$$$ The Selling of America $$$

Point #1 (The Conflict):

Trump owns stock KO Group Holdings the parent company of the UFC the company holding the UFC Freedom 250 at the White House.

Point #2 (The Secrecy):

None of the contract appears to have been publicly released as of now.

Point #3 (The Cost):

Special guests could pay $1.5m for UFC White House access.

Point#4 (The Merchandise):

A special commemorative gold or silver coin with Trump on the front and the White House on the back

Point#5 (The Gift Shop):

These and other items will be on sale at the White House gift store.

Point#6 (The Profits)

???? Where is the money going? We don't know—it is being kept a secret.

---

This situation is not sitting well with either side of Congress. Even some Republicans have privately

expressed frustration that "the People's House" is being treated like a commercial venue.

UFC and Donald Trump Selling Freedom 250 Merchandise At High Prices

Yahoo Sports

Andrew Ravens

June 8, 2026

The UFC and The Trump Organization have collaborated on a set of commemorative coins to mark UFC Freedom 250 on June 14 at the White House in Washington. The coins go on sale June 9, with a waitlist available for interested buyers ahead of that date.

There are four coins in the collection, split between two silver and two gold options. One side of each coin features “250” while the other displays Donald Trump, who is said to have designed them personally. The price range is considerable, starting at $249.99 and climbing to $11,999.99 for the top-tier option — the 1 OZ PF70 Trump Coins X UFC Gold Medallion.

[...]

The release arrives as the White House event continues to attract attention beyond the fights themselves. The card is currently facing a lawsuit seeking to shut it down, and fighter Bryce Mitchell has publicly criticized the event on the grounds that hosting sporting events is not something the government should be involved in. The commemorative coin collaboration is likely to generate its own share of mixed reactions given those circumstances.

This is not The Trump Organization’s first foray into branded merchandise, nor its first set of coins. The organization, run by Donald Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric, has previously released a wide range of products under the Trump name, including high-end shoes, watches, and mobile phones.

Talk about the selling of America!

Trump gold coin draws scrutiny from judge in Portland hearing

Oregon Live

By Maxine Bernstein

Jun. 03, 2026

A judge on Wednesday repeatedly pressed a government lawyer to explain the purpose of a law that bars the images of living people on U.S. currency during a hearing over a planned 24-karat gold coin bearing President Donald Trump’s likeness.

The case before U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut stems from a lawsuit filed by a retired Portland lawyer challenging the coin’s production to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Immergut interrupted U.S. Justice Department lawyer Kathryn Barragan at least six times, asking the same question as Barragan instead ticked off the history of an 1866 amendment that became law after the first chief of the the Bureau of Engraving & Printing put his own portrait on a 5-cent paper note.

“What’s the purpose. … I don’t want the long-winded version,” the judge interjected.

James Rickher, who filed the lawsuit and argued before Immergut, later answered the judge: “The prohibition is designed to avoid political self-promotion.”

From what I have gathered, it looks like a private mint will manufacture these coins, meaning they will not be legal tender. While it is hard to be completely certain because of the typical back-and-forth from the Trump administration, a private mint seems to be the current plan.

Meanwhile, the legality of the entire fight week is being heavily challenged in court.

Lawsuit Challenges Legality of Trump’s UFC Event at White House Next Week

The “UFC Freedom 250” event is slated to take place on June 14.

Truthout

By Chris Walker 

Published June 8, 2026

A lawsuit filed in federal court this past weekend seeks to block the White House from hosting an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) match on White House grounds next week, an event that would coincide with President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.

The event, “UFC Freedom 250,” is set to occur on June 14. Although it is happening on Trump’s birthday, it is being billed as part of the administration’s planned celebrations for the country’s 250th birthday — despite the match not being authorized or approved by Congress. In preparation for the planned bout, a massive structure called “The Claw” has been erected on the South Lawn of the White House, where the event will take place. The structure surpasses the height of the White House.

The Public Integrity Project filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Virginia residents: Susan Douglas, a civic activist and self-identified Democrat; and Paul Romano, a Vietnam War veteran who has previously run for public office as a Republican.

[...]

Public Integrity Project also notes that Trump, as well as UFC CEO Dana White, will likely personally financially benefit from the event.

“Trump purchased up to $50,000 in UFC parent company TKO stock earlier this spring, while White’s company is selling VIP packages for $1.5 million each, and benefiting from what one TKO executive called ‘the greatest earned-marketing tool of all time,'” the organization wrote.

In addition to the fight, a weigh-in for the bouts is set to happen at the Lincoln Memorial the night before. Public Integrity Project is seeking to block that from happening, too.

You see one of the main problems is that Lincoln Memorial hasn't been rented out for commercial reasons before. It is "free" but for $One Million, Five Hundred Thousands corporate high-rollers get front-row seating. And that, my dear reader, is where the situation gets very, very iffy when it comes to crossing ethical lines.

The $1.5 million "Partner Investment" package bundles together elite, gated access across all the weekend's historic venues:

• The Lincoln Memorial: Reserved premium placement for Friday's fighter face-offs.
• The Ellipse: VIP access to Saturday's ceremonial weigh-ins, the Fan Fest, and the Zac Brown Band concert.
• The White House South Lawn: Guaranteed entry into the highly restrictive, 4,300-seat temporary arena for Sunday's fights (where public tickets are completely unavailable).

The Public Integrity Project writes,

"The President arranged to hand two of America's most cherished monuments to a private corporation so he and his allies could profit from them. That is corruption," said Susan Douglas. "These monuments belong to all of us Americans, not to Dana White, not to advertisers like Crypto.com, and not to Donald Trump. We're asking the court to enforce the law because the administration refuses to."

[...]

The complaint identifies three grounds on which the administration's authorization of the event is unlawful and asks the court to order the event halted:

Violation of NPS regulations. The White House South Lawn and Lincoln Memorial are federal parklands administered by the National Park Service, where sports events are flatly prohibited under longstanding regulations. The only regulatory exception, the "America250 Rule," applies solely to events "planned, organized, and executed by executive departments and agencies or the Semiquincentennial Commission." The UFC, whose CEO Dana White is a close personal ally of President Trump, is itself planning, organizing, and executing the event. Reporting published June 4 confirms that neither entity competing for the role of official semiquincentennial commission has any organizational responsibility for UFC Freedom 250.

No congressional authorization for "the Claw." Under 40 U.S.C. § 8106, no structure may be erected on federal parklands in the District of Columbia without express congressional authorization. No such authorization exists for the UFC's 92-foot, 600-ton steel structure, which the UFC calls "the Claw," that has been under construction on the South Lawn since May 26.

Cost to taxpayers. Dana White has estimated that repairing the South Lawn alone will cost $700,000. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, major federal actions with significant environmental effects require a public environmental assessment or impact statement before proceeding. No such review has been conducted or made public. The lawsuit comes as the administration is simultaneously overseeing the illegal demolition of the White House East Wing, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for the damage to two of the nation's most iconic structures.

Romano and Douglas both live in Alexandria. Romano has run for office as a Republican; Douglas is a Democratic organizer. They are united by a shared conviction that Washington's national monuments belong to all Americans and may not be corruptly exploited for private commercial gain.

Back in July of last year, the UFC wrote that,

The official fight kit for UFC Freedom 250 has been released ahead of the fight card scheduled to happen on June 14.

According to the press release, the UFC Freedom 250 fight k
it, which was created in collaboration with popular sports brand Venum, is a “modern expression of the American fighting spirit, built for performance and designed for a moment of true historical significance.” 

The pieces, of course, featured a prominent red, white, and blue theme since it’s tied to celebrating the United States’ 250th birthday (as well as, at least by implication, Donald Trump’s birthday, which occurs on the day of the fight). The design also includes a White House logo that makes it more than performance wear, but also a way to commemorate history.

In addition to the White House logo, there’s an exclusive USA 250 patch and logo that’ll appear on the kit. The patch and logo were created in collaboration with Fanatics, the White House, and America250.

This entire operation is a direct slap in the face to the American public. As the plaintiffs brilliantly
argue, by bundling exclusive monument access into a million-dollar corporate marketing package, the UFC is effectively "renting out" and commercializing a sacred national landmark for private financial gain. This flagrantly violates long-standing federal park regulations and makes an absolute laughingstock out of the Constitution's Emoluments Clauses. 

 

Trump's deep lust for gold is dragging us right back to the corrupt excess of the Gilded Age and the era of the Robber Barons.

TDS

Did you see Trump's interview on Meet the Press?

Item #1:

Then we had Item #2:

Shoes for industry! Shoes for defense! Shoes for tomorrow! Shoes for advance! Yes, shoes for industry!*

Slate reported on Trump's obsession on buying and gifting $145 Florsheim dress shoes to his Cabinet members and close allies. 

“You guys have shitty shoes,” Trump allegedly told Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Oval Office last December, before retrieving a catalog and picking out four new pairs for each of them. The president’s footwear of choice is Florsheim, a 134-year-old brand he seems to have fallen in love with after searching for a more comfortable option for himself. In the world of men’s fashion, Florsheim is a widely available and decidedly midtier option; it typically retails for about $145. Trump, known for both gilded excess and cheapness, has apparently been paying for the shoes himself and gifting them to his (male) aides and allies. According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the haberdasher in chief’s podiatric largesse, recipients include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Communications Director Steven Cheung, and Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Seems to work out pretty well,” Trump told Fox in March about his habit of resoling the men in his orbit. “And now they look all spiffy and nice.”

Those fortunate enough to get a presidential rebrand appear anxious to show their appreciation. “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them,” one White House aide told the Journal. But to invert the old saw, the shoe doesn’t always fit. Earlier this year, Rubio was photographed on Capitol Hill wearing a new-looking pair of black Oxfords in which his feet were positively swimming.

They want to humor Trump by wearing his shoes. "Oh yes, my president, those are beautiful shoes... I love them!"

Item #3: 

But the erratic behavior doesn't stop at footwear. When it comes to actual policy His reply to the accusations regarding the $1.776 billion "Slush Fund." He tries to steer the questions away from the story by launching into a wandering soliloquy on other topics.

Item #4:

On the Iranian war... he wanders around with "The war is off!" "The war is on!"

But when President Biden misspoke, the media was all over him. With Trump, he gets a "pass" on all his ranting.

---

* Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. Firesign Theatre

Voter Intimidation!

Pure and simple... it is nothing more than an attempt at voter intimidation! Trump is threatening to send federal agents to voting places. You want to bet that if he does, it will be to minority districts that tend to vote Democrat?

Trump is threatening to send ICE to polling places. Officials like me won’t let him.

As Nevada’s secretary of state, I will not let this administration intimidate voters.

MS Now

By Cisco Aguilar

June 6, 2026

As the midterms approach, election officials across the country are preparing for a dangerous possibility: the deployment of immigration agents and other federal law enforcement officials to America’s polls.

Any stationing of federal law enforcement at polling sites is a heavy-handed attempt to intimidate voters. It runs counter to our founding principles, including that all of us are created equal, and that promise is fulfilled at the ballot box. When we cast our ballots, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you believe in or the amount of money  in your bank account. They all count the same — one person, one vote.

Trump is running scared, rigging voting districts by gerrymandering, and trying to make it hard to vote for low-income workers who work multiple jobs to make ends meet and can't take time off to vote.

The challenge we now face is anti-democratic forces running amok. President Trump and his anti-democracy allies seek to weaken our democracy to improve their chances of winning elections. They have repeatedly suggested deploying ICE agents to voting locations for that purpose — to sow discord and confusion. Whether or not these deployments occur, the mere suggestion is enough to create fear, chaos and doubt. This is particularly true in states like Nevada that were built by, and continue to grow because of, the contributions of immigrants.

Democracy only works when voters feel safe enough to participate. If voters are afraid to vote, many will stay home, and that is exactly what anti-democratic officials want. Rather than answer to the people, these extremists seek to pick and choose their voters.

He wants to scare voters away with the fear of violence!

Sending ICE to Polling Places Is Illegal

Armed federal agents have absolutely no business near election sites.

The Brennan Center for Justice

Jasleen Singh, Kendall Verhovek

March 31, 2026

Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Trump administration allies have floated the possibility that federal immigration agents could interfere at polling sites this fall, a scenario that would violate federal and state laws.

Longtime Trump supporter Steve Bannon said last week that the deployment of ICE agents to airports is “perfect training for the fall of 2026.” Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin said during his confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Homeland Security that ICE could be sent to polling places in the event of a “specific threat.”

The White House and a top DHS official previously said there are no plans to deploy ICE agents to polling sites. Those assurances, however, do little to ease concerns over voter intimidation and chilling voter turnout because of these persistent calls.

Part of the push to deploy ICE agents to polling sites stems from the administration’s insistence, without evidence, that noncitizens are voting in droves. Noncitizen voting is already illegal and vanishingly rare, and states have multiple checks in place that ensure only American citizens vote.

[...]

Can the president send ICE agents to polling places?

No. Elections are special. There are specific federal and state laws that make this kind of action unlawful.

Sending ICE or any other armed federal agents to the polls is illegal because federal law bans federal officers from interfering in elections. It’s also illegal because federal law bans troops and armed federal agents from being deployed anywhere an “election is held.” While that law was passed in 1865, surely in today’s elections, that means wherever votes are cast and counted, including, polling places, vote-counting facilities, and drop boxes. And any kind of voter intimidation, including by federal agents, is illegal under both federal and state law regardless of where it happens.

You know that Trump and company know this... this is established law. I would imagine that this is covered in law school. So, the only reason Trump is saying this is to keep voters away from the polls.

I Have A Lot Of Questions

My first question is"

• Can a company get jury duty?
• Can it get a passport?
• Can they be jailed?
• Then how can they vote? How can they show citizenship.
• If a company is in multiple countries can they vote in each country?
• Who votes for the company? Do they need a vote from the Board, or does just the ED vote?
• What about is they have faculties in serval towns, do they get to vote in each town?

Delaware court upholds voting by companies in small town's election

Reuters

By Tom Hals

May 26, 2026

• Summary
• Judge rules Fenwick Island's corporate voting does not dilute human votes
• ACLU of Delaware argued corporate voting violates state constitution, sought to block practice
• Judge found no evidence of discrimination or violation of 'free and equal' elections

A judge in Delaware, where many big U.S. companies are incorporated, ruled ‌on Tuesday that a small town that allows corporations to vote in municipal elections was not violating the state's constitution.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz said the beach town of Fenwick Island was not diluting human votes by allowing companies ​and other legal entities that own property to cast votes in municipal elections.

The American Civil Liberties Union ​of Delaware sued the town, arguing it violated the elections clause of the state ⁠constitution. The group sought a court order blocking Fenwick Island from counting votes by "non-human artificial entities" in future elections.

The ​group said entities make up about 12% of registered voters in the town.

A lawyer for the organization did ​not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The town's mayor, Natalie Magdeburger, did not immediately respond to a request for comment but told Reuters in March that the city believes "a property owner who pays taxes and is subject to our ordinances should ​have a say in who represents them on our Town Council."

Just another power grab by the billionaires!

Standing The Law On It's Head

You see the White Christian Nationalist think they are being discriminated against because they can't discriminant. Hun? Yeah they are saying that they are being discriminated against because they are white.

Trump’s justice department is weaponizing civil rights laws against students of color

Claims of discrimination at UCLA and Yale show how laws meant to foster inclusion are being used for the opposite

The Guardian

ReNika Moore

Fri 5 Jun 2026

The Department of Justice’s civil rights division was once known as the crown jewel of the agency, but under Trump it has become just another tool of this administration’s politicized and racialized attacks targeting Black, Latino and other people of color. The latest examples are the sham findings of discrimination the division issued against the medical schools of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Yale University for admitting high-achieving Black and Hispanic students. The administration is cynically wielding its anti-discrimination authority to tear down civil rights advances at the cost of equal educational opportunity.

In its findings, the justice department claimed the grades and test scores of Black and Hispanic admitted applicants were less competitive than those of white and Asian admits and said the schools intentionally discriminated against white and Asian applicants. But the justice department’s conclusions overstate the difference in scores between applicants and ignore other applicant data completely, including student transcripts, letters of recommendations and essays. The differences among GPAs and test scores – one standard deviation or less – were too small to be legally or statistically significant and may be explained by random factors unrelated to race. Comparatively, two standard deviations is the commonly accepted threshold that federal courts and social scientists consider statistically significant in racial discrimination cases.

Now this is on top of the Department of Defense reportedly blocked promotions to Black and women officers!

Hegseth blocks promotion of several Navy officers to 1-star rank

Hegseth has now intervened in both the Army and Navy’s most recent promotions.

ABC News

By Luis Martinez and Steve Beynon

June 2, 2026,

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blocked the promotions to one-star admirals of several senior Navy officers who had already been selected for promotion by a board of senior Navy admirals, three sources familiar with the move told ABC News. 

Secretaries of Defense have the authority to intervene in promotion lists for reasons of cause, but it is unusual to see Hegseth now having intervened in both the Army and Navy’s most recent promotions to the one-star rank.

The Navy officers removed from the Navy’s promotion list included African Americans, women, and white males who were removed for a variety of reasons, including their participation or involvement in military Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, sources said.

You know it sure does kind of like they government is racist. They keep tiptoeing right on the boarder of racism.

dDeb/dt

You engineers out there are probably thinking what rate are we measuring? It is the rate at which the national debt is increasing. So I asked Gimini...

 I asked  Gemini to look at national deficit through an engineering lens”

 If we look at this strictly through calculus and economic modeling—treating the national debt $D$ as a function of time $t$, and evaluating the first derivative, (dD/dt) (the instantaneous velocity of debt accumulation)—the data reveals specific trends.
Currently, $\frac{dD}{dt}$ is running at a baseline rate of +$2.6 trillion to +$2.99 trillion per year. Broken down into a daily rate, the government is currently adding roughly $7.2 billion to $8.1 billion per day to the total gross national debt. 
When comparing this current derivative to the peak values of $\frac{dD}{dt}$ under recent presidents, the trajectory shows the following:
1. The Maximum Peak of (dD/dt) (2020)
The absolute highest value for (dD/dt) in modern U.S. history occurred during the spring and summer of 2020 (Trump’s first term). When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the CARES Act was passed, the debt spiked by $3 trillion in roughly three months. During that specific window, the localized rate of change surged to an unprecedented annualized velocity of +$12 trillion per year.
The current rate of roughly $2.9 trillion per year does not match that localized peak acceleration.
2. High-Velocity Baselines (2021–2024)
During the Biden administration, the baseline velocity of(dD/dt) stabilized at a historically high level. Spurred by post-pandemic packages (like the American Rescue Plan) and structural deficits, the debt regularly grew by $2 trillion to $2.5 trillion per year.
The current velocity under the second Trump administration represents a slight acceleration of that trend line, nudging closer to $3 trillion annually. This increase is driven primarily by two forces adding velocity to the derivative:
    • The Revenue/Tariff Equation: New legislation, like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, altered tax codes and implemented new tariff structures, which shifted the baseline revenue projections. 
    • The Interest Component: Because the Federal Reserve kept interest rates elevated, the interest component of the deficit has compound velocity. The U.S. now pays over $1 trillion a year just in net interest, acting as an internal accelerator on (dD/dt) regardless of new legislation. 
3. Looking at the Second Derivative: (dD/dt) (Acceleration)
If you are tracking whether the debt growth is speeding up faster than before, you are looking at the second derivative, (dD²/dt). The most dramatic positive spikes in acceleration (dD/dt) occurred in 2009 (the onset of the Great Recession under Obama) and 2020 (the pandemic under Trump). In both of those periods, the deficit did not just grow—it multiplied rapidly from the previous year's baseline due to emergency injections

The Physics of the National Debt: Why Acceleration is the Real Danger

If you want to understand where the U.S. national debt is heading, stop looking at the total dollar amount. You need to look at the physics of the system.

In engineering, we don’t just track velocity (how fast an object is moving); we track acceleration (the rate of change of that velocity). If we treat the national debt (D) as a function of time (t), the first derivative (dD/dt) is the velocity—how many billions of dollars we pour into the deficit per day.

Right now, that velocity is staggeringly high. But the truly dangerous metric is the second derivative:

d2D

dt2

>> 0

Translation: The rate of debt growth is actively speeding up.

In plain terms, this math means we aren’t just cruising down a highway at a steady 100 mph. Our foot is actively stomped on the gas pedal, and the speedometer is climbing.

When you pair massive revenue cuts (like restricting the system's intake valves) with skyrocketing interest rates (an internal, compounding feedback loop), the system enters a phase of thermal runaway. The machine is now generating its own velocity, regardless of what we do next.

SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC:

• Mass in the Tank (D): ~$39 Trillion and climbing.
• Flow Velocity (dD/dt): ~$2.5M to $3M added per minute.
• The Friction Link: Net interest alone now consumes over $1 Trillion annually, acting as a permanent internal accelerator.

Even In Connecticut!

Yes, it is even here in Connecticut we have right-wing agitator...

Man Accused Of Disrupting Pride Month Flag Raising Ceremony In Trumbull Arrested: Police
Police said a man is accused of repeatedly disrupting an LGBTQ+ Pride Month flag raising ceremony at Town Hall while using a megaphone.
RJ Scofield,
Patch 

Posted Fri, Jun 5, 2026

 

 

  A man accused of repeatedly disrupting an LGBTQ+ Pride Month flag raising ceremony at Town Hall was arrested Thursday, according to police.

In a news release posted to Facebook, police said Albert Mastri is accused of repeatedly disrupting the ceremony while using a megaphone.

"Despite multiple warnings from officers to stop yelling at attendees, including children, the individual continued to direct disruptive and profane remarks toward the crowd," police said in a news release.

Mastri was charged with breach of peace, according to police

He was charged with breach of peace.

 

 

 

 

Dad's Story

June 6th: D-Day and Dad’s Day

Thanks to history, I could never forget my dad’s birthday.

As I look back on his life and mine, I see the stages we went through as I grew up. Like most boys, it was a bit of a "love/hate" relationship—the teenage years were rather rebellious. I think that was also partly due to his own youth.

Being Italian back in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and even into the 50s carried a heavy burden. For summer jobs, they dug ditches (more on that later). Before WWII, my father, being the oldest, went to college. He was the first in the family! He attended RPI and earned a degree in Civil Engineering. Afterward, his brothers and cousins went into home construction. While in college, my father was also in ROTC.

Then came the Great Depression. He and his brother used to joke about how my father talked them into joining the National Guard during the Depression just for some extra cash. But then WWII happened, and guess who got called up first?

At the beginning of the war, he was stationed in Coastal Defense to guard against German submarines, before being sent to Key West to defend the harbor. After V-E Day, he went to the Pacific theater with an anti-aircraft unit. Then the Army made a discovery: he had a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering! They promoted him and put him in charge of rebuilding the Manila water and sewer systems.

(An aside for one of my pet peeves: What military units landed on Iwo Jima? A: The Marines. B: The Army. C: Both. The correct answer is “C,” both! But you never hear about the Army landing on Iwo Jima; it is always "John Wayne!" Toward the end of the campaign, the 147th Infantry Regiment—an independent unit from the Ohio National Guard—was assigned to the "mopping up" operations. Thousands of Japanese soldiers were still hidden in the island’s massive 11-mile tunnel network. The 147th spent months in intense, small-unit underground combat, using flamethrowers and satchel charges to clear the caves.)

After the war, he returned to Connecticut and climbed the ranks in education: teacher, then assistant principal, then principal. Eventually, he became the head of the state technical colleges.

I later attended Waterbury State Technical College. Only one person there knew who I was: the president of the college. I was the son of the boss of bosses! Then one day, just before my graduation, there was a knock on my classroom door. The professor turned and saw my father, immediately assuming he was there to see him in his capacity as the head of the professors' union.

Instead, my father said, “No, I’m here to see my son. My car broke down and I need a ride home.”

The professor looked at me, then back at my father, and I could practically see the gears turning as he put two and two together.

After I graduated, I went on to RIT for my four-year degree. My father retired the exact year I graduated from college—but just like me, he didn't truly retire. He worked as a consultant, advising other states on how to create two-year technical colleges, and wrote articles for trade magazines. He even became the head of the American Vocational Technical Association and stayed active in the Kiwanis. And, of course, there was travel!

I lived with my parents until I was in my forties, but there was a catch. The year my father retired and I graduated from RIT, they bought a summer cottage on a lake in New Hampshire. During the summers they were at the cottage, and in the winter they went to Florida. They were only home during November, December, March, and April. The rest of the time, I had the house to myself.

It was when I was building my own house that we truly bonded. I had the "great idea" of acting as my own general contractor—after all, I came from a home-building family! Yeah, right... but they didn't have a regular 40-hour-a-week job to balance at the same time!

When I was building the retaining wall, my father was right there giving me instructions. When I was laying brick and floor tiles in the basement, he was there too—sitting in a lawn chair, drinking his Bourbon Manhattan, calling out, “No, no, that tile is out of line,” or “that brick is low.” Those are the fondest memories I have of him.

(I actually got into a very heated argument with my brother over laying tile once! It was so heated that I left the cottage in the boat just to drive around and cool down. The argument was over whether to “butter” each tile one at a time, or put the thin-set mortar on the floor and do a whole section at once. After I did it my way, he admitted it was faster. I replied, "Of course it is—that’s how Dad taught me!")

I also remember getting a phone call at 7:00 AM right before rushing off to work. My mother said, “Your father is having chest pains.” I told her to call an ambulance, but she replied, "No, he wants you to take him. What would the neighbors think?"

Then there was the Saturday morning I got a call from my mother saying, "Come over and tell your father to stop chopping wood! He is 90 and he’s going to have another heart attack!" I told her, "Mom, he is doing what he wants to do. It makes him happy." I ended up chopping the wood that Saturday while we sat and talked.

A few years passed, my mother passed away, and the spark went out in my father. He passed away a few years later from an old folks' disease: aspiration pneumonia.

I carried an extra burden that he never knew about, something that cried me to sleep at night. He never knew I was trans, and I always wondered how he would have felt if he had known. Everyone tells me he would have been very accepting.

Saturday 9

Saturday 9: For You (1963)
On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Rick Nelson tells us he'd give his girl the stars from sky or a string of pearls. Have you more recently given or received a gift? What was it?
Nope… 

2) By the time this record was released, Rick was already a show business veteran. He had been a regular on his family's sitcom, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, since it began airing on radio when he was just 8. Most of us weren't child performers but many of us had chores around the house. When you were young, did your parents give you an allowance?
Mow the lawn.

3) The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet moved to TV, where fans saw Rick grow into a teen who drove a 1932 Roadster. The car really belonged to Tony La Masa, who collected classic cars and rented them out to TV and movie producers. Have you ever earned or raised money with your hobby?
I did!
I donate photographs to non-profits, one print in a silent auction for $250! 

4) Paul McCartney has called Rick Nelson an "underrated singer who could really carry a song" and said Rick was one of his influences. Who do you believe you have influenced, professionally or personally?
Yes, she said I should go for my MSW, best advice I had in a long time.

5)  This week's song was already an oldie by the time Rick performed it. "For You" was recorded the first time by Casa Loma Orchestra in 1933. In those days, most records were 78 rpm discs, thick and usually only able to hold 3 to 5 minutes of sound per side. Most record companies stopped producing them in the 1950s. Have you ever seen a "78?"
Yes. Sadly they were used to targets for a BB gun
 
6) The lyrics to "For You" were written by Al Dubin. After Al left college he supported himself as a singing waiter. That's really two jobs in one. Which would you do better at: singer or server?
 
7) The music was written by Joe Burke, whose last hit song was "Rambling Rose," recorded in 1948 by Perry Como. Have you ever heard of Perry Como?
Are you kidding?
My parents listened to him all the time, they watch his show, had his records.

8) In 1963, when Ricky's recording was on the charts, the Zip Code was introduced. How many different Zips have you lived in?
Okay we have to get a technical here… legal residences, one zip code. College, the family cottage in New Hampshire, and my cottage on Cape Cod.
 
9) Random question: When you were in high school, were you taller or shorter than your classmates? Or were you the average height?

Slightly above normal.

 

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I am having problems with my laptop!

My mouse died! So I am trying to write with the touchscreen and I don't know if it is a virus or a corrupted app. But my laptop will probably will have to go to the emergency room