Our Best Stuff on Iran, the Supreme Court, and Juneteenth

Plus, Happy Father’s Day!

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Happy Saturday! How is your weekend going?  It’s a bit of a weird one here in the Ohio bureau, as for the first time in months we don’t have a baseball tournament on the schedule. I’m not quite sure what to do with all the free time, though our neighbors would probably appreciate it if we did some yard work. 

We love watching our kids play sports, but sometimes it can get overwhelming. Swim meets can last an entire weekend. With baseball tournaments, you don’t always find out when the Saturday games are until a couple days ahead of time. Then, the schedule for Sunday is determined by how well you play on Saturday. For some reason, though, whether we win two games, lose two games, or win one and tie one (yes, they have ties when there is a time limit), we always seem to draw the 8 a.m. slot on Sunday. 

When I’m hauling the kids to 7 a.m. warmups for a swim meet or sitting at a baseball game at 8 p.m. on a Saturday wondering how much sleep our kid is going to get before he has to be back the next day, it reminds me to be grateful for my own parents, who did the same thing for my brother and me when we were kids. And, well, it is Father’s Day weekend, so let me tell you a little bit about my dad. 

My parents owned a small grocery store when I was growing up. It had a bakery with homemade pies and cookies and cakes. The meat department was full-service: Nothing was wrapped in plastic three days before you bought it. My dad and the other meat cutters would cut steaks however thick or thin the customers wanted, and restaurants around town used our ground beef for their hamburgers. 

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  1. Richard Kennedy

    My father and I were never close, at least until Mom died a while back and he couldn’t hide behind the two talkers in the family. However, as a taciturn, almost Aspergers spectrum kind of guy, he taught me how to communicate instructions, blind, on the fly,and in a way that both calmed the guy on the other end of the phone call.Dad was an electrical engineer. His senior year in college, he got the campus job he always wanted, chief engineer of the college radio station. He became forever famous for tearing apart the transmitter between sundown and sunup while the station was off the air. He attacked anything electrical and technical in just that way in his professional life.
    So, when he became chief engineer of a gigantic missionary radio complex in the Caribbean, supervising from the ground up, he had a grasp of everything required to stay on the air. With only two engineers with supervisory experience after we began broadcasting, they took turns working practically 24 hour shifts. When home, Dad practically slept the entire day and inevitably, there would be a problem only he could solve a few times a month. And the call would come. Dad, the non-talker, would leave the lights off in the bedroom and talk the guy down. He’d then have him describe the problem. Methodically, he would describe how to get to the spot that probably was the cause, how to investigate, and what to do to fix it. This in the days before mobile phones. Problem solved. He’d go back to sleep.
    I’m the talker in the family, along with Mom, but Under Dad’s bedroom window (after a while, I got to recognize by time of day, the odds of such a call and would listen in if I could), I had master class after master class of cool under pressure, talking folks out of wanting him to show them how to do it, encouraging self confidence, and putting into words what you could see in your head what the other could not see in front of him. I’m retired now and if I brought this up later today when I call him, he wouldn’t remember any of this. But in my career, I put that lesson to use constantly. And I have always tried to apply this lesson in any part of my life.
    Thanks Dad.

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    Aylene Wright

    Thanks for the lovely tribute to your father! Mine worked in a restaurant and worked a schedule that meant that when I was little, he would wake up after I went to school and come home after my bedtime. Someone (don't recall if it was me, my father, or my mother) came up with the idea of me keeping a "exchange diary" where I would write about what had happened that day, and he would read it and leave comments. So there are ways for parents to "be there", even when they can't physically be there. Still, I envied my classmates whose parents had 9 to 5 jobs and could show up for plays, concerts, etc. (I wasn't very athletic though I was on a swim team for a year.)

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      That’s a wonderful idea. My parents sometimes worked months without a day off, but they did have some flexibility. They understood that it was a good opportunity for them but they also didn’t want to saddle my brother or I with the expectation that we would keep it going. I’m glad it was a part of my childhood.

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    BikerChick

    Savor every moment with those kiddos because time is fleeting. One day you will have more than just a weekend wondering what to do all your free time.

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  4. C. A. Meyer

    I think it's kind of hilarious that 14 Republicans in the House voted against making Junteenth a national holiday Ideology causes the brain to atrophy They might have considered the following: 1 What could be more American as apple pie than freeing the slaves? 2 For all the conservatives complaining about the NYT 1619 project dating the country's founding to the first slaves were brought to the New World, Junteenth is the perfect counterpoint: the celebration of the end of slavery instead of memorializing it's birth Yes, the legacy of slavery continues into the modern age, but The descendants of American slaves have celebrated its end for years Ut;s about time the rest of us did

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  5. Ellen Stoll

    Enjoyed reading your newsletter today! Thanks!

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Than you!

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  6. Scott Mc

    I always love your wrap ups. But the personal stories make the week better. Good old normal reflections on your family growing up and present. I love the return to the norm good old time complaining. I have waited for that from myself and everyone else. Kids are so resilient they return faster than we do. “I want this I want that more more more.” 🤔😏😊❤️ Thank you always but especially with your personal truths.

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      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Thank you!

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    Rick Henderson

    My folks ran a retail florist/commercial nursery. Our holidays were interesting. The shop next to theirs was a small grocery and the couple who owned it were great friends. I can remember Clegg, who ran the meat counter, taking an order for steaks. He’d coddle the slab of beef, talk to it as he sliced it, and hand the wrapped deliciousness to his customer, saying, “that’ll be a goooood one.” Thanks for reviving the memory and best to your family on Father’s Day.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Mmmmmm hamburgers mmmmmm.

    Thank you for the round up!

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    Dave Conant - MO

    Another great wrap-up Racheal, thanks. Your folks, as mine and most or ours, realized what they were doing even if they didn't verbalize it to themselves. Hopefully you learned some of your dad's professional skills as you've clearly learned parenting from both of them.
    In respect of the infrastructure conversation, politicians from both parties should remember that in this, as in many other areas, size isn't what matters, it's what you do with what you've got and, if you end up with nothing, that's what you'll accomplish.
    The extremists in both parties should realize that the reason they aren't getting their agendas implemented is that most of us don't agree with 100% of any of it and, deep down inside, most of our political class understands that and to a greater or lesser extent, fears an aroused electorate.

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    cheerio

    We have a local butcher/meat cutter shop down the road. You can order meat packs (an assortment of different cuts and kinds of meat) there.

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