one way or the other, or to let my opinion seep into what I say in the newscasts.  And while I don’t exactly know the political philosophy of the individuals that run my corporation, I think some who say it’s a right-wing conspiracy might be surprised.

It’s about making money.  If any broadcaster can make more money airing a liberal talk show, it will.

And finally,  of course I have a person opinion… the question though..is whether I am fair to both sides. I think I am. I’m proud of decades of respect from all political and social views.

I have to try every day to ask myself if what I am doing is fair, informative, thought provoking… and also entertaining. It’s my job to tickle your ear, too…and give you something to maybe smile about every day.

I like people.  I love my country.

The house is on fire.   Don’t let the burning hay distract you.

Word comes from Los Angeles this afternoon that Fess Parker has passed away.  Many of us baby boomers sat transfixed in front of the television and at the movies as this man brought history to life.

Have you ever pondered the origin of dogs?  Wonder no more.  Some scientists have been doing some ancestral research on our best friends.  Read here.

Could be…..read here.

My dad liked to collect toys.  I think it’s probably because he could afford things in his adult life that he didn’t have a chance to enjoy while he was a kid.  And he passed along his love of collecting toys.  Daddy was mainly a die-cast tractor collector, although he dabbled in model trains and other cars and trucks.  If a neat looking model tractor in a catalog caught his eye, one would eventually appear in the mail.  And he was always on the look-out for unusual toys, and good bargains around town.

love somehow spanned three generations through a toy

My dad knew I loved fire engines, so he’d also keep a look-out for new die cast models, especially ones of older rigs.  I’m looking at one on my shelf right now, a Seagrave from the 1920′s.

I got nearly all of my dad’s tractors and toys when he died.  I can remember the days some of them arrived in the mail, and I would watch as he carefully cut open the outer box to reveal the packaging, and how careful he was to unpack the tractor.  After he inspected it,  the new model would be carefully re-packed and placed on the shelf…and brought out to be enjoyed at another time.  It was not just owning the model, it was the enjoyment of the search, and the anticipation of the arrival.  Other collectors will understand.

Turner with his new tractor

So now I have a bunch of tractors.  I won’t keep them, though.

This weekend, while my grandson Turner was here, I quietly went into the garage and picked out a big John Deere tractor from the collection.  Of course the two-year-old noticed my leaving, and my return.   I took the tractor to the kitchen counter, where I started to dust it off.  Now, the toddler had noticed the shiny tractor, and was standing behind me, carefully watching me unpack it and clean it.

After a few minutes with some Pledge and a good cloth, the John Deere was a shiny as the day it was made.

And I handed it to Turner.

Daddy would have liked so see the look on the face of my grandson, his great-grandson.

And love somehow spanned three generations through a toy.

And maybe my dad knew all along it would happen that way.