"A man’s not supposed to cry." -Marvin Gaye

Within a few years four directors of large Charlottesville non-profit organizations were fired. 

Someone once said that he wished that he still had "the genius for living" that he had as a child. I have been long aware of this and delight in that genius. The curiosity, spontaneity, mirth, and knack for having fun out of so little.

My first sports event was when as a five year old I saw the Baltimore Orioles in their 1954 debut. I have been a sports fan ever since. My recall of hundreds of games is a bit of a blurred continuum. Mostly I can recall great dramatic moments.

We recently saw a documentary on singer/social activist Phil Ochs. People, like me, know the name but not much else. Now I know. He was an intense performer and organizer for civil rights and, then, the anti-war movement. He wrote and performed a steady stream of songs related to his intense commitments.

Immediately after the shootings in Tucson, people held forth on how the nasty rhetoric in our current politics might encourage violent acts like this. Mark Shields, a public tv commentator and as reasonable a man as you can find, believed it could influence unstable
characters.

Each year there is published a listing of the most popular names in the United States. My boomer generation from WASP suburbs matched the list in my day: John, Mary, Tom, Mike, Susan, etc., all the standards. In this era of very creative African-American names, the names of previous black generations match mine. I know black women named Sharon, Cynthia, and Janice.

Issues, character and experience aside, I believe the personalities of our presidential candidates have made an important and, in one case, a deciding difference. Put simply, undecided voters often may vote for the man they feel most comfortable with.

It was 1974 and I was in a downtown Boston ice cream parlour struggling to choose a flavor. To my right, I heard some chuckling. It was a college housemate, and he said that the knew it was me because I couldn’t make up my mind. It stung a bit, but given Jon’s jovial, let’s-not-take-anything-seriously nature, I had to go with his amusement.

Over the last 20 years, I have had over a hundred letters and columns published in Charlottesville. Reader appreciation has been my pay and the following letter inspired the most responses: