The Blaisdell Blog

Have you ever been on a date that didn’t work out the way you thought it would?   Either the guy turned out to be a jerk, or the girl proved that beauty really can be just skin deep.     Thank goodness those days are far behind me, but I can still remember.                 There are a couple of conversations going on right now in D.C. that would be familiar to any (circa 1955) high school student.   The main participants are a guy—let’s call him Eric—and his friend—let’s call him Barry.   On the other side of town there is a girl—we’ll call her MeDia—and her bff—a star struck girl called Holly Wood.   Let’s listen in on the party line.   Eric:   I don’t get it.  I took her out, like forever.   I showed her a real good time at Homecoming in November.   Is it too much to ask that I have a little freedom once in a while? Barry:   They get pretty clingy ...

I wish I had the body I had at age 20, the mind I had at 40, and the confidence I had at 60.   But God has a sense of humor.    So I have to try to pull all three together, even as I can pick up the faint glimmer of my 70 th birthday on the horizon, and my 60th has been lost from sight due to the curvature of the earth.   This, my friends, is an uphill battle, and yet, we fight on.             My personal opinion is that diet and exercise are like volunteerism.   To stick with any one of them, you have to find one that you like.   There is no, “right” diet or, “right” form of exercise.   The right one is the one that works for you.   We have a solid handful of runners here at our park.   They do their laps in heat and cold and run (and earn medals) in a dozen races each year.   I wouldn’t run to catch a bus.   On the other hand I love getting in a quiet pool after the...

Liz Winstead, creator of some television program called, The Daily Show , heard that a tornado had touched down in Oklahoma and promptly tweeted (‘cause the world just doesn’t sit right until it has her spontaneous comment on—well—everything):   “ This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives.”   Like all tornadoes, this one didn’t care who was in its path.   The death toll screams as loud as its winds.   Whole communities have been razed and no one’s life will ever be the same.   In the mean time, Ms. Winstead, deciding to go into damage control when her heartless comment became broadcast, compounded the whole thing with the following, half-assed apology:   “Made a political joke, Twas before devastation revealed. In hindsight, had I understood, I would have refrained. Beyond sorry.”   First of all, notice the light-hearted use of the archaic word, “Twas.”   She isn’t contrite, she is playing w...

I met Isaac Asimov once.   His Foundation and, Robot series of books have always fascinated me.   Decades ago, when I learned that he was a speaker at the National Science Teacher’s Convention in Washington , D.C. I not only planned on attending, but planned on meeting him.    I shamelessly used my credentials as niece of the then NSTA president, Dr. John Akey, to get close to the best science fiction writer of the 20 th Century.   When I was introduced to Asimov I said, “You have no idea how many hours of pleasure you have given me.”   This genius of language looked me up and down with a clearly lascivious gleam and said, “If only I could remember them!”   You have to love a man like that.             Asimov had the gift given to all writers of sci-fi; he could imagine a world that did not yet exist but could and eventually would .   Edgar Rice Burroughs describes a laser in John ...

One of my favorite biographers is Ron Chernow.   He has the gift (undoubtedly honed by tremendous discipline and hard, hard work) to take careful research and weave it into a powerful narrative about an interesting person’s life and times.   His books are not hagiographies, nor are they hatchet jobs.   He doesn’t write with an agenda, but to illuminate.   Chernow’s books are proudly works of fact, not wannabe history.               My first book by Chernow was Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.   The elder Rockefeller was, like virtually all of the nation builders of his time, a child of poverty in the extreme.   When you talk about the original titan’s of American industry: Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt…, you are talking about men who had three things in common, childhood poverty, intelligence and seemingly endless energy.   They grew up smart, hungry and hard working. ...

In honor of Mothers’ Day, a holiday that took on extra meaning last year, I am repeating this column.     Last year, in a little over two weeks my husband and I both lost our mothers.   One 89 the other 91 years of age, they died of the rigors and complications of old age.   No on lives forever, and if we do it right, our children bury us, never the other way around.   While I deeply, deeply appreciate the good wishes of all of our friends, the fact is that our mothers lived lives that are celebrated more than they are mourned.               These women were made of steel.   They had lived through it all: the great depression, the dust bowl, wars, economic and social upheaval.   They sent their husbands to battle in World War II and their sons to the jungles of Viet Nam .   They saw their grandsons—and granddaughters—put on the uniform of their nation and ship out to Iraq ...

My oldest girl is the worst liar in the Western World.   For her entire life the minute this child started to dissemble, her lower lip disappeared into her mouth.   It still does.   Thankfully, she has a good job far from the nation’s capitol, because she could never replace Jay Carney.   This man is a happy liar, it is his natural medium, he doesn’t even think of it as a moral weakness.   To him, lying is just one more magician’s trick to manipulate the masses.    Unfortunately, the whole system of lies first, truth never is starting to wear thin.   Watching him dance all around today’s press conference and some relentlessly specific questions about Benghazi was actually more painful than amusing.               There are some facts that are apparent to anyone not suffering from Potomac Fever.   Our Libyan Ambassador, Chris Stevens, and members of his security team, Sean Smith,...

Sandpipers Resort in Edinburg , Texas has a great book club.   We meet the second Thursday of each month from November through April, when our Winter Texans are in residence.   We have tea, talk about the book selection for that month and then enjoy a salad buffet and some wine.   Some people stay late to finish the wine.   [It’s like communion; once it’s been consecrated it has to be drunk.]   We enjoy good food, good fellowship and stimulating conversation.   This season we read an intense book, Room , by Emma Donoghue.   Not a member of our club could have heard the news this week about three women and a child being release from their bondage in Cleveland without thinking of that book.               First of all, I heartily recommend Room.   It is a remarkable book, written from the point of view of the child the enslaved woman bears in her captivity and tries to raise with so...

What do the names Aubrey, Beverly and Marion have in common?   They all used to be men’s names.   They still are for that matter, though they have crossed over to the female pop charts big time.   Aubrey means, “elf king”; Beverly is, “beaver stream” (keep that in mind before you choose it for your daughter); Marion (as in Marion Morrison, John Wayne’s real name!!!) means, “star of the sea.”   My point is that just as the use and popularity of names change, regardless of meaning, so does the use of words, also regardless of meaning.   For a retired school teacher with a sharp blue pencil this can be hard.   Knowledge is a stern taskmaster.    It is time to reclaim some property which has been lost, stolen, strayed or misused.   I am talking about some words that no one seems to want to use correctly anymore.   This is not at all unusual.   Our language is a rich and fluid medium.   But there are some words which have ...