Swigert, now 102, was pleased to be offered a $15-a-week job at a time when “there were men selling apples on the street corner.” His father, on the other hand, saw his own business falter in the harsh economic times, and ultimately went bankrupt.

It all has a familiar ring. What Swigert remembers from the ’30s echoes what millions of Americans are experiencing now. The economy has lost more than 8 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. As of March this year, the unemployment rate stood at 9.7 percent for the third consecutive month, edging up to 9.9 percent in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although there are signs the recession is lessening, a record 6.7 million Americans have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer.

The comparisons between the ’30s and today are both painful and inevitable, but it’s pretty obvious this hasn’t been our fathers’ (or grandfathers’) depression. No economist has suggested our predicament is anything close to what occurred in the 1930s, when the market collapsed and 15 million people, one-fourth of the work force, were unemployed.

Nor has the current crisis led to as much imagery associated with the Great Depression: bread lines, shantytowns, homeless men—called tramps then—wandering door to door in search of handouts and charity.

A scene common in american cities during the 1930s, skilled and unskilled laborers alike stood in bread lines like this one near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

One reason, of course, is the New Deal itself. The Social Security Act of 1935 created, in addition to the retirement insurance for which it’s named, a federal and state system of unemployment compensation that provides temporary, partial wages to the newly out-of-work. It’s a cushion for families, and it helps stabilize the economy during recessions.

The safety net devised under Roosevelt protects the country today “from looking like it did in 1931 and 1932,” says Nick Taylor, whose book, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, analyzes the economic crisis that began under Herbert Hoover, brought FDR into office, and prompted creation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), among other economic reforms.

Perhaps more significant, the New Deal forever changed the public’s expectation of the government’s role in times of hardship. The pre-World War II generation hit bottom before government stepped in. Republican Herbert Hoover, who prematurely declared “The Depression is over” in June 1930, steadfastly opposed government action, which led to his lopsided loss to FDR. In 2008 presidential candidates Obama and McCain stood together against laissez faire banking; to have done otherwise could have been political suicide.

“The Roosevelt administration was the first one to recognize that the government was responsible for the welfare of the people,” Taylor says. “One of government’s purposes is to have a humanitarian side.”

Roosevelt’s program was controversial then. It still is igniting debate that rages among pundits and economists. Did the New Deal help end the Great Depression, or was it just a distraction until World War II provided the real economic stimulus?

Wake Forest University economist Robert Whaples conducted a survey of economists in 1995 and asked if they agreed with the following: “Taken as a whole, government policies of the New 
Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression.” Fifty-one percent disagreed and 49 percent agreed (many 
with provisions).

The most glowing analyses credit the New Deal for lifting the country out of the worst of the Depression and improving the mood of a panicked nation. The most critical suggest that Roosevelt’s fiscal policies not only aggravated the crisis but extended the Depression by as many as seven years. But on one aspect of the New Deal, its humanitarian impact on suffering individuals, almost everyone agrees: Government-sponsored jobs improved the economic circumstances of the people who held those jobs.

Roosevelt first proposed the idea of a permanent jobs program during his annual message to Congress on January 4, 1935. A variety of temporary relief measures had been implemented by then, but Roosevelt considered them handouts and demeaning to human dignity. At that time, 5 million people were receiving some form of government aid, 3.5 million of whom Roosevelt felt were able-bodied and could be working.

The WPA renewed America's infrastructure, building roads, bridges, airports, and water and sewer systems, among other improvements.
Photos: Library of Congress

His proposal became the Works Progress Administration. At its peak in March 1938, the WPA rolls hit 3.4 million. By June 1943, when the program was ended because it was no longer needed—unemployment had fallen to 1.9 percent—the WPA had employed more than 8.5 million people on 1.4 million different projects.

After that, Taylor writes, “No one would care to look at the WPA again for quite some time. In the heat of war, there was too much else to think about, and the agency closed its doors without fanfare. Two years later, when the war was ending and life slowly began to return to normal, Americans did not want to remember the Depression.”

Its legacy, Taylor says, is measured in statistics and still evident all around us. The WPA fought floods, hurricanes, and fires; recycled toys; inoculated the sick; and “created works that even without restoration have lasted for more 
than 70 years.”

President Barack Obama consistently invoked the New Deal as historic evidence to support his stimulus plan. “With the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs,” he said.

The WPA produced unforgettable posters from 1936 to 1943 by drawing on the talents of hundreds of out-of-work artists. The posters were designed to promote health and hygiene, cultural activities, domestic travel, community involvement, and educational programs.
Poster courtesy of the Library of Congress

Many similarities can be found between the New Deal and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The most obvious is that both were designed to save or create about 3.5 million jobs.

Yet Roosevelt himself could not have imagined the size of the government’s commitment this time around. The Works Progress Administration, massive as it was, spent $11 billion during its eight-year tenure. Adjusted for inflation, that would be more than $130 billion today. That pales in comparison to the $787 billion in the stimulus package, which has gone to tax cuts; extended unemployment benefits; and government spending on education, health care, weatherization, and infrastructure. That was all on top of the $700 billion financial services bailout passed by Congress earlier.

The enormity of the investment may be what most distinguishes ARRA from the New Deal. Quoted in a report by Voice of America, historian Alan Brinkley of Columbia University suggested that the weakness of the New Deal was that it wasn’t big enough to compensate for the loss of wealth of the Great Depression. “If you want to counteract a severe recession, you have to take big measures to generate economic activity. And I think that is what the stimulus package is designed to do,” he said.

In April, President Obama said the stimulus bill has succeeded and can be credited with helping business bounce back. Economic research firms Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Global Insight, and Moody’s Economy.com estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs to the economy so far.

Without question, opportunities for waste and corruption have occurred just as they did during the ’30s, when “stories were legion about people leaning on shovels,” Taylor 
says. Indeed, the government agency charged with keeping track of expenditures and job creation has found the task next to impossible, releasing data that indicates stimulus money has been distributed to 440 congressional districts that don’t even exist: the “phantom zip code scandal.”

The stimulus act also has piled debt on taxpayers that may not get paid off for decades. That’s a concern for many, including J. Mack Swigert, the pavement-pounding Harvard graduate who eventually became a labor and litigation attorney. “I don’t know whether a stimulus package is good or not,” Swigert says. “On the one hand, it puts us further in debt. On the other hand, it keeps businesses going and people at work.”

That’s a sentiment he’s held ever since the Depression and experienced the relief that came from getting any kind of job, even a $15-a-week one. “My feeling then was if you had a job, you ought to be happy. And I was.” And that’s good advice for every generation, not just in times of want, but times of plenty.

.

Intel Corp., Santa Clara, California

Intel Core i7 Processor

A world leader in computer chip technology, the company recently unveiled plans to invest $7 billion in U.S.-based manufacturing facilities for its next generation of computer processors.

intel.com

Caterpillar, Peoria, Illinois

Known the world over, the familiar yellow construction equipment manufacturer exports $16 billion worth of its earth-moving vehicles, from U.S.-based assembly plants.

cat.com

K’NEX Brands, Hatfield, Pennsylvania

K'NEX

Kids around the world love the inventive sets of bricks, rods, and connectors—all made here by a family business.

knex.com

Louisville Slugger, Louisville, Kentucky

For more than 120 years, the company has been making baseball history, as well as a line of bats that are the exact same as those used by Major League Baseball players.

slugger.com

Harley Davidson, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Harley Davidson motorcycle

With roots that date back to 1901 and the first motorcycles, a Harley has a distinctly American-made sound as it rolls down the road.

harley-davidson.com

Viking Range Corp., Greenwood, Mississippi

Viking makes restaurant-quality kitchen appliances, including ovens, grills, and their signature ranges.

vikingrange.com

Bromwell Housewares, Michigan City, Indiana

Boasting that it’s the oldest 100 percent American-manufactured company, Bromwell started business in 1819 and sells kitchen utensils and houseware products, including their popular long-handled popcorn popper.

bromwellhousewares.com

Vermont Teddy Bear Company, Shelburne, Vermont

This maker of cuddly stuffed bears is justifiably proud of its product. Each bear (like the one above) is handmade in the U.S. and comes with a lifetime guarantee.

vermontteddybear.com

New Balance Shoes, Boston, Massachusetts

New Balance shoes

The only athletic shoemaker whose products are still made in America, New Balance offers a wide range of high-performance footwear for men, women, and children.

newbalance.com

Hershey’s, Hershey, Pennsylvania

Since its founding in 1894, the biggest name in milk-chocolate treats has been America-based, with most of its chocolate factories in Pennsylvania, near Hershey’s headquarters.

hersheys.com

Gibson Guitar, 
Nashville, Tennessee

Defining the electric guitar market, the company has reissued this classically styled and sounding blues and jazz axe.

gibson.com

Quigley’s Building Supply—Putting Customers First

The St. John River in Maine swiftly and relentlessly surged over its banks. After a record snowfall and heavy spring rains in May 2008, the river’s waters rose more than 30 feet. The lumberyard of Quigley’s Building Supply in Fort Kent, Maine, became a grim yardstick of the floodwater’s progress. Foot by foot, plank by plank, the water swallowed pallets of wood until the 66-year-old family business was 12 feet under water. In just an hour, more than $200,000 of the small business’s inventory was either waterlogged or swept away by the murky currents.

Six months before the flood, owner Norman Ouellette died in a boating accident at just 51 years old. That left general manager Justin Dubois, Ouellette’s son-in-law, running the company. Then, only a few months after the flood came, the man-made disaster of the financial crisis hit. Fresh from college and only 24 years old, Dubois felt a little like the Biblically unfortunate Job.

But Dubois wasn’t alone. Many other businesses throughout the country were submerged or swept away in the overflow of the financial meltdown. However, Quigley’s and many others survived and even thrived through these tough times.

Despite an economic mess and big businesses outsourcing labor and manufacturing, the spirit of small business continues to drive the growth of our nation with enterprise, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. Small businesses still create most of the nation’s new jobs, employ half of the country’s private sector work force, and produce more than half of the private sector gross domestic product, according to the Small Business Administration. Much like the hardworking Americans that came before them, the modern-day entrepreneurs you’ll meet here are striving for success against all odds, whether the problems are thrown at them by the economy or Mother Nature herself. These small businesses keep their doors open with a mix of smarts, guts, and determination, even in the face of unexpected hardship.

After the floodwaters crested, Quigley’s buckled down, adapted to the changes and challenges, and notched one of their highest sales years ever, with a 21 percent sales increase from 2008 to 2009.

“Just like everywhere else in the United States, there was a slumping economy and the housing market was nonexistent,” Dubois recalls. “If we just sat back and allowed it to happen, we’d fall. We looked at the slump as a chance to increase sales, customer traffic, and loyalty.”

To increase customer count, Quigley’s needed to find their niche. The store increased advertising, and management looked to long-term employees for new revenue suggestions. Of the 16 employees, many have been working for the company for 12 years or longer. Their know-how helped identify that customers were requesting more and more products they saw on television or the Internet. The bottom-line result for the store: The special order department has increased 50 percent in the past three years. “This has changed the way we do business,” Dubois says. “We’re increasing customer service. No matter where a customer sees a product, we can get it for them.

“The employees are the reason we changed,” he says. “I looked to them for advice and knowledge. We couldn’t have done that without their knowledge and support.”

Schacht Spindle Company—Woven to Success

From its humble origins, Schacht Spindle Company has grown to world-class status with a reputation as a maker of quality hand-made looms and spinning wheels.
Photo courtesy Schacht Spindle Company.

Pulling together the similar fibers of employee knowledge, Barry Schacht has spun the Schacht Spindle Company into the kind of American success story that’s vanishingly rare these days. The Boulder, Colorado-based company began in Schacht’s garage about 
40 years ago and has grown into a 35,000-square-foot factory with 35 employees. Today, Schacht’s is the second-largest weaving supply and loom manufacturer in the world.

“In those early years, I made a point of finding people who knew more about the business than I did,” says Schacht, who owns the company 
with his wife, Jane Patrick. “That employee knowledge helped me 
create a better product.”

Schacht says he constantly strives to improve relations with his staff and provide them the right tools and benefits—both at work and in their personal lives. In addition to health insurance, the company offers two months of unpaid leave, assuring employees that they’ll still have a job when they return. Schacht and Patrick also built a special, environmentally controlled room for an employee with asthma and allow flexible schedules for workers with children.

“We hire people for their skills, then work with their schedules,” Patrick says. “We emphasize family values, getting back to what’s important. If employees need time to take care of a sick parent or child, it’s not a problem.”

The work atmosphere Patrick and Schacht created has paid off: The duo’s philosophy has fostered long-term staff retention. One employee has worked with the company for 39 years, a few others for more than 20, and several for more than 15. And Schacht is quick 
to credit those employees with the company’s ongoing success. For example, staffers recognized a market for lower-priced, entry-level, easy-to-use spinning wheels. Their input led to the development of the company’s new Ladybug spinning wheel. Adding to the company’s handmade cachet, each is unique, with a ladybug logo individually placed somewhere on the wheel. During the past two years, such entrepreneurship has helped Schacht Spindle Company to post a 35 percent sales increase. But the company can’t rest on such successes, and its bottom line can be dramatically affected by the fortunes of suppliers and profit-driven big box retailers. “Some of the companies I have dealt with over the years have disappeared,” Schacht explains. “I have had a more difficult time finding suppliers.”

Schadt’s hard work has paid off: The company’s spindles, looms, and winders are in just about any weaving supply store in the country, and they ship orders worldwide.

Yet, Schacht’s garage-born business roots are never far from his reach. On his desk is the first spindle he ever made. Constructed from an old, used doorknob and wooden stick, it’s the genesis of his business. “It reminds 
me of the complex, yet simple, beginnings,” he says. “When I started, what was most inspiring was making new products and solving old problems with a creative touch.”

Hudson Beach Glass—Hearts of Glass

Touch of glass: Operating out of a renovated firehouse, the artisan owners of Hudson Beach Glass prove that pursuing their passion makes good business sense.
Photo courtesy of Hudson Beach Glass.

The glass-blowing furnace in Hudson Beach Glass burns 24 hours a day. Visitors to the converted firehouse in Beacon, New York, feel the heat and hear the hum of the furnace that glows white hot, full 
of molten glass. For the 26-year-old company’s owners—John and Wendy Gilvey, Michael Benzer, and Jennifer Smith—that furnace is the source of their art and entrepreneurial freedom.

“In the last 26 years, we’ve been able to make the work we want to make,” John Gilvey says. “Doing that has been satisfying. I feel like I’ve done it my way. That’s so corny. But true.”

The different blown glass styles of the artist-owners are on the shelves throughout the store. John, for example, crafts Tiffany-like vases with leaf-like patterns. Benzer’s trademark work is hand-cast tiles and bowls that have been Hudson Beach Glass signature pieces for more than 20 years. Wendy Gilvey and Smith produce fluid-form pieces, often with opaque, sandblasted finishes.

“Every object we make, we’re proud of it,” Benzer says. “We’re not making big money, but we’re not sure we could work for anyone else.” John likens the Hudson Beach Glass business model to subsistence farming. “Or subsistence artists,” he says with a laugh. “We know we have done something right at the end of the year if we’re still in business.”

The four originally opened Hudson Beach Glass Studio in 1984 in a warehouse-type building and sold through distributors and trade shows. Seven years ago, they opened their retail store in an old firehouse on 
Main Street. In 2008, John’s son, 
Sean, opened his own Hudson Beach Glass storefront in Philadelphia. Works from the studio have been featured in the book 500 Glass Objects, and plates from the Philadelphia store were used by 
chef Jose Garces when he competed 
on the cooking reality show Iron Chef.

Such success came after riding more than two decades of up-and-down economic trends. The downturn 
of 2009 definitely caused some scrambling. “Our business took a big hit,” John says. “No one was calling with orders, no one was buying.” And they had to make the difficult decision to lay off four full-time employees. Knowing that their business could 
turn in a season, John and Benzer continually look for new markets and different ways to distribute their work. In recent years, they have expanded to include etched glass awards and table settings for high-end restaurants. 

“We adjust to what’s happening in the marketplace,” John says. “We’re also continually experimenting with new colors, forms, and processes. In our business, new is everything.”

They learned that lesson in the mid-90s. After 20 percent to 30 percent growth per year, their business became flat. When attending a business consulting seminar, they realized the studio hadn’t been rolling out enough new products. “After that, we didn’t go to a trade show without something new,” Benzer says.

Read this issue’s From the Editor for a taste of what’s inside. Haven’t received your copy yet? Click here to subscribe.

But don’t miss out on our online exclusives, including updated medical information on thyroid disease, skin care, and fitness; summer road trips you won’t find in the magazine, and video coverage of the 84-year-old skydiver.

At Saturdayeveningpost.com, there’s always more to come!

It is an extremely hard medal to earn; more than half of the men who earned the Medal of Honor died in their achievement.

Since 1862, when it was first given to members of our armed forces for gallantry and bravery beyond the call of duty, it has been awarded 3,445 times.

During the First World War, the President, acting on behalf of Congress, awarded the Medal to 124 servicemen. During World War II, it was awarded 464 times. All of the World War I recipients are now gone, and only 32 remain of World War II’s recipients. One of these is Wilburn Kirby Ross. “Wib”, as he is affectionately known by family and friends, is now 86 years of age and still reflects the modesty known to most heroes as only doing their duty.

He was born on May 12, 1922, in McCreary County, Kentucky, about 30 miles north of Pall Mall, Tennessee, the home of Sgt. Alvin York. Just four years before Ross was born, York won the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine-gun nest in France. Commanding seven other men, York captured 32 machine guns, killed 28 German soldiers, and forced the surrender of 132 other Germans.

Ross would have grown up hearing about Sergeant York’s accomplishments again and again; it was an area with few opportunities for distinguishing yourself. Most people made their living cutting timber, coal mining, and subsistence farming. At best, life was hard and most people were poor. Opportunities for education and good jobs were almost non-existent. Faith, family, and freedom were, and are, important to these people whose background was forged by generations of hardy pioneers.

On October 30, 1944, another representative from this region achieved recognition. Wilburn Ross, serving as a private with the 350th Infantry, manned a machine gun to drive back six attacks by German troops. He held his position even after the riflemen supporting him ran out of ammunition. He continued firing even as enemy soldiers were lobbing grenades at him from just 4 yards away. He refused to withdraw when he ran out of ammunition. Instead, he held his position as the German prepared for another attack. The ammunition arrived at the last minute, enabling him to repulse the German assault. All tolled, Ross held his position under intense fire for 36 hours.

The heroes from Kentucky: MSG. Ross, with World War I veteran Alvin C. York, was 23 when this 1945 picture was taken. Sgt. York was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War I.

Asked about his heroism, “Wib” has said, “I had been in this so long, I knew what they (the Germans) were doing. When they would charge, I would mow them down.”

While serving on the Italian front, Ross was captured at the Anzio beachhead, but miraculously escaped. Dusk was coming and, for some reason, the enemy guard did not appear to be paying much attention to him, instead fixing their attention on his buddies and talking to them. Ross moved out of sight and commenced to walk away. It was night now, and those moving about him were not able to see that he was an American.

He eluded further capture and survived on his own for three days and four nights. He says, “I didn’t get hungry. I didn’t get thirsty. I was worried about getting out of there.” Traveling at night, he hid under leaves during the day. Once the Germans got so close to him, he said, “I could have reached out my hand and touched the man on his coat.”

Later, seeing American planes in the sky, he followed the direction of their flight and was happy to reunite with American forces, where he gratefully dug into a can of meat and beans.

When Ross returned to Strunk, Kentucky, he was greeted by a crowd of 3,000 citizens, Governor Simeon Willis, and a neighbor who could best appreciate Ross’s bravery and dedication: Sergeant Alvin C. York.

Americans should be grateful that uncommon valor has commonly appeared among the men and women in our armed forces. They have served their country beyond the ability of our small tributes to repay them. We must never forget those who have stood in harm’s way to defend liberty and to pay the continually rising price of freedom.

“Dane, tomorrow is Memorial Day, and it is Bittersweet,” Sizer wrote. “Bittersweet in that we miss you and love you … but so proud that you died in an honorable manner. It is my mission to ensure that you and others like you are never forgotten. Your legacy will live on forever; I promise … they won’t forget.”

Her sentiment was posted on Legacy.com, the largest of a growing number of Web sites that commemorate the men and women who give their lives in defense of the country. The Legacy.com page in Dane’s honor includes several obituaries, more than 200 photos, and a guest book with around 1,500 messages from relatives, friends, neighbors, and even strangers paying tribute to his service and sacrifice.

Like gravestones and monuments, virtual memorials are accessible year-round, but are positively thronged over the Memorial Day weekend—indicating just how important the day still is to Americans, notes John Metzler, superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. “Memorial services and cemeteries won’t disappear, but how we remember someone, how we tell the story of a life—that’s changing fast, and is no longer limited to what can be carved on a gravestone or inked on newsprint,” he says.

Civil War veteran John Logan led the charge to establish Memorial Day.

It began with decorations

Memorial Day, our official holiday for the remembrance of those who die in military service, has been celebrated for nearly 150 years. But each new generation observes the day a little differently—based on the character of the era. Today the holiday has expanded beyond its official origins: Americans often use the day to remember not just servicemen and women, but all friends and family who have passed away. Watching parades and air shows, attending memorial ceremonies, placing flowers on graves, and even the basic practice of sharing memories with others are all 
part of this celebratory yet solemn day.

Originally known as Decoration Day, the official holiday was proclaimed by General John Logan, national commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, 
on May 5, 1868, in response to national grief over the tremendous loss of life in the American Civil War. It was first observed on May 30 of that year with the decoration of grave sites at Arlington National Cemetery.

By 1890, all of the Northern states observed Decoration Day. However, due to lingering Civil War hostility, the South refused to take part until after World War I, when the holiday’s meaning was changed from honoring the Civil War dead, to honoring all Americans who had died in military service. Still, despite the change, several southern states, including Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Tennessee, continue to observe a separate day of mourning known as Confederate Memorial Day or Confederate Heroes Day.

In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson officially changed the name of Decoration Day to Memorial Day and declared the city of Waterloo, New York, to be the original birthplace of the idea, but it is more likely that the practice evolved broadly. Today more than two dozen cities claim to be the real place of origin, but the genuine roots of the holiday may in fact remain in a page of history that up until recently had been forgotten. (See box for the full story.)

At Arlington National Cemetery, the graves are decorated with new flags every Memorial Day.

Continuing to remember

Today there are some who believe that the actual meaning of Memorial Day has been lost and that the holiday has become little more than a day for picnics, barbecues, and trips to the beach. “Of course I am aware of the true meaning of Memorial Day,” says Florida resident Juan Gomez, “but we usually use the long weekend to visit with friends and family. Our activities rarely involve any formal remembrance of the soldiers who have died in battle.”

Senator Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) worries that too many Americans have lost sight of Memorial Day’s significance. He blames the holiday’s subdued celebration on the fact that its observance was moved from May 30 to the last Monday in May in 1971, in compliance with the National Holiday Act requiring all Federal holidays to provide three-day weekends. “Instead of recognizing Memorial Day as a time to honor and reflect on the sacrifices made by Americans in combat, many celebrate the day as the beginning of summer,” explains Sen. Inouye. “We must look on the day as one of remembrance as well as education. The youth of our nation have much to learn from our great patriots. Lessons about duty, honor, and sacrifice will guide them as they become our nation’s future leaders.” In an effort to redirect attention to the holiday’s original meaning, Sen. Inouye has introduced bills—in 
every session of Congress since 1989­—that would restore observance of Memorial Day to May 30.

However, some assert other reasons that Memorial Day celebrations are not as robust as they once were. Says Terrell Upson, who served as a lieutenant in the Navy during the Bay of Pigs conflict: “World War II was a great triumph for the Allied Forces. As Americans, we entered the conflict united, and we all made sacrifices for the good of the cause. When the war finally ended with the total and unconditional surrender of the enemy, we believed that we had achieved something that made the world a better place. But the conflicts that we have been engaged in since have not been as clear cut to most Americans in terms of right and wrong, and have not been as universally supported politically. Although the efforts of our armed forces have been no less valiant, admirable, or appreciated, I believe that national expression of our gratitude has been blunted in some cases by our conflicting points of view.”

The National Memorial Day Parade returned to Washington, D.C., in 2005, and draws some 300,000 Americans.© Jonathan Ernst/Corbis

Honoring heroes past and present

Whatever the reason, few places celebrate Memorial Day with the vigor that we once expected, but there is reason to believe that enthusiasm for the holiday is again on the rise. The National Memorial Day Parade returned to Washington, D.C., in 2005, after a hiatus more than 60 years. Organized by the American Veteran’s Center, thousands of spectators lined the streets of the nation’s capital for the first national Memorial Day parade since the outbreak of World War II. The parade has been held every year since, and enthusiasm continues to grow—drawing nearly 300,000 spectators since 2007.

“It’s important for all of us to remember that our soldiers are fighting for us right now in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of them have done as many as five and even six nine-month tours of duty in war zones. During World War II, the average tour was only 45 days,” says Laura Ymker, director of the National Memorial Day Parade for the American Veteran’s Center. According to Ymker, the Washington parade pays tribute to veterans of all American wars. “All branches of the military are represented,” she says, adding that the parade includes costumed re-enactments of Revolutionary and Civil War battles. “All of our soldiers helped to make America what it is today. We honor them all.”

There are other national observances as well. All U.S. flags are still flown at half-staff from dawn until noon on the holiday. Since the late 1950s, the soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment have placed American flags at each of the 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery on the Thursday before Memorial Day, and kept vigil throughout the weekend to ensure that they remain standing. In 2000, a National Moment of Remembrance via silent contemplation, or by listening to taps, was decreed to be observed on Memorial Day at 3 p.m. local time.

Though simple, these observances mean a great deal to America’s servicemen and women stationed overseas. “It’s important for soldiers to know that the people back at home remember them. It reminds them that what they are doing is appreciated,” says Doug Ross-Walsh, a second-year student at West Point Military Academy, who has seen many of his older classmates shipped out over the last two years.

“For those of us old enough to remember, Memorial Day is a national nostalgia for moral commitment,” says Michael Vaccariello of Duluth, Georgia, who served as an Army Corporal during America’s conflict in Korea. Viewed that way, it is likely that enthusiasm for the holiday will never go out of style.

A sign of the times: Today even memorial tributes are high-tech. Some people utilize Web sites like Legacy.com to share stories and photos about their loved ones with family and friends across the world.

Over time, his interest in the hobby grew—literally. “My eyesight kind of forced me into large-scale,” he jokes. But of course large-scale model trains need large spaces to run in.

So when he retired, Elwood built a 24-by-48-foot train room that “looks pretty big empty, but filled up really, really fast.” His layout is fashioned after a logging and mining railroad, including a 12-stall roundhouse, which real railroads used when backing up a locomotive meant more than shifting to reverse.

Not every railroading collector has the time or space for such layouts, but they all share a similar passion for miniature replicas of the big boys. According to estimates from hobbyist organizations like the National Model Railroad Association, there are as many as 100,000 model train enthusiasts, not including countless others who keep a cherished childhood set in the basement to bring out whenever the grandkids come over.

For model train hobbyists, there are two broad categories: collecting and building. Model railroaders are collectors, of course, often seeking a favorite childhood toy, a scale engine and cars that evoke other interests, or parts of a matched set that they’re on a hunt to complete. While a few collectors may only display their trains, most model railroaders operate their own miniature railroad empires, some letting their imaginations run wild with fantasy layouts; others recreating railroads they’ve read about or knew from childhood. These set-ups often run like the real thing, moving on meticulous timetables with scale goods being delivered logically to scale markets.

Model trains come in several sizes or scales, and many collectors start small and work their way up. Keith Lewis, for example, started with a train set his parents gave him one Christmas. He worked with HO scale (real size ratio, 1:87) for a while, but then saw a large G-scale set (real size ratio, 1:22) that made him sell all his other trains and start again. Keith also collects sets of Christmas-issue trains, and cars that are lettered for his home state of Delaware or that have his daughter Tiffany’s name on them. Like most hobbyists, Keith won’t buy an engine or car if he can’t display it as well as run it. But he keeps the original boxes, knowing that collectors value the packaging almost as much as the model itself.

If you set your mind to collecting or expanding on that old set in the basement, start by checking out local clubs and train shops or shows—you’ll find listings in your telephone directory, through ads in your local paper, or online at Web sites such as traincollectors.org or the National Model Railroad Association site, nmra.org.

But once you start down this track, it can become a lifelong pursuit, notes Elwood. “You never want to finish,” he says. “There’s always something you want to do next.”

The evening sun tinged the smoke a reddish-gray as it curled up from Gary’s steel mills. Indiana corn fields, ragged with last year’s stubble and damp with winter runoff, awaited spring planting. In eastern Ohio, night came on and the land went black. Blinking red crossing gates, the sodium lamps of main streets, and the window glow of farmhouses streamed past the window. 
Intermodal freight trains—double stacked with scores of shipping 
containers—rushed by the opposite way. After Toledo, I went back to my coach seat, wrapped myself in a sports coat, and slept to Pittsburgh, the bump and sway of the rails a familiar balm.

In the previous year, I’d ridden 26,000 miles on Amtrak trains, 
researching a book on the future of passenger rail. This coach seat to 
New York was a freebie earned from 
all the miles racked up on my Amtrak 
Rewards card. I could have flown, 
as most Americans do on business trips, but I wanted “train time”: the 
opportunity to unwind, read news
papers, write on my laptop, and zone out on the landscape.

Only 2 percent of Americans have ridden an intercity passenger train, 
not a surprising statistic considering the median age of the population is 
37 and American railroads gave up 
passenger trains in 1971, when Amtrak was created by Congress. Since that time, Amtrak has provided only a 
bare-bones national network, so for most Americans, a train isn’t a travel option. Finally, that may be changing.

Railroads and passenger trains are poised to expand in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. The $4-per-gallon gas crisis in 2008; the meltdown of the domestic auto industry; jammed and crumbling highways; stressed airports; a renewed focus on infrastructure 
improvements; the drive for a greener, more efficient economy; and the awarding of billions in federal stimulus dollars for high-speed trains all bode well for rail transportation. Even the big freight railroads, who own nearly all the nation’s rail infrastructure, have signaled a new cooperative attitude 
regarding passenger trains. They know that when the Great Recession is over, business will bloom again, and they’ll need government help to expand the infrastructure—not just for passenger trains, but for the intermodal trains that are surely taking market share from the trucking industry.

Warren Buffett, perhaps the country’s most respected investor and one with an expansive time horizon, sees American railroads as an industry 
with a bright future. Last fall, he and his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, plunked down $26.7 billion to acquire Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), the nation’s second biggest railroad. It already owned about one-third of the company’s stock.

Buffet, the so-called Oracle of Omaha who promotes value investing, called the purchase “a huge bet on that company. It’s an all-in 
wager on the economic future of the United States.”

A rail renaissance is underway. “Last century was the 
automotive century. I think 
the 21st is fixing to be the 
railroad century,” says Gil 
Carmichael, a former federal railroad administrator and the founder of the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver.

Making it happen will 
require investment. Since the 1960s, the nation has lost nearly half of its rail infrastructure 
as railroads consolidated, 
removed tracks, and abandoned whole routes. Still, 150,000 miles remain, and these tracks run from city center to city center.

Carmichael and others are promoting Interstate II, or the Steel Interstate, a plan to double and triple track 20,000 to 30,000 miles of existing freight right of way. The tracks would be grade 
separated—meaning intersecting roads would run under or over rather than across the tracks. Intermodal freights could run 90 mph, passenger trains up to 125 mph, and heavy coal and grain trains could go their own slow speed. Initially, power would come from 
diesel locomotives, but eventually the corridors could be electrified, getting juice from greener sources, such as wind, solar, and biomass plants. 
Nuclear power is back in the mix, too.

“No leap in technology is needed to electrify trains. We know how to do that. The right of ways are already in place—we just need to expand them,” Carmichael tells me. “Putting billions into a rail corridor program would 
create jobs and build for the future.”

Some states are already ahead of the curve in this regard. In 2006, Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spent $145 million to lay welded rail, put in concrete ties, straighten curves, erect an electrical 
infrastructure, and create a high-speed service on what’s known as the 
Keystone Corridor.

But nationwide, improving transportation infrastructure—whether it’s a 
rail line, a canal, an airport, or a highway—seldom comes quickly, cheaply, or without controversy. Congress created the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission to recommend where the country should concentrate its resources in 
the coming decades. At first, the 
commission wasn’t going to consider rail, reasoning there wasn’t enough data to compare it to highways.

Then, Frank Busalacchi, a commission member and head of Wisconsin’s Department of Transportation, formed a separate “passenger rail working group.” He gathered experts, held 
public hearings, and even got some commissioners to board a train. In its final report issued in early 2008, the commission called for spending $225 billion annually on infrastructure, 
including $8 billion to $9 billion each year on intercity rail.

“Those commissioners who thought trains were old fashioned got their eyes opened. When you look out 50 years with perhaps 100 million more 
citizens, it’s clear you cannot meet the transportation requirements of this country with just air travel and highways,” says Busalacchi. There has to be investment and a shift to more mass transportation by rail.

Without rail, the study estimated, the country will need nine new airports the size of Denver’s and a doubling of the current 49,000-mile interstate highway system.

At 5 a.m., the Capitol Limited dropped me and a handful of passengers in downtown Pittsburgh, where we had a two-and-half-hour wait 
before boarding the Pennsylvanian to New York. The station was chilly; food came from vending machines, and 
outside, the city was still asleep. I walked a few blocks but failed to find a restaurant for coffee and breakfast.

If I’d been in Germany or a dozen other First-World countries running 
national rail systems, my connecting train would have waited across the platform or arrived within minutes. The station would be busy with people, restaurants, and newsstands.

It used to be that way in America. We had grand terminals and the best rail system in the world, built in the 
19th and early 20th centuries by privately owned railroads that were subsidized by government through land grants, easements, legislation, and generous loans. Railroads made modern life 
possible and knitted together a disparate people and sprawling geography, said John Hankey, a historian and 
former curator of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad Museum.

“Good transportation is that important. By nature, we ought to be five 
different countries. The reason we aren’t is the railroad,” he says.

But railroads also were monopolies, big corporations wielded by tycoons and Wall Streeters. Their errant ways and fearsome reputation lead to heavy government regulation. When automobiles and cheap oil came along, federal and state governments saw no need to help the private railroads. Instead, they poured billions into subsidizing roads.

The decline in train ridership was well underway by World War II, 
when military research and development in aviation—again funded by government—led to the emergence of commercial aviation. But the stake 
in the heart of the privately run 
passenger train was the interstate highway system. Those wide, concrete swaths with nary an intersection or stoplight beckoned us to hit the roads in tens of millions of gas guzzlers churned out by Detroit.

For the average American, cars 
versus trains became a simple process of substitution, even an expression of freedom. No longer captive to a big 
organization like the railroad, we could go where we wanted, when we wanted.

“We’re Americans. We don’t like to be restricted. We embraced the automobile. It would have been denying our nature not to,” Hankey says.

At the time, trains seemed passé, 
a relic of another age. Abandoned 
by passengers, their freight business 
decimated by trucking, railroads 
were in terrible shape. In 1970, the 
nation’s largest railroad company, 
the Penn Central, went bankrupt and shook the country’s financial system. Other railroads would follow unless government acted.

To avoid nationalizing the industry, Congress came up with Amtrak, an 
entity that would relieve the railroads of their passenger trains. In return, the railroads agreed to give Amtrak priority over their routes, but even today 
passenger trains frequently are shunted to sidings to make way for freights. Sometimes, it’s because there’s just one track and not enough room for all the traffic out there. No surprise then that Amtrak has a long history of poor time performance and marginal service on shared right of ways.

The problems really go back to the beginning, when Congress gave Amtrak two mandates—run a nationwide 
system and create efficiencies that would turn a profit. Amtrak has never made a profit, and in its 39-year history has lurched from one financial crisis to another. To stay solvent, it’s needed about a billion dollars a year in subsidy.

In terms of government dollars going into the transportation modes, that’s 
a drop in the bucket. But more importantly, profitability of passenger trains was a ridiculous notion to begin with, says William Withuhn, former curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

“We’ve been hearing since 1971 that if Amtrak was reformed, got new equipment, or got rid of certain trains and routes, it would make a profit. It’s all a crock,” he says. “Passenger trains do not make a profit. Neither do roads or airports. That’s not the purpose of transportation. It’s national cohesion; it’s about moving people where they need to be. The reason America doesn’t have a world-class passenger rail 
transportation system is because it hasn’t paid for it.”

When the Pennsylvanian left 
Pittsburgh shortly after dawn, it took nearly five hours to reach Harrisburg 
(2 hours longer than driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike), but finally I had breakfast and a couple of newspapers to read. And for the first time, I traveled over the famous Horseshoe curve near Altoona, which was built in the 1850s to climb the Alleghenies. At the state capital, the Pennsylvanian switched out its diesel for an electrical locomotive, shook off the doldrums and cranked up to 100 mph. It wasn’t like the TGV I’d ridden in France, but it was a fast train—a demonstration of what can happen with investment. Trains aren’t just rapid but regular on this corridor—14 times daily each way—and frequency is what builds ridership. It’s the mantra I heard from rail experts everywhere—dependable, frequent, and fast service on corridors 100 to 500 miles long 
(distances too close to fly and too 
inconvenient to drive) are the sweet spots for rail.

Like Pennsylvania, a few state DOTs subsidize Amtrak service between their major cities, even going as far to 
purchase their own trains 
because Amtrak is too cash strapped to provide equipment. Washington has put $100 million into the Amtrak Cascades corridor between Portland and Seattle. Wisconsin subsidizes the Hiawatha service between Milwaukee and Chicago and plans an 
extension to Madison. Illinois will soon have 110-mph-Amtrak service between Springfield and St. Louis.

California’s efforts dwarf all others. In the past 20 years, it has invested $2.2 billion in corridor trains and created a network of feeder buses and light rail that extends Amtrak 
service to 80 percent of its residents. In January 2010, it received $2 billion of stimulus money to begin building a 200-mph-train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Florida received $1.25 billion for a high-speed train from Tampa to Orlando. Both will run on new right of ways separate from Amtrak and the freight railroads. If these investments between the states and federal government continue, America may see its first true bullet train in 10 years and an Amtrak system that fulfills its promise. There may even be an Interstate II.

In Philadelphia, I switched to the Acela, currently America’s fastest train. Capable of 200 mph, the Acela averages just 80 mph on the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, 
D.C., because of curves, a patchwork electrical system, and tunnels that go back to the Civil War. The corridor 
infrastructure needs billions in rehabilitation to make it truly high-speed.

Still, more than 100 trains move along it each day, and Amtrak captures half of the air/rail market between the big East Coast cities where trains never went entirely out of fashion.

My Acela crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey, ran through the gritty streets of Trenton, and blew by the auto traffic on I-95. In the Meadowlands, the Manhattan skyline and a bright, full moon rose up on the horizon.

It took 22 hours to cover the 900 miles from Chicago. In the 1930s, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited did the same run from Chicago to New York in 16 hours. And it didn’t arrive at a charmless, utilitarian Penn Station complex, but at Pennsylvania Station, a gem of Beaux-Arts style 
architecture, and truly one of the great buildings of New York.

They tore it down in 1964 in the name of urban renewal, another 
casualty of a country that allowed its passenger rail system to go to seed.

As the preservationists said then of Pennsylvania Station—never again.

He knew that, at his age, his career was in the ‘now or never’ stage, and it seemed this season was the one that would make it ‘now.’ Through May, Cerv was leading the American League in home runs and RBIs while batting .344 with the Kansas City Athletics’ (now in Oakland).

Then, fate struck.

On May 17, Cerv was rounding the bases trying to score against the Detroit Tigers. As he rounded third, he knew the throw was going to beat him to home plate. There are only a few things a baseball player can do in that situation. One is try to slide below or jump over the tag by the catcher. Unfortunately, at 6 feet and 220 pounds, agility was not Cerv’s forte. This left him one option—lower his shoulder and run head-on into the catcher to jar the ball loose.

Base runners make this decision to this day. It is a scary situation: the catcher is standing still, concentrating on trying to catch a ball often thrown from all the way across the field, while an opposing player is running at him full speed, with every intention of knocking the ball — and the daylight — out of him. (This is why the catcher is typically the stoutest and strongest player on the team.)

In Cerv’s case, it did not work out. Not only was he tagged out, but the collision left him with a broken jaw.

Bob Cerv (right) fractured his jaw in this home plate collision with Detriot Tigers catcher Wilson.

Doctors said he would be out for six weeks, but Cerv was having none of it. He was back three days later. After six weeks playing with his jaw wired shut, Cerv was still batting .310 and leading the American League in home runs and RBIs.

The Saturday Evening Post covered this story in 1958, and we recently caught up with Cerv, for a follow up interview.

Not surprisingly, he is still going strong. “I may be 85, but I still have a pretty strong brain,” Cerv says.

He recalls that season like yesterday, especially eating with his jaw wired shut: “That was my best season. I hit 38 home runs, finished third in hitting; RBIs and runs, and beat out Ted Williams to start in the All-Star Game. I remember when I first had to eat after I broke my jaw. We got a ½ pound of steak, green beans, and potatoes, threw it all in a blender, and I had dinner through a straw.”

Although he was with the Kansas City A’s in ’58, he spent the beginning and end of his career with the Yankees, playing with all-time greats like Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and Yogi Berra, to name a few. He still stays in touch with the ones that are still around. “I just saw Yogi recently,” says Cerv. “Our birthdays are only a week apart. I was born on May 5, and he was born May 12.”

Cerv was Roger Maris’ roommate when he hit home run number 61. Cerv and Maris often roomed together, because the Yankees’ manager didn’t understand Maris’ personality and wanted Cerv, the seasoned veteran, to help him figure it out. “Roger asked me ‘Why are you my roommate now?’ when I first roomed with him,” recalls Cerv. “I told him, ‘To tell the truth, the skipper wants to know what makes you tick.’ We were best buds after that.”

Free at last: Cerv could open his mouth, but sore jaws forced him to forgo the sirloin steak he craved.

Cerv also recalls playing with another Yankee legend, Billy Martin. “He was a ballplayer. A little hotheaded, though. He didn’t take any crap.” Many New York fans know this is true. Although Martin played with the Yankees on several World Series teams, he is best remembered as the fiery manager who got in umpires’ faces, got angry with veteran players (especially Reggie Jackson), and won games.

Although his playing days are long over, Cerv still reminisces about his time in the big leagues and compares his experience to players today. “When I signed, it was for $5,000.” Obviously, a little less than what players are making now. “Pitching was the name of the game back then. There were only eight teams in the National League and eight in the American, so teams stockpiled the very best pitchers,” he said. “That was also before they lowered the pitching mound. If you got a hittable pitch across the middle and fouled it off, you screwed up.”

After baseball, Cerv became a family man. He has 10 children, all of whom went through college, 32 grandkids and 10 great-grandchildren (with one on the way). He currently resides in a quiet condo in Nebraska.

Read Bob Cerv’s original 1958 article, “I Played Without Eating” [PDF].

It’s a computer device a little smaller than a sheet of printer paper, and about half-an-inch thin. That sounds a little on the thick side of thin, but thickness measurements of Apple devices have always been kind of fuzzy. The swept edges make Apple products feel a little more svelte than they actually are, and the iPad is the same in that regard. It’s very sleek.

The iPad is evidence of a trend in computing that is changing how computers integrate into our lives. This trend, simply put, blurs the lines between the computer world and the real world. It’s long been a criticism of computers that they separate you from your real, physical life. For most of the history of computing this has been true. Computers have become more accessible over the years, though. The 90’s saw the rise of cheaper, more useful laptops, designed to give you the experience of a desktop machine through a display, keyboard, trackpad (mouse), and speakers, all of which fit into your lap.

The trend that the iPad represents is a shift away from that type of thinking. This trend asks the question, “Would portable computers be more effective if they weren’t designed in the image of a desktop machine?”

Laptop computers will always have their niche, but I don’t believe they are the best solution for most situations. Think for a moment about what you use your computer for. You browse the web. You probably look at e-mail. There may be some word processing that you do from time to time. You also might use your computer as an entertainment device to listen to music, or watch movies and television shows. These activities cover most of what everyone — even complete computer geeks — do with their computers. We mostly do the same seven or eight things on our computers every day. Some days we do even less.

We spend a lot of money for the ability to do this small number of tasks. We buy machines like laptops to make the experience more convenient, but we end up paying a lot of money for a lot of features we don’t use. We’re also saddled with small inconveniences. Laptops mostly use a clam-shell design that requires opening first, waiting to wake the machine from sleep mode, and then making sure you have an internet connection if you want to do anything internet-related. After all this, you’re getting the same experience you got from your desktop: a separation from the physical world because you have a device that takes up your entire lap. Laptops don’t make it very convenient to spend just a minute or two on something.

Apple was very clear that the iPad would be a different category of computer, and I have to agree with them. Apple has avoided the pitfalls of previous tablet-computer-makers.

One of the criticisms of the iPad is “What makes this so different, anyway? Didn’t we have touch-based computers 10 years ago?” Tablet computers have been available for that long, but available technology is not the same as accessible technology. It doesn’t really matter how innovative something is if people can’t afford it. The high cost always associated with tablet computers hindered widespread adoption. The tablet computers of 10 years ago just weren’t innovative enough to begin to justify their high cost.

While there have been touch-screen computers before, few of them were designed to really leverage the touch capability. The designers of those past devices thought of your finger as an analog for the computer mouse-pointer. That makes logical sense, but it doesn’t make any sense from a usability standpoint. If you compare the size of your finger to the size of your mouse pointer, you’ll notice your finger is a lot bigger. This makes your finger less accurate than a mouse pointer. Interfaces designed for use with a mouse are not at all suitable to navigate with your finger. Your fingertip just doesn’t have the same kind of precision. There’s also the problem of humans having 10 fingers. Previous entries in the tablet computer market could only handle touch with 1 finger at a time. These problems made those devices difficult and frustrating to use.

The iPad, however, uses the same multi-touch technology the iPhone uses. This makes a lot of the common actions like pinching, zooming, and navigating feel very intuitive. You feel that there’s less of a barrier between yourself and the device. For example, how fast you scroll down a page depends on how fast you swipe your finger down the screen. It feels just like you’re reaching into the screen do to precisely what you want. The iPad feels pleasantly futuristic in a ‘Douglas Adams’ sort of way rather than a ‘George Orwell’ or ‘Terry Gilliam’ sort of way.

Those who have used one will know what I’m talking about. Those who have not should try to swing by an Apple store or Best Buy to play with one of the demo units.

The fact that tablet computers never achieved widespread adoption created an unfortunate problem with software availability. Companies didn’t put resources into developing tablet applications. It wasn’t worth it. This meant that even if you did have the money to buy a tablet computer, there wasn’t a whole lot you could do with one. By making the iPad extremely accessible, Apple has made the market for touch-based software large enough so other companies will pay attention, which means a lot more functionality for end users.

Apple also did a very shrewd thing by basing the iPad on their already-existing iPhone. Because the iPad is able to run the same software that runs on the iPhone, there already exists a large ecosystem of applications. Developers already knew how to create iPad applications because they knew how to create iPhone applications. They could also develop their iPad applications before they had the device in their hands because the software development kit was available when the iPad was first announced. By doing this, Apple solved the early-adopter problem.

Early adopters can often feel punished for their forward-thinking ways. They pay more for devices to get them earlier. They also tend to face long delays for new software or content for those devices.

This happened on a large scale a few years ago when the first Blu-Ray players were released. A long time passed before the number of movies increased to the point where people felt it worthwhile to get a Blu-Ray player. Getting an iPad isn’t like that at all. The iPad, out of the box, already has thousands of applications available for it. While only a few hundred applications take full advantage of the iPad’s large screen, more are being released every day.

The iPad is the world’s first computer that is completely, from hardware to software, designed around touch, and released at a price that will make it an easy purchase for many people. It is a significant step forward in reducing the impersonality of computing while increasing its accessibility. It’s a computer designed for those moments in your life when you just can’t be bothered to use a computer. That’s a good thing because it turns out quite a lot of people are in a constant state of not wanting to bother with using computers.

For those of you who’ve gotten an iPad, here’s a good place to start when looking around for apps:

Plants Vs. Zombies HD – This strategy game, previously released on Mac, PC, and iPhone, is by most accounts the best version of the game released. It looks beautiful. It’s fun, and it takes great advantage of the multi-touch.

Star Walk – This app transforms staring up at the night sky from an idle pastime into an educational experience. Holding the iPad up to the sky labels the objects you’re looking at, and the stars on the screen change as you change your angle, direction, or location.

Kindle – If you’re disappointed with the selection on the iBook store then you can use this Amazon Kindle application to read or purchase digital books from the Amazon store. This greatly increases the number of books available to you, and reading books on the iPad is a joy.

Netflix – This application not only allows you to manage your Netflix queue, but also allows you to stream movies and TV shows directly to your iPad.

NYTimes Crosswords – If you’re going to get one crossword application for your iPad then this is the one to get. The large screen captures the feeling of filling out a crossword better than any other attempt in the history of digital crosswords. Though, even though the application is free, you will have to sign up for a $17/year subscription from within the app to access the puzzles. I still think that’s a great bang for a buck

OmniGraffle – Clocking in at $49.99, this is one of the most expensive iPad apps out there, and I believe it’s worth it if you want to use your iPad to do real work. It allows you to outline, sketch out, or graph your ideas using multi-touch gestures. Your ideas can then be moved around to organize them, and then saved out as a PDF.

Butler University has played in the NCAA tournament several times, but this is the first time they have advanced to the Final Four. To get this far, they defeated—against general expectations—top-seeded Syracuse and Kansas State. Now Butler (with an enrollment of 4,500 students) faces Michigan State (with an enrollment of 45,000).

The situation has reminded many fans of another Indiana basketball miracle: the 1954 Milan-Muncie Central game that inspired the movie Hoosiers. Several points underscore the parallels: the Milan-Muncie Central game was played at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse, and Bobby Plump, the Milan guard whose last-second basket lifted his team to victory in that game, is a Butler alum.

In 1987 Post writer Hank Nuwer interviewed Plump for an article on Hoosiers and the events that led to its creation. The former guard thought it “an enjoyable movie,” having seen it four times despite its loose grasp of the events.

“The final 18 seconds were the only thing factual in the movie … From the time the ball was inbounds after the final time-out, the movie was accurate.”

March, 1987, The Saturday Evening Post

“Hoosiermania”

by Hank Nuwer

Back in 1954, Milan High, a tiny southeastern Indiana school with 161 students, survived a 751-team tourney to meet the Muncie Central Bearcats in the state basketball finals. Such an improbable matchup between a backwater school and a powerful giant could happen in only a few states, such as Indiana; nearly all other states place schools in divisions according to enrollment size. And, as you might expect, some Goliath from Indianapolis, Marion, or Muncie has invariably claimed the Hoosier basketball title every year—every year, that is, except 1954, when a youngster named Bobby Plump zinged a last-second jump shot that made Milan a household name in Indiana.

Milan’s team was led by four boys from Pierceville, population 45. The quartet—Bobby Plump, Glenn Butte, Gene White, and Robert Schroder— were tough farm kids, unintimidated by physical contact. All were short, even by 1950s standards: the tallest was White, at 5 ‘11. ” The boys were dirt poor but proud. Plump, for example, came from a home that lacked electricity, telephones, and plumbing. They were also painfully shy everywhere but on the basketball court. Because there was nothing else to do in Pierceville but work and shoot buckets, the boys learned to hang hook shots about the time they learned to wield a pitchfork. When the time came, they teamed up with feisty Ray Craft of Milan to give Milan High the best squad it ever had or ever would have.

Hoosiers, the feel-good movie that’s spread Hoosier hysteria around the country, is the brainchild of two Indiana natives and inveterate basketball fans, David Anspaugh and Angelo Pizzo. The movie, they say, was inspired by the famous Milan-Central game, although the script departs widely from the real Milan story. In the movie. Hickory’s coach, Norman Dale (played by Gene Hackman), is a middle-aged man given a chance to redeem himself for punching a player years earlier. Milan’s coach, Marvin Wood, on the other hand, was a quiet man, a relative babe of 24 who had inherited the team from a volatile but successful Milan character named Snort Grinstead. Wood instituted a slow, ball-control game at Milan called “cat and mouse”—an affront to fans long used to Grinstead’s run-and-shoot offense.

After coaching Milan all the way through the tournament field, Coach Wood angered fans of his underdog Indians by freezing the ball late in the final game as the Muncie Central Bearcats led by two points, 28-26. Plump actually stood near center court with the ball tucked safely away like a football and held the ball for four minutes and 13 seconds while 15,000 fans grumbled and squirmed. But Wood’s gamble paid off. When the score was tied at 30, the coach called a time-out. The ball went in-bounds to Plump, who exchanged passes with Craft and then dribbled down the lane while the crowd counted down the remaining seconds. Seeing an opening. Plump went high in the air and lofted the ball over the fingertips of Muncie’s James Barnes. The ball seemed to take forever to reach the basket, but when it did, the ending was made for Hollywood- Milan 32, Muncie 30.

Wood—now the women’s basketball coach at St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana—says he devised the ball-holding strategy by accident in an earlier game. “We played a local team that was big and strong on a large floor in a small gym building,” Wood recalls. “We didn’t want anyone to get hurt, so I said, ‘Hold the ball.’” The scheme worked so well that Wood called the play again in the championship game to rest his winded team.

Coach Wood—who held down a night watchman’s job to supplement the $4,000 he was paid to both coach and teach—had more than just a handful of boys turn out for the team, as Coach Dale does in Hoosiers. On the contrary. Wood’s problem was finding a tactful way to cut some of the untalented players who swarmed into the gym his first day of practice. Of 73 boys in the school, 58 showed up for tryouts.

Despite the discrepancies, members of the real Milan team have enjoyed the movie based upon their heroics, as well as the recent national attention lavished upon them. Plump calls Hoosiers “an enjoyable movie.” He’s seen it four times already, and he won’t deny he may go again. “I think I know all of the roles in the movie,” he says. “You have a good feeling during it—especially when you leave the theater.” But he stresses that key elements in Hoosiers—such as the drunken scene with Shooter (played by Dennis Hopper), the romance between Coach Dale and Myra Fleener (Barbara Hershey), and the reluctance of the team’s star to play—are all figments of a Hollywood imagination. “The final 18 seconds were the only thing factual in the movie about the Milan- Central game, and Angelo Pizzo told me he tried to make that [scene] as true as possible,” Plump says. “From the time the ball was in bounds after the final time-out, the movie was accurate.”

Bob Plump celebrates the basketball shot heard from Milan, Indiana, to Hollywood by cutting down the net. (Photo courtesy of W. M. Krider/Lawenceburg, Jr.)

The movie has brought back memories for Plump, now an Indianapolis insurance executive, yet much of that night 33 years ago remains a blank. He simply cannot remember what he was thinking during those crucial final seconds.”I don’t know,” he says, adding, tongue-in-cheek, “I guess we were a bunch of dummies out there that didn’t have any thoughts.” Later, he theorizes that the Milan players were too busy concentrating on their jobs to worry. Roger Schroder, a Milan player who spent much of the afternoon on the bench, had a good view of the four Indian players flooding one side of the court to give Plump a chance to go one-on-one against Barnes of Muncie. “What I saw happen was just what was planned during the time-out,” Schroder says. “I looked at the clock, and it went from three down to two and one. It was all over and the impossible had occurred.” Milan had won.

As a result of that win, nine of ten poor boys from Milan received college scholarships. Plump admits he never could have dreamed of attending Butler University, an expensive private school, had he starred on a lesser team.

The Milan players insist the movie hasn’t changed their lives, but they also say they can’t wait for the team’s annual reunion in late spring to tease Ray Craft, the only Milan player to have a bit part in Hoosiers. (He welcomes the Hickory team to the site of the final game.) “We will talk about Craft’s delivery of lines,” Gene White says. “We’ll help him improve his acting for his next movie.”

Why else would people dedicate so much time learning how to cast a fly rod or tie a fly? Only something that is truly enjoyable would justify going to the effort of studying the life cycle of insects or the diet patterns of fish.

Fly-fishing requires mastering arcane skills and plenty of patience. But, it also offers the chance to embrace nature in a way unlike any other.

Neophyte fly-fishers face the basic challenges of learning the equipment and prey. But what begins as a pastime soon becomes a cause, as these men and women pursue their new passion with large amounts of time, effort, and resources. They are, in fact, starting an endless quest.

In the midst of learning new tactics, they often discover a rare sense of accomplishment. The pursuit is so intriguing that even days of little or no success on the water can be filled with enthusiasm and an eagerness to return.

In a 1958 Post article, Corey Ford describes the peculiar pleasures he found in fly-fishing.

“His satisfaction lies in dropping cocked at the head of run, and watching it ride back down the swift current, bobbing lightly over a riffle, gliding around a boulder; reversing its course and halting poised for an instant in a back eddy under the bank. If a trout happens to share his enthusiasm for the fly, well and good. The angler plays his adversary on a taut line until the fish is exhausted, and leads it carefully to shore. Then he kneels beside it and grips it firmly around the body—first wetting his hands so he will not damage its protective oily coating—and removes the barb from its upper lip. He holds the trout facing upstream a moment longer, until its gills begin to move regularly, and then he spreads his hand and watches it dart back into the current with a farewell flick of its tail.

“…the dry-fly angler does not come home empty-handed. His creel may be barren at the end of the day, but be brings back other things; the sound of running water and smell of wet rocks, the memory of a grouse drumming on a log, a beaver’s v-shaped wake as it crossed the pool, the sudden skirl of a kingfisher, like a winding reel. They will last longer than a fish curling in a pan.

“A friend of mine, an ardent purist, was challenged once by a golfing acquaintance as he turned loose a large trout he had just netted. ‘Why go to all that trouble to catch a fish,” the exasperated golfer demanded, ‘if you don’t want to eat it?’

“‘Do you eat golf balls?’ my friend inquired pleasantly.”

Fly-fishing is best known as a method for catching trout and salmon, but it can also be used for catching a wide variety of species: freshwater fish such as pike, bass, panfish, and carp, and marine species such as snook, tarpon, bone fish, and striped bass. A growing number of fly-fishers are broadening the number of species they pursue, using cold- and warm-water techniques.

Whether you are an amateur or an expert, the goal is not to catch the most fish. It is to gather rich memories and sharpen skills that apply to everyday life, like thought, planning, and dexterity.

Read “The World’s Fussiest Sport” by Corey Ford [PDF].

It’s one thing to be careful to avoid a nasty fall,

But apart from that, I must say, I’m not risk averse at all.

Taking risks is part of life, or so it seems to me.

And nothing that’s worth doing is entirely risk free.

We cannot read the future. It’s behind a heavy curtain.

So how things will turn out is never absolutely certain.

And yet we must make choices and through our lives proceed

To either change direction or go where our choices lead.

To fall in love with someone is always to take a chance,

But to be afraid to do so would deprive life of romance.

To pick a field of study or set out on a career

Is to gamble, yet we do it, moved by passion and not fear.

We do not know what will happen or what lies around the bend.

What tomorrow has in store, much less how it will end.

Every time we choose a place to live or work or play,

Or meet someone who may become a good old friend some day.

When we take a job or hire someone, invest or make a plan,

We can’t be sure it won’t go wrong because we know it can.

There is the possibility our choices may be wrong,

But we’re all creating our own futures as we go along.

Risk does carry danger, and that cannot be ignored,

Yet risk will often carry a commensurate reward.

Though there’s wisdom in restraint and trying not to be too frisky,

If you want to really live, remember life itself is risky.

Some say better safe than sorry, but it still can be maintained

That it’s just as true to argue nothing ventured, nothing gained.

At the pet store that weekend, Dana and I spent 40 minutes debating the character traits of guinea pigs. We are different, and this was apparent even in our choice of rodents. I chose a feisty, brown, white, and black long-haired one that I named Spence, while my sister went with the more docile short-haired one that looked like a rat. She called him Broccoli. The only characteristic my parents were interested in was that Broccoli and Spence were both male—which they confirmed with the owner—and so we took our new charges home. I was elated: I had scored my first pet with hair.

Over the next few months, Spence and Broccoli took up the majority of our time. They couldn’t play dead or shake hands, but we enjoyed dressing them in Barbie clothes, having them compete in races, and feeding them their favorite snack, lettuce, often­—so often that the moment they heard the opening of the refrigerator door, they made an excited whistle-like sound in anticipation.

When we noticed that Broccoli looked chunky, we cut down on the snacks—even too much lettuce can cause weight gain—but he kept getting bigger. We soon discovered that Broccoli was not just getting fat, but rather “he” was a very pregnant “she.” Dana and I watched the birth, and we were thrilled at our new additions. My parents, not so much. We gave the babies away, bringing our guinea pig family of four back down to two.

My parents separated Spence and Broccoli, forcing them to live in different cages, and forbade us from uniting the star-crossed guinea pigs. For their part, Spence and Broccoli exchanged longing looks and kissed through the metal-wired gates. We were stuck in the middle: We knew they were destined to be together, and it was killing them—well, killing us—to see them apart.

Illustrated by Katherin Streeter

So one evening while my parents were out, the babysitter asleep on the couch, my sister and I saw our chance to orchestrate a reunion. We put Spence in Broccoli’s cage, and they ran toward each other, as fast as guinea pigs can run, which, sadly, is not very fast. But still, it was an emotional reunion. We had no idea how emotional until about two months later, when we were blessed with three more guinea pig babies. My parents were not amused.

After the birth of the triplets, my parents began to realize that our starter pets were probably more work than having a dog. The two cages took up a large space in our living room and needed constant cleaning, as did the area directly around the cages (guinea pigs do not have the best aim).

On my 10th birthday, my parents surprised me with Comet, a cocker spaniel puppy. Dana and I were ecstatic. We’d grown a little bored of Spence and Broccoli and their inability to fetch a ball or catch a stick in their mouths. They were relocated to the basement until we found them a new home.

I forgot all about them, until a few years ago, when I was going through some files and found a picture of our old pals. They were sitting on a Barbie bed eating lettuce with, I like to think, the hint of a smile on their furry faces. I was filled with a renewed appreciation for everything they taught us about caring for a pet. Broccoli and Spence are long gone now, but if there’s an animal heaven, I’m sure they’re in it. And they’re not in separate cages.

Here sat the O’Malleys on a Sunday morning. My little sister, Annie, was sick with tonsillitis, Mom was mad at Dad—whose name was also Dan—for making inappropriate employment choices, and I was running late for a conscripted appearance in the Pope Pious X boys choir at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, as directed by the very eccentric Sister Marion.

“Dan, Danny’s going to be late for Mass and here you sit, all hung over and no job,” Mom said very sternly to Dad, who liked drinking. “At least you could have the decency to get out of that chair and take the boy to church. It wouldn’t hurt for you to go inside the church either.”

Dad looked at me with a painful squint in his eye, and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Son, why don’t you go to Mass yourself today?”

An eruption of Mount St. Hannah—Mom’s name—quickly occurred.

“Take the boy to church, and you go to Mass, too, and I want to know what the sermon was about—now go!” Mom screamed at the top of her lungs.

Dad never said a word, cross or otherwise, on the way to Mass. Usually, he stood in the back of the church and went outside when the priest gave his sermon. This time I saw him sitting halfway toward the front listening intently as Father Connelly implored the congregation to give more money.

The inviting aroma of Mrs. O’Malley’s usual Sunday dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes greeted us upon arriving home from church.

“I said five rosaries while you two were gone. Annie’s temperature is down to 99, Dorothy (Mom’s sister) called, and Jack got a promotion, dinner’s almost ready, Danny, you go change your clothes, and Dan “Mr. I Want To Raise Money for the Governor,” you can help me set the table if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Mom said in her special way.

Sunday dinners were usually pleasant in our house. This one wasn’t. Between passing the peas, mashed potatoes, and serving delicious homemade apple pie, Mom verbally threw everything but the kitchen sink at Dad. His work habits, drinking habits, personal hygiene, and things I didn’t understand were tossed across the table. Dad, to his credit, kept his steely World War II veteran cool and casually defended himself. I just kept eating through the Hannah and Dan bickering show.

US Marshall Dan O'Malley with his son on Christmas morning. Photo courtesy of Dan O'Malley.

Since my little sister was sick in bed, I helped Mom with the dishes. She mumbled to herself the whole time. Even at the age of 9 I could tell her mental wheels were spinning rapidly.

Dad had his face buried in the Sunday paper as Mom regally entered the living room.

“Dan, you’re going to get a job, and you’re going to get one today,” she said officially.

Dad looked at her over the top of his paper as if he heard something, but wasn’t quite sure of what he heard.

“I’m calling the White House,” she announced.

Our family had a distant connection with the Kennedy administration. My grandmother was a grammar school classmate of President Kennedy’s mother Rose. My grandfather was the local ward boss during the Kennedy for Congress campaign. My father served in World War II with JFK’s family bodyguard, John J. “Mugsy” O’Leary. My mother, along with 150 other women in our neighborhood, had lunch one day with Jackie Kennedy. That’s what I knew about our family Kennedy relationship.

My dad dropped the paper on the floor.

“You’re what?” he said as if he wasn’t hearing properly.

Before he had a chance to utter another word, Mom was on the phone. This was back in the days before direct dial long distance.

“Operator, I’d like you to connect me to the White House in Washington D.C., please,” she said in the sweetest honey coated voice I had ever heard.

My dad had an “I really can’t believe you are doing this to me” look on his face as Mom sat there and smiled a Jack Nicholson “Shining” smile at him while the call was going through.

Hannah O'Malley was a caseworker. Photo courtesy of Dan O'Malley.

Dad’s eyes were rolling back in his head. His face was flushed. He was embarrassed beyond belief. Men’s wives don’t usually call the White House to beg favors from old Army buddies or the President of the United States on a Sunday afternoon.

We all sat silent. Mom was on hold with the White House. Cool; I thought. The operator must have told Mom she was going to put her through to someone because she said a very sincere, “thank you, honey”.

“Hello? Well, hello, Mugsy. Yes, this is Hannah. How have you been? We’ve been reading about you. Oh Dan? Dan’s fine, except he’s temporarily out of work. He had applied for a Federal Marshal’s job, but it looks like someone else is going to get it. They told him Friday he was out of the running. They? I guess it was the head Federal Marshal. I don’t know. Here I’ll let Dan tell you all about it”.

Mom thrust the phone at Dad with an all-powerful glance of “don’t screw this up,” as she handed it to him.

“Mugsy!” Dad said with confidence in his embarrassment. “Mugs, we’re doing fine; just a little setback. Well of course I wanted the job, but it’s too late now. They’re going to announce the guy’s appointment tomorrow. Sure; I’ve got time.”

I sat in wonder watching my Dad talk to some guy named Mugsy who worked at the White House for President Kennedy who Mom called after Sunday dinner because she was mad because Dad hadn’t gotten a new job yet.

Dad suddenly looked as if he had been struck by lightning. He sat bolt upright in his chair.

“What?” he exclaimed “Yes, yes, hello to you, Mr. President.”

We all sat straight up. Now my mom looked as if she too had received an electric shock.

“Yes, Mr. President, my mother was Annie O’Malley. Yes, I’m John E’s son. Yes, Jack O’Malley of B.C.’s my older brother. Yes, I was in France and England with Mugsy.

“With all due respect, sir, don’t believe everything Mugsy says about me. Well, Mr. President, basically I applied for the Southern District Federal Marshal’s position and was informed that I’m no longer a candidate. Oh, yes sir, I certainly feel I was the best man for the job. Thank you very much, Mr. President. (pause) Mugsy! What’d you do that to me for? For gawd sakes; the President didn’t need to hear my troubles. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. We’ll hold tight.

“Me too. Thanks.”

With a blank look, Dad got up, walked around Mom, and gently put the phone back on the hook.

We were all silent. Mom was the first to speak.

“Honey, what did they say?” she asked.

“You heard it, I was telling Mugsy about not getting the Marshal’s job. He happened to be in the same room as the president. Mugsy put me on hold and told Mr. Kennedy who I was and where I was from. Next thing I know I’m talking with the man. He remembered Mother going to school with his mom. He said my mom was a childhood friend of hers. He said he also remembered Daddy from his congressional campaign and knew brother Jack from following B.C. football. What a memory! He told me Mugsy often talks about me from our days overseas. Then he asked me what happened and if I thought I was the best man for the job. Then he said, “We think you’re the best man for the job, too.” Mugsy gets back on the phone and then tells me to sit tight and wait for a phone call. Hannah, if this thing comes through, oh baby,” Dad said out of breath.

I jumped up to run out and tell all the kids in the neighborhood that my dad just talked to President Kennedy. Mom had other ideas.

“We’re all going to sit here and pray until someone calls us back,” she said piously.

Dad picked up the paper and buried his face in it. Mom got out the rosary beads. We prayed while Dad read the sports pages.
Several hours later the phone rang. Mom answered it.

“Hello, this is the O’Malley residence. Yes, this is Mrs. O’Malley. Yes, Mr. O’Malley is right here. I’ll get him for you. It was nice talking with you, too,” she said.
Mom handed the phone with a smile on her face to my father. It was the head United States Federal Marshal.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Howard. Fine, sir. I’d be honored to have the position. Yes, sir. I’ll be in your office at 8:30 sharp. Thank you, sir,” Dad said in the most serious and professional manner.

The phone rang again several minutes later. It was Dad’s friend from the White House, Mugsy. He called to ask if Dad was offered the Marshals job and if he accepted it.

The future US Marshal Daniel O'Malley, his wife Hannah and son, Dan Jr. in 1961. Photo courtesy of Dan O'Malley.

“Mugsy, how can I thank you for what you did for me?” Dad asked.

“You can’t. You can thank your wife. She’s the one who made the phone call,” he said.

The next day, my dad’s picture appeared on page two of the local paper with the small headline, “Local Man Chosen for U.S. Marshal.” The article went on to mention how Marshal Fred Howard was proud to have found such a champion of justice and war hero to fill the void in that tough territory known as Southern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

Marshal Howard was fortunate to have found exactly everything they were looking for in a candidate.

On Sunday, Dad’s broke with no job. On Monday, his picture is in the paper; he’s the new Marshal—all because Mom decided to call the White House. Behind every successful man is often a woman like my mother.

—“Both my parents passed away in 2005, just a few months shy of being wed 57 years,” says author Dan O’Malley, now a successful businessman. “This is my tribute to what would have been their 65th wedding anniversary.”

From a back room in a small secondhand bookstore attached to their house, Mrs. Abramowitz and Mrs. Silverman control the Black Widows, a worldwide terrorist organization created with a dual purpose—to wage a personal vendetta and destabilize the Western world. When Zach Dayan, a NYPD detective and former Israeli policeman, takes on the case, he is challenged by a series of apparently random, horrific murders with the same brutal chest slashings. He seeks help from his ex-girlfriend and expert pathologist, Dr. Jayanti Joshi. After examining the hearts, Dr. Joshi quickly discovers the common thread of the murders, but unfortunately, the clue leads nowhere.

Zach’s search for the murderer leads him to the hidden caves of Petra, an impenetrable ancient desert city, where he is soon swept into the bowels of an evil plot as he tries to save the Western world from another Holocaust.

To read a preview of the first chapter and order the book, visit dougzipes.com.

Fortunately, Baxter, being the noble caregiver he was, went the extra mile, starring in his very own YouTube video to ensure his paw print on society would forever be remembered.

I’m not sure why I was so stunned by this video, but I was, as were about 400,000 others who saw it, encountering something rarely seen.

Baxter’s job was to comfort those who lay dying and in pain while giving intimate aid to those on their transition from life to death, sometimes in their very last hours.

For the patients on the hospice ward, Baxter, a golden retriever/chow mix, became a mobile furry emergency unit, entering in and out of damaged lives with near-flamboyant grace and mercy to provide whatever healing he could.

Lest anyone think therapy dogs are merely the newest addition to American’s love affair with their companion animals, let us consider who among us could consistently do this wrenching work? I, for one, despite a desiring heart, could not.

This, though, is where Baxter’s immense soul triumphed, says his owner, Melissa Joseph, who each week wheeled Baxter into the hospice unit in his red covered wagon filled with stuffed pillows—his favorite being an oversized bone-shaped number with the title: Old Soul.

Joseph, who rescued Baxter when he was 2 from an abusive environment, says one of his most therapeutic tools were his big “puppy” eyes that looked as if they were ringed with blurry-black eyeliner. He’d look into patient’s eyes with these huge soulful orbs, and pain and time would relax their grip, says Joseph.

“He’d go eye to eye—it was one of his favorite things to do—and I dare anyone not to melt. He had such a very beautiful and intense gaze,” she recalls. His huge bear paws and real-life teddy bear ears [“I’d always tell people his ears were big because as an angel they helped him fly”] made him both irresistible and potent medicine.

As a key member of the hospice’s Pawsitive Pals Pet Therapy Program team for seven years, Baxter licked the faces and feet of dying children, men, women and the elderly. He wore silly ad hoc cone hats to celebrate the lonely on their birthdays and allowed thin arms to envelope him for hours.

You can read about 36 patients who received the Baxter treatment in Joseph’s book, “Moments with Baxter.”  All proceeds from the sale of the book as well as the sale of a sweet stuffed Baxter animal will go to various animal rescue charities. For more information, log onto: www.momentswithbaxter.com.

One of the things that allow dying patients to open up so quickly and readily to a skilled therapy animal like Baxter, “is likely because they don’t have to talk or worry about interacting; they just get to be there with the comfort,” says Joseph, who was a critical part of team Baxter.

She and Baxter worked on all holidays, which can be especially emotionally draining and tough.  “Maybe they were struggling thinking about saying good-bye to their loved ones, and all the things in their life, but Baxter didn’t require anything of anyone. He just gave unconditional presence and love and softness,” explains Joseph. “He just instinctively and amazingly always knew exactly what to do and who needed what.”

One patient Joseph remembers well, a 36 year-old woman she and Baxter had visited for about a year. The last time they ever saw her she was being transported by ambulance to go home and die. Joseph says she overheard one of the ambulance drivers asking where room 207 was and knew he was asking about this young woman. She asked if she could place Baxter on the gurney to surprise this patient and bring her some joy.

“He struggled with saying yes and really never did,” says Joseph. “I just put Baxter on top (of it) and all of a sudden away we went.”  The hospice staff present that day remember seeing Baxter and this dying woman together on the gurney, rolling around the beautiful hospice grounds.  She died soon after.

The medical staff who worked with Baxter clearly loved and admired him. “If I had just one word to describe Baxter it’d be ‘sage,’ says Dr. Shannon Moore, an oncologist at the institute. “It’s not a word you use about many beings, but it was true about Baxter.”

Lisa McCollough, the Hospice’s chaplain thought Baxter “a rare dignified soul. He just had this immense dignity and spiritual-like presence.” She adds, “And he was very free with his licks.”

Rodney Swan, the hospice’s pharmaceutical aroma-therapist noticed how Baxter seemed to sense the value of a good photo op and “when there were cameras around, he’d give a quick turn and almost smile at the cameras, and then immediately he’d go back to why he was really there. He never let it interfere with his important work.”

One veteran hospice night nurse simply labeled Baxter “the guru of therapy dogs.”

More than a hundred people -standing room only including doctors, nurses, patients, family members, and fans – said a formal goodbye to this amazing animal on October 21 at a memorial put on by the hospice.

I’d never before been to a memorial service for a dog, and I can tell you there was, as they say, few dry eyes in the house.

As was mentioned at the service, Baxter was able to do his most honorable work because Joseph and her husband Dennis Bussey took rare care of their dog: Towards the end of his life Baxter received twice daily acupuncture treatments, massages and swam therapeutically two to three times a week.

Joseph says it helped with Baxter’s sometimes gnawing arthritic pain. “But I really do believe his suffering often overshadowed their [patient’s] own, if for just that brief moment in time. And helped them focus their compassion on Baxter as he was focusing his on them.”

Ultimately, Baxter’s story speaks to me some important lessons about what the face of death and the end-of-life journey can be, and the knowledge that there is comfort for it from some very unlikely places – like the sweet licking tongue of a gifted healing therapy dog.

This story is published with permission from the author and the L.A. Times, where the article first appeared. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed

It is a global phenomenon unlike any other. Children from Ghana to Denmark dream of participating in this event, and its following is unparalleled. Viewer numbers are staggering – the cumulative television audience in 2006 was estimated at over 26 billion. When it is played in South Africa this year, it will draw representatives from 6 continents and Oceania.

It is the FIFA World Cup, the biggest stage for the most popular sport in the world.

Poland's energetic fans. Crowds like this are more likely to happen at a football game than a futbol game in the US.

That is, the world outside of the U.S. Although soccer is known as the “universal language,” it has never had anywhere close to the appeal in this country as the “other” football. Many Americans simply don’t care. They see the game as soft (I grew up in Indianapolis watching Reggie Miller make a career of acting his way to the foul line, but even he would roll his eyes at the some of these soccer flops) or un-American. The rules for the most popular sports in the U.S. – football, baseball, basketball – have more or less been written here, which can’t be said for soccer; and a game with no hands allowed seems to clash with the ideals of the hands-on, blue-collar American worker.

However, like it or not, soccer has arrived in this country. Many Americans enjoy watching and playing the sport, and youth leagues have even become so commonplace they have added a new term to the American lexicon: “soccer mom.” Increasing participation in the sport has inevitably led to the U.S. having better caliber players, and, for possibly the first time ever, our country has a team that is expected to make some noise in the tourney.

It might not be such a bad thing. For one thing, soccer is emblematic of the “melting pot” that our nation is supposed to be. Americans loved the movie “Remember the Titans” because it showed how sports transcended and broke down the racial barriers of segregation. Soccer is breaking those same barriers for Hispanics and other ethnicities on high school teams all across the country. Furthermore, any sport that consists of as much running as soccer for 90+ minutes should be irresistible to Americans who love tough sports. And, like basketball, soccer is a semi-contact sport; teams can be just as physical, intimidating, and/or dirty.

No sane person would wear these outfits. Fanatical fans make the World Cup all the more interesting.

American should also love the passion within soccer. After all, there are three areas of our lives where fanaticism is accepted, and sometimes even encouraged: patriotism, religion, and sports. Considering that A) soccer players are in the event to honor their country, and B) it is the most widely followed sporting event on the planet, the World Cup blends two of these areas on an unmatched scale. There are few stages on which human emotions play so fully: jubilation in victory; agony in defeat; insanity among fans; love among teammates. This event epitomizes what sport is all about. What can be more entertaining than passion?

Americans should appreciate a team that has earned respect from the rest of the world the hard way – through grit, toughness, and skill. It shouldn’t be hard to fall in love with this team.

The talent is there: America stunned everyone by finishing second in the recent Confederation’s Cup, beating #1 ranked Spain and losing a 3-2 nail-biter to the legendary Brazilians in the final.

This trophy is worth getting excited about.

We also seem to have luck on our side. There seems to be a consensus among the experts that the U.S’s first round draw (England, Algeria, and Slovenia) was relatively favorable. The U.S., ranked 14^th in the world, will be heavily favored against Algeria (26) and Slovenia (31), and we shouldn’t be shocked if they upset the 9^th-ranked Brits. A win against any two of these three should be enough to advance them. They could even win all three opening round games (We are, of course, knocking on wood very heavily).

This is uncharted territory for us. We know international competitions – we are accustomed to bringing home tons of medals every Olympics; and we know about big-time sporting events – the Super Bowl, NBA Finals, Indy 500, etc.; but we don’t know as much about the combination of the two that we will find in South Africa. A look at the history of the tourney tells us to expect the unexpected.

There have been more dubious moments as well – Zinedine Zidane’s head-butt and subsequent ejection that probably cost France the ’06 Cup; Maradona’s “Hand of God” in that same ’86 game.

At certain points, the World Cup has become more than a sport as it reflected world politics.

Neither opposing defenses nor the Iron Curtain could stop the Germans in 1990.

• The tourney featured only 15 teams in ’38, because Germany invaded what would have been the 16^th. There were none in ’42, because Germany had proceeded to invade a whole lot of other countries; and none in ’46, because the world was trying to forget the Germans.
• There was the “Football War,” when a 4-day armed military conflict erupted between El Salvador and Honduras following a 1969 qualifying match. Although there were bigger social issues involved, the riots after this game were the last straw for the two countries; igniting a war in which thousands died and 300,000 lost their homes.
• Some believe Maradona’s ’86 heroics were spurred on by England’s engagement in the Falkland Islands conflict.
• West Germany won the World Cup in 1990. Considering that the Berlin Wall fell less than a year earlier, this victory has to rank as one of the most inspired performances of all time. It was also symbolic of what was to come a few months later: The Germans hoisted the Cup on July 8^th in one of the greatest moments in the history of German sports, and East and West Germany unified on October 3^rd in one of the greatest moments in the history of the free world.

The American Red Cross can accept $10 donations, charged to your cell phone bill, by texting HAITI to 90999; or donate through their Web site.

Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean has established the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund, which is also setup to receive online and text donations. Visit yele.org or text YELE to 501501 to contribute $5 to the relief fund.

Two other notable international groups have set up sites to aid the people affected by the Haiti disaster—UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders.

To read about President Obama’s pledge to pursue aggressive relief efforts in Haiti, click here.