Memories of my dad: mostly good

 

We weren’t particularly close, but these were some of my recollections of Philip Doan this Father’s Day. Was he Atticus Finch or Homer Simpson? I’m not sure. (Maybe I was Bart Simpson?) A few examples:

--Eating forbidden cookies in a box and then running away as he chased me. Finally, he ran out of breath. “Let’s forget about this,” he said.

--Angry about his micromanaging my chores, I “inadvertently” positioned a hose to squirt water into an open car window. Whoops!

--Thrilled when he set off illegal fireworks on the Fourth of July outside our motel in Olympia, Wash. When the explosion was much larger than we expected, he made us get in the car and flee before the cops came. Homer Simpson would have done that.

--Getting a boxing lesson from him when I was about 10. I landed a right hook on his head and he immediately declared the lesson over. Oh that felt good!

--Forced to go with him to a record store and listen to a record of Mario Lanza singing “The StudentPrince.” I  loved it. When he asked what I thought, I said, the way a teenager would, “It was OK, I guess.”

--Him recruiting me to appear in the opera “La Boheme” at the L.A. Shrine Auditorium. I was a non-singing 10-year-old street urchin stealing food from a vendor.

--Hearing that he intervened when I signed up for study hall in the 12th grade and got the counselor to enroll me in physics instead. Atticus Finch would do that.

--Taking us at my birthday parties to a submarine, a bowling alley and an ice skating rink.

--Hearing that he boasted to my uncle about what an obedient teen I was. My uncle responding, “Well, what about the time he let that broad drive your car and they crashed into a traffic island on Arlington Boulevard?” I knew I shouldn’t have told my cousin about that!

--Forcing me to get off my butt and find a job the summer I graduated from high school and wanted to loaf. He liked that I found one in San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin district, probably a dangerous place for a 17-year-old at night.

--Traveling around the country with him on trains, his true passion, for a month when I was 19.  He loved to sing “The Wreck of the Old 97” but never got to visit the site in Danville.

--Seeing him angry with me when I refused to cut in line at the White House tour. I think he always wanted a more aggressive son.

--The time a fly ball from Ken Aspromonte’s  bat was heading for my head at a San Francisco Seals baseball game. As I ducked, my Dad  stuck out his hands and caught the ball and the crowd applauded. I still have that ball!

-- Climbing within 500 feet to the top of a Sierra Nevada mountain peak with him, when he had trouble breathing and lay down. After I prayed for him, he declared, ‘You’re a good boy, Mike.” And we made it back down.

--In a nursing home, finally getting up the courage to tell him I loved him. He seemed to like it, but maybe it was too late.  By then his memory was mostly gone and I don’t know if he really got it.

(Drawing by Ron Miller)

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting for the Axe

I have this irritating tendency to let other make the decisions I should have made myself. Best example:

On the way to Europe for a vacation, I stopped to visit the New York headquarters of The Associated Press. As a 28-year-old editor in the San Francisco bureau, I was given the rare opportunity to meet with the top man, General Manager Wes Gallagher.

“What would you like to do?” the great man asked me. “Uh, be a writer or an editor,” I said indecisively. “Well, which?” he asked impatiently. “Uh, editor,” I responded, as if flipping a coin.

“We need editors in our Washington and New York bureaus. Would you be interested?” he asked.

“Yes,” I responded, unconvincingly.

San Francisco was a great place to live. My family was  there, and I loved all of the famous sites. But this was an opportunity. I had learned to grab them when they came.

So within a few months I was off to Washington and an editing job. Within two years, I was “night editor,” actually running the afternoon news desk, which edited and cleared most of the Washington news  for morning newspapers. In 1973-1976, that included an awful lot, especially Watergate and the Vietnam War.  Why would they pick someone so young? Because the news desk was filled with old, jaded news veterans, just hanging on until retirement. It  was a heady position, but after four years I was burning out. I wasn’t writing anything myself.

The head of the congressional staff had offered me a job on Capitol Hill and I stupidly turned it down. I told him I had promised to be an editor.

Then in late 1976, I was unhappy that I wasn’t getting overtime when others were getting extra pay working late. I turned down an offer by the union leader to accompany me into the bureau chief’s office to complain. I just went myself.

I made my case to Marvin Arrowsmith, well respected but ailing man running the bureau. For years he had been the White House correspondent and looked particularly distinguished, more like a president than a newsman. As he aged, his hands shook and he seemed like he was too old for the job.

With his hands folded, he said, “I need to tell you this. We are making a change in the night editor by year’s end.” I was being fired from that lofty position! What a shock! What was I going to do?

I can’t remember being more upset about anything, ever. I had no family there. Not many friends. This was my whole life. Arrowsmith swore me to secrecy, and I unwisely agreed, keeping it bottled up. I complained to my doctor about  chest pains.

Finally, over Thanksgiving dinner with strangers, I passionately unburdened myself, probably ruining this great meal for all of them. I started going to church (where, fortunately, I met my future wife.)

Because I couldn’t get overtime, I had built up a lot of compensatory time off, and I took it on a trip to visit family in California. Nursing my wounds, I was awaiting a call from my friend Jack Smyth, who looked over the January schedule for me.

“They’ve assigned you to the Hill,” he told me. Meaning Congress. Really? The whole bureau had a shakeup, and Arrowsmith himself retired.

The first week I got back, I sat in the front row across from Jimmy Carter’s inauguration as president.  I covered confirmation hearings, rushed around visiting famous people. The place was alive with interesting young people. And I got bylines. Then I was assigned  to Treasury, which launched my business writing career.

Why didn’t I agreed to leave that position earlier? Why did I wait for other people to make decisions for me?

 No more.

 

 

 

America 250. Me? Defy the King?

 

 Was that me? Signing the Declaration of Independence? Really?

It must have been a dream. No, no, it wasn’t!

It was in a play. A musical. “1776.”

Until I started this article, I had forgotten that “1776” was my dad’s favorite musical. A professional opera chorus singer, he hated pop music and most musicals. But for some reason, he loved this one.

We went to see it live together in San Francisco in about 1970 and watched the movie together another time.

Then, over 45 years later, after he was gone, I was in it. My only other theater experiences until then had been in the Prizery Summer Theater, coached by Chris Jones. I heard about this show being put on in 2016 by the McLean Community Players when we lived in Northern Virginia, and I wanted in.

The musical has been called “the unemployed old actors’ dream show.” Well, at age 74, I was just right for the part of Caesar Rodney, the cancer-stricken delegate from Delaware who rode all night on horseback to sign the precious document.

I know something about this great man. He was a big hero in Dover, De., where I had lived in 1963-65.

I didn’t have many lines, but I sang in a few choruses. The highlight, of all things, was the makeup. Each night a lady kept making me look more sick and ghostly than in the show before.  The last night, I thought I heard people in the audience gasp as I went on stage. (The photo shows me before makeup was applied.)

It was during our first rehearsal of the signing that the whole idea of the show sunk in. For weeks we had been debating the merits of the revolution. Could we win a war? Could we run the new country ourselves?  Were we going to accept slavery to placate the South?

Then, in our first physical run-through of the actual signing, we each carefully signed our names. The chairman called each name, and he announced, “Delaware. Mr. Caesar Rodney.”

 In acting, you are supposed to immerse yourself in your character. Here I was, defying the King of England! Revolutions never worked before. Usually the rebels were executed. I might die. But this principle was more important!

So as I got ready to affix my signature, I was deeply moved—I think to tears. Now I knew how they must have felt. I picked up the quilt pen and proudly but solemnly signed it. For myself. And for my dad!

What brave men these founders were! They did this for us!

Could I have done that?  Man, I just don’t know!

 

 

 

No More School Reunions for Me

School reunions can be nail-biting experiences. Apparently the 50th high school reunion is a time for making amends. At mine, as soon as dinner was over, a woman walked up to me.

“Hi. I’m Claudia. Do you remember the time you sat down after the Pledge of Allegiance in the first grade and you crashed to the floor instead of finding your chair?”

“Yes,” I said. “It still hurts,” I lied.

“Well, I pulled the chair out from under you.”

“Really? Why?”
 “I don’t know,” she said and left.

I guess that was an apology, though she didn’t say so.

We didn’t stay long afterward because my wife didn’t know anybody. A few days later, I got a phone message from probably the most popular guy in high school. I was puzzled because I barely knew him at all and didn’t mix in his circle.

I called him back. “I want to apologize for beating up on you in the 12th grade,” he said. Huh? I barely remembered. Well, yes, he and another guy in physics class bet each other on whether they could make this shy, reserved student mad.

While the teacher wasn’t looking, they slapped me on the back of the head. The guy who bet on making me mad won. Of course, the teacher raised hell. But I soon forgot about it, writing it off as a prank by stupid kids, which it was.

For apologizing, I guess Mr. Popular felt better about himself, but I didn’t really like it. I didn’t recall being a victim of bullying in school but now felt like one.

Then came my 50th college reunion at the University of California at Berkeley, an enormous university, which was a great place to learn about journalism in the 1960s but not that good for making friends. I knew no one at the quite small reunion. Not a soul!

Then I compared high schools with one stranger. When I told him I went to El Cerrito High, he said, “Oh, so did my wife. I’ll have you talk to her.” She walked up and I didn’t recognize her, but she told me her name. Amazed, I said, “Wow. I took you to the senior prom!”

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “I went with the man who is now my husband.”

“Yes, you did,” I insisted. “How could I forget that!”

Then she said, “Oh, that must have been in my junior year. I went with my husband in my senior year.”

Her husband had been listening. Suddenly, the two left and had a heated conversation away from the crowd. Were they already a couple when I dated her?

He was furious because she never told him about me. I was steaming because she didn’t even remember me.

I skipped the next reunion.

 

You say this. You mean that!

 Do you avoid conflicts by saying just the right thing? They call it “condemning with faint praise.”  Here is what you are supposed to say, followed by what you really think:

-0-

May I suggest a salad for you at this restaurant?

Man, you are fat as a house!

-0-

What cute kids!

The way you raised them, they’ll probably become drug addicts or prostitutes.

-0-

Maybe we have had enough beer.

Stop! You’re drunk as a skunk!

-0-

Interesting! That is quite a song.

You sound like a screeching owl!

-0-

I’ve never had a chicken casserole like that before.

This food is awful. While you’re not looking, I will dump it in the garbage.

-0-

Thank you for participating today.

I am not going to comment on your song, which totally stunk!

-0-

I’ll bet you get compliments on your new house.

What an eyesore!  You should take a match to it!

-0-

I can understand why you don’t know the answer.

You haven’t the brains of a housefly.

-0-

That’s some photo of you, I’m surprised it’s not hanging on a wall some place.

You look like one of the 10 most wanted. Even AI couldn’t fix that picture.

-0-

That is an interesting perfume.

That smells like your last perfume that gave my cat asthma.

-0-

Oh, you cut your hair short. Interesting.

The lice on your head must be starving now.

-0-

Ooh, we are getting there faster than I expected.

I hope the cops come and take your driver’s  license away!

-0-

What a dress! You are such a snappy dresser.

I can’t believe it! The health department should burn that thing!

 

 

 

 

Now you can bet on anything

I am fascinated with the online betting markets, where you can put your money on anything from politics to Taylor Swift’s love life.

Who will win a U.S. Senate race? How many times will the sports announcer say “triple double?” What will be the country’s No. 1 song next week? Will the U.S. confirm that aliens exist before 1967? These are some of the topics for gamblers on Kalshi and Polymarket.

More bets: Who will win “Survivor” in Season 50? Will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce be married this year? (65% say yes.) What will announcers say in the Reds-Astros baseball game? (Grand slam and walk off are the favorites).

Even better are the scandals. An Army sergeant was arrested for betting on whether his squad would capture the president of Venezuela (he won $400,000). A low-level politician bet on whether he would run for office.  Both bets were considered insider trading, which is illegal. And Kalshi refused to pay someone who predicted that the supreme leader of Iran would be removed from power by a certain date. He was killed by U.S. air attacks, but Kalshi’s policy is not to pay for deaths, figuring such betting can led to murder. Critics were outraged.

I have read that knowledgeable, experienced bettors are “eating the lunch” of amateurs who just wager on their private hunches.

Well, I would like to open a betting market of my own. ---First one: How many times will the train come through South Boston tomorrow? And how many minutes and seconds will it take?

--How many people will attend Lakefest this summer?

--Will the Dan River flood up to U.S. 58?

--What local restaurants will open and close this year?

--What will be the high temperature in July?

--I could add some bets on local politics, but then I would get into trouble.

--How many times will Mike Doan use the word “old” in his Mike’s Mic column?

So who’d like to place a wager?