The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I’m still basking in the emotional glow of a wonderful holiday visit with my sister and brother-in-law and their family at their home. Even though we live less than 10 miles apart, we only get the families together en masse about twice a year – usually for the holidays and recently for high school graduations that have come annually between both families in recent years.

Following a meal of chili, tossed salad and Tina’s scrumptious cookies, our clan of teenaged girls started swapping old tales of childhood antics and their encounters with “The Seybold Temper.” Soon, the laughter began as the decibel level increased exponentially by the minute in an“I can top that” battle of funny stories that weren’t so funny when events like broken beds, destroyed wallpaper and hog-tied siblings occurred more than a decade ago.

I stepped out of the dining room and into the living room where my wife Nancy and brother-in-law Jamie had escaped the overwhelming audible aura that is engrained in the Seybold genetic code. “This is the quiet room,” Jamie said with only slightest bit of sarcasm. As a 20-plus year veteran of duty in this family, he’s used to it. Nancy has just 12 years under her belt with fewer of these gatherings to account for, so she’s usually the first to flee to a quiet spot when these things get too loud.

Presents were exchanged (including lots of gift cards, Tina’s great handmade candles and cool gadgets for Jamie) and digital cameras recorded the rare confluence of an entire generation of female Seybold descendants. Of course, our son Tyler was there too, but he and the rest of the Y chromosomes are badly outnumbered in the Ohio-Michigan wing of the family.

This was a rare occasion, because as these girls grow older it’s harder to get them all together, what with work, school and their own lives to lead now. How wonderful to see six beautiful, happy and smart young ladies celebrating something as simple as family. It’s perhaps my greatest gift of this holiday season.

Laws Take The Fifth On The Fourth

I love fireworks on July Fourth -- namely the giant show that will be presented tonight on the downtown riverfront here in Toledo . I have no use for the amateurs who launch their backyard displays on a nightly basis for days and days prior to Independence Day. I mean, who wants to hear the equivalent of a quarter-stick of dynamite explode 50 yards from your home? If this were Baghdad, you'd call that "terrorism." Here it's called "patriotism" (just another obscene misappropriation of that term).

I'm not the only one who's tired of this. There are many others (scroll down to the third letter) who feel the same way and wish that the laws prohibiting fireworks use would be enforced. That's difficult because police must observe the fireworks being used, and even the dumbest of the dumb wouldn't put a match to a fuse while a police cruiser rolls by.

But why do people have these fireworks in the first place? Because Ohio law has sold out to the fireworks lobby and a craven desire for more tax revenue. Simply stated, the law allows almost any fireworks to be sold to an Ohioan who signs a form stating that they will not use them in Ohio and promises to take the fireworks out of the state within 48 hours.

Of course there's no way to verify that these pledges have been kept. And from the looks (and sounds) of cities and town across Ohio, there are lots of fireworks lawbreakers. There's no incentive to change the law either, especially not for a state that earns $7 in sales tax for every $100 of fireworks sales.

At this point you might say, "Hey, I have a right to show my love of country by lighting fireworks on our nation's birthday." And when your nation is at war, this is a powerful arguement. It's also pure bulls**t. I doubt if anyone who's experienced an IED attack would think that it's "fun" to explode an M-80 in their backyard. But I'll allow that some folks may want to show their patriotism on The Fourth.

So here's a suggestion for you: take the hundreds (or thousands) of dollars you spend on illegal fireworks and donate it to the USO or the Red Cross or any of dozens of other organizations helping to support Iraq veterans and those brave servicemen and women who are still fighting for freedom in faraway places on this Independence Day. And then head down to the riverfront with us tonight and enjoy your July Fourth fireworks. Your country (and my eardrums) will thank you.

A Cover Charge At The Library?

(Would you rather listen than read? Hear the podcast version of this post.)

Here's my nomination for today's "Stupid" award: a plan approved by the Ohio House to allow libraries the option to charge for admission for library programs such as children's story hour and for borrowing DVD's and CD's and accessing the Internet.

Why would any library in Ohio want to do this? They don't, but they may be forced into it because lawmakers are ready to cut the funding for libraries that now takes about six cents of every dollar collected from the state income tax. Here's the "logic" at work in Columbus:

The state budget is oozing red ink and cuts need to be made. Libraries are used by 70 percent of Ohioans, so that's a good reason not to cut their state funding, right?

Wrong. Seems the Republicans who hold almost every statewide elected office here and who rail against any increase in taxes can read ballot results as well as anyone. And 85 percent of library levies are passed by voters in Ohio.

So why not cut off the state funds and give local voters the Hobson's choice of digging deeper into their own pockets to pay a bigger property tax bill or finding 50 cents to borrow the new DVD of The Aviator?

This is wrong in so many ways. First and foremost, it freezes the time-honored concept of the "free library" in the mid 1980's, so that any technology that's come along since then to enhance the library experience is now subject to a charge.

And here's the capper -- the same fees that you'd pay to borrow a DVD or admit your child to the next "Harry Potter" theme night at the library are subject to sales tax. So the state takes with one hand with funding cuts that force you to pay a fee, and then reaches deeper into your pocket with the other hand to collect a sales tax on that fee.

The only hope is that some form of sanity settles upon members of the Ohio Senate when they debate this measure in the coming weeks. But don't keep your hopes up. It'll be easier to balance the budget on the backs of average folks borrowing a DVD at the library than to do battle with lobbyists who don't want to see their special interest oxen gored at the altar of constitutionally-mandated fiscal responsibility.

"Bright Eyes" On Bushy's Tail

I was blown away last night when I fast-forwarded the TiVo to the end of Monday's Tonight Show and saw Bright Eyes perform When The President Talks To God. Leno hit it on the head when he said earlier in the show, "We'll know right away who in the crowd is red state or blue state." Well, the red staters were silent while the blue staters hooped and hollered.

What an angry, powerful, precise and devastating deconstruction of the Bush presidency in just 2:36. If you haven't heard the song, I suggest you listen to it. It's available as a free download on iTunes.

A Learning Experience For Father And Child

Yesterday, I took my 17-year old daughter on a campus visit to check out the Science programs at Kent State University. It's on a short list of schools she's considering as part of a special combined BS/MD program offered by the Northeast Ohio Universities College of Medicine. Megan is planning to become the next Dr. Seybold and follow in the footsteps of her great-grandfather, the first Dr. Seybold who tended to the ills of north Toledoans for much of the first half of the 20th Century.

The day began with an introduction in a student center auditorium from an associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He proudly mentioned how he'd been a member of the Kent State University community as a student and educator for 36 years. Toward the end of his brief presentation, he asked if anyone had any questions. Just one came to mind:

"What was it like to be here during the shootings?"

It was on May 4, 1970 that four persons were shot to death and nine others wounded at Kent State when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on campus protestors. Despite the dean's jovial admonishment that "there are no stupid questions" I decided this was not the right setting to ask about his personal experiences on one of the darkest days in American history. Unfortunately, our tight schedule did not allow for time for a private inquiry.

I'm sure the dean gets this kind of question often and I doubt if he dodges the subject. The university community doesn't either. Since 1971, there have been annual memorials and observances on the anniversary. The campus also has a number of physical monuments and markers dedicated to the event.

In 1975, the May 4 Task Force was founded by Kent State students and victims of the shootings who felt that "the truth about what happened in May of 1970 had yet to be told and that the lessons to be learned from the tragedy should be part of a continuous and living history." That effort continues with the upcoming 35th commemoration of the shootings.

My unasked question might be answered with a visit to one of the many web sites and other online resources devoted to the May 4 shootings. For a comprehensive and still-growing assemblage of papers, photos and other historical items, check out the May 4 Collection of the Kent State University Library.

For an insightful look at where the truth might be found in all the accounts and versions of what happened that day, read The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search For Historical Accuracy by KSU professors Jerry Lewis and Thomas Hensley.

As it turns out, the question that I hesitated to ask will be answered in the very room where it came to mind for me. This coming Sunday, that same student center auditorium will be the setting for a panel discussion sponsored by the May 4 Task Force entitled, "I Was There." It features a half-dozen people who were students, journalists and faculty members at Kent State University in May 1970.

My college experience began nearly a decade after the Kent State shootings at an Ohio public univeristy that was 150 miles to the west and a world away from the turmoil that led to dissent and death on a college campus.

People of my age who came to adulthood just after the Vietnam era never faced the threat of fighting and dying in an unpopular war. My daughter's generation is on the firing line, albeit as volunteers who choose to serve and risk death in a conflict that seems to echo the same unattainable goal of winning "hearts and minds" in a war-torn foreign land.

A campus visit is usually the first step toward finding the place where your son or daughter can begin the quest for adult knowledge and understanding. I find myself wishing that our visit to Kent State University would have come next week, when the father as well as the child could have had a real learning experience on campus.

It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature

A pop quiz for you armchair meteorologists from the following weather forecast:

Snow along with gusty winds at times. Cold. Low 30.
Winds NW at 20 to 30 mph.
Chance of snow 80 percent.
4 to 6 inches of snow expected.

Now tell me in which month you're likely to see this kind of forecast. January, you say? Perhaps February?

Nope. It's late April in northwest Ohio.

That's right, on April 24th (Happy Birthday Ron and Ashley) we expect to get the "White Christmas" treatment exactly four months late. Or eight months early, if you're the kind of fool who is already looking forward to next winter.

April snowfall isn't that rare in these parts, but it's usually about five inches less than half a foot. And typically it comes within a few days after you've removed the calendar page for the month of March.

Tonight I brought the snow shovel out from storage in the garage and placed it on the back porch in anticipation of Mother Nature's cruel joke to come on Sunday morning. And that may be our only salvation.

For several years now, I've used this strategic shovel placement as a kind of reverse psychology on Old Man Winter. The theory is that if I'm prepared for the worst, it won't arrive. It's worked before when snowfalls did not come as predicted, thanks to my trusty Teflon-coated talisman.

Let's just hope that this April shovel doesn't bring pre-May snowmen.

UPDATE: Sunday, April 24th 4:30 p.m.

It's "good news, bad news." The bad news -- we got the six inches of snow. The good news -- it won't be here long enough to make a lasting snowman. Half of the snow fell when the ground temperaure was still rather warm, so it melted on contact with the pavement, but the grassy areas and cars collected more snow. As you can see, it's still a scene better suited to late January than a week before the first of May, but the snow shovel won't be pressed into service. With highs in the mid-50's tomorrow and Tuesday, we'll let Mother Nature clean up her own spring mischief.

Miller's "Daily" Crossing

If you didn't catch The Daily Show on Comedy Central Wednesday night, set the VCR or TiVo for the repeats today to see comedian Dennis Miller leave host Jon Stewart literally speechless in laughter for the entire interview segment. It's the best 12 minutes Dennis has done in years, with laser-guided riffs on the new Pope and environmentalism. If you miss the repeats, look for a clip of Miller's amazing performance on The Daily Show Celebrity Interview page on the Comedy Central web site.