Dave Exits the Stage and a Late Night Era Ends

When David Letterman hosts his final show tonight, it will be the end of a television era. Letterman has been in late night TV for 33 years, and he's the last of the old guard.
I discovered Letterman when he made his first appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, and I watched his short-lived morning program in the late '70s. When Dave got a show following Johnny's on NBC, I was watching. At the time I was in college. As he leaves the airwaves tonight, my youngest daughter is in college.
Dave was once a likeable, goofy, funny late night friend. He's become a little too left-leaning in his politics over the past few years for me, and way too mean about it. It's time for Dave to go, but what's left is a handful of young guys meant to play to a younger audience. That may work for some, but for me it's hard to sift through the Jimmys and the James and conclude who's the best.
For a long time I've watched late night TV for the guests, not for the host. When Johnny Carson was still alive and still in the game, I watched for the host. When Dave first came along I watched for the host. When Arsenio was on the air I watched for the host. Nowadays the host is the background and the guests are center stage, so I won't watch anyone of them every night, and I'll watch when the guest is so good I don't wanna miss it. Late night TV has forever changed, and not for the better in my opinion.

Uncle Ed

I knew him as my uncle Ed.

I also knew him as a friend of my dad’s. They attended the same youth group at Second Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.

I knew him as a brother to James, who is also my uncle.

When my dad, a county missionary south of Montgomery, was invited home to eat with a family of the church where he was leading the singing for a revival, Magnolia Baptist, he met my mother. She had sisters. He introduced his friends to them. They all got married.

I knew him as an Alabama high school football coach. He also spent some time as an official.

He worked for the state and his job was making sure the school buses were safe. He took that job seriously, to the point of investigating the crash at Carrollton, Ky., when a church bus was hit head-on by a drunk travelling the wrong way on the interstate.

Later he would drive buses for tour companies.

I knew him as a husband to my Aunt Joyce, my mother’s sister, and a father to their only child, my cousin Angelia. He called his wife "Honey." I thought that was her name when I was little, and might've called her "Aunt Honey" a time or two.

I knew him as a rancher, with a nice spread outside Prattville where he kept his cattle.

I knew him as one of many members of my mother’s side of the family that we’d get to see on that day of feasting known as Thanksgiving, if we saw them no other time of the year. And often it was at his house.

I knew him as one of the loudest, most boisterous fans ever of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

And I knew him as a man of God.

Like my dad in his last few days, my Uncle Ed was in-and-out between Heaven and Earth. He told his daughter on Wednesday that he had seen Jesus.

He went to be with his Savior a little over 24 hours ago. He’s free from the pain of the cancer that took him, in a land where the Bible says we’ll know no pain or sorrow. But he’ll be sorely missed by those of us left to carry on here until it’s our turn to go to Glory.

See you there Uncle Ed…

2016 Presidential Long List

In case you haven't noticed, the campaigning has started for the 2016 presidential election, which is a little more than two years away (Nov. 8, 2016).
Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is the first Republican to announce his candidacy. Hillary Clinton is the apparent frontrunner for the Democrats, and may run essentially unopposed.

Other possibilities for the Republican Party, in order of my personal preference (which could change daily and I can be swayed by sensible arguments): Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Sonny Perdue, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Tim Pawlenty, George Pataki, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Rick Santorum and South Dakota Senator John Thune.
There are some young, charismatic conservatives on that list, and that's what the Republicans are going to need to oppose Hillary. Hopefully they won't tear each other apart too much in the debates. The first primaries are about 14 months away...

First Date

Thirty years ago today, Oct. 16, Alice and I had our first date. It was a Tuesday night, much warmer than today, and we went to the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen on Bardstown Road in Louisville. We sat at a little table in the corner with a player piano drowning out the noise of the hundred or so other customers there. I was facing Alice and the wall. Eventually a waitress who was sweeping the floor asked if we wanted a cup of coffee. 

"Strange," I thought, and I looked around. No one else was there. All the chairs were turned upside down and placed on the other tables. I had been babbling on for so long (and wishing I could shut myself up) that they were getting ready to close, and I hadn't even noticed.

She's been putting up with me, and distracting me like that, for 30 years now...

The Last Week of July

And thus begins the worst week of the year for me, and some of my friends and relatives. On July 27th, 2010, my cousin Darrell died. He was a year or two older than me, and more like a brother than a cousin to me. He spent his last decade on kidney dialysis, going to a clinic for that about three times a week. On July 27th, 2011, my best friend of 40 years, Dave Brooks, called and asked me if there was anything I wanted him to tell my dad when he saw him. He had just gotten word that he had kidney cancer. It would rapidly spread and he would die three months later, on Halloween afternoon. He was more like a brother than a friend to me...
On July 29th, 2008, my dad died, another one of my best friends. He battled peripheral neuropathy and was wheelchair bound for his last five years, only to die from lung cancer. It was discovered at the end of June that year. My dad was buried on August 1st.
So forgive me if I seem a bit melancholy this week. And a bit paranoid. I don't trust the last week of July...

No Key Detected

Kelly decided she'd drive herself to church this afternoon to meet with the youth group as they were heading off to camp for the next few days. I didn't think her car needed to sit in the church parking lot all week, so I took Alice by the church to pick it up. Her car was in the driveway as we were leaving and mine was low on gas, so I thought we'd take hers. I got the keys to that car, and put mine back because I didn't figure I'd need them. Out in the garage she called an audible and said we should take my car, that I could get around hers backing out (and of course I could).
I had ordered a pizza from the Domino's around the corner from the church before I left the house, and once I dropped her off I drove over to Domino's, parked the car, reached in my pocket to lock it as I got out and realized I had no key. It's a new car (18 months old now), it's keyless to crank (as long as the key signal is somewhere in the car), and I hadn't brought mine. It cranked at the house because Alice had a key to the car in her purse. It remained cranked after I dropped her off at the church until I got to Domino's and shut it off. Yeah, I noticed the "Detecting No Key" message, but figured as long as it was running maybe it was just having trouble detecting the key signal. It took reaching in my pocket and finding no key to remember I had put it back on my dresser...
There was no longer a key or key signal in the car. It was in Kelly's car. Which was on the way back to the house. With Alice. Who evidently either didn't bring her cell phone with her or wasn't answering it. I went on into Domino's, paid for the pizza, went out to the car, kept calling the house till Alice got back home, ate a couple of slices while I waited, with the door to the car open because it was such a pleasant, mild summer night. But we now know there's at least one problem with a new car and a keyless ignition. And we also know what the car is trying to tell us when it says "Detecting No Key."

A Fourth to Remember

Highlights of the Gatlinburg trip last weekend for me, other than being with 19 family members in a luxury mountainside cabin: hiking trails and roads every day, in the park and near the cabin; driving the Cade's Cove loop, despite the fact I have the world's worst luck in seeing a bear (there are supposed to be bears in the Smokies, and for that matter Denali, right?); watching a movie (even if it WAS "Frozen," which I hadn't seen before and it wasn't THAT bad) on the really big screen in the cabin's theatre room - I need one of those in the house; shopping in Gatlinburg - didn't take me long to see most of the downtown shops and I spent about three minutes in the record store, which was disappointing in its stock of music and more of a head shop than a music store (I almost got a contact high just from being in there); and stopping on the way back at the KFC Cafe in Corbin, Ky., where Clark County's own Harland Sanders had his original store close by. I also really enjoyed the nightly gatherings around the firepit outside, talking and watching the kids roast marshmallows for s'mores, the younger ones and some older "kids." It's the first time we've done anything like that as a family with the whole local Bowles clan. Hopefully it won't be the last...
Now that I'm some distance removed from the trip back home, which was a nightmare and a whole other story, I can concentrate on the good memories part...