Veep nod eludes math-phobe, onion hater...

Written by By Jim Heffernan for the Duluth NewsTribune/ September 14, 2024

As many loyal readers might have surmised, I got passed over for vice president again this election. Maybe it’s just as well, what with my spotty record as, well, as a human being, I guess.

 

For the past month I’ve been fascinated by the detailed opposition research into the life of our governor, Tim Walz, since he was named as the Democratic candidate for vice president in the upcoming election. I shudder to think what they’d find out about me were I running.

 

Of course I’ve been passed over before, in too many elections to count — not enough fingers. That’s one reason I couldn’t be selected for such a high office: I still count on my fingers. It’s a habit I got into as they tried to drive arithmetic into my brain in elementary school and I never broke the habit. Math has never been my strong suit.

 

But when I see all that they’re dredging up about Governor Walz, I breathe a heavy sigh of relief that I wasn’t chosen. They’d have dug up my old report cards and seen that I always got bad marks in math and tended to be a daydreamer, staring out the classroom window. What a disgrace.

 

There’s other stuff that they’d find out about me too. As a youngster I never liked onions. How could an onion hater ever be elected to high office, or even low office? America’s onion lovers, clearly a large majority, would never vote for me. I’m not sure where Walz is on the onion issue, but I’m betting we’ll hear before the election.

 

I graduated from high school and college but didn’t get the best grades, I admit. The opposition would find out about that. But to my credit, I once got a “B” in college Speech 101 (to B or not to B? That was the question). This would have been in my favor in politics where you have to give a lot of speeches. Actually, variations on the same speech over and over.

 

Years later I was asked to give a commencement speech at my alma mater, and I responded to the invitation by asking if they’d seen my transcripts (grade records). But I did it anyway. I titled my speech “The Skin of Our Teeth,” a sly reference to all the grads who’d made it through like me.

 

Like our governor, I joined the National Guard after completing my education but not out of patriotic fervor. Males of my generation were subject to be drafted into the United States Army at age 18, or when you completed your education. It was called your military obligation. So, I joined the guards after college to avoid spending two years on active duty, just six months.

 

I was not a good soldier. Ouch! Let me put it this way: I was not a bad soldier either. I just did what they told us to do, shined my boots and stayed out of the way. Political opponents looking into my military record would surely find out about the time I was cheating with one knee on the ground doing multiple punishment pushups and got kicked in the hind end by a drill sergeant whose name was Sergeant Poisson. This was in basic training, also known as “boot camp.” I’ll say.

 

As an aside, I might as well point out that our other drill sergeants’ names were Savage and Drear. Savage, Poisson and Drear — this does not bode well for your first months fulfilling your military obligation. But I made it through and served in the National Guard for six years, achieving the rank of Specialist 4, a low rank about the same as corporal, the same rank as Napoleon (“Little Corporal”) Bonaparte in France. My crowning achievement was that I was a fast, accurate typist. The Army loves typists with shiny boots. Napoleon’s crowning achievement was that he became emperor.

 

Onward. After I left active duty while still serving on the home front, I found myself back home and jobless. My father suggested that I try journalism because I wrote what he thought were good letters home from the Army. The top editor of this newspaper at the time decided to give me a try, and I hung around for 42 years.

 

As a result, I have known enough politicians to realize that a background in journalism would not recommend one for high office like vice president. True politicians generally dislike journalists and are wary of them. True journalists are suspicious of politicians and are wary of them. This does not mix well.

 

I met a lot of politicians extant during my active journalism career including two vice presidents, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale. I also covered a local appearance by another candidate for vice president, William Miller.

 

William Miller? Who, in heaven’s name….? I think it’s safe to say that I am the only person still alive who remembers him. He was Republican presidential pick Barry Goldwater’s running mate in 1964 and was taken seriously while campaigning in Duluth, dashing around the UMD campus with a full entourage of aides and press. Find out for yourself who Barry Goldwater was.

 

The way things turned out; I don’t think either one of them liked onions.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org. 

Facts of life more than the birds and bees...

 Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/8-3-24

 There comes a time in every family when certain things should be discussed with children who are showing signs of leaving childhood and entering adolescence.

 

These are highly sensitive times for parents, uncomfortable times for both parents and their kids, but every responsible parent must take on the job of making sure their offspring understand some of what used to be called certain “facts of life,” some of which change through the generations.

 

I’m way beyond those years as a parent, of course, but as I move through the world, I encounter so many things that should be discussed with today’s young people that I sense are not being talked about, who knows why?

 

So let’s outline a few here, hoping that today’s parents of not-so-young kids might appreciate the insights I have to offer as a registered geezer who has seen just about everything but heard less and less, although a hearing aid helps.

 

We’ll start with luggage. Yes, luggage. Were I talking to a young person today I would come right out and tell them: “Daughter (or son) there was a time when suitcases didn’t have wheels or pull-up handles to ease one’s way through airports or other places.”

 

How did people travel? (I knew that question would come up,)

 

They CARRIED their luggage, clinging to small handles affixed to the top of suitcases. Petite women, elderly people, everyone. If they were traveling anywhere and had a suitcase, they either carried it themselves or found someone else to help them.

 

I know it’s hard to imagine that such conditions once existed, but, trust me, they did. I once carried a big suitcase through huge Kennedy Airport in New York and survived, but just barely, And I was only about 30 years old.

 

I know a couple of generations — maybe more — have journeyed through life in America (also Europe and Asia but not Antarctica) without ever being told luggage once had no wheels. Well here it is.

 

Let’s move on to another aspect of the past that today’s youth has no recollection or understanding of: The Bell telephone and telephoning.

 

Brace yourself, kids. All telephones had wires sticking out of them connected to whatever building the user was in, most commonly the home. Most telephones consisted of two parts, the “receiver” and the part you held to your ear. A wire connected them, too. (All outdoor utility poles were once called “telephone poles” inspiring the accusation, “Liar, liar, pants on fire, nose as long as a telephone wire,” a reference to Pinocchio, until recently considered the greatest liar in history.) 

 

All you could do was talk on phones in those days. To call out of town, you had to connect with a long-distance operator and ask for help. Phones

couldn’t take and store snapshots or movies or show the faces of the person on the other end. Which brings us to cameras.

 

Incredibly, at one time in history, to take photographs you had to have a separate (from the telephone) instrument, a small portable device with a lens and viewfinder called a camera. Inside the camera you had to insert something called “film” which recorded the images you photographed. When the film ran out, it had to be taken to a processor to be what they called “developed” and printed on special paper. This cost money too.

 

I know this information is old hat to many readers who have been around awhile, but there are millions of younger Americans who are not aware of this history, or, if they are, never experienced it. Like when all nurses were women and they all wore white uniforms consisting of a starched dress and small white cap. Many wore a blue cape over their nursing uniform when outside the medical facility — capes of good hope.

 

Finally, of course, when enlightening young people, there’s the matter of what used to be known as the birds and the bees. That’s simple. Just tell them: “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.” 

 

Nature will take over from there. But be careful: Birds can leave a mess and bees sting.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.