The time Digger Phelps saved Christmas Eve (a true story)...

It was that special night--Christmas--and Zofia and her daddy were headed home through the back streets adjacent to Notre Dame's golf course and campus. The neighborhoods were built, in most cases, around the time of the Great War and its aftermath, mostly populated with professors, former Notre Dame coaches, and even a few celebrities, like the comedian Martin Short, a home he bought for his children while they attended the university's prestigious law school.

The law school itself is run by the notable Robert Blakey, former chair of the House Assassinations Committee that was convened in the late 1970s to investigate the killings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy.

But it had snowed and melted overnight before Zofia and her daddy went out to run errands for when grandma and her uncle were coming over to celebrate Christmas eve with them and they had forgotten how icy the neighborhoods could get! The moment they hit the patch of ice, it was over: they slid very quickly into one of the neighborhood yards; it was shocking and jarring, but they were alright when it was over. But they were stuck. What to do?

Help was on the way! A grumpy old man who appeared to have been born with a jelly-doughnut in his mouth ambled-up to the side of the car. Daddy had already gotten out. The man said nothing, just grunted, and motioned. He took the jelly-doughnut out his mouth and said, "Move it over that way and you'll be able to get out."Daddy did what the man said, and it worked. Daddy waved to the man with no response who was headed home, eating his jelly-doughnut he'd been born with. Funny how people can overcome their shadow side, being kind and grumpy all at the same time. Grumpy!

But the fact remains: Digger Phelps saved Christmas eve. Thank you Digger.

From a recent Yo-Gabba-Gabba! show in Chicago...

All hail Zofia! Heil Zofia! Heil Zofia! The spanking never happened!

Ed.--Eeeeeeeek!!!!

My favorite photo, and the turning of the wheel...

This is a photograph of my mother and grandfather. He'd just returned from WWII, from the European theater, having served under that nut General George "Blood and Guts" Patton. My mother looks so thrilled to see her daddy coming home. WWII was necessary.

Military-style fascism had to be crushed in Germany and Japan and all of the occupied territories. But this same fascism still infects America, and it must be crushed. Luckily, it's extinguishing itself.

My grandfather never fully recovered from his experiences in the war. For the rest of his life, he was very nervous man with a hair-trigger temper. He couldn't connect very well with my mother because she had been born in 1944, after he'd left to serve in the Army. He wasn't a dumbass, he was drafted, he didn't enlist. I respect him for this greatly. He had sense. When he came back, the economy was far worse than it is right now (just wait). What can I say? He was a good man who found it hard to express his feelings to his family, but we loved him just the same.

Today, I dug-out some of these old photos to show to my three-year-old niece, Zofia, to show her what her grandma looked like as a baby (exactly like Zofia, since we have non-recessive genes). She's a precocious little baby with a big heart and a mostly peaceful temperment. She rarely cries. She's a joy. When I showed her this and other photos and told her "This is grandma," she said, "No--this is Zofia!"

Rollie and Billie, father and daughter, finally united--it was 1946, and the Cold War had yet to be invented by the politicians (mainly the utterly corrupt GOP). When the wars have ended, when tyranny has been smashed, when people finally learn to live amongst one another in relative peace, and when we realize that we're all a family, we'll have the same moment of love that Rollie and Billie lived 62-years-ago. That moment was--and is--love. Love for ourselves and each other, because it really is that simple. The circle is unbroken.

You didn't ask for it, but you're getting it: Baby Zofia!

South Bend, Indiana--Here's an older photo of my niece, little baby Zofia (we had no-choice in the spelling of her name, I would have used an "S"). This is the first-time Baby Z played drums ever! She was just one, now she's two.

I didn't and still don't care about the death of my father's mother, who could best be described as an undiagnosed psychotic. Conversely, when my grandmother and grandfather died (my mother's parents), it was devastating to my family and still is. Family is family, and not purely by blood, but also through behavior. Cruelty has its price: alienation. "Lil" had no friends left before her final descent into madness and dementia, and she earned it.

But this baby is the best consolation we could ever have for those we have loved and lost, and she looks so much like a Blough--like my mother and brother especially--that it's uncanny. Babies are such a joyous occasion, the good-side of life, and her coming helped me understand that life goes on and that mortality is necessary. She's the sweetest little baby I've ever had the honor to know, and this blog is my humble contribution towards making a better world for her to live in. Getting your hands dirty is part of the job, and there's a lot of work to do. How do we begin making a better world?

A first-step means taxing the ultra-rich out-of-existence and ending the legal existence of corporations. It's our world too, including Zofia's.

All I can think of is this baby's smile and her giggles. A natural musician? We'll see, it runs on my mother's side of the family! My great-grandmother played barrel house and juke-joint piano, ragtime, etc., like a charm. And girls can play drums now, it's safe to come out! We're all going to live together or die together, and babies are why we must have peace in this world, forget the adults.

Revised 10.13.2008