Just Finished Reading Stephen King's Secret Window, Secret Garden

Although I've possessed a copy of Stephen King's 1990 book Four Past Midnight for several years, for much of that time I had only gotten around to reading one of its four novellas: The Library Policeman.  With The Langoliers, I saw the television movie version in its entirety, so I wasn't motivated to read it...at least yet.  A little while back I did get around to reading The Sun Dog, which depends on the obsolete Polaroid camera process for it to have its full intended effect on the reader.  Which leaves Secret Window, Secret Garden, a story that I had put off for a long time because I had seen a short section of the film version starring Johnny Depp.  As it turns out, nothing was given away during that brief viewing, so when I read it for the first time last week the story was fresh, including the ending...although at a certain point I suspected what was "really" going on...after all, King had already written a variation on this same theme in an earlier novel...and no, I'm not telling you its name because that would give away the story...

Mort Rainey is a novelist with writer's block as he struggles to cope with his traumatic recent divorce.  He is staying alone at his (and ex-wife Amy's) vacation home in the woods...once again way out in rural Maine, near a small town once again a product of Stephen King's imagination.  A rustic man from Mississippi, identifying himself as John Shooter, knocks on his door one day and claims that Rainey stole his story, which he had titled Secret Window, Secret Garden and Mort as Sowing Season.  Mort denies this and offers proof...but the original Ellery Queen Mystery magazine in which it appeared many years earlier will take time to get there.  In the meantime, Shooter ratchets up the pressure...and, increasingly, the terror as he threatens and acts...

As sadly is the case with too many film adaptations to Stephen King's stories, the movie Secret Window, Secret Garden has an entirely different ending to it...why do they do that, whether you're talking about The Mist, The Shining, Pet Sematary, or others when the book's ending was so good and integral to the story?  And for some reason, the movie reverses the titles of Rainey's and Shooter's stories.  All this notwithstanding, I enjoyed Secret Window, Secret Garden...although in the final analysis it was a pretty gloomy tale...

My Music Listening Drastically Switches to Classical

Although the late Polish classical music composer Henryk Górecki usually doesn't make anyone's list for the greatest composers of all time, it comes down to the fact that it was he who sparked an epic change in my musical preferences over the past few weeks.  Although I liked to listen casually to classical music on my drives to and from work, when my local classical radio station on 102.7 played the second movement of Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs I realized that I had been letting musical treasures slip by me unnoticed.  Coupled with the doleful shape of things in the alternative rock genre of late, I drastically switched my listening to classical music.  A few weeks ago I listed my top thirty favorite classical music pieces...since then the list would need a bit of revision as I keep hearing more and more incredible music.  But although I can listen to this music easily on the radio, I've found myself wanting to hear the most highly regarded pieces from the most beloved and respected composers.  To this end I found a website that lists forty of these giants of musical history, along with ten of each one's greatest works.  Here is a link to that site: [link]...

So now I'm intentionally setting out to explore some of the greatest music of all time instead of just passively taking in whatever the radio programmers decide to play.  Yesterday I listened to Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a stunning orchestral work intended as a ballet.  Yes, I can see how some may have gotten a little riled up at its premier performance in 1913...it was like nothing ever done before...or since, for that matter.  And right now I'm listening to Béla Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra...who knows where this will all lead...

Just Finished Reading Dennis Lehane's Live By Night

When I checked out Dennis Lehane's 2012 gangster novel Live By Night from my library, I foolishly didn't first see whether it was in the middle of a series...well, turns out it's the second book in his Coughlin crime series.  Fortunately, though, this story was very well-contained and I feel that I didn't miss too much by skipping book #1, which is titled The Given Day...

The setting for Live By Night changes from Boston to Tampa to Cuba, during the Prohibition-era '20s and '30s and then the first few years following its repeal.  The protagonist is Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a Boston police captain who from early on has chosen the life of organized crime, much to his father's dismay.  Joe finds himself caught in the middle of a war between booze-smuggling crime families while at the same time he has fallen for the mistress of his chief enemy.  In a heist, someone double-crosses him, he is arrested, and sent to prison...where he comes under the influence of Maso Pescatore, a powerful crime boss.  Joe eventually gets released and Pescatore employs him as the head of his Tampa operations.  But maybe I've already said too much...after all, part of the enjoyment of reading a book of this type is all of its plot twists and turns: you never know what will happen next when you turn the page...

Joe Coughlin could best be described as a gangster with a conscience, which is a concept I find difficult to accept.  Yet somehow Lehane makes him a sympathetic character all the way through the story, believable or not.  I honestly didn't enjoy Live By Night all that much, but it did give me a better sense about what all was going on during the brief Prohibition period in our country's history.  After finishing it, I discovered that it was adapted to film last year, the movie starring Ben Affleck.  The third book in this series has been out for a couple of years...

Dennis Lehane also wrote Mystic River and Shutter Island, two more stories with movie counterparts.  Maybe I'll try one or both of these sometime in the near future...

Quote of the Week...from Neil deGrasseTyson

No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.                                                                ---Neil deGrasse Tyson.

I wonder how different my life might have turned out if, from the first days of elementary school through the end of high school, at least one teacher had shown the patience, attention, and respect toward me, an individual student, that their profession calls from them and about which their union likes to boast on television ads.  Eventually, I did begin to encounter good teachers, but only after I had entered college...my freshman year chemistry teacher exemplified the above quote from renowned astrophysicist and popularizer of science Neil deGrasse Tyson, a man who I'm sure would be an excellent teacher, regardless of the grade level.  Mr. Hill was slow, methodical, and careful, taking great pains to try to elicit questions from the students in his classes...his mantra was that the only dumb question is the one not asked.  But Neil's quote has a much broader application than a formal education setting: being curious and seeking answers flies in the face of the tendency of our popular culture...

No one wants to be seen as an ignoramus...after all, that would be a sign of "weakness" and if there is one overriding theme to how people are expected to behave, it is that they must show to others that they are strong.  Just look at all the sit-coms on television, where the "dummy" character is the one who asks questions...and by this supposedly reveals his or her utter stupidity to the roar of the laugh track.  And as far as curiosity about the world around us being an obstacle to relationships, there are those people out there who amazingly have no concept as to what being curious means...they tend to define everything up front in uncompromising black & white, good & bad terms and if anything, regard folks regularly showing general interest and curiosity in what's going on around them as being wasteful and selfish...after all, they could be doing something more "useful" instead...

I am currently reading Neil deGrasse Tyson's latest book, titled Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.  It doesn't contain complicated mathematical equations, and it neither babies the reader by overgeneralizing the concepts expressed within it nor does it unduly tax one's mind.  For the generally curious soul, I recommend this book...but if you think you've already got everything figured out, why bother learning anything new?

Hurricane Irma Cancelled Last Sunday's Church Service

Last Sunday's services at The Family Church here in Gainesville, Florida were cancelled due to Hurricane Irma, and thus I have no sermon here to summarize as I have been regularly doing on Thursdays for nearly a year.  I'm looking forward to this coming Sunday's message, but in the meantime permit me to ramble on a bit...

These Thursday blog articles are qualitatively different from the others that I write in that I am not, for the most part, writing my own original thoughts, but rather...with varying degrees of success...those from whomever is behind the pulpit from week to week.  Now to be sure, each sermon has its own structure, and part of the experience of receiving it is to reflect on the message and determine its application to my own life and how I should respond.  The way I see it, these personal reflections are just that: personal, and each of us is going to receive the message in the special way that God intends for us...

This coming Sunday should see things at the church resume as usual.  The Family Church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11.  There is the weekly message, praise music, prayer and discipleship opportunities, very friendly people...and some good complimentary coffee.  Looking forward to being there again...

Weekly Short Story: The Malted Milk Monster by William Tenn

The Malted Milk Monster is a short story written by William Tenn and which appeared in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 21 (1959), published by DAW Books in 1990.  Although listed as science fiction, it really belongs to Stephen King's brand of horror fiction...I could easily see this tale being in one of his short story collections.  The author's real name was Philip Klass and he wrote quite of lot of science fiction before he "retired" from the craft into a cushy English professor job at Penn State University.  This particular story of his is one of my favorites and delves into the mind of a typically irrational and emotion-driven child...but one with a frightening secret power...

Dorothy, an unpopular little girl, has a very vivid and all-encompassing imaginary fantasy world in which she spends a great amount of her time.  She also has a crush on Carter Broun, a young man who is her teacher's husband.  After sitting in a soda shop watching, with his wife, the girl in the corner going through malted milkshake after malted milkshake, he wonders what's in her mind as the two walk on back home.  The next thing he knows, he is in a strange world...deep in Dorothy's mind and trapped.  Whatever happened to Carter's body, he doesn't know...all he does know is that his consciousness, along with others whom she ensnared into her mind, cannot escape.  Or can he?  Carter embarks on a strategy...but what it is and how well it works is something that you, the prospective reader of this remarkable tale, will need to discover for yourself...

Like many good stories, The Malted Milk Monster carries analogies for our real world.  There are people like Dorothy, not necessarily endowed with supernatural powers, but with an unhealthy combination of narcissism and the desire to dominate others...and they aren't just children.  A lot of us have tendencies to be narcissistic or domineering...but together within one person, this can be extremely toxic...

Tuesday's List: My Favorite Monkees Songs

The Monkees, an American pop/rock band manufactured for a television series designed to capitalize on the blockbuster 1965 Beatles film Help!, unwittingly outstripped that TV show in popularity with their music.  Don Kirschner, who was in charge of the recording process, employed songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to pen their songs while professional musicians came in to provide the instrumentation.  Two of the Monkees...Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones...were just professional actors, but the other two...Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork...were musicians in their own right.  It was Nesmith who began to demand that the Monkees themselves provide the music and not just the vocals, causing controversy as well as Kirschner angrily leaving his job after only the second album.  As it turned out, their music continued to be good and they produced a phenomenal SIX studio albums in a little more than two years, two of them after the television series was cancelled in early 1968 after just two seasons and 107 episodes...

The Monkees were wildly popular, outselling the Beatles during their "glory" days in 1967.  But the Fab Four weren't upset: they supported the Monkees and praised them, wondering how they could combine their arduous acting routine for the series with recording, promotional appearances...and even concert tours.  And I wonder, too...could it be that all those highbrows who put down this very likeable group were wrong and there was a lot more to the Monkees than suspected?  All I know is that, in the winter, spring, and summer of 1967 I was a diehard fan, watching their show, listening to their music, and even collecting their bubblegum cards (let me insert here that I was ten years old)...

At the end of 1968, the movie Head came out, which was a very cynical look at the Monkees...I didn't like it at all.  But the soundtrack album...that's an entirely different matter, with it being their crowning achievement (Tork and Nesmith were fantastic).  Following Head, Peter Tork left the group, they made two more albums, and then Michael Nesmith left.  They disbanded in 1970, but every decade or so since they've reunited, made a new album, and toured.  But I'm not at all a fan of their later works, and I'm sad that Davy Jones passed away five years ago... 

Below is a list of my thirty favorite Monkees songs...you really should check them out...

1 PLEASANT VALLEY SUNDAY.....Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
2 SOMETIME IN THE MORNING.....More of the Monkees (1967)
3 CIRCLE SKY....................................Head (1968)
4 DAYDREAM BELIEVER................The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
5 THE PORPOISE SONG....................Head (1968)
6 CAN YOU DIG IT.............................Head (1968)
7 LOOK OUT (HERE COMES TOMORROW)....More of the Monkees (1967)
8 SATURDAY'S CHILD.......................The Monkees (1966)
9 TAKE A GIANT STEP.......................The Monkees (1966)
10 A LITTLE BIT ME, A LITTLE BIT YOU......Single (1967)
11 YOU JUST MIGHT BE THE ONE.....Headquarters (1967)
12 THE GIRL THAT I KNEW SOMEWHERE....B-Side of #10 Single (1967)
13 WRITING WRONGS........................The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
14 THE DOOR INTO SUMMER...........Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
15 FOR PETE'S SAKE...........................Headquarters (1967)
16 I'M  A BELIEVER..............................More of the Monkees (1967)
17 DADDY'S SONG..............................Head (1968)
18 SHADES OF GRAY..........................Headquarters (1967)
19 VALLERI...........................................The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
20 SHE....................................................More of the Monkees (1967).
21 LAST TRAIN TO CLARKSVILLE.......The Monkees (1966)
22 (I'M NOT YOUR) STEPPIN' STONE.....More of the Monkees (1967)
23 MONKEE'S THEME...........................The Monkees (1966)
24 WORDS..............................................Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
25 LOVE IS ONLY SLEEPING..............Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones (1967)
26 AUNTIE'S MUNICIPAL COURT......The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
27 I WON'T BE THE SAME WITHOUT HER......Instant Replay (1969)
28 EARLY MORNING BLUES AND GREENS.....Headquarters (1967)
29 I'LL BE BACK UPON MY FEET.......The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (1968)
30 GONNA BUY ME A DOG.................The Monkees (1966)

Just Got Power Restored After Hurricane Irma

By yesterday, my family and I were prepared for Hurricane Irma as it approached from the south, and then it was just a matter of staying put at home and "hunkering down", as we brave Floridians like to put it.  And everything was fine throughout the day and evening: we spent much of it watching The Weather Channel and amusing ourselves over the meteorologists out "in the field" in places like Naples, Fort Myers and Tampa.  The Naples dude was standing out there in the middle of it all, enduring this ferocious storm's eyewall no less, and then suddenly in the background you could see a car start up and drive on by!  Jim Cantore was further up the road in Fort Myers: right as the "dirty" eye of Irma reached his position, once again there was activity in the background: folks chatting it up and walking their dogs like it was any other ordinary day...don't these people know what "hunker down" means?  In any event, Hurricane Irma defied predictions and remained inland long enough to weaken...and then slightly veered west from its northward path, passing us here in Gainesville to the west.  At this writing...around 2:30 pm...its center is on the Fla-Ga state line and it has only maximum sustained winds of 60 mph...

Irma was another of those hurricanes whose impact was strongly felt quite a distance from its eye.  Miami, Orlando, and Jacksonville all suffered flooding and damage from strong storm bands, and in Gainesville the worst effects seemed to come just after midnight.  We lost electricity at 1:03 am as strong gusts hit us and the surrounding area...we finally got our power back more than 12 hours later at 1:20 pm.  Our home was spared damage, but one of the metal posts in our chain link fence broke.  And there were plenty of tree limbs lying around...

There is nothing quite like the feeling you get after losing electricity for 12 hours and then it suddenly comes back on.  There's no doubt about it: some of us, myself included, are strongly conditioned by modern civilization with all of its technological benefits.  Break the circuit and we're suddenly back in survival mode...

Just Finished Rereading Insomnia by Stephen King

As I'm sitting here at home waiting for Hurricane Irma to make its unwelcome presence fully felt in northern Florida and relishing that so far we still have our electric power, I decided to write about something different: the 1994 Stephen King novel Insomnia, which is one of my favorites of his and which I just finished rereading...

As in the extremely scary novel It, Insomnia takes place of the setting of one of King's most sinister imaginary Maine towns: Derry.  It (Insomnia, not It) is about the life of a 70-year old man, Ralph Roberts, who has just lost his beloved, long-time wife from cancer and is just beginning to come out of his mourning, only to discover that, night-by-night, he finds himself waking up a few minutes earlier in the morning until, eventually, all of his sleep disappears.  Ralph is a likable man with his share of good friends like Bill McGovern, Ed Deepneau, Lois Chasse, and numerous fellow senior citizens.  But one day he discovers that Ed has inexplicably undergone a tumultuous personality change and is now a violent, vengeful soul who beats his wife and is on a campaign against local women's advocate groups and their leaders.  There is an underlying reason for his transformation, but maybe I'd better let you discover it for yourself...after all, Insomnia is full of mysteries that gradually reveal themselves over the course of the narrative.   Instead, I'll just discuss a couple of impressions I got from it...

Stephen King showed in Insomnia that he truly has a heart for the elderly and depicted people in this stage of life as complete and complex, full of their own vitality and struggling not only against sickness, increasing feebleness, and eventually death, but also against that element within society that would prefer to institutionalize them whether they wanted it or not.  To me, Ralph Roberts is the quintessential senior superhero, as worthy of his own cape and insignia as Superman or Batman.  And if you read on in the story, my analogy between him and characters endowed with superhuman powers isn't really off at all...

The other thing I got from this tale was the notion that each and every one of us, because of our physical nature in time and space, are incapable of sensing that there is much, much more to the reality that surrounds us that we cannot sense or understand.  Stephen King integrated this "hyper-reality", as he dubbed it, with other stories in his fictional universe and yes, there are references to characters in other novels...notably It, Pet Sematary, and that "dark" series that he used to tie everything together...

So I'm still all on board with Insomnia as being one of Stephen King's best novels; in addition to the horrors and scariness typifying his works, there is also a profound sweetness of spirit here...read it and see if you don't agree with this seeming paradox... 

Hurricane Irma Poised to Strike Florida

Tomorrow and Monday are set as the main impact days for Florida as major hurricane Irma now begins to move away from the Cuban coast and head through the Florida Straits.  Over the last couple of days, the computer projections have shifted Irma's trajectory from the eastern part of the state to its western side...and now the Gulf coast from the Keys on northward is in peril of bearing the brunt of this dangerous storm.  Although the maximum sustained winds, once at 185 mph, have been recently reduced to 125 mph after its interaction with land on Cuba, Irma is expected to reintensify as it approaches Florida.  Gainesville will in all likelihood suffer hurricane-force winds when the worst part of it passes us Monday morning...that is, if Irma goes where the computers think it will. But tropical storm force winds will be already affecting us here for much of Sunday.  My hope is that it will travel quickly through and be gone as soon as possible.  Doubtless there will be widespread property damage and some loss of electricity and water...as well as localized flooding...

Right behind Irma and following close to its path is Hurricane Jose, now a strong Category 4 storm, which is now passing slightly to the north of the same Leeward Islands that Irma just devastated.  But one monster hurricane at a time, please...

Quote of the Week...from Carl Hiaasen

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.                                                                   ---Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen is a journalist and novelist, having spent most of his life in south Florida...and is thoroughly well-versed concerning hurricanes and the media's coverage of them.  I've read that he still writes a regular column for the Miami Herald...I wonder what's he's been saying of late about the media's coverage of Hurricane Irma...

The other day Florida's governor, Rick Scott, declared a statewide emergency after it became clear that very dangerous Hurricane Irma would in all likelihood strike Florida head-on and affect the entire state.  When I discovered this I turned the channel to the Weather Channel for the latest information, only to discover that they were airing an hour-long prerecorded show about tornadoes.  So let me get this straight: a terrible hurricane (that is "weather", right?) is intensifying to unheard of levels for one coming in from across the Atlantic, and it is about to strike populated areas in the West Indies and Puerto Rico before severely affecting the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba...and eventually the heavily-populated Miami area of Florida...and the Weather Channel is floating around in la-la land.  Okay, I got it...and switched to a mainstream cable news channel to get my update on Irma.  Eventually, the Weather Channel got the message and now seems to be seriously covering Irma...but the weekend draws near and I wonder whether they'll go back to their unwelcome and untimely prerecorded programs...

As for Mr. Hiaasen's quote, I've noticed how eagerly different "weather" reporters go out on their assignments, especially on the beach, and pretend to be roughing it up for the sake of us viewers.  In almost every case, there is at least one instance of such a reporter acting as if he or she is in some kind of dire peril just standing there...and then behind them you see people carrying on as usual, like a mother pushing her baby in a stroller or a couple of kids playing Frisbee.  Last year when Hurricane Matthew threatened the Florida east coast it was almost comical turning on the TV seeing different reports strategically stationed up and down the coast, putting on the "struggling against the elements" act.  But this can get to be foolhardy as well: I've seen one such on-the-scene reporter standing out in the midst of an ongoing tropical storm get blown off her feet one time while flying debris hit a correspondent in another incident.  So I'd like to add a second rule to Carl Hiaasen's first rule of hurricane coverage: string out reporters on various beaches and show them wallowing around in the turmoil, real or imagined...oh yeah, and when it's the Weather Channel, expect to be continually reminded that the folks out there are all official meteorologists...

9/3 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 5

Last Sunday my church's missions coordinator Jeff Moody delivered the fifth installment in the ongoing series No One is an Island, titled Who Will Rise Up?  Jeff used a variety of passages from the New Testament as Biblical source material and broke his message down to four aspects of the church...and by "church" he means the collective body of believers and followers of Christ...

The church is thriving, struggling, expanding, and not yet complete. Jeff encouraged us to take each section and think of specific examples pertaining to them...and then ask ourselves how we are contributing to that particular state, for better or for worse.  In this respect, this sermon was more of an open-ended one...

For the thriving church, Jeff cited 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10: work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, endurance inspired by hope in Jesus Christ...

For the struggling church: 1 Corinthians 3:1-3: jealousy and quarreling reveals worldliness and spiritual immaturity...

For the expanding church: Acts 6:7, 9:31, 13:2-3: the Holy Spirit encouraged growth of the early church...

And for the church not yet complete: Matthew 24:14, Revelation 7:9-12: first the gospel of the kingdom of God is to be witnessed to all nations, then "shall the end come"...

You can go to Bible Gateway and look up these passages through their search engine...here's a link to this site: [link].  Jeff's message can be accessed through The Family Church's YouTube video website, available through this link: [link].  The Family Church, located at 2022 SW 122nd Street in far western Gainesville, holds its Sunday morning services at 9:30 and 11...

Weekly Short Story...Seven Types of Ambiguity by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was an acclaimed novelist and short story writer of the mid-twentieth century, probably best known for The Lottery, a short story about a small American town with a sinister ritual.  I happened to pick up a collection of some her short fiction, appropriately titled The Lottery and Other Stories.  One tale that stuck with me over the years wasn't at all scary in the way many of Jackson's stories were: Seven Types of Ambiguity, from 1948...

Maybe you've heard of the literary poetic criticism book Seven Types of Ambiguity, written by William Empson and published back in 1930.  It's not the content of this book that figures into Shirley Jackson's short eight-page story, but one of its fans, a young college student scrimping and saving his way through school and life, and who happens upon this work in an old bookstore.  It's a rare book and costs more than he can afford, so instead he stops by and reads a little of it at a time.  The bookseller allows this, but warns him that someone else could buy it at any time.  One day a man, accompanied by his wife, enters the store in search of "good" books...like some Dickens or Jane Eyre, for example.  He isn't given to reading and values the appearance of books decorating his home more than their content.   The college student eagerly helps him to find several books to buy in the store, and they discuss the book the boy is reading but can't buy.  It's all a pleasant scene, with folks from different backgrounds and perspectives interacting with each another in a constructive, positive way.  And then there is that surprise ending that changes everything...

I've said it before: the shorter the short story the greater impact is the ending, which is often completely unexpected and turns everything on its head: Seven Types of Ambiguity is no exception.  There are three major players here: the young financially-strapped college student, the older self-made man who wants to give the appearance of being well-read, and the shop owner, whose primary concern is the financial bottom line for his business.  How these three interact shows how money and the arts, while in many ways interdependent, are ultimately incompatible...a seeming paradox.  And also, when a person gets into the mindset that they are of a higher social level than another, then the common rules of courtesy and mutual respect can break down.  But to know how this story revealed this to me, you'll have to read it yourself.  By the way, there is both a novel and a television series titled Seven Types of Ambiguity, each one totally unrelated to Shirley Jackson's story...

Tuesday's List: Florida's Governors and Senators in My Lifetime

I was born in 1956 and my family moved to Florida sometime in 1958...naturally, at the time I had no concept who "my" elected governor and senators were.  The first time I became aware of the Florida governor happened during the 1966 Democratic primary campaign, which was wide open between incumbent Haydon Burns, Scott Kelly, and Miami mayor Robert King High.  High defeated Burns in the runoff, but Burns wouldn't support High in the general election against Claude Kirk.  Although High was popular in South Florida with his "Integrity is the Issue" slogan, it didn't transfer statewide and he lost.  I remember the morning right after that election going to school at Nova Elementary and hearing some classmates with Republican parents whooping it up in victory...as if they had any idea what they were talking about.  With the U.S. Senate, my first memory was of Lawton Chiles' populist campaign against GOP candidate Bill Cramer...Lawton used the gimmick of walking across the state ("Walkin' Lawton") and captured the popular appeal.  Then, during the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973, the other Florida senator, Edward Gurney, was the only member of the panel who wholeheartedly defended Richard Nixon...

If you look at the governors list, you'll see two of them, Wayne Mixson and Buddy MacKay, who served very short stints.  Mixson took over from Bob Graham for the overlapping four days of the latter's conclusion of his governorship and the start of his newly-elected term in the U.S. Senate.  As for MacKay, although he lost the governor's race in 1998 to Jeb Bush, the sitting governor, Lawton Chiles, passed away that December and Mackay, then the lieutenant governor, succeeded him for the remaining weeks of his term...

With the senators lists, you'll notice the division into classes.  This is because only a third of the nation's Senate seats are up for election in any given even-numbered year and Florida has Classes 1 and 3: the Class 3 election, which Marco Rubio won, was held last year and Class 1, to which Bill Nelson belongs, stands up for election in 2018...

The following lists show the names in capitals, preceded by their years of service, and followed by party affiliation...

******GOVERNORS******

1955-61 LEROY COLLINS (D)
1961-65 C. FARRIS BRYANT (D)
1965-67 W. HAYDON BURNS (D)
1967-71 CLAUDE KIRK, JR. (R)
1971-79 REUBEN ASKEW (D)
1979-87 BOB GRAHAM (D)
1987      WAYNE MIXSON (D) [Jan. 3-6]
1987-91 BOB MARTINEZ (R)
1991-98 LAWTON CHILES (D)
1998-99 BUDDY MACKAY (D) [Dec. 12-Jan. 5]
1999-2007 JEB BUSH (R)
2007-11 CHARLIE CRIST (R)
2111-now RICK SCOTT (R)

******U.S. SENATORS*****

-----------CLASS 1-------------

1946-71 SPESSARD HOLLAND (D)
1971-89 LAWTON CHILES (D)
1989-2001 CONNIE MACK (R)
2001-now BILL NELSON (D)

-----------CLASS 3-------------

1951-69 GEORGE SMATHERS (D)
1969-74 EDWARD J. GURNEY (R)
1975-80 RICHARD STONE (D)
1981-87 PAULA HAWKINS (R)
1987-2005 BOB GRAHAM (D)
2005-09 MEL MARTINEZ (R)
2009-11 GEORGE LEMIEUX (R)
2011-now MARCO RUBIO (R)

Hurricane Irma Ominously Heads Toward Florida

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which inundated Houston and surrounding areas to an unprecedented degree, another monster storm has been brewing in the eastern Atlantic and is now approaching the West Indies.  Hurricane Irma, currently with 120 mph sustained winds, is now predicted to strike the Leeward Islands and then continue in a generally west-northwest direction as it strikes glancing blows at Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba.  These three major Caribbean islands, while probably being spared the wrath of this storm's most powerful winds...now predicted to reach as high as 145 mph...will still undoubtedly suffer great damage and, regrettably, casualties as it heads for a showdown with my home state of Florida.  The projected computer models as they now stand all seem to have Irma reaching the eastern Florida Straits between south Florida and Cuba sometime next Saturday...and then they diverge from each other.  Some models have it then turning abruptly northward just east of the Florida peninsular and some show it entering the Gulf of Mexico before coming at Florida from the west...but most of them seem to have Irma directly striking Florida with Monroe, Dade, and Broward Counties being the most in peril.  I live in Alachua County, in the northern part of the state, inland to the west of St. Augustine and northeast of Cedar Key.  We've been fortunate so far here in Gainesville with hurricanes over the years, but my fear is that one of the strong ones will enter the Gulf and hit Gainesville via Cedar Key: Irma ominously is showing the potential to do this.  But it's still early and I've seen these predictions of hurricanes and their projected paths stray far and wide from what eventually happens.  Still, it's best to be prepared for the worst...

Just Finished Rereading Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot

I first read Stephen King's second blockbuster novel 'Salem's Lot many years ago...later, when I was reading his Dark Tower fantasy series, one of the characters made a surprising appearance, rekindling my interest in this tribute to Bram Stoker's Dracula.  So yes, 'Salem's Lot is about vampires and, naturally, the setting is another one of those rural, peculiar Maine towns in King's fertile and sometimes rather dark imagination...

The setting is the autumn of 1975, which for Stephen King was also the publication of this book.  An established fiction novelist Ben Mears, who lived for a short spell during his childhood in the town of Jerusalem's Lot, moves back to collect research material and inspiration for a new book he is writing...as well as to confront a traumatic experience he had back then at the Marsten House, the town's haunted house that towers over everything else from the top of a hill.  Failing in his attempt to rent it out for himself, he discovers that a reclusive pair of men, Straker and Barlow, have recently purchased it...just what is their game in Jerusalem's Lot, people wonder.  Soon thereafter the two Glick boys are attacked while walking through a wooded shortcut to a friend's house...Ralphie is found murdered while Danny returns in an amnesiac daze, sickens, and dies of anemia.  The local police immediately suspect the newcomers Straker and Barlow...as well as Ben.  Meanwhile, Ben has befriended Susan Orton, with whom he establishes a romantic relationship.  As the town's population gradually disappears, a dread is growing that something evil has taken root.  Well, we know what that "root" problem is: vampires!  Other characters like the boy Mike Petrie, physician Jim Cody, English teacher Mark Burke, and Father Callahan join Ben in the mortal struggle against their adversaries...

In 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King established a pattern in his novels that he rarely deviated from: believable, ordinary people like you and me are put into a situation that not only places them and their loved ones in peril and makes them question their own moral strength and courage, but also strongly challenges their sense of what is real and what isn't.  And also as often is the case with his other works, the influence of an all-powerful and all-knowing...and jealous and vengeful...God is there...

Although I enjoyed the entirety of 'Salem's Lot, it really won me over by its ending: perfect!  There seemed to be room given for a sequel, although other than in the Dark Tower series, no further reference has been made to it.  There was a miniseries based on this novel a few years back, but seeing how generally skeptical I am about screen adaptations of Stephen King's stories, I've felt no desire to watch it.  But the book was very good...

2017 Football Season Commences

The 2017 college football season, which technically began with a few games last week, starts in earnest today with a full slate.  The Florida-Michigan and Florida State-Alabama games headline the action, and I'm rooting for both home-state teams...although they're solid underdogs.  The Gators have traditionally begun their season with one or two small college opponents, so facing the Wolverines, to which they lost badly in their bowl matchup a couple of years ago, is going to be an uphill battle.  But maybe, even if they lose, this challenging game will better tell coach Jim McElwain who will be their regular starting quarterback.  As for the other game, my wrath at Tide coach Nick Saban for having deserted the Miami Dolphins the way he did nearly eleven years ago is long gone, but is now replaced by my astonishment at how utterly arrogant and self-important this individual is.  Nothing against Alabama per se, but with Saban in charge I doubt I'll ever pull for them in a game...

I'm thinking of doing something different this year: following a conference on the other side of the country, such as the Mountain West or Pac-12.  The reason is simple: to be able to step back and more dispassionately enjoy watching the game without getting all worked up about how well (or poorly) "my" team is performing.  These two conferences almost always have weekly televised games and the teams have their own interesting rivalries...

The National Football League regular season begins this Thursday with Kansas City playing New England...the Dolphins will be at home three days later against Tampa Bay.  And Jacksonville, the team I'm probably "supposed to be" rooting for because of its proximity to Gainesville, will play Houston.   But my preferences are (1) Miami Dolphins, (2) Tampa Bay Buccaneers, (3) New York Giants, (4) Denver Broncos, (5) Seattle Seahawks...and then (6) Jacksonville Jaguars.  Understand, I'm not predicting how well these teams will do, but rather listing the ones I like the most.  And the ones I oppose the most?  That's easy...the Dolphins' divisional rivals New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, and New York Jets, in that order...

Quote of the Week...from Keith Ellison

Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.                    ---Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison is a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, a very articulate and discerning progressive who is one of my favorites in the House of Representatives.  Recently he failed in his attempt to be elected as the current Democratic National Committee chair and is serving now as deputy chair.  Ellison's quote addresses a problem I have with voters, particularly those in the Democratic Party's camp.  With presidential campaigns, getting angry because your candidate didn't win your party's nomination and sitting on your hands in November to protest your unhappiness is only going to contribute to the other party's victory...there's no point in afterwards wailing that the winner's  "not my president".  But I have a beef to make that goes beyond folks not voting as a protest (or voting for a third-party candidate instead) during presidential elections and also involves a kind of political surrender...

I know some who bemoan Donald Trump as president nearly every day I'm around them, and I tend to agree that there's a lot to criticize in this individual.  But the other day I observed a couple of such people, while viewing a news broadcast showing our Democratic senator Bill Nelson, say that they didn't even know who he was, much less his party affiliation. Yet Nelson has been one of Florida's two senators since 2001 and is nearing the end of his third six-year term, being up for reelection in 2018.  Besides standing up for Florida's interests by promoting the space program and opposing offshore drilling, his presence in the Senate has recently been crucial: his one "no" vote represented the difference between "Obamacare" surviving and being repealed in the last vote taken on the issue there...and in the near future he may well represent the difference between a Senate completely controlled by the Republicans and one in which the Democrats can exist as a viable opposition party.  Will my friends, though, even bother to show up at the polls in 2018 since, after all, it isn't about electing a president?  I doubt it: voter turnout in off-years (like 2010 and 2014) drops from presidential election years by about 20-25 %...and it seems that liberal voters taper off more than the conservatives, so it doesn't look good from the left side of the political aisle even if the president is generally unpopular.  In these cases, not voting isn't a protest...it's just plain foolish.  Too many of us seem to think that whoever gets elected president becomes the all-powerful supreme ruler, but national political power is spread among both the president and Congress...and even state legislatures, which draw up the districts for the House of Representatives.  It's time for voters to wise up and pay more attention to these offices as well...

Coretta Scott King once said, "If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children."  She's right: it is apathy among the American voting populace that is contributing to many of the wrong-headed political decisions being made by our current elected officials...

My August 2017 Running Report

In August I ran for a total of 84 miles, with my longest single run still a rather short one at 3.8 miles...well, at least that's up from July's max of 2.7.  I skipped running on  four days...probably should have taken off more.  Getting myself motivated to run during this extremely hot, humid, and rainy summer has been an almost insurmountable task...I'm just running on momentum and routine habit.  In order to increase my endurance, I've been riding an exercise bike on high resistance as well as occasionally using the elliptical cross-trainer machine at my local gym.  Both are excellence cardio exercises that are no-impact, saving wear and tear on my legs and feet...

In September I plan to do more of the same while gradually getting my weight down with more prudent eating.  I would like to experience some occasionally longer runs, but until the weather begins to cool down and get dryer, I doubt that will happen.  If a 5K race suddenly presents itself in the Gainesville area, I might run it just to keep a public aspect to my running...but so far none seem to be in store anytime soon...

8/27 Sermon: No One is an Island, Pt. 4

Continuing in the current message series No One is an Island, which stresses the importance of community within the church, senior pastor Philip Griffin of The Family Church here in Gainesville last Sunday again discussed the importance of service, the talk appropriately titled Why Serve? and focusing in scripture on Mark 10-33-45, available in the New International Version through Bible Gateway by the following link: [link].  In this passage, Jesus has revealed his impending death and resurrection...but two of his disciples, James and John, seem only interested in being elevated to the top of the disciples' pecking order.  Jesus gently rebukes them and states that whosoever among his followers seeks to be great must also be a servant...as he himself had come on Earth to be...

Pastor Philip gave four reasons to serve: it breaks the grip of pride, it gives meaning to one's life, it builds up the church family, and it makes one more like Christ.  With pride, service in itself is an attitude of humility and tempers the arrogance that too many of us are burdened with.  Pecking orders may work for chickens, but not members of the family of God.  By serving, life is more purposeful as one interconnects with others and God's love and grace spreads both within and outside the church.  It builds the church family: the mission statement of The Family Church is "We exist to help all people discover family in Christ by reaching those far from God and making disciples who build God's kingdom."  And, as Jesus pointed out to James and John, he who is the greatest deliberately and voluntarily took onto himself the role of servant.  To be Christ-like is to serve...

The Family Church weekly messages can be seen on YouTube...here's a link to this sermon: [link].  This fellowship meets each Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11.  The church is located at 2022 SW 122nd Street and the services feature the weekly sermon, praise music, prayer, and opportunities for fellowship...