Tag: humor

Maybe leap day was a bad idea

By Bruce Stambaugh

I feel sorry for anyone born on Feb. 29. They only get to celebrate their birthday every four years. If it is a century year like 1900, they have to wait eight years.

I haven’t known very many people in my life who were born on leap day. So it’s not like I was influenced to complain about the dubious day on their behalf.

My good wife’s grandmother, Maggie, was a leap day baby. Neva remembers turning 16 the same year her dear grandmother was 16. Indeed, Maggie had to wait eight years before she could celebrate her first birthday. She was born in 1896.

Birthday boy by Bruce StambaughPeople born on Feb. 29 get cheated. Sure they have a birthday every year. But it has to be celebrated on Feb. 28 or March 1 or perhaps a day of their choosing. How would you like to consistently celebrate your birthday on a day other than the actual day?

I understand the reason for leap day. An extra day has to be added, generally every four years, to keep pace with the earth’s real speed of rotation. That fact alone reemphasizes my main point. The current calendar system is inaccurate, messed up, verhuddelt, as the Amish would say.

To make matters worse, leap days usually occur during presidential election years, except on most century years. Do we really need an additional day of negative national campaign hyperbole? The year 2000 was an exception because it was divisible by 400, which is why 1900 wasn’t a leap year.

Green frog by Bruce StambaughNow that I think about it, having a leap day would be an excellent question for the candidates to debate. If you compare that suggestion to some of the idiotic comments and ideas that they have been espousing on their own, I think it fits right into the political verbal fray.

In fact, given some of the witticisms by the candidates so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them thought leap day was a reference to a frog-jumping contest. Who could argue with that?

Officially a leap day occurs in most years that are divisible by four, like 2012. Years that are evenly divided by 100 do not contain leap day, unless they are divisible by 400, like 2000 was. See what I mean? Unless you’re a math wizard, leap day is simply confusing.

Letting go by Bruce StambaughThis is reason enough to eliminate leap day. If we have to follow all of these crazy exceptions to even have a Feb. 29, why bother? Why not just wait until an entire year needs to be added, and do it all at one time. It would be like an entire year of jubilee, only in reverse. I’ll be dead by then anyhow, so I wouldn’t have to deal with the ensuing consequences.

I am surprised about one thing with leap day. It hasn’t been made a national holiday. What a great way to stimulate the economy? Establish yet another card buying, gift giving holiday, especially right after the sales for Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day. That would put three holidays in the shortest month of the year, a marketer’s dream come true. Sorry. Ground Hog Day doesn’t count.

In all seriousness, if you were born on Feb. 29, I wish you a happy birthday. If my birthday fell on Feb. 29, which it doesn’t, I would only be 17 this year. On second thought, let’s just keep the calendar the way it is.

2012 calendar looks to be a bit on the crazy side

Eerie sunset by Bruce Stambaugh
By Bruce Stambaugh

We were having a right nice 2012 until January 13th arrived. Of course, it was a Friday, the day the first disruptive snowstorm of the season hit the northeast Ohio area.

Forsythia by Bruce StambaughUntil then, the winter weather had been more like early spring. People reported dandelions and forsythia blooming. I even saw a pussy willow bush ready to open. One person bragged about mowing the lawn at the end of December.

Then along came Friday the 13th. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not blaming the snowstorm on that supposedly superstitious day. In fact I’m not even superstitious, knock on wood.

I had to wonder though if this was going to be the first of several goofy events, either natural or human induced, to occur in 2012. I’m only thinking this because of the way the year’s universal calendar plays out.

Besides the Friday the 13th snowstorm, this is also a leap year. People born on February 29 will finally get to celebrate their Birthday by Bruce Stambaughbirthdays again. February, the shortest month of the year even with Leap Day, has five Wednesdays this year. September has its usual 30 days, and five of them are Sundays.

Of the 12 months, three begin on a Sunday, one on a Monday, one on a Tuesday, two on a Wednesday, two on a Thursday, one on a Friday and two on a Saturday. I think we can thank the Leap Year phenomenon again for making sure no day got ignored.

Other oddities include Washington’s Birthday and Ash Wednesday coinciding. April Fools’ Day and Palm Sunday share the same date. A full moon occurs on Good Friday. August is the only month that has two full moons, August 2 and 31. September’s full moon also occurs on the last day of the month.

Unless you have been hiding in a cave, you have long figured out that 2012 is also a presidential election year. Given the candidates performances so far, that alone would make 2012 a bit tilted.
Flag and bunting by Bruce Stambaugh
To add to the calendar party, we have to mention the Mayan calendar references December 21 as being the day the world ends. That day just happens to be this year’s winter solstice. Maybe we won’t have to worry about winter anymore.

Of course, as we learned last year and a thousand times before, the Mayans can’t claim title to announcing the end of time. Harold Camping still has some explaining to do from last year’s fruitless end-times predictions.

Playing off the fears of an already unsettled global society, the goofiness goes on. For instance, one claim for this year is that a previously unknown planet will hit Earth. Right, and the Cleveland Indians will beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series thanks to an assist by Steve Bartman.

Another oddball prediction has the Earth’s magnetic poles switching places, sparked by a series of solar storms. Better stock up on sunscreen before the prices go up.

Number 13 by Bruce StambaughThere is yet one more piece of information that just might sway you to cash in all your stocks, sell your property and give the proceeds to a respectable charity. Of course it involves Friday the 13th. There are three of them in 2012, January 13, April 13 and July 13.

That in itself may not be so statistically unusual until you hear what my friend, Mic, discovered. The three Friday the 13ths are each 13 weeks apart.

To quote my good friend, “Be forewarned.”

Better late than not at all: Humbly accepting the Versatile Blogger Award

By Bruce Stambaugh

Last March, I was honored to receive an award I really didn’t know what to do with. I had only been blogging for three months, and I wasn’t sure if this was legitimate or the blogger’s version of a chain letter.

Versatile Blogger AwardAaron Graham was nice enough to bestow the Versatile Blogger Award on me after he read my Questions post. And for my more cynical readers, I have never met nor do I know Aaron. He adequately described the award and why I received it, along with a few others. In accepting this coveted award, all I had to do was write a post thanking Aaron. I also had to proclaim seven little known facts about myself, which would have been a piece of cake since I am so little known to start with. And I had to hand out the same award to up to 15 other bloggers. In my naiveté, I wasn’t sure I knew 15 other bloggers. Sure, I had more people than that visit my blog, and several posted comments. I could have easily gone back through those comments, clicked on their blog and christened the 15 I felt most deserving as fellow Versatile Bloggers. But I didn’t.

You see one of my many faults, and my kind wife will attest that it is only one, is that I procrastinate. I wrote about that, too, once. But that was long before I starting blogging. Still, the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and here we are in 2012 and I still haven’t passed on the award the way I should have. Until now.

What spurred me on? One of my blogging friends, Mikalee Byerman, was awarded the Versatile Blogger award after her hysterical Jesus is my Trash man post. When I saw that, I knew the award was valuable and for real. In fact, Mikalee was on my short list of bloggers to nominate.

So thanks to Aaron, who by now has probably forgotten me, and to the nice lady from Bellingham, Washington who crowned Mikalee, I am finally accepting this award, revealing seven startling insignificant facts about my life and naming 15 very deserving bloggers for the same award.

And the nominations are:

Bob Zeller for his persistent and informative posts about his two great loves, besides his wife, photography and birds. His shots are amazing.

Patricia Koelle, who shares some exquisite shots from her home in Germany.

Scott sees the extraordinary in the ordinary, and has the wherewithal to share it. http://littlecrumcreek.wordpress.com/.

Subhakar Das, who knows both books and photographs with equal expertise at http://ficfaq.wordpress.com/.

Heather who shares a love of animals and words, not only with me, but also with her long list of devoted readers. http://becomingcliche.wordpress.com/.

Lucy Gardener loves food, photographs and life. She incorporates all three very nicely on her blog. http://lhgardener1988.wordpress.com/

I think you’ll find Carrie Craig a most appreciative person.

Judy at Northern Narratives beautifully chronicles the days through her lens.

Though focusing on poetry, the subjects and style of Kvenna Rad’s poems are indeed versatile and deserving of this award. http://kvennarad.wordpress.com/

A military spouse from Texas has an important and timely message to follow on http://sottmp.com/.

Grace encourages people to decorate their life at http://www.herumbrella.com/.

Tinkerbelle loves laughter, and shares her youthful sense of humor from her London base. http://laughteriscatching.com/.

Fiona takes an upbeat look at life from China. http://fionaqiqi.wordpress.com/.

Anyone that takes a picture a day, plus loves words and dogs gets my vote. http://livingtheseasons.com/.

And last but not least, any 16-year old who titles his blog, Learning to be Wrong, has to be right. Way to go, Justin. http://learningtobewrong.wordpress.com/.

As for my seven personal revelations, they’re not nearly as revealing or as exciting as the bloggers I’ve listed. But to fulfill the award’s requirement, here there are:

1. I can’t swim.
2. I’m afraid of the water.
3. I almost drowned when I was two.
4. I only take showers (See a pattern developing?)
5. I have never water-skied.
6. I used to have long, blond, curly hair until the seventh grade.
7. I attended the Cleveland Browns’ last World Championship (now hyper-marketed as the Super Bowl) victory, a 27-0 trouncing of the highly favored Baltimore Colts in 1964. Of course since then the Colts moved to Indianapolis, and the Browns moved to Baltimore, thanks to Art Model. The good folks of Cleveland sued to get their name back and won. Unfortunately, the Ravens, really the exiled Browns, went on to win a Super Bowl so Model could be buried in his camel’s hair overcoat and a championship ring on his finger. Or was he already? I can’t remember. I haven’t followed pro football since Model moved the team. I’d rather go swimming.

Well, folks, that’s the best I can do. My procrastination has finally been overcome by guilt, and the Versatile Blogger Awards have been duly handed out. Bring on the Oscars.

The craziness continued in 2011

Funny faces by Bruce Stambaugh
By Bruce Stambaugh

This year proved just as crazy as any other. Nose for news person that I am, I kept track of some of the zanier happenings of 2011 that for whatever reasons didn’t quite make the headlines.

Some of the stories involved weather. Others were human driven. Here is just a sampling of the year’s mayhem.

January
1 – By early morning, more than 4,000 red-winged blackbirds fell dead out of the sky over the Beebe, Arkansas.
12 – Florida was the only one of the 50 states without measurable snow on the ground.
28 – A woman in Kent, England returned a dog she had adopted from the local rescue kennel because it clashed with her curtains.

February
21 – Justine Siegal threw batting practice for the Cleveland Indians in Spring Training, becoming the first woman to do so for a Major League baseball team.
23 – Mother Jones magazine reported that since 1979 most income groups in America have barely grown richer, while the income of the top 1 percent has nearly quadrupled.
27 – Frank Buckles, the sole remaining U.S. World War I veteran, died at age 110 at his home in Charles Town, West Virginia.

Amish buggy by Bruce Stambaugh
March
13 – Police in Ashland, Ohio ticketed the driver of an Amish buggy for drag racing another buggy on the way to church.
13 – The massive 9.0 earthquake that struck Japan was so powerful it moved the country’s northern most islands up to 13 feet east.
25 – A report on global health reported that worldwide 4.6 billion people had cell phones while 4.3 billion people had access to a toilet.

April
9 – Rick Baird of Charlotte, North Carolina mad a perfect score in the second round of the Virginia State Putt-Putt tournament by acing all 18 holes in Richmond, Virginia.
11 – Scientists in England determined that April 11, 1954 was the most boring day in the 20th century.
24 – MensHealth magazine reported that the average American consumes 125 pounds of sugar annually.
Peach pie by Bruce Stambaugh
May
17 – Watermelons in China were exploding in the field because farmers there apparently added growth chemicals too late in the seasons.
21 – U.S. Census figures showed that the Hispanic population had surpassed the Amish population in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
26 – The Police Executive Research Forum listed Flint, Michigan as the most dangerous city in the United States.

June
4 – Bobby Bradley, nine, became the youngest trained pilot to fly a hot air balloon solo when he launched at Albuquerque, New Mexico and landed a half hour later.
17 – A deer fawn apparently dropped by an eagle onto a high voltage line caused a power outage in East Missoula, Montana.
20 – Maria Gomes Valentim, purported to the world’s oldest person, died in Sao Paulo, Brazil just two weeks shy of her 115th birthday.

July
26 – Sue Fondrie of Oshkosh, Wisconsin won the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest for bad writing with a 26-word opening sentence.
26 – A 200-year-old bottle of French wine sold for $120,000, setting a new Guinness World Record for the most valuable bottle of white wine ever sold.
28 – The U.S. Census showed that rural population totaled just 16 percent of the national population, the lowest rate in history.
Young soccer players by Bruce Stambaugh
August
2 – In trying to get to the Mercury Insurance Open in Carlsbad, California, pro tennis player Bojana Jovanovski flew from Washington, D.C. to Carlsbad, New Mexico.
13 – Real Madrid, a pro soccer team, signed a seven-year old boy from Argentina, to play soccer.
18 – The small Pacific resort island of Aitutaki, part of the Cook Islands, had its first bank robbery, with the thieves making off with $166,000.

September
9 – The Highway Loss Data Institute reported that the number one stolen car in the U.S. was the Cadillac Escalade, while the least stolen was the Mini Cooper Clubman.
24 – A total of 18,000 people attended the annual RoadKill Cook-off and Autumn Harvest Festival held in Marlinton, West Virginia.
30 – Brianna Amat, a senior at Pinckney Community High School in Michigan, was crowned homecoming queen at half time of the football game, and awhile later kicked the winning field goal as a member of the football team.

October
16 – Fauja Singh, 100, completed the Toronto Marathon, becoming the oldest person on record to finish a run of 23.6 miles.
23 – In the first ever-democratic election in Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began, voter turnout was 90 percent.
28 – A 60-year old New Mexico woman went straight to jail after allegedly stabbing her boyfriend over a game of Monopoly.

Buck by Bruce Stambaugh
November
1 – Inside Insurance Magazine rated West Virginia as the state were drivers are most likely to hit a deer.
30 – An 80-year old Chicago man donated an old wool suite to Goodwill, only to remember too late that he had hid his life savings of $13,000 in one of the pockets.

December
4 – A chain-reaction crash on an expressway in Japan resulted in 14 luxury automobiles, including eight Ferraris, three Mercedes-Benzes and a Lamborghini, being destroyed or heavily damaged.
7 – Pantone Inc. announced that Tangerine Tango would be the 2012 color of the year.

Let’s hope 2012 is a better year for you, me, and for all who grace God’s good earth, even if we have to wear some shade of orange.
Tangerines by Bruce Stambaugh

What’s in a name? Does it really matter?

Edgefield basketball team by Bruce Stambaugh
My sixth grade basketball team.

By Bruce Stambaugh

I recently had a very nice conversation with a six-year-old girl named Sophie. I told her that I liked her name. In response, she just beamed an ear-to-ear smile and blinked her brilliant blue eyes.

I didn’t tell Sophie this, but she reminded me of another Sophie I knew when I was in elementary school. That Sophie and I were in the same grade and often in the same class.

I remember her in part because of her name, which was rather unusual in the 1950s. Plus, when compared to the rest of the hoard of heads in the overflowing classroom, Sophie’s last name was even more foreign than her first.

Just years removed from World War II and in the midst of the Cold War, families with eastern European last names were often Girl and pumpkin by Bruce Stambaughlooked at askance. That didn’t make it right. It’s just the way it was. As I recall, Sophie was even picked on by other kids, despite her pleasant personality and her charming looks.

I never liked that she got taunted. But I don’t remember ever standing up for her either. I admired Sophie for being so impervious to the mocking and bullying. I seemed only able to empathize with her, stymied by my own juvenile sense of inferiority.

I got teased a lot in school, too. Out of the hundreds of students in our elementary school, I think I was the only Bruce. It didn’t help that I was small and younger than most kids in the class. I remember the hurt feelings more than exactly what was said. I couldn’t imagine how Sophie felt. Yet she kept that furtive smile and carefree attitude.

I silently blamed my parents for my troubles since they had stuck me with the cursed name. I don’t think they liked me. I theorized that since they already had a son, they were hoping for a girl next. Back then, parents had to wait until the actual birth to know the sex of their child.

Mom and Dad by bruce Stambaugh
My mother, Marian, and late father, Richard H. Stambaugh

I figured when another boy popped out, my parents were so disappointed that they named me Bruce. Coupled with my last name, callous students also poked fun at my initials. I had to wonder what were my parents thinking.

My predicament grew worse. A couple of years later, my parents got their girl and I became the forgotten middle child. To complete the Stambaugh brood, Mom bore both another boy and girl.

As you might imagine, the derisive name-calling worsened among the squirrelly junior high school kids and the insensitive high school jocks. When I finally began to both accept my name and get over my silly self-pity, I realized what my classmate Sophie had known all along. Bruce, like Sophie, was just a name, and a decent one at that.

I long ago got over my folks tagging me with the name Bruce. I’m just plain stuck with the initials. Given my orneriness, I probably have earned them anyway.

Davis by Bruce Stambaugh
Be your own person.

I enjoyed my recent chat with young Sophie; glad for the memories she evoked. From what I could tell, Sophie had already learned an important lesson that would take her far in life.

Like the Sophie in my elementary school, this sociable first grader instinctively seemed to know that it’s not what’s in a person’s name that is important. It is what’s in the person that really counts.

An empty nest is a good thing

By Bruce Stambaugh

We humans can learn a lot from bird behavior.

A pair of Rose Breasted Grosbeaks had frequented a backyard hanging feeder filled with sunflower seeds for much of the summer. Time and again they ferried nourishment to their young somewhere deep in the woods. When they were ready, the young fledged and flew the coop. The nest was empty.

Rose Brested Grosbeak by Bruce Stambaugh
A male Rose Breasted Grosbeak at the oil sunflower feeder.

My wife and I knew early on in our child rearing that the day would come when our daughter and our son would both be gone. They would grow up and begin lives of their own. That’s as it should be.

The main role of parents is to raise your children the best you know how, imperfectly to be sure, and then let them go. They are adults. They can use their own wings to fly through this crazy world of ours.

Still, I have encountered parents who long for the days when their children were younger. They just can’t give them up, even though they are adults. The comments have not only come from newbie nesters, also known as helicopter parents, who hover over their college freshmen. Veteran parents whose “children” left long before our own also seem melancholy.

Empty nest by Bruce Stambaugh
No post about the empty nest would be complete without a picture of an empty nest, in this case a House Wren's nest in an Eastern Bluebird box.

Ideally, the child/parent relationship should go something like this. As infants, the children are totally dependent on the parents. As they grow and mature, they change from children to young adults, responsible for their own actions.

By their late teens, the kids may go off to college, like our children did, or simply leave home to begin life on their own. It is at this critical point in the family relationship cycle that parents need to freely release their offspring.

Unfortunately, given the current extended downturn in the global economy, jobs are harder to come by. The reality for some is that out of financial necessity adult children and sometimes grandchildren have had to move back in with parents and grandparents.

In the 16 years since our nest has been empty, my wife and I have had opportunities to travel without the constraints of busy teenagers’ schedules. More often, we have simply enjoyed our quiet times together. Of course we continue to interact with our grown children and the grandchildren as frequently as we can. But we have also learned to give them their own space.

Flower garden by Bruce Stambaugh
My wife gets many compliments on her beautiful flower gardens.

The empty nest has had another unexpected benefit. My wife and I have also rediscovered one another, and learned to enjoy our own hobbies and interests. Some we do as a couple. Others, like gardening for Neva and birding for me, we enjoy separately. We have gained individually and as partners.

I know humans have a higher calling than birds. Birds at least instinctively know that their role as parents is to sit on those eggs until they hatch, feed the chicks until they fly, teach them how to forage for food and to fear predators. After that, they are generally on their own.

For me, that’s where the comparison tilts to our advantage. We should strive for interdependence with our adult children, keeping in contact with them, always loving and communicating with them, without controlling or smothering them. Achieving that optimum goal can help combat the emptiness of the empty nest.

A healthy, nurtured interdependence between parents and adult children can result in the empty nest being a good thing for all involved, birds included.
Family by Bruce Stambaugh

Two lifetime experiences in one day

From the press box by Bruce Stambaugh
The view I had from the press box at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.

By Bruce Stambaugh

I had looked forward to this day for a long, long time.

A reporter friend of mine asked me if I wanted to accompany him to a Cleveland Indians game with seats in the press box. Big kid that I am, it was a lifetime dream of mine to do so.

For years I had wondered what it would be like to sit in the press box to watch a baseball game. Last week, my dream came true with an unexpected bonus.

To get me through the press gate, my reporter friend, who will remain nameless for professional reasons, listed me as his photographer. Good thing I had taken my camera along.

My excitement settled soon after attaching the yellow press tag to my belt loop. Our planned first stop on my behind-the-scenes tour of Progressive Field was the playing field to watch batting practice and mingle with the players and coaches. But this game was the day game of a day-night double-header. There was no batting practice.

Progressive Field by Bruce Stambaugh
My regular seat at Progressive Field is just above my left shoulder, seven rows back.

Since I was actually standing on the playing field I wasn’t all that disappointed. My friend took my picture in front of the Indians dugout and by the Indians on deck circle, which is directly in front of where I usually sit as a fan.

We headed into the Indians dugout. I sat in the shade on the bench a few feet from some player who had completely shaved his head. It was Justin Masterson, the starting pitcher for the Indians.

Soon we made our way down the tunnel and up the ramp to the players’ clubhouse. We rubbed shoulders with several players, but passed them without speaking according to media-player etiquette. All in all, I found the locker room to be much less luxurious than I had envisioned.

I had a similar reaction when we entered the media dining room. It was spacious, but reminded me of a college cafeteria, only with a nice view. We signed in and paid for the buffet. Thoughts of the media being coddled began evaporating. Once I tasted the food, the memories of college continued.

Across the hall was the press box, curving left and right high above and behind home plate. Here, too, I was surprised. Instead of plush, I saw plain. The press box was more functional than cushy. There was plenty of room to work, but it really wasn’t the best view from the third row where we were assigned to sit.

Reporters at work by Bruce Stambaugh
Reporters hard at it in the Progressive Field press box.

It was unexpectedly quiet, too. With deadlines to meet, the reporters simply minded their own business and watched the game.

The game moved right along until 1:51 p.m. when the press box itself began to move. I felt an obvious swaying east to west. I asked my friend if he felt it. Indeed he did.

Other reporters swiveled their heads with astonished looks on their faces. The press box rocked and rolled for 30 seconds, stopped briefly, then began again, only not as severely nor as long.

Someone checked on the Internet and said that the Pentagon was being evacuated because of an earthquake centered in Virginia. Here I was in my first and probably only major league press box and I had also experienced my first earthquake.

I had always wondered what a quake felt like. Now I knew. I felt both nauseated and exhilarated.

With those lifetime experiences realized together, I happily took my usual seat at the next Indians game I attended.

Batter up by Bruce Stambaugh
The view from my regular seat at Progressive Field is much improved over the press box.

Kids these days

Juvenile Redheaded Woodpecker by Bruce Stambaugh

Boisterous, brassy,
young redheaded woodpecker
posed for photo op.

Bruce Stambaugh
August 30, 2011

Words I always wanted to use

Amish clothesline by Bruce Stambaugh
Perhaps this post, like this clothesline, is just a lot of literary laundry flapping in the wind.

By Bruce Stambaugh

I have loved words for as long as I can remember. That’s a good thing for a writer.

Following the instruction of a highly regarded journalism professor, I never tried to use highfalutin words in my written endeavors. To be absolutely clear, it was best to write with everyday, run-of-the-mill words.

I have tried to stick to that advice ever since, earnestly desiring to avoid platitudes. Over the years though, I endeavored to expand my vocabulary. I noted catchy words that I either liked or sent me to the dictionary. I gradually created a latent lexis cache for future use.

Procrastinator that I am, I never got around to incorporating most of those exotic words in my dissertations. Consequently my verbose hoard burgeoned.

I figured a quick way to rectify that error would be to incorporate a multitude of those expressive descriptors in one fell swoop. My writer’s itch would then be scratched.

If and when I did such a deed, I pontificated that I had better generate a productive manuscript that actually resonated with the readers. I didn’t want to simply create a haberdashery of verbiage. I saw no need to hemorrhage words just for the sake of typographical splaying.

No matter how many syllables they contained or how obscure, the use of the words had to make sense. I wanted such exhortation to be both sanguine and seminal. That amalgamation would be a challenge. I emphatically didn’t want my text to be blowviating.

It would be inscrutable of me if the sentences were disparate. Therein lay the quandary. There could be no dissonance to what I wrote. I had to maintain my own aplomb. I certainly didn’t want my writing to be disingenuous. The content had to be sublime and easily assimilated.

I had to be succinct, too. A sheer plethora of words would not be acceptable. I couldn’t fathom allowing hubris to interfere with my communiqué. By my own volition, my certitude had to temper my cognition to avoid a panacea of a wanton wordy warren.

I could not permeate my writing with supercilious words that meant zilch to the readers. This discourse had to have evocative consonance. I certainly didn’t want the piece to be an Archipelago of disassociated declarations.

Intuition told me that the document had to be symbiotic. Being glib would never do. Creating a cacophony of jibber would not suffice either.

I knew I had to approach this sensitive assignment with both timidity and temerity. It would be a narrow literary line to walk. I would simply have to conjure up the pluck to pull it off.

Simultaneously, I understood that this nuance of style could not be maniacal in any way, shape or form. There was no room for duplicity.

To be true to both my readers and myself, I absolutely had to use discretion. Otherwise, the entire peripatetic piece would culminate into nothing more than an oxymoron. Such a paroxysm would be extremely unfortunate.

Whether you are agog, aglow or have a sense of animus after reading this, I just hope that this quixotic, idiosyncratic reverie of mine hasn’t dissuaded you. Otherwise I will have orchestrated my own demise with this effusive enigma, this pretentious prattle, this demonstrative claptrap.

Ergo, I would have to plead for impunity. Wait. I better go look up that one.

In praise of bathrooms and healing

By Bruce Stambaugh

I normally don’t write about politics. I try to keep my news on the bright side.

That said, I had a lot of time to fill while recuperating from my recent surgery to remove my cancerous prostate. I listened to the radio, watched television, reflected on life’s really important matters, and appreciated the kindness and generosity of family, friends, neighbors, churches, businesses, organizations and even strangers.

Their cards, visits, well wishes, prayers, flowers and food all rather overwhelmed me. I found it humbling and heartwarming to be told that so many people in so many ways love you.

The post-surgery visit to the doctor was positive, although we will have to wait a month for the results of my next PSA test to be able to say that I am “cancer free.” All things considered, I am very upbeat about my progress so far.

That brings me back to the beginning. While recuperating, I was astonished to already hear so many detailed reports on who might be running for the opportunity to oppose our current president in the 2012 election.

That’s right. Next year’s presidential election was commanding headline media time and it’s only Spring 2011. It was enough to make you nauseous, more so than the pain medication did for me.

The recovery process required that I also listen to my body. Much of that dualistic listening took place in the bathroom, which may be the perfect spot to have to endure premature political discourse.

Even without having had surgery, I’ll confess that I have always loved both bathrooms and politics. In today’s age of sound bite mania, it’s hard to tell the two apart.

In being sensitive to what my body was telling me as it slowly healed, I had to carefully respond appropriately. After they mess with your plumbing, believe me, you don’t want to stray too far from the water closet.

But then, I already had that reputation. As a kid, I got ribbed about using the bathroom so much. I tried not to let it bother me. I knew my business better than others, so to speak, and I learned early on to make sure I took care of business as needed.

Honduran outhouse by Bruce Stambaugh
An outhouse in rural western Honduras.

I used to say that I never saw a bathroom I didn’t like, until I went to Honduras. And even then, I learned the valuable necessity of compromise. As I matured, which is still being debated, medical tests proved what I already knew. Bathrooms were my best friends.

When I go to meetings, I always sit on an end chair just in case. In junior high school, I had a permanent hall pass. I made NASCAR pit stops seem inconsequential.

Minutes, hours, days and now weeks after my delicate, nerve-sparing robotic prostate surgery, I have learned that spending quality time in bathrooms is both a necessity and a positive sign of healing. In that unmentionable course of action, I have learned that patience is definitely a virtue.

I am looking forward to the continued healing and to hopefully hearing the words “cancer free” at my next doctor’s appointment. About 218,000 men in the United States are diagnosed each year with prostate cancer and more than 35,000 die from it annually. (See BlueCure.com for more information.)

Given those statistics, I absolutely feel fortunate to be able to share, even if it is about bathrooms. Premature presidential politics, on the other hand, is another matter.