A Good Night

A good night in Virginia Beach, January 18, 2017, with my older brother, age 77 (hard for me to too believe), and his son (incidentally, an All-ACC linebacker at Duke in the mid-1980s).

Eve of Destruction Revisited?

I just finished reading 'Eve of Destruction' by James Patterson which is about the transitional year of 1965. It is a great read.

 At the beginning of 1965, the U.S. seemed on the cusp of a golden age. President Johnson, who was an extraordinarily skillful manager of Congress, succeeded in securing an avalanche of Great Society legislation, including Medicare, immigration reform, and a powerful Voting Rights Act. But the sense of harmony dissipated over the course of the year. 1965 marked the birth of the tumultuous era we now know as "The Sixties," when American society and culture underwent a major transformation. 

Turmoil erupted in the American South early in 1965, as police attacked civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama. Many black leaders, outraged, began to lose faith in nonviolent and interracial strategies of protest. The U.S. rushed into a deadly war in Vietnam, inciting rebellion at home. Racial violence exploded in the Watts area of Los Angeles. The six days of looting and arson that followed shocked many Americans and cooled their enthusiasm for the president's remaining initiatives. As the national mood darkened, the country became deeply divided. By the end of 1965, the political scene was becoming redefined as developments in popular music were enlivening the Left.

The title of the book is taken from the Barry McGuire hit song "Eve of Destruction" released in 1965. The song captured the mood of much of the country. It became a controversial hit dividing America. The song was the first 'marriage' between rock music and protest. It signified that a mass movement among American youth 'was upon us', as Patterson expressed it.

After observing the Women's March on Washington (and in large and small cities around America and around the globe) for social justice, peace, and equality one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump, one cannot escape the parallels and similarities to the tumultuous, transitional, polarizing, uncertain times of today. Listen above to the 'classic'.

Comparing a Couple of Presidential Eras, And a Statement on Trump

I am fortunate to have Tom Huston as a facebook friend. He is a fellow collector of American political memorabilia. He is one of the top collectors in the country. Tom was a Senior Advisor in the Nixon White House (pictured here with Nixon) and a close friend of William F. Buckley. He was one of the originial fixtures in the intellectual conservative movement of the 1950s and 60s.

Tom makes a keen observation about the how history will view the 28-year period of Presidents between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. He views it's significance, or lack thereof, similar to that of the period betweeen Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley.

His point, I believe, is that both eras are characterized by very transitional periods in which societal and historical forces at work disrupt, overshadow, and make difficult attempts at leadership. The transitional period after Lincoln was characterized by a failed and tumultuous attempt at the Reconstruction of America after a great American Civil War. The transitional period between Reagan and Trump has been characterized, as Thomas Friedman puts it, by an age of rapid acceleration and exponential change and disruption in the areas of technology, globalization, and climate, which has upended, confused, and made fearful lives and institutions. Tom would likely point also to weak leadership during both eras, but that is diffucult to judge and evaluate under such circumstances, in my view.

Here is Tom's thought-provoking and insightful observation: "A century from now historians will attach to the presidencies between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump the same significance that they now attach to those between Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley. Of course, they will highlight the election of the first African-American president and may footnote the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the unique achievement of George W. Bush in presiding simultaneously over two losing wars and a cataclysmic collapse of the economy, but the accomplishments of these intervening administrations, such as they may be, will (at best) take second place to great social and technological forces that remade the country during this 28-year period."

In 2017, we continue to move forward in uncertain, transitional, rapidly evolving and changing times. We have very questionable, non-traditional, in my view, unprepared, naive, dishonest leadership in Donald Trump. We shall see where this formula takes us and whether this leadership can sustain in these continuing, unprecedended times, rivaled only by the age of Reconstruction in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Ted Kennedy’s Eulogy of Bobby Kennedy, June 5, 1968

Here, Ted Kennedy delivers the closing part  (it is only 7 minutes long) of the eulogy at the funeral of his brother Bobby, using excerpts from Bobby's famous speech to the students of a South African university in 1966.  It is one of the great speeches of the last half of the 20th century.

Babe Ruth's Last Game and a Treasure of a.... Firsthand.... Story

On this day in 1935, Babe Ruth hit three homers and a single in a Boston Braves 11-7 loss to the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Many don't know Ruth played his final season with the Boston Braves. His 7th-inning solo shot off Guy Bush - a blast which cleared the ballpark's roof - was to be Ruth's 714th, final home run, and his last at-bat. Amaziing.

My friend, the late Mace Brown, who was from Greensboro, was on the Pirates bench as a rookie pitcher that day in 1935. (He was later a scout in this region).  Mace told a great story many times, and he told me once, personally, during a visit I made to his room in a local hospital when my Mother was on the same hospital floor.  

After Ruth hit the final HR of the day, again, completely out of Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, for his final big league HR and his final at-bat, he took himself out of the game and he made his way to the visitor's locker room. To get there, one had to go through the home team's dugout.  As he made his way, a very tired Ruth, flopped down on the bench to rest next to my friend, rookie Mace Brown. He elbowed Mace in the ribs and said, 'son, that last one felt pretty good.'  With that, he smiled, got up, and made his way to the locker room and shower......for the last time.  A treasure of a, firsthand, baseball story.  

Churchill's Historic, Lengthy Stay at the White House During December 1941, Just Weeks After Pearl Harbor

This grand and moving piece on Churchill's lengthy stay at the White House in December 1941 over Christmas, just weeks after Pearl Harbor, is a great historic read.


I highlight: "On Christmas Day, Churchill, the Roosevelt's and the rest of the White House party sat down to oysters, clear soup, turkey, chestnut dressing with giblet gravy, beans and cauliflower, and sweet potato casserole."


"In the autobiography she wrote after her husband's death, Eleanor told of how Churchill "stayed up talking, drinking brandy and smoking cigars until 2 or 3 a.m. By all accounts, the only drinking problem Churchill had was when his exacting demands were not met. On the day of his arrival, the White House butler was told how to keep him happy. The menu is recorded in Cita Stelzer's "Dinner With Churchill": "I must have a tumbler of sherry in my room before breakfast, a couple of glasses of scotch and soda before lunch, and French Champagne and 90-year-old brandy before I go to sleep at night."

"David McCullough tells of Churchill joining Roosevelt on a White House balcony for the ceremonial lighting of the National Christmas Tree. The two men addressed a crowd of 20,000 on the White House lawn and a nationwide radio audience. The prime minister went on to say:
"This is a strange Christmas Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and, with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other. "Still, he said, it was entirely appropriate to pause to celebrate Christmas. "Let the children have their night of fun and laughter," he said. "Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world."


The next morning, Churchill and Roosevelt, surrounded by security men, attended a Christmas service at a nearby Methodist church.


The photos above are FDR & Churchill at Christmas Dinner together, White House 1941, and FDR & Churchill lighting the National Christmas tree, from White House balcony, after US entry into WW2, December 1941.

A Brief History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott - The Spark Which Began the Modern Civil Rights Movement

This is a wonderful piece of American and civil rights history.  Below is a description, written by my friend David Abzell, of his father's role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  Both David and his father Joe were Press Secretary's (in different era's) to Alabama Governor George C. Wallace.  Joe was City Editor of the Montgomery Advertiser at the time of the boycott (December 1955).  Again, this is quite a piece of history:


David Abzell:  "The man who organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott 60 years ago this month was Edgar Daniel “E.D.” Nixon, a black Pullman car porter who led the local chapter of the NAACP. Rosa Parks was the secretary of the NAACP and was personally picked by Nixon to undergo arrest and serve as the plaintiff in the test case regarding bus segregation laws. Nixon also tapped a young minister named Martin Luther King to serve as the spokesman for the Boycott.
On the eve of the Boycott, Nixon called my father, Joe, who was city editor of the Montgomery Advertiser and a long-time friend, and said he had a “big story” for him. Dad would write the very first article about the impending Bus Boycott using the information that Nixon supplied to him, but in order to protect his friend from retribution from the city's leaders, my father attributed the source to an unnamed white woman who got a tip from her black maid.

Dad would serve as a pallbearer for Nixon when he died in 1987. One of my prized possessions is this photo that E.D. Nixon signed for my father with the inscription, “Joe Azbell did more for blacks than any white man in America.”


Below is a short clip (10 minutes) from a documentary of the events and the players surrounding the boycott.  Mrs. Parks, Mr. Nixon, and Joe Abzell are prominently featured in the video. (The video must be viewed on youtube. After clicking on the arrow center screen, click on the youtube icon in the lower right corner of the screen and you will be directed to it).